首页
登录
职称英语
Old 8mm videos of my older brother and me depict the same casual disregard a
Old 8mm videos of my older brother and me depict the same casual disregard a
游客
2023-12-13
4
管理
问题
Old 8mm videos of my older brother and me depict the same casual disregard any child has for a parent. My father, nearing 70, shot hours of footage of us with his old-fashioned video camera, his booming baritone narrating while Dan and I played air guitar or showcased our best belly flops. In my favorite vignette, I am smearing chocolate in my hair as Dad trills my nickname, Jussy, in trademark, singsong staccato.
My father, Sidney Harman, is credited with many things: building one of the biggest audio-equipment companies in the world, Harman International; maintaining an impressive golf handicap into his 90s; buying Newsweek from The Washington Post in 2010, when he was 91. He was puckish; he was a poet, a philosopher, and a sports enthusiast. But more than anything, my dad was a magician.
I will never forget the way his wiry eyebrows furrowed when he beguiled a stranger’s son at a restaurant, asking him to blow on a coin that would later surface in the boy’s ear. I remember willfully insisting that the quarter had never vanished and reappeared, that it had been in his pocket the whole time. That was my role: the adversary. When I was a kid, nothing my dad did—despite his curiosity, good humor, or success—particularly impressed me.
In the seventh grade, I was accepted to a prestigious all-girls horseback-riding camp in Vermont. Only for the most serious equestriennes, the program demanded hours of intensive lessons and a regimented diet. Prior to my departure, I heavily campaigned for care packages, citing the irreparable side effects of withdrawal from Sour Straw candy. Halfway through camp session, I received a notice that a package was waiting for me at the canteen, but that it had been inspected for contraband. Evidently Dad had bought a board game and filled the box to the brim with candy, and then had taken it to be shrink-wrapped. Although the packaging was seamless—and, as the camp director admitted, unprecedented—my sweets were seized. As I walked away with my gutted Monopoly game, I read the note from my dad: "A game for a gamine," he had written, in trademark, blocky scrawl.
That wasn’t the only time one of his tricks backfired, but he never stopped trying. When I was in the 12th grade, a teacher ordered me to rewrite an essay on Henry IV. Although I was fairly confident in my mastery of Falstaff as a foil to Prince Hal, I asked Dad for help. After an hour of brainstorming, we crafted a three-page masterpiece, which included two, single-sentence paragraphs for emphasis. We were quite pleased with our creativity, especially those two artful sentences. When I came home with an F, my dad maintained that Mrs. B. wouldn’t know iambic pentameter if it bit her in the ass.
It was this refusal to ascribe to social rules that made him so magical. And although I used to cringe when he would pick me up in his convertible, Frank Sinatra blaring from the speakers, the more I listened, the more I became enchanted with 01’ Blue Eyes.
My dad always said his goal was to live long enough to see my older brother graduate from high school; this would have made him 82. At my own college graduation, Dad—then 88 and lively as ever—drank warm keg beer from a plastic cup and flirted with my roommates.
When we found out last March, that at 92, he had acute myeloid leukemia, no one believed my dad was really sick. He didn’t look it, and he didn’t feel it, he said; his opinions were still provocative, his jokes, terrible. But as we sat on the balcony of my parents’ oceanfront home on Venice Beach, he encouraged me to pursue my dream of writing, assured me I had a wonderful partner in my boyfriend, and told that one day, I’d be a lovely mother. The words were heavy, but the sun on my nose was warm, and I didn’t take any of it too seriously. After all, he’d always had a penchant for dramatics.
A month later, in April, I saw him at the hospital for the last time. Despite the morphine coursing through his veins, he looked at me and conspiratorially suggested we "get out of here." I smiled at him, his warm body bloated with chemicals, his face shrouded in unfamiliar stubble, his dark-blue eyes weighted and cloudy. I finally understood that this was his final trick: the disappearing act. (From Newsweek; 750 words) [br] When her father asked her to pursue her dream of writing, he is______.
选项
A、jokey
B、serious
C、optimistic
D、imperative
答案
B
解析
推理题,老人在病重时嘱托女儿事业和生活,“The words were heavy”,可以推断,老人是很认真的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3268443.html
相关试题推荐
AccordingtoChitra,______charactersareconsideredtobenotwelldepicted.[br
AccordingtoChitra,______charactersareconsideredtobenotwelldepicted.[br
AccordingtoChitra,______charactersareconsideredtobenotwelldepicted.[or
"Hisbrotheristeacher"______Hehasabrother".A、entailsB、presupposesC、isin
Twohalf-brothers,SirHumphreyGilbertandSirWalterRaleigh,werethefirstE
Twohalf-brothers,SirHumphreyGilbertandSirWalterRaleigh,werethefirstE
______isapoethighlyregardedforhisrealisticdepictionsofrurallifeandh
Old8mmvideosofmyolderbrotherandmedepictthesamecasualdisregarda
Old8mmvideosofmyolderbrotherandmedepictthesamecasualdisregarda
Thenickname(s)oftheU.S.A.is______.A、UncleSamB、BrotherJonathanC、YankeeD、
随机试题
Womenemployeesworkharderandlongerthanmendo,accordingtoanewstudy
骨折愈合期的康复,无松解粘连作用的是A.蜡疗 B.红外线 C.局部按摩 D
下列哪项不是法洛四联症的主要体征A.肺动脉瓣区第二音亢进 B.不同程度的紫绀和
红黏土经再搬运后仍保留其基本特征、液限()的土为次生红黏土。A.大于50%
A.对环氧合酶-2有选择性抑制作用 B.抑制血小板凝聚作用 C.无抗炎作用的
在质量控制过程中,当发现( )时,应及时分析原因并采取可行的纠正措施。 A
某大型商业综合体(产权单位为甲公司,法定代表人赵某),地上25层,地下2
下列选项中属于劳动安全工程标准的是( )。A.安全系统工程标准 B.检测
下列说法中,正确的是( )。A.大赦既赦其刑,又赦其罪B.特赦只赦其刑
工业管道系统安装后,根据系统不同的使用要求,应进行的试验类型主要分为()等。A
最新回复
(
0
)