Nova's first Scratch Video and Relativistic Morality

Here is Nova's first Scratch Project.  She is very proud of it, and happy that it is finally done.  From beginning to end, the entire project was completed without any help from grown-ups.  She recruited her younger sisters to be voice actors and coached them through their lines.

If you watch it in full, you may be surprised at the end.  *Spoiler Alert* The monster wins.  Part of me wanted to strong-arm an ending I found more morally satisfying.  Shouldn't good win out?  What about the village?  Why did the good witch capitulation when captured?  Shouldn't she put up more of a fight?  Play the martyr?  When I made objections, Nova responded 'It is a happy ending for the monster.'  And that it is. When I questioned further, she explained that ravaging and pillaging was simply what monsters did, and it did not make them bad.

Replace 'monster' with 'cat' and 'ravage and pillage' with 'hunt', and you have an argument I've given many times.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised. For a minute I thought about how we would have to rearrange our lives to broadcast an 'all life is sacred' message.  A vegan household with a crazy cat sprang to mind.  

But on further examination, I do not believe such a lifestyle is necessary to promote compassion and kindness, and neither do I believe there is really anything wrong with the ending of Nova's video. Fiction and play are both safe ways to explore different ideas and different points of view.  Adults underestimate children in this regard quite often.  Playing the villain does not make a child bad.  It makes him curious, even compassionate.  They are imagining the world from a different point of view.  I trust that Nova would protect humankind from a monster if one appeared in real life.

Circus

Does this look like an after school sport to you?  It does to Nova.  We first ran into one of our local Circus schools at an arts festival. (Our metro area has not one, but two circus schools--a lot has changed since my childhood).  They had stilts and juggling clubs for kids to try.  Some of the students staffing the booth were pretty skilled.  Nova fell in love and begged to go.  When I caught her climbing the clothesline, we decided to sign her up.  I suspect circus class is safer that random backyard parkour.   

The opening picture is one of the performing acts at the circus school's 20th anniversary open house, held last spring.  Between performances, kids (and even grown-ups)  could try different circus apparatus.  

Charlotte is trying hoop.  I also got up there.  Thankfully there are no pictures.  It is harder than it looks! Nova took a general sampler class and aerials were her favorite.  She likes hoop in particular.   

Solomon learned to juggle by the time we left.  Not bad for an afternoon.   

Here is Nova on multiple trapeze.  As it turns out, it will be her first performing act.  Multiple trapeze, or multi-trap, consists of six trapezes, three across and two high, with one person per trapeze. They coordinate tricks to music, almost like a dance routine.  The spring show is coming up, so hopefully I will have some pictures in a couple weeks.  

Solomon's 13th Birthday

At the end of July Solomon turned thirteen.  TEEN.  It didn't seem that different at first.  He is a pretty happy kid.  Sensitive.  Likes his family (even his parents!).  

As I write this, Solomon is closer to fourteen than thirteen, and we are really starting to see changes.  He is taller.  I think his voice dropped three or four pitches last week alone.  Anytime I say 'kids' he reminds me that he is no longer one of those.  Though I protest, maybe he is right.  Things that have been a struggle for months--keeping his books together, remembering assignments, remembering the sequence of long pieces of music--are suddenly no problem anymore. Maturity--it is coming!

We started Solomon's thirteenth birthday off at the farmers' market with all his sisters.  But later on he got both parents to himself. On the advice of an aunt of mine from a large family, Charles and Solomon and I went out, just the three of us.  We went to a Korean fusion restaurant. We talked and enjoyed a little sunshine.  At home we got in a game of Dominion.    

On the weekend, we had family over to celebrate.  This year he requested to help make his birthday dinner.  Given that, I made him an apron as part of his birthday present.  He is a fan of lobster, so it seemed appropriate that they be on there. 

Everyone pitched in with the birthday preparations. Ariadne helped with the birthday cake.  This year it was chocolate vanilla caramel marble cake.  

Nova was in charge of the birthday mural.  

 

The spices were all Solomon's idea.  I do not remember what they were, but I remember they were good! (And that there were a lot of them).

This was the year of comparing height with Grandma--both of them.  As you can see, he is quite close with both of them.  By 13 1/2, it was no longer close.  At 5' 10'', only Grandpa John is taller now.

Reader that he is, we got Solomon a Kindle for his birthday.  He was very pleased.

A few weeks later Solomon had several friends over for a water fight and sleepover.  Solomon has had more or less the same party for three years in a row now.  It is interesting to see how these guys change little by little. This year there was less water fight and more video games.  The movies are getting a little bit more grown up. Last year they watched Ghostbusters, this year it was Super 8. I think they actually slept some this year. Nova is still getting in on some of the party, but not as much.

