Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Addendum to A Song By Noah, who is Two and a Half (updated)
So Noah sang that song (variously known as "Pepperoni Yoyo" and "I float away in the morning") while we were at the situated-above-well-hidden-supervillain's-lair Omega Institute, specifically in the cafe. This was several weeks ago.
In response to the foregoing post, Matt recorded his version of the song. I played it for Noah and he was very excited. (Um... in case you clicked that before and it didn't work, try it again)
"It's called Pepperoni Yoyo," I said.
"That's not Pepperoni Yoyo that's I float away in the morning," Noah said. "I singed Pepperoni Yoyo in Omega school and I singed I float away in the morning in the cafe!"
Or something along those lines.
Aviva was also very gratified, at the mention of her yoyo, and set about composing some lyrics of her own, for Luke's daddy to record.
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Monday, June 19, 2006
A Song By Noah, who is Two and a Half
I float away the next morning,
I float away the magnet
I float away when I wake up
and then I check the time
It even says four of two...
And the time is pepperoni,
pepperoni,
pepperoni yoyo,
yoyo, Aviva's yoyo --
yoyo, Aviva's yoyo
The tune was pretty good, too.
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Magnet Poetry from Stacy's Coffee Parlor, #2
A continuing series.
meager
lizard
!
your
tiny
cozy
mouth
on
a
mud
drip
night
and
a
plump
poet
stagger
ing
in
lucky
galoshes
through
rain
come
hold
my
wet
hair
we
will
manage
skin
the
red
moon
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Tuesday, June 6, 2006
An entry not about Wiscon
So I went to Wiscon 30, the thirtieth anniversary of Wiscon. My tribe gathered, as it does at every Wiscon; and my heroes returned as well. I saw Le Guin on a panel and she was fearless, amused, and twice as alive as anyone else in the room, as you would expect; I met Delany, and he liked Other Cities, an "ok, kill me now" moment.
But I cannot blog about that. I cannot do the namecheck of all the amazing people I met, and all the amazing people I saw again, the Dyonisian revel of dancing and karaokeing, nor the fancy outfit, nor the picking of brains, the revolutionary memes unleashed on an unsuspecting world, the silliness and the seriousness, the talking about children and childhoods, cultures and genders, worlds and words. I cannot even give you all (you know who you are) the namechecking you so richly deserve.
And this is because I am writing from a borrowed terminal, the one working internet terminal for many miles, at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. Doesn't that sound like the kind of place a Bond villain would have above his lair? That possibility has not been ruled out, nor a "The Beach"-like apparent-utopia-with-hidden-Morlocks. We're here for Esther to learn to teach meditation to her psychotherapy clients. I am watching the kids. Officially I am booked for Rest & Relaxation, but instead of mud baths, meditation, massage, and finding my chakra, my R&R consists of tickle fights on the grass, chasing after children bloodied by stray basketballs, propping up Noah when he has fallen asleep aboard a canoe beset by pirates, and evicting ants from our tent. I would not, of course, have it any other way.
There is an official children's program for over-4's, but Aviva has more or less snubbed it. Instead, she and Noah have charmed all the non-officially-childcare staff, the mail carriers and bookstore workers, who take them swimming and drawing, and let us into night movies in the staff house (this is the kind of place where the night movies in the staff house are BBC documentaries involving snow leopards).
There was like a day or two of intense day job between Wiscon and leaving for the 8-hour drive to this place, and this is the first break I've had since. Mind you, I am not complaining. :-) Yummy tofu, being rowed around a mile-long lake by Aviva (no... seriously. The girl can row), chasing bugs with Noah, and no where else we need to get to, is my idea of paradise.
But this is my excuse for not documenting that other, different, glimpse of heaven. Love you all regardless.
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"Embracing-the-New" in the NYTBR
Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times likes Christopher Rowe's wonderful "The Voluntary State" and my "Embracing-the-New" quite a bit (though he disses Ellen Klages's moving "Basement Magic", and Vernor Vinge's brilliantly clever "The Cookie Monster"). I don't really buy what seems to be the general argument advanced, that SF as a genre is moribund; it seems as exciting to me as it ever was (just bigger, so there's more room for whatever you don't like). Hard not to be pleased, though, by praise from the NYT:
The best piece of writing, by light years, in the [Nebula Awards Showcase 2006], is also the one that presents the most passionate and literary defense of memory.... Like [McCaffrey's] "The Ship Who Sang", "Embracing-the-New" is a near perfect synthesis of allegorical and didactic intentions, but it is also a stirring illustration of how memory and identity are inseparable subjects...
Good fairies sent me a JPEG of a scan of the review (thank you!)... I have no idea when it came out. Maybe this Sunday?
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