Gimme fiction

For a while tonight, I watched home videos from the early to mid 1990s that my parents got somebody to burn onto a DVD.

Unlike my sister, who was all ham, I carefully avoided acknowledging the camera, ever. I think this has been my Personal Moral Code of the Camera: it is your duty to ignore them. They are documentary devices.

But here's the thing, Aiken: 15 years later, watching all these disembodied memories, I enjoyed watching my sister lope around for the lens. And it didn't take long for me to become utterly bored by my somber, quiet self. Fifteen years out, it's not actually accuracy that's revealing. It's performance.

Songs for getting laid off

Not me, but a friend, a colleague and a better reporter than I'm likely to become.

1. Shove This Jay-Oh-Bee, Canibus
2. Cotton, The Mountain Goats
3. Spanish Pipedream, John Prine
4. I Love My Boss, Moxy Fruvous
5. One-Trick Pony, Paul Simon
6. Love Love Love, The Mountain Goats
7. Barney's Epic Homer, Leon Rosselson and Roy Bailey
8. It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World), The Ramones
9. Alienation's for the Rich, They Might Be Giants
10. To Beat the Devil, Kris Kristofferson
11. Everything is Free, Gillian Welch
12. The Mary Ellen Carter, Stan Rogers