Sound and Vision–or: Strange Fascination

Various pictures to delight, today.

Pictures of the sounds and visions of the lives growing and roving forth. Some of which show the people responsible for the sounds which the kidlings are into these days, others of which show the kidz themselves.

The elder of the kiddiewinks is loving Marina and the Diamonds these days. Headed by Marina Diamandis, who was born in Wales in the UK (Greek dad, Welsh mom), she broke in 2009 and I think accurately describes her sound as “indie artist with pop goals”. It’s melodic in that theatrical way that’s in the tradition of glam rock (from T-Rex and Roxy Music to Elton John, Bowie and Queen). This quote from her seems appropriate:

“I created the name ‘Marina and the Diamonds‘ 5 years ago and I never envisaged a character, pop project, band or solo artist. I saw a simple group made up of many people who had the same hearts. A space for people with similar ideals who could not fit in to life’s pre-made mold. I was terribly awkward for a long time! I really craved to be part of one thing because I never felt too connected to anybody and now I feel I have that all around me.”

– Diamandis describing the concept behind the stage name “Marina and the Diamonds”, 2010.

 

And she (the elder of the kids) is also deep into a musical called Be More Chill, which is now off Broadway (she just enjoyed her 1st trip to NYC to see it) after a previous run in New Jersey, based on a novel. It’s about a high-tech pill that enables a sort of Faustian way for teens to finally be cool, conform etc, with predictably catastrophic results, triumphed by the one character who doesn’t “drink the Kool-Aid”, as it were. Rockin!

 

Mr. Jolly Younger Progeny (who readers of the blog & others might recall from last summer, was at that time into electro-swing, specifically the group Caravan Palace from France; taking him last June was his first concert)…anyway, he’s currently into David Bowie as well as Queen.

And yes, their epic, legendary collaboration “Under Pressure” (in which, IMHO, they together hauled down the very cosmos to caress our souls through the speakers) can be said to be a sort of wellspring of his getting into the harder rocking of that pair.

This is all but the surface of layers of interesting as far as a ridiculously proud daddy’s meta view is concerned, because of the following: they both play instruments in school band (older on flute, younger on keyboard bass), and I’m trying to figure out if the pieces or styles of what they like to perform bear any discernable relationship(s) to what they like to hear. (So far, hard to tell…)–and secondly, because since they were 4 and 2 years old I’ve had music playing pretty much literally 24/7, all kinds.

And it’s just such the ultimate joy to watch and listen to them and the tunes they respond to as they change. Mr. Bowie’s words again (yet again!) ring true for them (in 8th and 10th grades) just as they did when they ran in my 10th grade yearbook.

And then here’s some fun from last year’s Halloweens…ya know, catching the heck up before this one. Confession: none of us knows yet what we’re going to dress as this year! Lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Recently Summer

I’ve been playing a lot over the last year or so with the camera settings on my phone camera, things like the white balance, the shutter speed and the ISO (light sensitivity). Mostly I’ve found a lot of interest with the white balance such that mostly the blue end of the spectrum shows in pictures.

Such as in this one.

 

However, these recent shots resulted when I switched to the other extreme of filtering out the blue end instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Me and the ever-steadily-ascending kidlings. Enjoy.

 

 

 

Virtual Reality 1: Muzik…Non Stop

Ahh, yes.

Music.

There’s a recent author (must look this up!…update: Jennifer Sessions) who described the experience of being a parent as “having a piece of yourself in someone else’s body.” ~ crxn to: “your heart running around in somebody else’s body.”

Just so, indeed!

And music, one of my favorite things, has presented an occasion that illustrates this through my little ‘uns. (Though–as the saying goes–not to little anymore.)

I consciously connected to music when I was about 16, but my intertwining with music occurred later, beginning a little before I turned 18. Certainly within a few years I became intricately lost in it to the point that I realized the truism once stated by Mike Manumission (host of a big club in Ibiza) that “if you keep finding that you’re the last one at the party, that’s a sign you should be the one throwing the party.” This has over the years taken the form of working sales for an underground music label and dance music distribution company, DJing, producing and hosting musically based events (nightclubs), composing and producing music and being a music journalist.

Even though I’ve made music, I’ve done so with no musical training or practice on a traditional instrument as such.

And so watching my kids both engage with music through school is just the sort of thing, IMHO, that parenting is about. That is, adding to the traits, strengths, etc that your kids inherited from you with things you didn’t get or have the benefit of. In my view, this works best when it isn’t forced on them, and so it is that both kids have independently chosen to participate in music and carry on with it. Big yay!

