Psst — wanna know a secret?
well who doesn't?
Lean in close, my friends:
I used to play Pokèmon Go. Yep. Me. Museum maven and reader-of-classics, poetry aficionado and symphony attendee, theater patron and listener of jazz. I got hooked on the stupid app and its endless system of rewards and spent hours and hours walking around the globe spinning PokeStops and collecting cute monsters. When I saw some cool neglected art structure in some tiny overgrown park in upstate New York, instead of reading the plaque next to it (which was usually covered in graffiti or excrement) I would glance at my app and nine times out of ten, the item was a PokeStop and had a little description with the name and a brief summary of the history of the item.
I also used the app to do this “research” from the passenger seat of the car as we passed PokèGyms that were housed in cool abandoned factories or run-down church buildings. I’d announce the description of the building while also collecting points.
But it was an addiction not a game. It got so bad that my kids called me PokèMOM. And they weren’t being funny.
Five hundred and eighty-seven days ago, I quit cold turkey.
(digression: quit cold turkey? Where does that weird phrase come from? The internet is not helping.)
Instead of my addiction, I picked up Duolingo. Oui. I added a sixth language to the five I already sort-of know. (Who can list them?)
I’m now on day 588 of my Duolingo streak. Truly. I have a problem.
Writing News
Can this really be called writing news? I got asked for my first book signature by a person I don’t know in a location I wasn’t expecting it!
I was at a screening of the unbelieveably perfect film “Remember to Blink” by Lithuanian filmmaker Austeja Urbaite at the Baltic Film Festival held in the Scandenavia House on Park Avenue. The movie was over (what a film: so many layers, such a gorgeous and artistic commentary on perspective — and the first movie I’ve seen to portray international adoption so poignantly from so many points of view. Not to mention lots of snakes, stick bugs, water imagery, and feet! You could write a doctoral thesis on any of those four things…maybe also windows/mirrors, isolation, and language/communication. What a film.) I was lingering in the gift shop (because Moomin! And gnomes!) and a stylish woman with a black and white tweed coat says my name. Formally. “Ms. DeVoe” - but in Lithuanian. I look up and she is holding my book and smiling.
She told me she got it after an event - I have no idea which event! But I signed the book with great glee and thanked her for reading it! What a crazy moment. It was just brilliant.
Then I went to the world-premiere of Akathist, a long choral piece by contemporary composer Benedict Sheehan. It opens with a fanfare reminiscent of O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. Got to say, this piece is a thousand thumbs-up in my book. Apparently the text was discovered in the pocket of a murdered priest in Soviet days in one of Stalin’s labor camps. It is entirely positive - but also faces the reality that it is not easy to be optimistic. Its focus is gratitude—it is one long catalogue of thanks. From “every moment of joy” to “for shaking us free of passion’s frenzy through our experience of suffering” there have to be a hundred specific thank yous.
Also my kid was in the choir, so that was cool too.
This week I played Drag Queen Bingo (I did not win), had a surprise visit from out-of-town relatives, and went to a dinner party in Brooklyn where a visual artist (Alex Jamieson) presented her Abortion Trading Cards - (this was far less horrific than it sounds). In fact, the concept is incredibly fascinating and the art is delicate and lovely. It is a deck of hand painted playing cards that loosely relate to some aspect of the historically forbidden and/or the causes leading to taboo.
And in my own writing? I’ve been sending out stories. And writing new, very short things. It is a time of renewal and transcendence. One hopes.
Random final thought
Is it just me, or have Christmas lights been going up REALLY early this year? I have been seeing full-on decorated trees already. Anyone who knows me, knows I really hate this commercialization of holidays. It means that by the time the actual date rolls around, everyone’s tired of it. Here’s hoping we are able to keep the spirit of the season going for two whole months (I’m not holding my breath).
Oh. And my languages are, in descending order of knowing them: English, Lithuanian, German, Spanish, French and Italian. Yes, the ridiculous streak of Duolingo means that I now know more French than Italian - and I studied that two years in college and spent a lot of time traveling in Italy! Quel fiasco!
*fiasco is French that turned Italian…check this out!
I don't know French, Lithuanian, or how to play PokeMom...
how fantastic you know all those languages - the world is yours!