Despite an evening spent enthralled, listening to the Bosnian-American writer Aleksander Hemon read from his new book, Book of My Lives, and from his essay The Aquarium, and then listening to his careful, accented voice spin stories of the harrowing war in Yugoslavia, and then eating taramasalata and warm pita bread and drinking a glass of wine with a good friend, despite all of this, I woke up this morning, the second day in a row, singing Lola Lo Lo Lo Lo Lola, the latest download that Oliver made on his iPod several days ago. Have you ever heard this song, Mom? he asked, and when I refrained from rolling my eyes and answered in the affirmative, we sang along, off and on throughout the day. I'm not sure why Ray Davies has taken up residence in my brain but the hallway is even bluer, a deeper blue and when I raise my voice, Looooooola, it echoes and disappears right there to the left, a kink that I like to imagine reaches my son as he walks the streets of New York with his father and brother.
