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kottke.org posts about Thomas Beller

Nirvana for two-year-olds

On Friday, I mentioned listening to Nirvana with my kids. In January, Thomas Beller wrote a post for the New Yorker about introducing his two-year-old son to Nirvana.

Everything was going along fine in our living room until the song got to the break-the low, murky part-at which point Alexander called out to me, “Daddy! It’s scary!”

Nirvana’s music, in its anguish and energy, is scary. “Nevermind” is scary. But the break in “Drain You” is especially scary. I either had to turn it off or find a way to make this work. I didn’t want to turn it off. Instead, I turned it down an infinitesimal amount and addressed my son’s concerns.

“Alexander,” I said, bending over to talk near his face. “This is the part where they are in the swamp. The water is dark and murky, and the trees are low. They’re walking through the wet mud in the dark underbrush of the swamp.”

He looked at me with wide eyes. The colored lights added to the discotheque-meets-haunted-house mood. I worried that he would have nightmares, and that I would rue the night I played “Drain You.” People would shake their heads and say, “What were you thinking?”

“Right now, it’s very dark, but they are trying to find their way out of the swamp,” I continued.

That’s some top-notch parenting there. (via @futurerocklgnds)