This is what I’ve been listening to lately during my blogging sessions:

• Carnavas by Silversun Pickups: This quartet has that pre-millenial snarling angst that I associate with bands like Smashing Pumpkins or Soundgarden. The lead singer wails like he means it and the girl on bass is way cute.
• Back to Black by Amy Winehouse: Soul that leaves an aftertaste of whiskey and cigarettes. She updates the retro sound of Motown girl groups to create something more subversive, dangerous, and altogether original.
• Neon Bible by Arcade Fire: Underneath the heaps of breathless praise piled on by exuberant hipsters lies a truly great album. The arrangements are orchestral but unmistakably pop. Some writers have compared this band to U2 and I think that’s a bit of a stretch. In their heyday, U2 wrote big, heady-sounding songs about big ideas like war, God, and love. Arcade Fire isn’t quite so on-the-nose, but without a doubt they are one of the most interesting bands of this decade.

I told a friend over dinner recently that the two most transformative forces that will substantially reshape human civilization over the next couple decades are:

• universal access to information
• the decoding and manipulation of the human genome

If you want to see an example of how our growing understanding of genetics affects everyday people, read the excellent Sunday feature on Katharine Moser that recently ran in the NY Times. Genetic testing revealed to Ms. Moser that she carries the gene for Huntington’s disease. The article goes on to describe how Ms. Moser–still in her mid-twenties–has chosen to live her life after learning that the onset of her symptoms may begin in as little as twelve years.

Our grasp of human genetics allows us to do little more than take a peek into our individualized biological futures. That will change eventually, but in the meantime, people like Katherine Moser are leading us into in era that will offer many of us stark choices between living in blissful ignorance or taking a more deliberate path in the shadow of a terrible certainty.

Oh dear, look what I’ve started. My sister now has a blog entitled The Fighting Socialist. She doesn’t appear too militant in her picture, though. No beret, no AK-47 cradled in her lap, not even a clenched fist raised in defiance. The least she could have done is put on one of those Che T-shirts. Oh well, I guess I should be flattered. First she decides to go to law school, and now this.

Okay, I want everyone to go to her blog and leave comments asking her to explain why, as a child, she made her poor crippled brother hit himself in the face for her own twisted amusement. No, I don’t know why she looks up to me, either. Now, just go do it. Heh.

On behalf of all decent Minnesotans, I apologize for the recent comments of native son and NPR luminary Garrison Keillor regarding gay parents. Here’s a direct quote from his piece in Salon:

The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men—sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control.
Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and
black polka-dot shirts. That’s for the kids. It’s their show.[emphasis added]

Dan Savage goes all kinds of ballistic on Keillor’s ass, and rightfully so. Keillor may have some clever things to say about the president, but bigoted statements from a liberal are just as inexcusable as anything uttered by James Dobson or Ann Coulter. I think this is further evidence in support of my theory that the sooner the Boomer generation packs itself off to Arizona and Florida for endless days of golf and salsa dancing lessons, the better off this country will be.

And now I have yet another reason not to listen to Keillor’s creaky radio show.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve tended to have more female friends than male ones. In grade school, I hung out with the girls at recess. In college, I had female roommates and was a frequent audience for impromptu performances of “My Boyfriend Is A Total Asshole”. My professional life has largely evolved in work settings where women are in the majority. Even now, while I certainly have a few close male friends, my relationships tend to skew female.

There are probably a few explanations for this state of affairs. From an early age, I think I’ve subconsciously regarded the opposite gender as more likely to be accepting of me and less likely to be freaked out by my disability. All the time I’ve spent around nurses and teacher’s aides–two professions dominated by women–may have subtly influenced my own social affinities. And perhaps I’m just a damn fine listener and witty conversationalist.

The plethora of women in my life has prompted some strange reactions from others. I’ve been asked on more than one occasion if I’m gay. I’ll concede that I’m a sharp dresser, but I find it both amusing and a little sad that a man can’t have several female friends without his sexuality being questioned. To be sure, I’m not the world’s most eligible bachelor, but that has more to do with my own persistent anxieties and a dubious self-image (a psychoanalyst could make a career out of my neuroses).

I wonder if other men with disabilities have similar experiences. For what it’s worth, my associations with women have made me a better person–a better man. And not in a corny “getting in touch with my feminine side” sort of way. I would not be the person I am now without the encouragement, tutelage, and pure grace of the women who have passed through my life.