It’s like watching a part of yourself do the thing, or maybe closer to a VR experience of the thing they’re doing since the thing they’re doing is thing beyond your own actual experience. It’s the thing you would be doing, could be doing but for circumstances. The beauty of  it is that your extensions–they get to do it, are doing it and that’s just why kids exist–are had at all.

In short, it’s quite thrilling, life-affirming and great to see, for instance, my kid in the sort of all-school concert like I did some days ago and at which these pictures were taken.

She’s 13, now, and has been playing flute for two years. They sounded genuinely terrific.

 

 

Medieval Daddy DNA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rabbit hole opens wide, gnarled and deep as the results of the Y-DNA analysis of the remains now confirmed to be Richard III of England are released, along with the results of a comparison to the Y-DNA of other men who, like Richard III, are ostensibly also descendants of King Edward III…and the DNA don’t match, folks!

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Son of Edward III, ancestor of living men whose Y-DNA was tested

Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; Son of Edward III, ancestor of King Richard III, whose Y-DNA is now known.

So the question is, where and when was the one or more alternative fatherings of any one or more of the 19 links between the living men whose DNA was tested and the infamous King Richard III?

My full post on this is going live at the Global Family Reunion site any time. I’ll update with a link so check back today or tomorrow for that.

In the meantime, click here for a handy chart.

 

Medieval Daddy DNA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rabbit hole opens wide, gnarled and deep as the results of the Y-DNA analysis of the remains now confirmed to be Richard III of England are released, along with the results of a comparison to the Y-DNA of other men who, like Richard III, are ostensibly also descendants of King Edward III…and the DNA don’t match, folks!

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Son of Edward III, ancestor of living men whose Y-DNA was tested

Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; Son of Edward III, ancestor of King Richard III, whose Y-DNA is now known.

So the question is, where and when was the one or more alternative fatherings of any one or more of the 19 links between the living men whose DNA was tested and the infamous King Richard III?

My full post on this is going live at the Global Family Reunion site any time. I’ll update with a link so check back today or tomorrow for that.

In the meantime, click here for a handy chart.

Sometimes, It Appears, Life is Perfect

Here are the rest of the birthday shots I promised last time. (From my son Jolly’s 9th bday.)

(The shots of the kids last time (throwing paper dragon airplanes) was on his actual birthday.)

The shots I’m posting today are from the next weekend when he had a joint party with one of his and his sister’s friends at a local beach.

The luckies had two rockin’ cakes thanks to my insanely cake-proficient ex:

This blue fella is a character named “Happy”. He’s a talking and flying cat with magical powers in “Fairy Tail” a truly engaging and fantastic anime developed from a manga that I watch semi-religiously with the kids. I’ll post about it later, but suffice it to say it’s great.

 

This guy you’ll also see on two legs at the bottom of this post. His name is “Hatty Hattington”, and he’s a character and sort of a mascot from a popular new video game called “Battleblock Theater” from “The Behemoth”, the game developers known for “Castle Crashers” and “Alien Hominid”. It’s useless trying to explain this game (or, what I can at this point only guess is whatever genre it must belong to, since I have yet to research it…that’ll be two posts from now lol). But having watched a good deal of play and the 20-minute extended “intro”/trailer/cut-scene and having gleaned some true comic genius within, I’d have to say the game represents some new kinda very funny, very media savvy sensibility…but I have no idea what I’m talking about…!!!  :-o

The kids freakin LOVE this guy…this is honestly the 1st thing in my kids’ lives that I have NO idea whatsoever of why they’re soooo into it.

Go figure, welcome to the next phase, dad.

These shots

were taken as it was winding down…

…and the remaining party kiddiewinx

were off in their own zone

of kid perfection

Methinks not just at one with the elements

but indeed, the very pillar between heaven and earth,

binding all four elements together

And finally,

here’s halloween.

Them

Me…

(in my most spontaneous and wacked costume evrr!)

And a P.S….here’s a shot from my own 9th bday. Which was in Las Vegas. Which is sort of ironic because it was there in 2002 on July 20 that I returned and married the mother of my kids, the son of whom just turned…9!  Good times. (The excellent people standing next to me are my lilfelong friends who are brothers, and the funny-man making razzle-dazzle over us was a friend who’d been a neighbor to us all then moved to Vegas where we were able to catch up at that time.)

