Mark Cousins does a fine job narrating the series. His laconic style of presentation and Irish accent give the 10-year-old plenty of material for both comedy and critical analysis..
I've enjoyed watching The Story of Film with my son. The series does an excellent job of explaining why film is a unique art form and how it developed.
Full disclosure, I've only seen three episodes, but I'm hooked.
Perhaps the most crucial observation in these first episodes is that film is a language unto itself and nothing, camera angle, lighting, the projection machinery, should ever be taken for granted.
I liked very much how Cousins explained how the big studios of the `30s and `40s, set up like giant assembly lines, produced, in spite of the system, many fine movies. As there was no established pedigree to the sort of person who worked on, wrote, or acted in films, all sorts of talented weirdos found employment. "The deus ex machina in the studio system was art," Cousins drolly intones.
I suspect the series will become a bit too erudite for the 10-year-old soon, but it motivated him this week to take a camera to school and shoot a movie documenting his field trip dealing with invasive species. However we get there, the journey's still good.
The fourth grade did a fine job of showcasing their learning. Unfortunately such erudition was lost on the parent with the video camera.
I lack the energy to try and explain all the excellence that went on at my son's Passover event at his school. Suffice to say Matzoh was eaten and various performances enacted to much merriment.
To try and capture some of the fun I put together a highlight reel.
Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast presented as a radio show
for the fictional town of Night Vale, reporting on the strange events that
occur within it. The podcast consists of news, announcements and advertisements
from the desert town located somewhere in the Southwestern United
States. One of the writers has said in an interview that he came up
with the idea of a town in the desert where all conspiracy theories were real. (Wikipedia).
This is our newest addiction and we are all lulled into paranormal belief because of it. Tonight we will go see the show recorded.
In one episode the public library gets taken over by oddly sentient flesh-eating bacteria. Instead of trying to downplay this development, the librarian incorporates it into the summer reading program.
I am a dad who worries about gun violence in the schoolyard, movie theater, shopping mall, yet I let my kids have toy guns at home. Am I contributing to the problem?
Generally I don't think so as I don't own any guns, nor does my wife, so we have a gun-free environment. So often perpetrators of gun violence steal the weapons from others.
The kids enjoy creative play and I feel that if they didn't have manufactured toy guns they would have other toys represent weapons.
Far more insidious is a culture that tolerates gun violence as "a few bad apples", "bad luck" and "the price to be paid for a free society."
Gun safety issues inevitably are viewed through the lens of individual liberty. I prefer to view gun safety through a public safety lens -- the guns rarely are used for self-defense and the horrendous amount of mayhem they create far outweigh any good a well-armed citizenry might bring.
Sure, the townspeople of Northfield, Minnesota repelled the James Gang's attempted robbery of the bank with their own personal firearms, but a lot has changed since 1876, or maybe not.
In the context of gun safety, the American spirit of rugged individualism looks like one of those Marlborough cowboys riding a horse with an oxygen tank.
All looks innocent enough from the outside. The filling, however, can be best described as "gray matter."
After watching countless YouTube videos where teenagers both mocked and venerated Hot Pockets --microwaveable turnovers generally containing one or more
types of cheese, meat, or vegetables -- the kids insisted they needed to try one.
The kids selected an egg, bacon, cheese pocket and I blasted the things in the microwave for 3 minute, 30 seconds on the highest setting. The amount of energy needed to bring the lump to the table, in my mind, underscored that it was highly processed and probably not so healthy.
I was prepared to accept that here was a new favorite food that we could get occasionally.
But the arc of history bends towards things that actually taste good, and Hot Pockets don't qualify, according to the kids (I didn't try one).
This is one of those moments when I feel we as parents are doing something right!
The 10-year-old has a mastery of the Minecraft controls, flying his fingers over the keyboard. He builds things so quickly I have trouble following what the hell he is even doing.
I made a video of the guy crafting a shrine. I never figured out why, or on what server, he labored. Still, he took pains to make it look nice and added colorful flowers.
This snap was taken moments after the new sporting venture was announced.
The 10-year-old shared his vision of Olympic gold -- paracheeting.
This is the sport of leaping out of an airplane and deploying a parachute. When the competitor floats down to the appropriate altitude, he/she then defecates and attempts to hit the target with the poop.
The daughter immediately imagined what type of clothing such competitors might wear.
