“Are you listening?\u201d my wife says.<\/p>\n
I nod, then anticipate her next response, raise my eyes and say, \u201cI am,\u201d a few seconds before she says, \u201cLook at me!\u201d<\/p>\n
I say, \u201cHeather, I\u2019m listening,\u201d with no sharp edges, even though the statement is something of a lie. I hear her repeat something about our neighbor\u2019s attorney girlfriend and our mowing service, but I am also thinking I have uncovered another secret to successful film soundtracks to have anything to say but \u201cHuh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all you have to say?\u201d<\/p>\n
It is, because I know Heather doesn\u2019t want to hear that in addition to Scorsese\u2019s use of songs anachronistic to period, like \u201cLayla\u201d in Goodfellas<\/em>, or the harsh juxtapositions Tarantino favors, such as \u201cStealer\u2019s Wheel\u201d when Michael Madsen saws off the cop\u2019s ear, there is also the unexpected cover. In Tenenbaums<\/em>, Anderson does this twice: Nico\u2019s shimmering \u201cThese Days\u201d and the instrumental version of \u201cHey Jude.\u201d I didn’t know Junior Walker covered Foreigner\u2019s \u201cUrgent\u201d until Seidelman\u2019s Desperately Seeking Susan<\/em>! We viewers, especially experienced ones, fashion in our heads the tension between the cover and the original as it benefits the scene! As soon as I conclude this line of thinking, I wonder if I am assigning too much credit to the directors themselves. Surely the music supervisors supply insight, and wouldn\u2019t that be a job: listening to records for countless hours to pull out of the pile \u201cWhat a Wonderful World\u201d or \u201cI Put a Spell on You\u201d and hand them over to Levinson or Jarmusch and glow with pride as they find the precise slots? Far superior to approving requisitions and conducting evaluations of direct reports and opening uninspiring meetings with cliches designed to build team cohesion. Yet what forty-three-year-old husband with a teen who just passed her written driver\u2019s test and has only liberal arts colleges on her list to visit should be thinking about changing careers? And who is he to think any of this rumination will get him anywhere?<\/p>\n Heather sits down with the checkbook, its brown cover dull against the worn blue of our breakfast table. Obviously, we have moved on to a different subject, so I pocket my soundtrack observations to share with my friend, Matt, a film professor in Rhode Island and the only true cineaste I know. Two fears then shudder through me: Heather will catch my inattention again, and Matt will roll his eyes at my trite analysis, forgetting we were once state school freshmen who talked about making movies of our own and neither of us landed in that lofty realm.<\/p>\n Heather moves nearer, her indelibly minty breath forcing me to lean back and clamp my lips shut: I have failed to brush my teeth after promising her\u2014twice this month\u2014to attend to this daily task before I get to my office. Heather says, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this again. Yelling wears me out.\u201d<\/p>\n I nod. What I want from Matt, I realize, is confirmation that I am more than a dope with the occasional interesting observation, yet I fear in the interest of our twenty-five years\u2019 long friendship, he merely humors me. The last time he was in town as a conference\u2019s keynote, during the hour-long lunch we spent together, he had his eyes on his phone far more than me. What song should have been playing then?<\/p>\n Heather smacks the table with the checkbook twice. \u201cHello,\u201d she says. \u201cAre you even fucking listening?\u201d<\/p>\n She stands, and I say, \u201cOf course I am, baby. I\u2019m right here for you.\u201d<\/p>\n She shakes her head and tosses the checkbook at me. My hands don\u2019t rise in time, so it hits my face, then falls open onto my lap. \u201cYou figure it out then.\u201d To our daughter, she shouts, \u201cShelly, get out here before your father forgets to take you to school.\u201d A few seconds pass before our daughter emerges from her bedroom lair, unkempt or in style, it is difficult to know these days. Heather tugs down Shelley\u2019s plaid skirt. Shelley tugs it back up. I pocket the checkbook. Do I need to balance it or pay the mowers? With time I might figure it out. After kissing our daughter on the cheek, Heather scowls at me. Shelley grabs her Bride of Frankenstein<\/em> backpack and the apples Heather peeled and sliced for her. Then, without asking, she yanks the CRV keys off the hook, as her mother says to stay off Gray, there\u2019s construction. Is \u201cGirls Talk\u201d too obvious? Rondstadt or Costello? And Dave Edmunds, too! Who did the original? When my wife passes by I\u2019m certain it\u2019s not Linda, as I rise to follow my daughter before the music stops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What forty-three-year-old husband with a teen who just passed her written driver\u2019s test and has only liberal arts colleges on her list to visit should be thinking about changing careers? And who is he to think any of this rumination will get him anywhere?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":23759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[4385],"class_list":["post-22816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-flash-fiction-3","writer-tom-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22816"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23760,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22816\/revisions\/23760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}