Chad Comello

5 tips for planning a wedding

Wedding season has got me thinking about what I learned from my own experience putting together a wedding six years ago. Here’s what I got.

Pick four things to really care about.

Wedding planning is chock-full of choices, but you can’t care about everything equally unless you want to have a mental breakdown. Pick four things that really matter to you and invest some thought/time/money into making them happen. For my wife it was a good photographer (see below) and good flowers, and for me it was enjoying the time with our friends and having a fun reception. Everything else we tried to keep in perspective. (You will fail at this. Just try.)

Invest in a good photographer.

We considered and met with a few photographers before landing on the final choice, who also did our engagement shoot. Outside of the venue, this was probably the single biggest expense but what we got were exceptional photos that captured the whole experience beautifully and remain treasured artifacts from the day.

Do the receiving line leading into the reception.

Don’t go around to each table during the reception assuming you’ll get to talk to everyone. You’ll get stuck in chitchat, waste valuable party time, and won’t even talk to everyone. If your venue and schedule can swing it, do the receiving line leading into the reception so everyone gets face-time and then it’s out of the way.

Have a buffer day between wedding and honeymoon.

I do not understand the people who fly out the night of their wedding or even the next day. Not only did we have a bunch of stuff to bring back from the venue to our place, we also had to repack for the honeymoon and have some time to decompress and process the incredible day we’d had. You’ll appreciate that transition time before heading off onto the next adventure.

Pick the right spouse.

This will make everything easier and much more enjoyable.

July 25, 2021 Add Comment

Mad Max on the Feminism Road

Really enjoyed this post from Freddie de Boer about his frustration with the common misinterpretation of Mad Max: Fury Road as “Furiosa replaces Max in a Mad Max movie”—a take that’s entirely false:

It’s important to understand that Furiosa doesn’t replace Max because the entire movie demonstrates the failure of dictatorship and the superiority of communal leadership. It’s not about men being erased in deference to women; it would be totally bizarre for a movie with that intent to place so much agency in its male characters. (Nux’s sacrifice saves the lives of the remaining characters, to pick an obvious example.) It’s about the superiority of democracy and shared governance and diversity over the the whims of an individual autocrat.

He then links this framework to how a “new masculinity”, embodied by Max, can be “unthreatened by the strengths and abilities of others” while joining with the ideal version of feminism:

Feminism is not about women replacing men in an equally stratified and undemocratic structure as the patriarchy that preceded it; that’s a parody of feminism. Feminism is about equality, diversity, communalism, and radical democracy. Indeed, the movie models consensus and communal deliberation for us. When they stop and discuss whether to continue on the salt flats or turn back for the Citadel, Max and Furiosa do most of the talking, but everyone weighs in and is heard. Furiosa doesn’t lead by fiat. She listens and becomes convinced, as do the rest, and they all make a plan together. Max isn’t erased; he’s a valued and essential part of the whole, just as white men will be in the new world of democracy and equality we are building.

In that group discussion on the salt flats—one of the few quiet moments of the movie—Max concludes his case to Furiosa thusly:

Look, it’ll be a hard day. But I guarantee you that 160 days riding that way, there’s nothing but salt. At least that way, we might be able to, together, come across some kind of redemption.

What a great metaphor! The path towards a better world is hard and painful, but retreating away from it is worse in the long run. “The obstacle is the way,” as Ryan Holiday would say.

Might be time for a Fury Road rewatch.

July 12, 2021 Add Comment

Stargazing with WALL-E

Spent the holiday weekend at my wife’s family’s beach community, where they do a fireworks show every year on the beach. (Read my 2017 reflection about this experience.)

Though it was fun to watch Little Man experience fireworks for the first time, my personal highlight was being able to see the clear night sky without much light pollution for the first time in a while. And, man, was it glorious to behold.

All that love’s about

It echoed a moment that stood out in our recent rewatch of WALL-E, which we decided to try with Little Man after he gravitated to a WALL-E toy at Target (probably because it looked like a truck).

In the film’s transcendent first act, WALL-E pauses during his garbage collection routine and looks up to the sky just as the otherwise dense smog clears just enough for him to see stars. “It Only Takes a Moment” from Hello, Dolly! underscores the moment, specifically at the line “And that is all that love’s about.”

This is a lovely bit of foreshadowing for later in the movie, when WALL-E and EVE perform their fire extinguisher-fueled space ballet among the stars—a scene I love so much I named it one of my favorite movie music moments. (The movie itself is #2 on my best of 2008 list.)

The robot toddler

Another takeaway from the movie this time around was something I couldn’t have realized before having a kid: WALL-E embodies all the best characteristics of toddlers.

He’s diligent, curious, enthusiastic, loving, loyal, temperamental. He’s a tinkerer who tosses aside a diamond ring because he’s more interested in the box it came in. He’s eager to show EVE all his toys when she visits his home. He basically has two speeds: inching along or sprinting. He’s charmingly clumsy, quick to make friends, and an accidental agent of chaos—but one that ultimately brings life to those around him.

