Little Children Part III

That's Ashton.

Little Children Part II

Another moral conundrum.



This is Chloe. Chloe is a FIRECRACKER. Here she is the summer of her Kindergarten year.

When she entered Kindergarten, Chloe's Pre-school teacher pulled the Kindergarten teacher aside and said, "I just want you to have an idea of what Chloe's going to be like. So, she goes into the bathroom one day, and she's taking a while to come out. So I knocked on the door, and said, 'Chloe, are you ok in there?' And she goes, 'SHUT THE FUCK UP!'"

Oh, the stories I've heard about Chloe.

Chloe's got special needs. She's had some problems with blood flow and one side of her body growing faster than the other. She's larger than the other children in her class and is technically classified as a "dwarf." She scares some of them, but she could not care less. She's got A+ sass. She "challenges" her teachers and tutors tremendously - yet all of them fight to be her #1.

So here, in the picture above, she looks upset; it looks like there's something wrong. I cannot convey in this photograph how much of a charming tyrant she can be. When I took this picture she was reading me the fuck-you act, because she'd demanded that I give her my camera so SHE could take pictures, and I had told her she'd have to dry off first. (Seriously. This 5-year-old girl had me about to hand over my Nikon D200 as long as she wiped off her hands.)

So the photograph. It looks exploitative. It may upset. I know Chloe, and I found myself liking the face I caught, maybe even the shock of it. But I know she's about to head-butt me and then jump happily into the pool with her tutor. (Kate.) What you see is someone with special needs looking tragic, but perhaps also comic. Bad taste?

I'm not sure. Regardless...isn't Chloe's tutor hot?

Time Out for David Foster Wallace

I know I've been a terrible photo blogger.


I've been distracted. More about that later. Right now, a time out to mourn the death of one of America's most important contemporary writers: David Foster Wallace. He hanged himself last Friday in his California home. It's a loss I can only begin to put into words.

I met DFW many years ago at the book party for Infinite Jest. It was a coup to get into this party - you had to get past 2 sets of bouncers (for a BOOK party!). My friend Valerie had just interviewed him for Stim Magazine and they'd hit it off, so she and I wound up in the back room with DFW and a few of his friends. He seemed stricken by the whole event. Infinite Jest was largely about the horrors of consumerism. The rep from Little, Brown had stood up on the bar and welcomed the crowd by saying, "We'd like to thank David Foster Wallace for writing a big book so we could charge $29.95 for it!"

Perhaps he was being ironic. It didn't seem like it. Regardless, DFW shortly disappeared. One of his friends found him locked in a stall in the bathroom. At his own book party. For one of the biggest books of the decade.

Apparently, when the friend found him, DFW said to her: "I just want to go back to my hotel room and watch Baywatch." (He admitted later, in an interview, that he loved Baywatch - he loved the fact that in one hour, a problem was presented, then fully resolved.)

I used to think this story was pretty funny. Not so much anymore.

RIP, DFW. You've changed the face.

Little Children

As the teacher of a creative discipline, I'm always tickled by the arbitrary rules created by teachers of creative disciplines. I, for instance, banned the word "eternity" when I taught a poetry workshop. When she taught undergraduates, my mentor, Amy Hempel, banned the word "dorm." And a photography teacher I know has one rule for subject matter: "No children or pets."

Generally, I agree: Please, no more pictures of your cute kitty cat.

But when it comes to my 2-year-old niece Taya, I just can't help myself.