Author Archives: Scott Bowles

The Word Worth a Thousand Photos

(Part of an occasional series, because, well, most fuckers don’t deserve the headlines they get.)

Cordenons

 

Ronan Mattin doesn’t say much. But in these bloviated days…Maybe just enough, in fact.

See, Ronan is autistic. Or on the spectrum. Or however we’re limbo-ing around words we’re unable to admit we live, let alone utter: Ronan is sick, so infirmed he rarely communicates with words. I became so enamored of Ronan I looked up local Boston-area TV stations who interviewed the 9-year-old.

Or tried to interview him. Whenever a stranger asked him a question, Ronan would put his forefinger to his thumb, forming a circle he’d place on his lower lip. As if his hand was closing the lock to his mouth. But he was an adorable kid, never losing the smile or earnest head nod. But never speaking, either.

During one interview, Ronan’s grandfather put on classical music. The lock dropped away. The mouth opened into into a smile that make emoticons jealous. He ran to his grandfather’s lap to look at the classical album he began. “That’s how he communicates,” grandad said.

The grandfather had taken his progeny last week to see The Handel & Haydn Society, which had just finished its rendition of Mozart’s “Masonic Funeral” at Boston’s Symphony Hall. As the piece settled to its conclusion, Ronan could not help but blurt loudly:  “WOW!”

Boston classical music station WCRB-FM, which was recording the concert,  captured the exuberance on audio. The crowd can be heard bursting first into laughter and then rousing applause for the child. “That actually brought me to tears,” said concertgoer Mary Jane Leach, of Valley Falls, New York.

The Handel Society (America’s oldest performing arts group) launched a viral “Find the WOW Child” campaign, which quickly did. The Handel Society introduced Ronan to Harry Christophers, the society’s artistic director who was conducting the night of the performance. They then handed kid and grandpa a pair of tickets where the two would be the guest of honor.

The lock circle had returned to Ronan’s mouth by the time he took the tickets from Christophers. Granddad put a gentle hand to Ronan’s head. “What do we say when someone does something nice?”

“Thank you,” Ronan eked.

Doesn’t say much. Just enough, in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRhgERhMcGg

Til’ Part Do Us Death

Image result for dead to me

Dead to Me is something of  bait-and-switch, though a clever and enjoyable one. The trailer for the new Netflix series suggests that it’s a black comedy, a Desperate Housewives meets Six Feet Under with a touch of suburban angst mixed to keep things light. Instead, Dead becomes a sometimes-profound look at the stages of grief — and the extremes we’ll go to avoid them. As much a murder mystery as a darkly comic whodunnit, Dead produces a performance that’s Emmy-worthy, if not the show itself.

Starring Christina Applegate in the role of her career, Dead follow a widow trying to rebuild her life after her husband is killed by a hit-and-run driver. While the show spends 10 twist-full episodes  trying to be a madcap mystery about suburban SoCal secrets and lies, it becomes a layered look at friendships forged in misery.

Dead to Me begins with high-end realtor and mother of two Jen (Applegate) slamming the door on yet another neighborly well-wisher bearing a casserole. Three months after her husband’s death, Jen’s primary emotion besides grief is anger. She’s mad at the person who ran her husband over. She’s mad at the cops who haven’t found the driver. And she’s generally mad at the world for handing her such a raw deal.Image result for dead to me

But Jen’s life begins to improve when she meets Judy (Linda Cardellini), a flighty and free-spirited woman who’s also dealing with her own loss. Their chance meeting at a grief support group isn’t actually by chance — the final shot of episode one portends many surprise endings — unusual for a comedy series. Jen and Judy form a real friendship, commiserating over insomnia-fueled phone calls and late-night Facts of Life reruns. Pretty soon the lonely Jen invites Judy to live in her unoccupied guest house.

Turns out, Jen and Judy make fast friends over common sadness: Jen’s marriage was fraying long before it was cut short by the accident, while Judy can’t leave her on-and-off fiancé Steve (James Marsden). He’s a slick finance type whose good looks and charm mask a dismissive attitude toward the soft-hearted Judy.Image result for dead to me ed asner

And yet it’s the show pacing that undermines these characters. Dead is less interested in Jen and Judy’s connection than it is in the Big Secret that could destroy it. Episodes are peppered with near-misses and convenient coincidences that lead Jen to the brink of discovery, only to veer away from the truth with a rush of near-miss adrenaline. It’s a fine format for, say, Breaking Bad. But it’s too dramatic a pace for a comedy series.

