Spreadin’ Da Love

Michael Berube writes a lovely essay about he underestimated his son.

Harry has returned from a blog slumber and writes about Rufus Wainwright.

David Brooks has an op-ed today that fits in well with the on-going blog conversation about the influence of pop culture on the kids. Despite the violent video games and slutty pop princesses, American kids are straighter than they used to be. The reality is that we have a generation of kids who have seen the ravages of divorce, who are more likely to respect and listen to their parents and their ministers, who are worried about sexually transmitted diseases and who don’t want to mess up their careers.

I’m reading Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Special Illustrated Collector’s Edition), which fantastic. One quote:

Charles Howard had the feel of a gigantic onrushing machine. You had to either climb on or leap out of the way. He would sweep into a room, working a cigarette in his fingers, and people would trail him like a pilot fish. They couldn’t help themselves. Fifty-eight years old in 1935, Howard was a tall, glowing man in a big suit and a very big Buick. But it wasn’t his physicla bearing that did it. He lived on a California ranch so huge that a man could take a wrong trun on it and be lost forever, but it wasn’t his circumstances either. Nor was it that he spoke loud or long; the surprise of the man was his understatement, the quiet and kindly intimacy of his acquaintance. What drew peopel to him was something intangible, an air about him. There was a certain inevitability to Charles Howard, an urgency radiating from him that made people believe that the world was always going to bend to his wishes.