Oz the Great and Very, Very Long

Mama Goof is cleaning the house for Pesach, and while I have been offering to help clean for weeks she has not even acknowledged my offer.  Normally, if I want to help, I just do the task.  MamaGoof assumes I will do "it" wrong (and she's probably right.)  But if I don't do it too wrong, than - as long as it is fait accompli - she tolerates it.  But I am bound to do Pesach cleaning incorrectly.  (Pesach is a Jewish holiday in which bread and a huge range of other foods are not consumed and the house must be cleaned thoroughly.)  MamaGoof knows that if Pesach cleaning is left to me I will thoroughly scrub the house with a flour-based cleanser thus necessitating that we burn our house to the ground (or at least she re-wash everything thoroughly.)

So the best thing I could do was take the children out of the house and leave MamaGoof in peace to scrub to her hearts content.

So I took them to a movie.  They unanimously agreed on Oz the Great and Powerful.  When they don't agree on things, I can usually manage to get my way on these things.  I was pushing for ZeroDarkThirty.  With its theme of the triumph of good over evil, plus a healthy dose of waterboarding I thought it was the perfect family movie (although GoofGirl might have gotten ideas.)  But the little Goofs were a solid majority voting block, so we were off to see the wizard...

It is visually incredible (especially in 3D) and very long (130 minutes.)  It isn't fair to call it spectacularly boring, but it is accurate to call it boringly spectacular.

There are some neat moments and, while I had my problems the kids loved it, and that's what's important.

But from my perspective, before we get to the odd and/or predictable plot points and constraints needed to make the story work, were my problems with the witches.  There were three (just like in MacBeth - but there the similarities end.)  They really annoyed me.  Rachel Weisz was ok.  Mila Kunis (who I generally like and enjoy seeing on the big or small screen) was unbearable.  Her tone, her words, just did not work for me.  Then Michelle Williams, who is also a fine actress, was yet another witch.  This might not have been her, but the dialogue she uttered was all wrong.  At one point she began a sentence by saying, "For the record..."

Young urban professionals in contemporary rom-coms might say this.

But do magical beings in fantasy worlds say "For the record"?  Especially when that fantasy world links to Kansas circa 1905?

That one sticks in my mind, but there were plenty of other anachronistic big-city screen-writer bits like that.

Also, when people were evil - they were ugly - always a good message.

Finally, there was an odd constraint in which the people of Oz - haha - could not kill.  Now where did that come from?  This forced a dramatic confrontation of illusion and fireworks.  (I mean, if you can make gunpowder for fireworks, you might have some other "kinetic" options.)

On the other hand, it was kind of fun and it amused the little Goofs.  What more can I really ask for?

A Pair of Great Books from Clare Vanderpool

"Dad, this story is so good!"

I was relieved to hear this.  On our drive home from an excursion to Philly we finished Watership Down.  I knew this would happen, so I had gotten a new book.  But we were out of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and the City of Ember - and the kids had started reading Lemony Snicket on their own.  So I just started poking around looking for something new.  I stumbled on the 2011 Newbery Award-winning Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.  I guess Newbery Award should be enough of an endorsement, but I worried that it would be too precious, or without action the Goofs would be bored.

I needn't have worried at all.  Within moments of listening we were swept into the story (cynical Father Goof included!)

Set in the Depression it is about Abilene, a streetwise girl who had been riding the rails with her father when suddenly he sends her off to the town of Manifest where he had been raised.  She lives with the man who took in her father when he was a teenage drifter, discovers a cache of letters from almost two decades earlier.  The story moves back and forth between the narrator's present and the stories told by the letters, set during World War 1 and the Great Influenza.

Abilene, feeling that her father has sent her to Manifest to abandon her, begin exploring the town's past in order to learn who her father really is.

Moon Over Manifest is a nice change of pace from all of the fantasy and adventure.  There are fantastic, mysterious moments but the story is based in reality.  It is sad and sweet, with a history lesson thrown in.

In short, the little Goofs description was dead on.

Best of all, Ms. Vanderpool has another book, Navigating Early.  Another story of a young person feeling abandoned by his parents.  Set in Maine during World War 2' Jack 's mother in Kansas has died and his father is serving in the Navy.  Jack is sent to a boarding school in Maine where he falls in with the odd outcast Early who sees the number Pi as a story.  Over a school break, Jack joins Early on a quest through Maine's deep woods.  We are still in the middle, but, while completely real, Navigating Early also has a magical, mythical quality to it.


The little Goofs say Navigating Early is even better than Moon Over Manifest.  I say, why choose.

