Jon just went for a check-up (that’s three medical/dental appointments in less than two weeks. Ugh.) and is now a whopping 80 pounds, and 4 ft. 8-1/2 in. of packed power!
Mind Tricks
Two videos. The second is pretty stunning, but not quite so unbelievable if you watch this first:
The Amazing Colour Changing Card Trick:
Now click below for the fascinating extension of this:
David B.’s notes on dog-sitting
Our dog-sitter extraordinaire David B. penned his observations on looking after Photon while we were away, including a nice photo of her nibs at her cuddliest. When we came back Photon was glad to see us, but also very confused as to why her pal David was suddenly gone. For several days afterwards she would follow me downstairs to my office (where the guest room is), which normally she rarely does. When we next have David over for dinner Miss P. will go bananas, which will be fun to see!
Again, David—thank you so much!
Rainbow Theft
Many times, often out of nowhere, Jon has often stated, “Dreams are not real.” This is said firmly but always as if looking for immediate confirmation. But on these occasions if we ask if he’s had a dream, he denies it, so we’ve never had an insight into what he might be experiencing. What are his wonders, conflicts, worries? Are his dreams strongly visual, or are they more audio in nature?
As I finished brushing my teeth last night, Jon started whining from his bed. This sound used to be very common: in fact, it’s only in the past year after the latest operation that Jon has matured and stopped waking up by crying or whining (whew!). Now generally, whatever the hour, he announces the interruption of his sleep with the words “Hey Dad!”. (d’oh!)
So to hear his whining was familiar, yet odd. I opened his door and asked what was the matter. He sleep-muttered something, and I didn’t think that I’d heard it right, so I asked again. He repeated, sleepy and stressful, “He’s taking the rainbow!”. So I asked Jon if he was dreaming or having a nightmare and all I got were shallow grunts in response. I don’t think he was really awake. I have a history of sleep-walking, and occasionally sleep talking, and Jon has a history of night terrors, so it’s quite possible that it wasn’t even as deep as a dream.
I told him that I was there, and that he was here, and everything was fine and immediately his breathing pattern changed and he began to snore softly.
I don’t know exactly what was going on, but worrying about someone taking (stealing?) a rainbow is certainly a worthy problem to have, and it’s a wonderful first insight into Jon’s dreamworld.
But no one ever talks about the super-engineer, or the super-brakeman…
A very cool prototype technology-for-the-future/scientist-toy-set.
A literary dilemma
An article in Slate outlines a truly interesting dilemma in literary culture:
It’s the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died.
It’s a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73. Dmitri has been torn for years between his father’s unequivocal request and the demands of the literary world to view the final fragment of his father’s genius, a manuscript known as The Original of Laura. Should Dmitri defy his father’s wishes for the sake of “posterity”? …
To burn or not to burn? It’s not a question we can argue over forever. Time is running out, and the stakes are high: Dmitri’s past pronouncements suggest that Laura is not merely another scrap of paper. At one point he called it “the most concentrated distillation of [my father’s] creativity.”
So do you honour your father’s wish, or add to knowledge and scholarship? On the one hand, Nabokov was a perfectionist who made it clear that he only wanted his finished works to become public. On the other hand, this manuscript fragment might add immeasureably to the Nabokov canon.
One gets the feeling that only because Dmitri is family does he feel that he has an obligation to honour Vladimir’s wishes. Dmitiri was not the first family member to have to agonize over this decision: Vladimir’s wife Véra was first charged with burning the MS, but never did. However, if Dmitri stalls much longer the decision will be easily made: If the fate of the manuscript eventually falls to a non-family literary executor it will almost certainly get published. And the scholars will then be free to dissect it to their hearts’ content.
Wii
Jan. 15/08
I started doing my Wii fitness test. I got batting practice, Hitting the Green, and Power Throws. I tried doing the easter egg on 91 pins, but I didn’t get it. My Wii fitness age was 37.
Jon
(For the non-Wii-Sports-savvy: in the Power Throws (bowling) event there is an easter egg (a trick the game programmers put in for fun) where if you throw the ball in exactly the right place you get a huge “boom!” and all 91 pins fall over, enhancing your score considerably. However, if you don’t quite do it (which happens more often than not), you usually end up with zero pins falling, which helps your score not at all! A “fitness age” of 37 is for Jon very impressive indeed. —L)