10, 9…

Why the beginning of a countdown for today’s post title? Eh, no reason, really, beyond I couldn’t think of anything better, since it’s almost coincident with the date, since one of the main reasons is posting pictures of my son’s 9th birthday (and he’ll too soon for this father’s taste be 10, just as his sister is now 11!), and it’s an excuse to note (a few days late) my cousin’s birthday, which was 10/9 (Happy birthday, Julia! :-) )

That said, these 1st pictures are the kids on Jolly’s *actual* birthday (Sunday, 10/5). One of his presents was yet another fantastic book from Klutz, the “Flying Dragons” book. It’s a collection of patterned, cut-out dragon-styled paper airplanes. But no dull and ordinary paper airplanes, these.

 

My GAWD!

 

The geniuses at Klutz must have (so I marvelled to the kids that day as they spent a couple hours assembling them with the intent of technicians) some crazy software that analyzes the paper weight (heavy stock card, btw) and the shapes and curves for aerodynamics cuz shazam! The things really fly beautifully. Or maybe they’re just designed to excel at falling…with style!

 

We practiced and had a mini-tourney inside diagonally across my tiny house, but the wild blue yonder beckoned.

 

And the ideal place to go was a vast cemetery where the little street that forms the backbone of my “village” (Piedmont Avenue) dead ends (honestly, no pun intended). It’s a spectacle in itself: Mountain View Cemetery. See footnote, below). There are great wide lawns there (not burial plots) and we started there. I must say my daughter and I were just not as good at throwing the things for their best flights (though she was better than I, I also must admit).

 

 

 

 

 

The birthday boy was the master, and I am NOT just saying that. But then we saw a hill just before we were going to leave to meet their mom for ice cream, and that’s when these pix were shot, as they launched their dragons to coast on the air down the hill, all of us with a simply lovely view across the Bay from up there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A second batch of pix are from the full-on birthday party he had the following Friday, that was a joint party with one of his best buds, a wonderful kid that for this blog we’ll call Goofy. Smart, free-spirited, funny, and a gentle, if zappingly energetic creature. The long-distant shots are of my son and three other of his buds (and a couple of my daughter, Silly) out wading in the Alameda beach as the tide went out…as another parent and I remarked together, they were totally seeming all Lord of the Flies out there. To be 9 to 11 years old. Truly, nothing is as pure, primal, innocent and yet ripe with capacity.

Happy birthday to you, my son…and my cousin (who’s just a weesnie bit older than I…heh heh, and who, like me, knows better at this age, but has also succeeded at hanging on to her inner Peter/Petra Pan & Wendy).

More Recent (and, u-hem, some backlog…) Photos

Ah yes.

It was utter genius. Or perhaps I’m just not that hip when it comes to just how fun parties can be…ok, scratch that, but nonetheless, I learned something new about what sorts of things can be easily rented to enhance a party with sugar! And what does a kid birthday party need but that, eh? (:-o)

But seriously, if there’s gonna be sugar at the bday fest, might as well get cool with it. So this very nice and totally with-it dad rented a snow cone machine and a cotton candy machine for his son’s birthday that my kids and I attended a few months back. It was awesome! On-demand cotton candy?!!? On-demand snow cones…a-and where you get to pour your own syrup?!   It was great. We had fun. Above is a picture.

OTHER PIX

 

From a delightful li’lgift my daughter got for HER birthday, she learned how to make her thumb appear like a person hanging off a ledge.   Bwah ha ha ha.

 

 

 

 

And here we are AT my daughter’s birthday this summer. I’m in a toga (and everyone’s in purple) since this year’s theme was “Camp Jupiter”, a boarding-school and training camp for demi-gods born of the Roman pantheon from the Percey Jackson follow-up series of novels. Awesome, brilliant stuff.

Catching Up Again!

Yes indeedy heeby do. I am, ummm, yeah, soooo…how are YOU?

Yeah, ok, so I’m super behind on my posting. But it’s good stuff, and thus perhaps worth the weight…in gold. Har har…see, such puns are why I need an editor! lol

more pictures of my little lovelies. And how about the Lego Movie?? Freakin’ totally fun, nifty, and made all the more amazing (and awesome) by its meta view of itself, framing itself as it did, umm, well, within..heck *you* the home audience know what I mean, right?

Tiny creations from clay by daughter; this tableaux is 2 inches across.