As a responsible adult I merely chuckled, and, somewhat reluctantly, added some sound effects.
Despite the overly cute name and font, this is a fine teriyaki sauce.
I often shop in a supermarket that has a section with more "healthful" brands. By healthful I mean the companies put more effort into marketing their products as somehow better for the environment or human health with folksy labels and foreign-sounding words -- can you say quinoa?
Organic products can be found in both sections as well as bulk products. I'm guessing the decision as to which products go where is a business one based on SKUs, but it often seems arbitrary.
Our family likes a teriyaki sauce called Soy Vey, Veri Veri Teriyaki. The Hebraicized font of an Asian sauce threw me as to where it would be in the store.
Not in the fancy food section, nope -- must not be organic enough. I found it in the ethnic food section along with other Asian sauces.
At least it wasn't with the matzoh, that truly would be when worlds collide.
I found the yellow band and threw it in the trash.
I always figured Lance Armstrong for a performance-enhancing drug taker. But I defended him for it, rationalizing all the other major riders of his era were on the juice, so he was the best drug taker in a field of drug fiends.
I recently watched Stop At Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story and was saddened by the mountain of evidence that Lance had not only repeatedly lied, but slandered and maliciously destroyed those who would speak against him.
Far from a kid who had grown up in bad circumstances and succumbed to the pressure of international athletic competition, Armstrong was shown as a ruthless sociopath who would stop at nothing to increase his fame and fortune.
I personally felt betrayed as I wanted so much to believe the story -- through mental toughness and determination Armstrong came back from cancer and won an unprecedented number of bike races. All of it a lie.
Further disheartening is that there is circumstantial evidence that Armstrong gave himself cancer by ingesting a horrific amount of steroids, testosterone, cortisone, growth hormone, and EPO early in his career.
The film hints that Armstrong's political connections got him out of an FBI investigation, suggesting that people at all levels wanted the story to be true, wanted Lance to be the real Superman who saves America from the French and other unredeemed Europeans.
The film proves the theory of American exceptionalism, but not in the way we would like.
The truth is painful, but ultimately we need to find our heroes closer to home and a bit more humble.
An interplay of texture and primary and secondary colors gives this outfit its special zest.
For our son, who is 10-years old, fashion starts and ends with sweatpants. Unless, of course, there is a compelling reason to A) forgo pants altogether; B) put on pajamas so as to be more comfortable at the dinner table.
Shirts are more complicated as there are long sleeves as well as short sleeves.
Jackets are completely optional regardless of the weather. Shoes? A reluctant necessity.
As a parent, which technique works best for ensuring the harmony of the home is maintained?
I'm often asked this question when I interview myself in my imagination.
The answer: all of them!
Sometimes the results do matter and we need to get them.
Today I've officially offered my daughter a bribe to get some stuff done. When I offered it she insinuated (actually she said directly) that the last of my "special offers" wasn't followed through on.
To make things clear, I've made a video with my offer for the world to see.
This weekend I discovered that reports from Quicken, a home cash management program, can be downloaded into Excel. Thus the above scatter diagram was born.
The graph shows how our 2001 Nissan Maxima, a car referred to as The Finest Car Ever Made, ran up increasingly significant repair bills in the last six years of its life with us. Each data point reflects date and amount of money paid for a repair. Oil changes and tires are not counted. The trend line reflects an averaging of payments.
The narrative fallacy refers to our tendency to construct stories around
facts, a subconscious tendency to help give greater clarity to why things happen. But when someone begins
to believe the stories and stretch the facts to accommodate the narrative, the accuracy of the story is likely to suffer.
I held on to the car too long because I enjoyed driving it. My fallacy was that I fervently believed I could drive it 200,000 miles before it would "really" fall apart. The car was at 160k when we donated it to charity -- it subsequently sold for $625 at auction.
All told, very few repairs before 2008, after, $13,244. I can make myself feel better by amortizing the repairs bills in my imagination over the life of the car, coming out to around $1,000 a year -- not an outrageous sum when all the expenses of car ownership are considered. Still, I should have gotten rid of it at the ten-year mark.
I liked the car because I was able to configure it for just about any activity, camping, ski trips, bicycle transport, and still have an everyday sedan to take the kids to school in. A powerful engine and good handling made me call this car The Finest Car Ever Made.
