November 2008 Archives
Death Takes A Holiday
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
November 28, 2008
It happens every year. While I'm still living in the afterglow of August (which, thanks to fires and record-low humidity, went on a very long time this year), I find myself eating at a Thanksgiving table, and then it's just a matter of days until the denouement of Christmas. I officially panic at the prospect of not just the holiday, but of the end of the year and a deadline that suddenly looms for all the things I was supposed to do in 2008, but didn't. Or that I did halfway, which feels worse because it's distressing proof that I start things but can never finish them - better to have left the whole endeavor in the ether of ideas.
Permalink Discuss (1 Comments)Say What?
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
November 18, 2008
You truly don’t know someone until you know their politics, which is another version of the old adage that you don’t know someone until you live with them. We tend to think of politics as all graphs and deductive reasoning, but it’s not—it’s emotion. That’s never been clearer as it’s been this past year. Discussing politics with anybody these days leads you straight to an intimacy you don’t necessarily want, but the revelations are always invaluable. What to do with those revelations is another question.
Permalink Discuss (3 Comments)In Us We Trust
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
November 6, 2008
The first chapter of a new era is all over. On Tuesday, Barack Obama pulled off the presumably impossible with almost embarrassing ease, defeating John McCain to become the first African American president-elect in our country's history. I was at a viewing party in Culver City with a living room full of people who watched the clock and cheered like fans cheer for their team during game 7 of the NBA finals. Of course, this was far more emotional than any sporting event I've ever seen, the happiness at the outcome much more far-reaching. After Obama's acceptance speech, we poured champagne and toasted something I'd never toasted in my adult life, and I'm Obama's age. There are many things I assumed wouldn't happen in my lifetime, and this one was so remote, it wasn't even on the list. I barely knew how to feel.
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Recent Comments
Erin, once again you make me think about things that I wouldn't ordinarily....
Hey, I'm eating "El Pollo" as I'm reading this...yes as a Grad ('74), I can...
Very well said. Funny how we romanticize and "novel-ize" certain kinds of v...
I am weary of retreating into numbness every time I hear of senseless murde...
Transparency is a joke if those being audited have the right to withhold th...
Ginger: thanks for filling me in Jerry and David, and on the fact that Manc...
Hi Erin: Our stories are very similar. My father used to take his car to J...
I just went to that class reunion. Yes indeed, Gardena was a mishmash of ra...
It sounds like they survived in the same hands for a very long time. Most a...
How sad that businesses like these are few and far between today. I only ho...