Glimpses, Glances

Years ago, back when this was a thing you could do on Twitter without making yourself miserable, I asked around for recommendations of people I could follow whom I would not necessarily agree with but who were interesting and smart and who might encourage me to stretch my narrow-ish worldview a bit. One of the people recommended to me was a political writer and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum. I must have liked him well enough, as I believe I followed him until I left the platform in 2022, but I never really managed the mind-expanding stuff—my views remained resolutely narrow and I only recall a single tweet from Frum, and it was totally apolitical. Early in the pandemic, when we were still in lockdown, he posted a video of his daughter dancing wildly, alone, to the Cars’ “You Might Think.” His point, I believe, was exactly what I found in the video—take whatever joy and beauty you can, whereever you find it. I can’t remember exactly what she looked like, but I still remember how she moved, so happy and silly and joyful. I found out today that the daughter, Miranda Frum, died, way back in February 2024. I had no idea, having not transferred my Frum follow onto another platform. I was just scrolling idly on the bus when I saw a memorial post and my stomach dropped away. I was, in a tiny way, devastated. I had only known one thing about this person but I had extrapolated it into an excellent person who would dance forever. What a funny thing is life, and grief—we are lucky to be touched by strangers, and share a little bit of their beauty. Strangely, I am now in the cachement for Barbara Frum library, here in North York, so I’m still in the family.

After the whole CEO-gate thing, it seemed like a great time to get into the band Coldplay—everyone was talking about them, they’ve been around forever, and yet I could not name a single song by them. Then I heard a snippet of the song “Fix You” played over footage of woman calming a feral cat on Instagram (I can’t find the reel to link it, sorry!) and I thought, “What a great song, why don’t I know this?” So I looked up the full track and played it until I understood why I had never heard this 20-year-old song before—I hate the whole first half, and must have always skipped it or turned it off after a few seconds if it came on the radio or in a playlist. It’s a real marshmallow experiment of a song, with twice the sweetness in the guitar-y, emotional second half for having suffered through all the slow falsetto whining in the first half. If you’ve ever read an advice column or, you know, met a person, you know it is not a good idea to try to fix a person—you have to fix yourself. But this song REALLY psychs the listener up to believe they can be fixed by Chris Martin.

(really more like 2a) Most people know me well know that part of my villain origin story is the 15 years I spent as a child and teen trying to play music, before I accepted that some things are just beyond my grasp. I did a lot and learned a lot and it wasn’t wasted time but—yeah, I can’t play music. Anyway, I took a very serious music class in grade 11, well past the time anyone should have been letting me do this. This class involved a lot of complex orchestration, which I could basically do with a lot of effort, along with original composition and a great deal of performance, which…well, there are no tapes. But also! There was this thing, famous at my school, called The Pop Tune Project. Where you could analyze the charts, lyrics, and recordings of any popular song you like to see why and how it functioned, and what it was trying to do, and how well it succeeded. This was perfect for me, an ardent and excellent listener to popular music, and even then fairly articulate about what’s going on in this song. I think “Fix You” would have been a fun candidate for The Pop Tune Project, and honestly it is the approach I took in the above paragraph. I was a bad student but it was a good class.

(2c) I was on my local bus, listening to “Fix You” for the purposes of study. The bus wends through a survey of many many half-built, new built, and yet-to-be-built townhouses. Some are occupied, which you can tell because they have an “Occupied” sign out front, but none really look occupied. Except one had a rooftop deck with a person on it. Just before the big guitar crash-in, the bus paused for some reason and I looked up and saw a shirtless guy standing on his rooftop deck and sort of contemplating his tummy. Like holding it in his two hands and gazing at it. It seemed like a real existential moment. Then the guitars came and the bus moved along and just as we turned away from the house I realized there was another person up there with him.

I have been swimming outdoors so much, both at my gym and at the pool at my condo (we have small outdoor pool at my condo—if you would ever want to come visit, you are always invited but now is the bestest time!) It has been glorious. Did you know the Yiddish word for pool is swimbascine? At least that is what Duolingo taught me. Every time I try to use a Yiddish word from Duolingo in the context of more cultured Yiddish speakers who did not learn it from an app, it turns out my word, while technically correct, is only ever used in 40 square feet of Lithuania, or Hungary, or Brooklyn. Anyway, according to the Duolingo pronunciation, the word is pronounced the way I have spelled it above, like a combination of the English word swim and the French word piscine (which means “swimming pool,” so that makes sense) and a little ornamental “ba” in the middle, for fun! Whenever I see a pool, my mind says, “Swimbascine!” with great relish, like someone anticipating an excellent sandwich. Yiddish is a really relishable language, with lots of words that are enjoyable to say, but that one always seemed kind of too good to be true and when I looked it up today it actually is. It turns out it is actually swim + basin, which makes a bit more sense and is pronounced almost the same, but lacks the French and isn’t as much fun in my head and I refuse to acknowledge it.

Quick favour: now that my website has demised, I would like to get this newsletter into the google rankings if I can (so that things like my LinkedIn profile and odd little stories from 11 years ago won’t be what shows up first if you google me) so if you have a moment, could you please click through to the “read online” version of this post? Maybe even hit the “like” button when you get there, if that isn’t too weird an ask? I’d really appreciate it.