Me Talk Pretty One Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

equally unsuccessful ways of getting attention. I’d try every art form there
     was, and with each disappointment I’d picture Mister Mancini holding his conch shell and saying, “For God’s sake, kid, pull
     yourself together.”
    We told our father, no, don’t bother playing us any more of your records, but still he persisted. “I’m telling you that this
     album is going to change your lives, and if it doesn’t, I’ll give each one of you a five-dollar bill. What do you think of
     that?”
    It was a tough call — five dollars for listening to a Lionel Hampton record. The offer was tempting, but even on the off chance
     he’d actually come through with the money, there would certainly be strings attached. We looked at one another, my sisters
     and I, and then we left the room, ignoring his cry of “Hey, where do you think you’re going? Get back in here and listen.”
    We joined our mother at the TV and never looked back. A life in music was his great passion, not ours, and our lessons had
     taught us that without the passion, the best one could hope for was an occasional engagement at some hippie wedding where,
     if we were lucky, the guests would be too stoned to realize just how bad we really were. That night, as was his habit, our
     father fell asleep in front of the stereo, the record making its pointless, silent rounds as he lay back against the sofa
     cushions, dreaming.

Genetic Engineering
    M Y FATHER ALWAYS STRUCK ME as the sort of man who, under the right circumstances, might have invented the microwave oven or the transistor radio. You
     wouldn’t seek him out for advice on a personal problem, but he’d be the first one you’d call when the dishwasher broke or
     someone flushed a hairpiece down your toilet. As children, we placed a great deal of faith in his ability but learned to steer
     clear while he was working. The experience of watching was ruined, time and time again, by an interminable explanation of
     how things were put together. Faced with an exciting question, science tended to provide the dullest possible answer. Ions
     might charge the air, but they fell flat when it came to charging the imagination — my imagination, anyway. To this day, I
     prefer to believe that inside every television there lives a community of versatile, thumb-size actors trained to portray
     everything from a thoughtful newscaster to the wife of a millionaire stranded on a desert island. Fickle gnomes control the
     weather, and an air conditioner is powered by a team of squirrels, their cheeks packed with ice cubes.
    Once, while rifling through the toolshed, I came across a poster advertising an IBM computer the size of a refrigerator. Sitting
     at the control board was my dad the engineer, years younger, examining a printout no larger than a grocery receipt. When I
     asked about it, he explained that he had worked with a team devising a memory chip capable of storing up to fifteen pages’
     worth of information. Out came the notepad and pencil, and I was trapped for hours as he answered every question except the
     one I had asked: “Were you allowed to wear makeup and run through a variety of different poses, or did they get the picture
     on the first take?”
    To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of
     his interests. We certainly expressed enthusiasm for our mother’s hobbies, from smoking and napping to the writings of Sidney
     Sheldon. (Ask my mother how the radio worked and her answer was simple: “Turn it on and pull out the goddamn antenna.”) I
     once visited my father’s office, and walked away comforted to find that at least there he had a few people he could talk to.
     We’d gone, my sister Amy and I, to settle a bet. She thought that my father’s secretary had a sharp, protruding chin and long
     blond hair, while I imagined that the woman might more closely resemble a tortoise — chinless, with a beaky nose