In short, an excellent role model, and not just for kids. Here’s to all of us being more like WALL-E.

July 7, 2021 Add Comment

On Paper Trails and Typewriting Females

I just finished reading Cameron Blevins’ new book Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West, which I learned a lot from (see my full notes and quotes from the book below).

One thing that popped out to me was the role of women in the Post Office’s workforce. Women made up two-thirds of all Post Office employees by the end of the 1870s, with the Post Office itself accounting for 75% of all federal civilian employees at the time. This made it a vital source of work for women early in the movement for women’s suffrage.

Their chief work was within the Topographer’s Office, which produced maps of postal routes. The layout and drawing of the maps was done by men (it was actually called “gentlemen’s work”). But the “ladies’ work” of coloring the routes according to frequency of delivery was arguably just as if not more important, because it added the dimension of time to the otherwise inert graphics and kept the maps up to date and therefore useful.

This wasn’t easy given the constantly changing routes and limitations of paper. As Blevins put it: “These women were, in effect, trying to paint a still life while someone kept rearranging the fruit.”

All this was on my mind when I saw Richard Polt’s Instagram post for International Typewriter Day:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Typewriter Revolution (@typewriterrevolution)

I’m not sure how much typewriters factored into the work of the female “colorists” given its graphical nature, but the people’s machine without a doubt contributed to the societal sea change happening concurrently as women marched first into offices and then, eventually, the voting booth.

Anyway, I recommend Paper Trails primarily for history nerds—specifically 19th century America. The academic writing is refreshingly accessible and peppered with illustrative graphs throughout. I’m happy to file it under my “technically first” series of books about how innovative technologies came into being.

Notes & Quotes

(more…)

June 23, 2021 2 Comments

Two favorite Ted Lasso scenes

We rewatched season 1 of Ted Lasso in advance of season 2 coming out next month. Among the many wonderful scenes in this marvel of a show, two scenes stuck out this time around.

One is from episode 7 (“Make Rebecca Great Again”), when the shy groundskeeper Nate gives a (NSFW) pregame speech/roast with Ted’s support:

The other is from episode 8 (“The Diamond Dogs”), when Ted hustles Rupert in darts:

Both scenes find their leads emerging from low moments into precarious situations that could have ended in disaster, but instead resulted in satisfying catharsis. They work so well because they’re earned, based on the foundation of character development that’s been building throughout the season.

I’m eager to see where season two brings them and the rest of the cast. Believe!

June 22, 2021 Add Comment

The Ghost Map

When I learned Steven Johnson (my favorite author) has a new book out, it prompted me to finally read one of his previous books that’s been on my list for a while.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World was a timely read, for obvious reasons. Though cholera is a different beast than COVID (“Imagine if every time you experienced a slight upset stomach you knew that there was an entirely reasonable chance you’d be dead in forty-eight hours”), its effect in this story and throughout history shows us both how far science has come since the Victorian Age and how vulnerable we remain to infectious diseases.

What I love most about this book—even beyond the historical factoids and masterful storytelling you can expect from any Johnson joint—is that it’s basically a murder mystery, with cholera as the microbial serial killer and an unlikely detective duo of a doctor and a priest hunting it during a deadly epidemic in the crowded, putrid London of the 1850s.

Call it an epidemiological thriller. Probably not much competition in that sub-genre, but Johnson made the most of it.

Quotes

I like Johnson’s description of London at the time:

an industrial-era city with an Elizabethan-era waste-removal system as perceived by a Pleistocene-era brain.

On the topography of progress:

The river of intellectual progress is not defined purely by the steady flow of good ideas begetting better ones; it follows the topography that has been carved out for it by external factors.

On great intellectual breakthroughs:

It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton’s famous phrase. Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.

On miasma theory and the “sociology of error”:

It’s not just that the authorities of the day were wrong about miasma; it’s the tenacious, unquestioning way they went about being wrong. …
How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline—the sociology of error.

June 16, 2021 Add Comment

Recent Views

More photography here and on my Instagram.

Nice and clean newly painted line in a corner of my library’s under-renovation lower level:

We had some trees removed and the guy in the bucket truck looked like he was chillin’ on the roof despite actually floating through the air:

From our first time in Half Price Books without the stroller, where he definitely took advantage of his freedom:

While rock hunting at the beach I thought it’d be fun to throw one in the air and try to catch it on camera as it fell. This was the only shot that turned out, and it was kinda perfect:

Post-rain monkey bars at a local playground:

June 7, 2021 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard recently

The Good Lord Bird. The limited series really captures the book’s madcap and dramatic spirit. Ethan Hawke is so delightfully committed to the dead-serious absurdity of John Brown.

The Underground Railroad. Two of my main takeaways while watching this 10-episode limited series: 1. I can’t believe I get to watch essentially 10 new Barry Jenkins movies! And 2. That’s a few too many given the heavy subject matter!

