Overlooked

Does it ever bother me, you may wonder, that the number of public readers of this blog has not increased in the last twelve months? That a graph of my online audience, over the course of a year, might look eerily like a graph of China's population over the past century? That I have yet to find a way to turn ruminations on fatherhood into a business model rivalling Facebook's?

It does not. Ratings be damned; this blog, my dear reader, is for you.

Jonathan Franzen recently wrote a rather passionate essay in which he declared his fondness for Christina Stead's 70-year-old, and generally forgotten, novel The Man who Loved Children. In suggesting that the novel's reputation has suffered, in part, because the author's "allegiances are too dubious for the feminists, and she’s not enough like a man for everybody else," Franzen went on to argue that the book is, nevertheless, worth a second look. Or, at the very least, a first look; Franzen recommends toting to the beach, in that big bag that contains sunscreen, shades, and all of the good intentions that we shelve until our week-long vacation.

If a novel can be overlooked, what else might be? Well, pretty much anything, once you think about it. Mike and Mike spent much a morning the other day debating the most overlooked (or underrated, in their parlance) sports figures of all time: Fran Tarkenton, Oscar Robertson, and Frank Robinson all got some votes. (But not Jimmie Foxx? With 500 homers by the age of 32?). And of course, given that this blog always tries to think about the musical side of things, we should also mention the common comment that a particular composer, or piece, is overlooked. I may not agree with the Amazon reviewer who wrote that "Haydn is one of the most overlooked composers in the history of Western music." But, sure, someone like Sergei Taneyev might well deserve the title.

Anyway: once one begins to think about overlooking historical figures, one also begins to wonder - if one is a reflective and somewhat insecure parent, at least - if one might be overlooking their own baby's interests, or talents. And that might lead a parent to stop, suddenly, cutting all of the baby's food into bite-sized pieces, or serving it up in proffered spoonfuls, and to simply place a bowl and spoon before the youngster. And, sure enough, an overlooked talent emerges. Perhaps not a talent for eating, exactly, but a talent, at least, for engendering pure chaos. As documented in the video above.

So: thank you, reader, for not overlooking this post. Your patience, in turn, is noted.