Just in case you don’t know already: Now that he’s finished with The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson is remaking King Kong (based on the 30’s version). He’s creating little five minute Production Diaries about various aspects of making it (some less serious than others). They are very well done and someone’s taking a lot of time to put these together. You’ll find them at kongisking.net. Now you know.
iTunes (Corollary)
The previous post – plus the disappointing fact that the iTunes store caters best to top-40-type tastes – got me thinking: what is the epitome of the perfect pop song? One of those confections that buries itself in your brain, probably boppy, probably short? Nothing deep or profound here, we’re talking pop!
I remember a radio interview with Tim Rice, who stated that his perfect example of a pop song was “My Little Runaway” by Del Shannon. Meh (tho’ it does have that great musitron solo). One of my top contenders is “Roll to Me” by Del Amitri (what is it about Dels and pop songs?)
iTunes Canada
I’ve been excited for weeks about the upcoming arrival of the iTunes Canada store (being on a Mac prevents me from using any of the other Canadian online music stores.)
Problem is, now that it’s finally here my mind is completely blank as to songs I want to download!
Any favourites/suggestions?
Shadows
Friend Andy linked me to this extremely cool picture taken by the Cassini probe that’s orbiting around Saturn. What you see is Saturn’s ring system (bottom) casting shadows across the planet’s clouds (with a cute lil moon flying past for good measure). The colours are as you would see them if you were there.
Click on the image to see a bigger version at NASA or here for the pic and a full description.
Book 50
It was just over 7 years ago that we took Jon to the opthamologist to hear her diagnosis that he was cortically blind–his eyes were fine, but something after the optic nerve, inside the visual cortex of the brain, wasn’t. And that he would likely see nothing beyond shadows for his entire life.
That night that Jon patiently posed for the cutest baby pictures we ever got from him. He seemed to know we needed a pick-me-up.
Meanwhile, visual therapist Mary Crow (or through Parentbooks ) had been waiting for this. She had visited us once, watched Jon, and said he’d have to be diagnosed before she’d be authorized to take us on. I’ll never forget Mary’s second visit declaration “He’s taking peeks.”
It’s a long story between there and where we are now. Like many kids with cortical visual impairment, Jon gained some function around 18 months, and it’s been a struggle to regain what we could from there. Jon’s vision is by no means normal–he percieves things visually in completely differently way from what we do, and always will–but we’re far ahead of what even some experts predicted.
This was with amazing support from a couple of great visual consultants, and a fabulous teacher who believed in Jon and started him on a bridge-reading course last year. It started with heavy repetition. We were all concerned with how well Jon could see the small words on the photocopied sheets, so for each book I made new booklets with the type heavily enlarged.
Last week, Jon hit the last of the series, Book 50.
It was a version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in simple sentences. The booklet I created for it was 27 pages long; most of the pages had four sentences of type (36 point size). We expected it to take Jon a few days, not for complexity, but for sheer length–you could see him get tired reading it. But he insisted on reading it through each time (and had a tantrum when I tried to introduce the concept of a “bookmark”).
He had it mastered in four days.
He’s moved onto the pre-primer of a new series. We decided to try him without type enlargement. He gets a little close to the page, but he’s able to read without enlarged type. And he’s already almost done the first book of the three-book series before moving on to the primer.
Book 50 feels like a milestone moment.
Sixteen
Laura and I were married 16 years ago today. Hooray for us!
Detail of figures from our wedding cake.
Fun with Stickers
In the death throws against 150 years of established science, there’s a bit a resurgence against evolution in some backwaters right now. And the yokels behind it are, of course, fighting to remove science books from curriculums and libraries (or worse–replace them with those with bogus conclusions), or at least brand them with stickers denouncing their validity.
So these alternate stickers are a great relief.
“Wording for the first disclaimer is taken verbatim from the sticker designed by the Cobb County School District in Georgia”
From there…not so much.