Peter and I went to see Hairspray at the Princess of Wales Theatre on Friday. Loads of fun! Excellent cast, wonderful costumes and sets, and oh yeah, the best earworm music I’ve encountered since I saw South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Marc Shaiman, not coincidently, wrote the music for both). Earworm is a direct translation from the German “ohrwurm” (pronounced oar-verm), and is a very descriptive name for a catchy tune that bores into your consciousness and won’t get out, no matter what you do. With me, earworms tend to be pieces I like (at least initially)… though now that I think of it, Jon did have a Sound of Music phase a while back that affected us (or should that be infected us?) worm-wise.
Grandma
Jon’s social abilities are limited for several reasons, and this means we end up playing many more roles than for a standard, off-the-shelf kid. We both know that we are pillars in Jon’s life, but I’m often reminded that there is a third adult that Jon fully relates to and feels absolutely free to communicate with. My mom, herein known as Grandma.
Grandma has always been there for Jon. All of our parents have been incredibly supportive on this journey, but Grandma is the one on the ground, fighting with the troops. She and Jon have built a relationship through every part of his life. She babysits often (which is a huge deal: no matter how hard it is for your standard garden-variety parent to find babysitting these days, it is difficulty personified for us to find anyone who is willing and capable to stay with Jon). She dotes on him shamelessly. Spicy nachos, anyone? (Grandpa and Auntie Patti yelped when they absently tried some today)
She interrupted her snowbird holiday in Florida, flying up for a week just to be with us when we first got the news about Jon’s seizure activities. Three years ago, she sat with a sedated and/or screaming boy each evening after his hip surgery at Sick Kids, arriving daily at dinner hour to kick us out, insisting we go out to eat and take a little time to ourselves.
She slips us theatre tickets, and babysits those nights. After Grandma’s visits, Jon’s vocabulary is greater and more open.
I can’t describe the difference my mom has made in our lives, but I know that I, for one, would certainly be up mental instability creek without her. And Jon is incredibly enriched.
Now if we could only solve the new trend: Jon gets so excited about an impending visit that he can’t sleep the night before, and is totally fixated on her arrival. Lately, as his vision has developed, he looks for me at the front door when his bus pulls up in front of the house (ah, love), but on the last Grandma day, he looked bewildered and didn’t seem to see me and was bobbing around…that’s when I realized that he was looking for Grandma and he was assuming that I was blocking the view. Ah, Grandma love.
Lake goes down the drain
This week a 9.3 hectare man-made lake in a suburb in Missouri suddenly drained away. Apparently a sinkhole developed under the lake because of the porous limestone floor, and after a huge rainstorm, the limestone structure collapsed. Goodbye lake! As one resident said, “Mother Nature. Don’t mess with her.” Duh!
The Uncanny Valley
I recently saw the trailer for The Polar Express, a 3D-animated movie based on the picture book. Ewwww! It looks like it’s filled with creepy, lifeless robots. A Japanese researcher, Masahiro Mori, explored the concept of robotic design and used the very evocative phrase “the Uncanny Valley” to explain human psychological reaction to humanoid designs.
In short, as an artificial humanoid object (robot, 3D figure) gets closer to human appearance (ie looks, movement), people have a higher and higher empathetic response towards it, until it hits a certain point, whereupon people find it disquieting and even creepy–this is the realm of the Uncanny Valley. This would explain why a vaguely humanoid robot (eg C-3P0) can be appealing, while the super-realistic animated people in some 3D movies/ads etc are totally off-putting. In contrast, Pixar seems to be going in the right direction with The Incredibles–they’re using 3D human characters, but they’re deliberately cartoony, so they can move in a dynamic, cartoon fashion. And in doing this they look waay more “realistic” than any of those dead people in The Polar Express.
Snopes v. Moore
How disappointing–I usually have great respect for Snopes, an invaluable resource for the rumour debunker. Tom Tomorrow, however, outlines how Snopes let politics get the better of them. The topic was Michael Moore’s assertion that Bush & Co. let members of the bin Laden family fly on the no-fly days immediately after September 11. Snopes bought the Bush line, said that was categorically false, and proceded to ream Moore a new one. Since this fact has since been proven true, Snopes was forced to recant (and, to give them their due, they apologized to Moore fully). But as Tom Tomorrow puts it:
See, when Michael says it, he’s a crazy truth-distorting axe-grinder. But when much of what he said turns out to be true, suddenly it’s “subjective political issues outside of the scope of this page.”
Planet Disability
Planet Autism is an old article (Scot Sea, Salon, 2003; registration or free daypass required), but it is an incredibly intense, realistic and moving account of living with a disabled child. Even though much of the article describes the author’s specific trials of dealing with autism, many of the observations (spinning through the medical system’s endless circles, reduced finances due to not being able to work full-time, clueless friends/neighbours) ring frighteningly true for any parents of severely developmentally disabled children; I find the the fear expressed in the last four paragraphs is chillingly recognizable. Emily Perl Kingsley’s “Welcome to Holland” is the G-rated, Hallmark version (though moving in its own way); “Planet Autism” is the real thing.
Good read
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, Doubleday Canada
How do you write a novel involving murder, humour, a marriage breakdown and family crisis when you use an autistic narrator who does not understand humour or emotion? Read this touching, funny, sad novel and find out. An excellent book (and Haddon’s first novel, the talented bugger!!)