Here the boys are enjoying the 'fire' they never quite got around to building.  Maybe next year.

New York Part Two: Playing Tourist

What do you remember from a trip?  A week later,  a month later, ten years later?

When I was 17 I visited Paris for two weeks.  That was almost 20 years ago now.  I remember cigarette smoke, my host sister Magalie's aunt and grandmother discussing her parents' impending divorce while I sat, eating french pastry, pretending not to understand.  I remember Magalie's friend bumming a cigarette off of everyone she saw light up between the metro station and the Louvre, resulting in half a pack.  I remember almost skipping the Mona Lisa because my friend Tim and I didn't think it could stand up to the hype (or be worth the long line).  We were wrong. I don't have pictures of these things.  They are probably not what I talked about when I got back.

So how should I make sense of a jam-packed five days in New York City?  Should I list all the touristy things I did?  Recount late night conversations? Reflect on travel and life?  Maybe a little from each--but I mostly have pictures of touristy things, so they will be interspersed no matter what I'm actually writing about.

Because Brynn is still a full time graduate student, I had substantial to time loose myself in all the wonderful variety of New York City.  I got lost in Chinatown, I got lost in Soho, I got lost in Central Park and in Brooklyn.  I got lost at the Met and The American Museum of Natural History.  Some of this getting lost was intentional.  Some of it was not.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of it (except maybe getting lost on the subway).

One of Brynn's favorite places in the city is the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), and on her recommendation I went.  I took the long way, walking across central park.  Giant dinosaurs and early 20th century murals greeted me as I entered the stately AMNH. Only after I found myself inside did I realize that I had in fact been there ten years earlier.  It didn't matter, there was plenty to do and see.

My first stop was the Hayden Planetarium, where Neil De Grass Tyson did his best to explain dark matter to the audience in their movie Dark Universe.

From there I wandered through the Hall of Biodiversity, the Hall of Ocean Life, North American Mammals and African Mammals.  An immense cross section of a redwood rekindled my interest to see the redwoods that still stand.

In the Hall of Planet Earth, I found all sorts of plate tectonics that would have made a perfect field trip to go along with our globe making project back home (I have been making globes with the older kids and some of their friends).

At the Rose Center for Earth and Space, I learned about extrasolar planets.  Their exhibit on relative size of the cosmos was mind blowing.

The dinosaur exhibit had been redone to reflect up to date paleontology.  It turns out one of the dinosaur skeletons had been sporting the wrong head for a century.  The collection now includes the archeopteryx fossil showing feathers (below).

In the evening Brynn and I met up for dinner.  Smart phones seem indispensable in NYC these days--for directions, for communication, for change of plans.  I caught a surreptitious picture of Brynn on hers.  We were figuring out where to meet up with a friend of hers who had seen her show that night.  Due to the magic of technology, meet up we did.  We talked about her show, about life, travel, and work, having a good time until sometime around two in the morning.  The conversation ranged from the zen of a clean desk to culture shock when traveling between countries.

The weather was exceptionally cold, so I scrapped most outdoor plans (sorry Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building) and went for nice warm museums.

The Met was next on my list.  I wandered through the Egyptian Temple of Dendur; it turns out graffiti is an old problem.

 

Charlotte and I could have played 'I Spy' with this one display case for a VERY long time.  

Here's one of those 'proof I was there' photos.  I am old fashioned and pestered a stranger to take a picture of me.  

I found a statue of Hatshepsut, the only known female Pharaoh.  I'd learned about her only a few years ago when the kids and I were studying ancient history.  Though there had been some debate in the literature about whether or not her contemporaries knew her gender, I think this statue clearly answers the question.

I felt like a time traveler wandering through, going from ancient Egypt to Medieval Europe and on to a Frank Lloyd Wright house taken from--surprise--20th century Minnesota!  As I was leaving the museum music floated up the marble stairs and filled the enormous atrium.  A group of string players and a pianist were playing on the balcony that rimmed the grand entrance hall.  It was a magically perfect end to a wonderful afternoon. Turns out, there's free live music at the Met every Friday!


               
It being New York, and Brynn being in theater, we also got to see some theater.

A surprise favorite was a reading of Gilgamesh: A Musical Epic.  This one is a work in progress at the moment, so it was not fully staged.  But it was fully sung.  The ancient Sumerian epic set to music worked surprisingly well.  I'd read about half the original epic on the plane heading to New York, but had not yet reached the end.  (Assuming the musical is more or less true to the original) The main question it tackled was about mortality, and how to make the best use of the time we have.  Still surprisingly relevant.  And the music was catchy.  I found I had one song 'Beautiful Enkidu' stuck in my head the week after my trip.  I called Brynn and it was stuck in her head too.  A couple days later it was stuck in my husband's head, just from me humming it.  That's one good hook.

