Cords and Fleece

When will I learn -- you can’t trust a movie just because it’s preceded by Cinderella’s castle and a flirtatious little fairy? Michael and I saw Shrek a while ago. Cute enough. Elizabeth’s teacher (Mr. Billy) dressed as Shrek for Halloween. So we didn’t think much of letting the girls watch it when it came on TV recently. As usual, we kept an eye out for any scenes of unexpected violence and checked the girls for their reaction. Shrek cornered in a stadium? No problem. Shrek pummeling his adversaries before the townspeople? Hunky Dorey A giant, fire breathing dragon chasing Shrek and his donkey friend throughout a castle practically lighting their asses on fire? Just fine. No, the trouble began when the Princess walked through the forest and exchanged vocalizations with a beautiful blue bird. The Princess sang, the bird whistled. The Princess sang louder and the bird followed suit. Finally, the Princess unleashed her loudest caterwaul and the bird... exploded . The Princess ...

So we’re watching Francis Ford Coppola’s production of Koyaanisqatsi with the girls the other night... (Say what?) Yes, Koyaanisqatsi . It’s a great movie to watch with kids. Loosely translated, Koyaanisqatsi means “Life Out of Balance”, so I’m sure most parents out there can relate. Here’s the Wikipedia description: Koyaanisqatsi is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio [and] consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'life of moral corruption and turmoil, life out of balance', and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way. Sound familiar? The girls were mesmerized. The movement. The repetition. People and objects going up and down. Fast and slow. It's strangely perfect for kids. (It’s really not...

Thing One and Thing Two Lizzy has been desperate for a pet to call her own. So desperate, she began collecting garden snails and decorating their habitat (a cardboard box) with a pie tin, leaves and a stuffed snail doll. But I could not abide their wanderlust, nor their sliminess, so we reintroduced them into the wild along with a few new stories to tell their friends about girls and cats and an overabundance of pink. Then last Sunday I took Samantha to the pet store -- just to look around. I turned the corner and there, in an aquarium, were the cutest damned Hermit crabs. Their shells were painted in bright, beautiful colors. Some looked like giant lady bugs, some like eyeballs (perfect for Halloween), and some like cartoon characters. That’s when I saw him. One crab’s shell was painted to look like the character Woody from Toy Story. I took this as a sign from God since we just saw Toy Story II the night before and Elizabeth loved it. Not to mention the crabs had shells -- just lik...

I don’t watch many movies anymore (too much to do, it’s too expensive, and the kids prevent me from seeing all the satisfying R-rated flicks in the theater...) So, nerds that we are, we occasionally check movies out at the library and watch them after the girls go to bed. It usually takes us about 3 days to get through a full-length feature. Welcome to parenthood. We finally got around to watching Eyes Wide Shut , which I looked forward to seeing because Kubrick directed it and rumor had it there would be sex in the film (titter, titter). However, this movie made me realize, once and for all, just how ridiculous sex is. The main character, Dr. Bill, indulges in sexual infidelity after his wife reveals she had a one night stand with an unknown naval officer some years ago. (Although, I’m still unclear whether she actually had the affair, only wanted to, or perhaps just dreamt the whole thing. Whatever.) I should say he attempts to indulge in infidelity -- the poor guy never actually g...