Instead, the show is at its best when Jen and Judy are just hanging out, talking about things that aren’t veiled secrets, like motherhood, re-entering the dating world, and whether they’re a Blair or a Jo. Applegate, returning to series TV for the first time in seven years, brings an astonishing depth to  Jen. Her tears and rage are palpable. Though Cardellini is saddled with primarily goofy sidekick duties, her character brings genuine warmth and humanity to Dead. And Ed Asner, who plays as a cranky old charmer at the nursing home where Judy works, is as good here since The Mary Tyler Moore Show. As a murder mystery, Dead to Me isn’t much of a discovery. But as an examination of human frailty, Dead brings its characters springing to life.

Image result for dead to me ed asner

 

 

 

Polly Wants a Crackhead

Image result for brazilian parrot crack police

Somewhere in my mother’s Charleston, S.C., home, there sits a box of about five dozen 8 mm films. On them, my sister and I are captured in all our dorky glory: at birthday parties; walking half-asleep down stairs on Christmas morning; running like cocaine-crazed toddlers through the yard.

One in particular is my favorite. It’s a family movie of us at Sea World in Florida (before Sea World became known as a gulag for marine life). I must have been four or so, my sister about one. I am standing at the ledge of the dolphin pool, railed off about 10 feet above the surface of the water. Back then, you could toss a rubber ring to the dolphins, which dutifully tossed it back.

In the clip, a dolphin is tossing me this rubber ring. As dad would later recall, “That dolphin could throw as accurately as Johnny Unitas,” the Hall of Fame quarterback with the Baltimore Colts. One toss was so direct it would have been impossible for me not to catch it. So I did, clumsily trapping it in my outstretched arms.

You would have thought I had just won the Superbowl catching a last-second hail Mary. I leaped up and down, holding the toy the way Gollum would hold the gold ring of Sauron in Lord of the Rings. I’m surprised I didn’t spike the toy and do a touchdown dance. It is the only footage of physical grace in my existence.

I’ve been thinking about that movie, and the interaction between man and animal, a lot lately. The first time came courtesy of a Beluga whale that slipped off the shores of St. Petersburg Russia and into the waters of a tiny hamlet in nearby Copenhagen, Denmark. There, fishermen found the whale with a camera harness clamped tight around its head that read “Equipment St. Petersburg,” prompting speculation the animal escaped a nearby military base after attempting to train it for covert photography. A fisherman jumped into the icy water to release the clamp, freeing it.Image result for norway beluga whale

Instead, the whale, which I’ve nicknamed the Dude (after all, he is a white Russian) has become a Copenhagen celebrity. He plays so closely to the dock that visitors pet it. When you call it, it comes to you. Resident Linn Saether said when she throws out a plastic ring, the Beluga whale brings it back to her as she sits on the dock. “It is a fantastic experience, but we also see it as a tragedy. We can see that it has been trained to bring back stuff that is thrown at sea,” Saether said.

See Donnie? It’s possible for a blubbery whale to escape Putin’s clutches, even when he feigns friendliness.Image result for putin controls trump

Next came a story about the Ry-Con Service Dogs, a North Carolina facility that claimed to be licensed in training therapy dogs for people with autism and physical disabilities. Problem is, North Carolina doesn’t issue therapy dog training licenses. Neither does any other state. Instead, the hucksters at Ry-Con simply boarded the animals, then sold them to patients for as much as $14,500.Sobie Cummings

Animals there, too, outsmarted their human captor by doing what they naturally do: pee where they want, shit where they want, nip hands that get too boisterous. Their behavior quickly lead to fraud arrests of the Ry-Conners and underscored the need for proper therapy training and licensing nationwide.

But my favorite pet-outwits-owner story came from Brazil, where a parrot was taken into custody  after nearly spoiling a raid while playing lookout for two crack-dealing suspects by repeatedly yelling, “Mamãe, polícia!” according to Brazilian police in the state of Piauí. The phrase means, “Mama, police!”

The unnamed parrot was found in a small brick one-story house raided by cops. As police searched for the suspects, it seemed the lime-green bird knew exactly what to do. “He must have been trained for this,” one officer told Brazilian media. “As soon as the police got close he started shouting.”

An officer then carried the papagaio do tráfico — or “trafficking parrot,” as news outlets referred to the bird — out of the house on his fingertip, before placing him in a cage and taking him into the Teresina Police Department. The parrot did not say a word, remaining in total silence even as law enforcement sought to loosen it up.Image result for brazilian parrot crack police

While the humans flipped and ratted on each other, the pet’s stubborn silence continued even in jail, a veterinarian said. “Lots of police officers have come by,” veterinarian Alexandre Clark said, “and he’s said nothing.”

He may be a parrot, but homie’s no stool pigeon.