We also saw Sleep No More, an experiential theater piece loosely based on Macbeth.  The theater company did an excellent job setting up the atmosphere.  The production inhabited and entire building.  The top floor was a smokey (looking) crowded speakeasy,  A jazz group played on stage in dinner jackets.  The room was picture perfect, from light fixtures to wallpaper, to clientele.  The hallway was remade into a train platform, complete with a train whose dining cars doubled as...dining cars.  I mentioned the curse of the 'Scottish Play', and these two theater design grad students drew a blank.  They had never heard of the curse of Macbeth!  A short Google session later, they were believers.

Once the play had 'begun', we were ushered into another speakeasy style bar, encouraged to get at drink and enjoy the music (this time a woman crooning in an evening dress a la Rosemary Clooney).  From here, they took us in groups into the 'hotel' where the action took place.  We were all to wear masks and remain silent, but were allowed to go wherever we chose, look in drawers, read diaries, and follow any actors we saw.  And we were separated.  Kris was let off the elevator by himself, just to make a point to the whole group.



Inside we found an apothecary, an insane asylum, a taxidermist workshop, a graveyard, bedrooms, living rooms, a candy shop, a courtyard garden.  It was endless.  And creepy, very creepy.  After a half hour or so, the actors showed up.  They, like us, did not speak a word.  Soon we were following them around in herds, waiting to see what they would do next.  Here and there they would give us the slip, or intentionally take one or two audience members with them, but exclude the rest.  They had very effective ways of herding the audience without making us feel herded.  The play culminated in a dramatic scene including all the actors and (miraculously) viewed by all the audience members.

When it was all over we were back at the bar comparing notes with each other, trying to make sense of it all.  Brynn and Kris had seen it before, but since you wander through the play, you get to see different things every time.

One of the other memorable things I have no pictures for is an amazingly strange and amazingly musical thrumming that ran throughout Brynn's building on the second night I was there.  She and her roommate more or less chalked it up to 'strange city sounds' and claimed I just wasn't used to the city. But I assure you, this was LOUD, and bizarrely MUSICAL.  If I'd had more memory on my phone I would have made and audio recording.  Imagine a flute the size of a building.

There had been an electrical fire under the street earlier that day.  In fact, the fire continued to burn for over a day, with smoke and flames occasionally coming out of a grate in the street kitty corner from the building.  As many as four or five police cars and fire engines would come cordon off the street and just hang around.  But there was really nothing they could do but let it burn itself out, so they would stand around and stare.  (I'm sure this is part of why I got Aria and Charlotte a fire truck and a taxi as gifts.)  Anyway, this electrical fire was on my mind when I heard this strange noise.
 

It being winter in New York, I thought maybe we could go ice skating--maybe at Rockefeller Center? With brilliant white lights covering the trees and the famous statue gleaming gold, I thought it looked enticing.  I used to play hockey, after all.

Brynn wasn't so sure, as you can see by the expression on her face.  Instead, her friend Kris suggested we meet at Chelsea market.  

We had a great time walking around, taking in the ambiance and trying local seafood.

Here Brynn and Kris chat with our colorful Australian chef, debating which shell looks the best.

I think it was the first time I'd had oysters, and possibly lobster as well.  It was certainly the first time I'd had raw clams (turns out I do not like raw clams).  The oysters were my favorite.  Normally I do not take pictures of my food, but this was truly gorgeous.

For some reason, I was stuck on ice skating at Rockefeller Center.  When would I be in New York City in winter again?  Why not?  My last afternoon in New York was free--Brynn had a photo shoot for the play she'd been working on.  So I made my way back.  Here's a Lego version.

And me in front of the real thing, about to go ice skating.

I lasted five minutes before I fell and broke my arm.  I should have paid more attention to Brynn's opinion about the whole idea.  

I met Brynn for dinner as planned, taking the subway with a bag of ice down my coat sleeve. "Couldn't you go ice skating in Minnesota?" she asked.  My flight was in a couple hours.  "You should wear a sling.  People will be more likely to help you." She said. We ordered our food and she ran to a drug store to get me a sling and some ibuprofen.  (Trust a costume designer to know the importance of looking the part--and she was right, lots of people offered to help). After dinner she hailed a cab for me, got my suitcase in the trunk, and hugged me goodbye.  And that was the end of my trip to New York.