Mike Barthel

For a brief and spectacular moment two decades years ago, it seemed like every band could be the Fiery Furnaces. Every band could make music bursting with ideas, suffused with charm, willing to try almost anything to give its listeners a thrill.

Ashanti arrives to sing the hook. The studio is vacant, though smoke lingers in the air. They knew to vacate for her, the rapper and the technicians and the hangers-on, though they never discussed it, were never obligated by any contract. It just seemed obvious. And so they vanished. Poof poof. Leaving space for her.

My mother found the apartment within two weeks of us arriving in the city. Everyone called my father a lucky man.