                              This is a creature dreamed up by my son: a species of dragon known as “Odin Spearthrower”

Interior of daughter’s locker at school (winter decor, dontchya know)

                                             Another species of benevolent beasty my son’s created: A crazy powerful puff ball…

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And with that, then was now was then again, and all very quickly

These crowd shots are from the excellent, thoughtful and not overly maudlin annual end-of-the-schoolyear ritual their school does called the “Crossing Over” ceremony, where each grade level group of kids forms a phalanx as you see, and then BANG! charges ahead to cross over to the launching pad of their next grade level; into their futures. And parents, snap snap away the pictures, because if you blink ya miss it. Every minute that ticks along also talks: “bye”, it says. I’m getting older and growing. The future has zoomed them into it almost as fast as they’ve smiled their speed of light way headlong into it.

And…

I’m also finishing preparing the short videos of them killing at their school talent show from the last part of last school year (ie, this recent spring). I’ll post them tonight or tomorrow I hope. They’re short. And sweet. And awesome.

Here’s a thought to chew on, and it’s something I put to a friend many years ago, a guy who is rarely without an answer or opinion on any sort of thing. But when I put this to him, he was actually caught having not thought this through, with an opinion that if you looked closely, you might just be able to actually see forming and “form of”…divided priorities. But I’m not pointing that out to single him out; it’s a genuine issue that we all as parents answer with our actions, with more or less ever detail of our lives.

Ok, here it is:

Do you want to conduct yourself so that your kids have all the chances to be great, or do you want to be great?

And while the clever little folkies out there will pipe-in with right about now, I have this pre-packaged response: just because it is possible (for some people) that the question won’t have any purchase because they are not, for them, mutually exclusive foci does not eliminate its relevance for a good many people who are parents as well. Basically, if the question resonates at all, then it’s one to chew on. If it doesn’t cuz you have your whole thing nicely dialed in (ie, you direct everything toward making sure your kids have all the chances to be great…hee hee lol! ;-) then just sit back & enjoy the pictures.

To your kids and my kids and their kids and our kids.

And btw, here’s a favorite song about kids. It sounds like vapid nonsense at first, but I assure you, that’s just the extremely clever packaging.

“Now if I had some children, they’d be some Chinese children…”

Another 146 Million Miles: Summer 2013

Howzit feel to have almost another 150 million miles under the belt? That’s how far our spaceship earth has gone in its curve around the sun since summer kicked off at the top of June.

“Fascinating, father. You don’t say! DO go on….”

Riiiiight!   U-hem, so moving on, then: I feel like I haven’t been this far behind on the ole bloggy blog for a while! Sorry, folks <sound of crickets…or ice in cocktail glasses…or that popping sound that cheap plastic cocktail cups make; take your pick of sounds to insert ..hee hee>

So let’s get to it.

Summer 2013

aka, The Summer They Said Would Never Happen

                                                    – or –

The Summer Rescued from the Maw of Magical-thinking Catastrophists…for LIVIN’, EASY!

It began with the Running of the Quadlings, and boy! whatta time!

 

Kidding.

It looks weird at first, though, huh? It’s this actually quite cool yearly ritual on the last day of the schoolyear at the slightly alternative style school the kids attend.

So (rewinding, slightly), after those moments of taking note of the last big projects the kids complete at the end of the schoolyear, things are quantified, their dealies are documented and school year declares itself complete. Finis. Over. Done. Schooooool’s / Out! / For / Summer!  And the children were happy. So at my kids’ school they do this cool thing to mark the end of each year.

 

Gathered together by grade (K, 1st, 2nd, etc, up to 5th), the kids stand at one end of this field and when the principal (a very smart, very cool lady) congratulates them all (parents manning the sidelines, cameras in hand), and then gives the green light, the kids all stampede across the stretch, crossing over, as it were, to the next grade, albeit the three month vacation before that grade begins classes. It’s very neat, actually.

Warrior!

There were, as usual for kids these days, various little week-long camps throughout the summer, not all are pictured. My boy loves his Golden State Warriors and got to learn more than I ever did about dribbling and shooting in the Warriors’ actual practice space (among other camps where he learned to stop worrying and love GarageBand, where they both got into space-oriented things and more).

The Earth. It Moves.       You Know, around and, Well…It Just KEEPS on Going…

Then there was the yearly official reminder in the form of my ever-more-elongated daughter that the earth surely does keep up its 19 miles a second clip around that ole bastard of a sun.

For her 10th birthday party she chose to have her guests and parents (who required the inclusion of other parents) inhabit the world of Hogwarts School of Magic for the afternoon. And so she planned what each of the adults would be professors of at our own li’l Hogwarts. There were squeals of delight, peals of laughter and of presents littering the air, the ground and the memory.

It was a total blast.

More later…(but not as “later” as this one was!)  :-)

                     

And we played. Is this a toy car …or is it memorex???