A Participation Trophy that Counts

GoofBoy won a trophy. He was named "Runner of the Meet" at his last track meet. He is absurdly proud, and he should be. No question there has been an absurd proliferation of trophies for participation. A couple seasons of rec-league soccer running randomly up and down the field will garner enough trophies to make a kid's room look like Yankee Stadium. I was that kid - I was always far away from the ball - sometimes by design, more often by sheer cluelessness. But not GoofBoy - he really participates.  He may not excel, but if he is on a team he really wants to play.  This is good, because he has been on some terrible teams - but he doesn't mind as long as he gets to play.  I was also on terrible teams, but I didn't want to play because that increased the chance of me being hit in the head by a ball.  I did hope, through careful observation, to develop stratagems by which my terrible teams would be transformed into world-beaters.  Sometimes I would outline my plans in great detail.  The coaches always appreciated this.

In athletics, and hopefully most everything, GoofBoy is not me, he likes practice and, whatever the sport, he is in position and doing everything right.  He has really taken to track.  We go out on runs together.  I get winded keeping up with him.  He cruises through two miles and turns to catch and pass me at one and a half miles.  He is by no means the fastest kid, usually he is in the middle of the pack.  But a participation trophy in track is no self-esteem bauble.  Being on the team means running at least 15 miles a week - so even the slowest person on the team is doing something pretty demanding.

GoofBoy is really proud of this trophy and so am I - he earned it.

GoofGirl's Gift

3C had a birthday party recently.  GoofGirl attended, of course, but did not want Carpool Gal to feel left out (there is now a decent working arrangement between the three of them in which they can all play together or pair as seems fit - the Byzantine Empire muddled through for centuries, so why not...)

So, GoofGirl decided to write Carpool Gal a book.  The book is about the Carpool Clan's dog Declan who GoofGirl initially feared and now loves.  It was a pretty funny book, so - with GoofGirl's permission - I've shared it here. Like most great works (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) it is a trilogy.


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Getting my Jokes

I lead my life like a self-aware character in a sitcom who occasionally steps out of his role and addresses an invisible crowd.  I am sharing a series of long complex jokes between myself and this imaginary audience.  I recognize this is very weird, and perhaps this blog does a bit to normalize things.

As a consequence, my conversations with my children are peppered with references to things they cannot possibly get.  They don't ask me to explain, possibly because I make it so boring or they have just gotten used to me.

We recently saw the movie Parental Guidance.  Without giving anything away the radio broadcast of the shot heard round the world from the 1951 Dodgers-Giants playoff figures prominently in the movie.  Going into the bottom of the ninth, Giant Bobby Thomson hits a homerun to win the game for his team, it is a big upset and announcer Russ Hodges yells excitedly, "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!" (Here's a link to the clip.)

I am in the habit of yelling that whenever the little Goofs accomplish anything.  For example:

"Dad, I got an 87% on my math test."

"THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!"

I also tend to yell it when I beat GoofBoy at Risk (let me correct that, the one time I beat GoofBoy at Risk.)

After seeing Parental Guidance GoofBoy said, "So that's why you are always yelling that thing about the Giants!"

Recently GoofBoy was home sick and, thanks to AmazonPrime, he began working his way through the old Star Treks.  He watched the episode The Gamesters of Triskelion, in which Captain Kirk is forced to fight aliens in an arena. While he battles in the arena some distinctive dramatic music plays and one of the alien spectators says to another, "I'll wager 300 qatloos on the newcomer."  This clip from the Simpsons pretty much covers it.

After seeing the episode, GoofBoy turned to MamaGoof in wonder, "So that's why Daddy always starts humming that music before we wrestle!  And that's why, whenever I start battling my sister he says the thing about the Qatloos."

I know it isn't age appropriate, but I really want to be there with them when they see Silence of the Lambs and realize the reference I was making when, during bath-time, I urged them to apply lotion.

I may not be a very good person, but I hope my imaginary audience is enjoying the show.

How to Talk about the Petraeus Affair with Your Children

As we watched the inauguration, as Obama, Biden and their wives prepared to review the troops, GoofGirl asked, "Who's that?" referring to the uniformed figure accompanying them.

"That's the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," I answered.

"He's a four-star general?" GoofBoy asked.

"That's right."

"Wasn't Petraeus a four-star general?"

"He was, he still is but he's retired," I explained.

"Wasn't there a controversy with him?" GoofBoy asked.

Uh-oh.

"Yes, he was having an affair," I answered neutrally.

No more questions please...

"What's an affair?" GoofBoy asked.

"He was married and dating a woman who wasn't his wife," I stated, carefully.

"That's bad," GoofBoy answered.

Phew.

"Daddy," GoofGirl "Are you having an affair?"

Huh?

"No, of course not, I love mommy, why do you think that?"

"You are always talking about going to lunch with people and a lot of them are women.  And you talk to them messages on Facebook. So are you dating them?"

Okay, got it.

"But mi nina, I tell mommy about all of that.  I'm not hiding it from her, these are just friends.  Do you understand?"

Ugh, shouldn't have ended with the question, now she'll want to know more.

"I understand, but Daddy, I don't think you should tell mommy about all of it."

Why?

"Why?"

"Because mommy thinks it's all pretty boring."