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, A Night in Tunisia. Recently my wife asked me to “get some jazz” from the library, so right before I left I grabbed a few albums more or less at random. Struck gold with this one.

Benny Goodman, Mozart at Tanglewood. Wanted to find some good concertos and heard good things about this one. Those good things were right.

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking by Annie Atkins. A cool visual compendium and behind-the-scenes exploration of a film graphic prop designer’s impressive work, including lots from Wes Anderson movies.

May 31, 2021 Add Comment

Mulch ado about gardening

We’re finally, finally, doing stuff in our yard and garden areas. Some of it is remedial caretaking—fertilizing and weeding the lawn, removing dead bushes and trees—but a lot of it has focused on beautification and planting vegetables we’re not totally sure will thrive but are giving a try anyway.

I gotta say: I’ve really loved it. Perhaps because the work is the polar opposite of my digital, desk-bound day job: it’s an ancient practice, outside, requiring arduous physical labor, with visual progress toward to an end goal but no screens whatsoever.

The key reason we’ve been able to do so much thus far is Mr. 2 Years Old is now old enough to help, and boy does he enjoy it. We got him his own set of tools so he can work along with us, both for real and in the little dirt area we set aside just for him to romp around in. So far it’s collected a bunch of rocks and sticks, though we also set him up with a geranium to water.

As is the case with homeownership writ large, the list of things to do is seemingly endless and grows longer the more ambitious we get. Who knows what we’ll actually get to this year. That said, I’m kinda shocked by how much progress we’ve made with only partial weekends and the scattered weekday morning at our disposal.

Next up on the list: laying down a goodly amount of fragrant cypress mulch!

May 25, 2021 Add Comment

Favorite Films of 2005

I started making annual top-10 movie lists in 2007, so I’ve been going backwards from there to create lists for each year retroactively. See all my best-of lists.

I really enjoyed kicking off my back-in-time film rankings series with the 2006 slate.

Most of my indelible memories from this moviegoing year involved the late, lamented Westgate Cinema, a rundown strip mall theater in Madison that showed the arthouse flicks I was really getting into at this time as a high school junior and senior. I saw several of my top 10 films there.

Looking at the box office from that year reveals a now-familiar dominance of franchises, though only one superhero movie. The only two original concepts represented in the top 10 were Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Hitch—one of which made my own top 10 and the other just missed out.

As for the Oscars, the bit that sticks out (besides the surprising-but-not-really Best Picture triumph of Crash over Brokeback Mountain) was host Jon Stewart’s quip after Three 6 Mafia won Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow: “For those of you who are keeping score at home, I just want to make something very clear: Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars; Three 6 Mafia, one.”

On to the list…

1. Brokeback Mountain

True story: when I started teaching myself how to play guitar around this time, the first two songs I learned were “Blackbird” by The Beatles and “The Wings” from the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain score by Gustavo Santaolalla. Partially because they happened to share a similar riff (and, I realize only now, theme: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly…”), but also because they’re both gorgeously evocative in their own ways.

2. Good Night, And Good Luck

There’s a cozy intimacy this film accomplishes that sets it apart from other star-studded period dramas. Maybe it’s the smooth-jazz score, the black-and-white, or the short runtime. Or maybe it’s the contrast of big issues—freedom of speech, the power of the press—being teased out through small conversations in unassuming rooms.

3. Grizzly Man

I’ve seen and enjoyed many Werner Herzog documentaries, but this one still reigns supreme.

4. Batman Begins

Ah, the halcyon days of when a gritty superhero reboot was a novel concept.

5. A History of Violence

The fight in the diner. The stairway sex scene. The final shot.

6. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Let’s save the discussion about the cancelability of mid-2000s comedies for the 2004 list (Anchorman, Dodgeball) and say for now that this felt like a sea change at the time, not only for the humor but also for the ultimately positive portrayal of virginity.

7. The New World

I remember going to see this with some friends who were expecting something closer to Pocahontas than the slow, meandering, meditative epic this actually is. Needless to say they didn’t like it, but I did.

8. Walk the Line

At my high school, seniors were allowed to make a big raucous commotion between classes on their last day of school to celebrate graduating. My contribution to this day was hoisting my boombox above my head and playing this movie’s soundtrack on repeat while I walked the halls.

9. Four Brothers

An underrated winter movie, crime movie, family drama, and ensemble piece, with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s truly chilling turn as the sadistic, fur-spangled crime boss Victor Sweet as a bonus.

10. Mr. & Mrs. Smith

We now know how Brangelina would turn out, but at the time the chemistry of Pitt and Jolie was as incandescent as this movie’s alchemy of action, humor, and romance.

Honorable mentions: Broken Flowers, Fever Pitch, Hitch, In Her Shoes, Just Friends, King Kong, The Squid and the Whale, War of the Worlds

May 11, 2021 Add Comment