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I’ll be back soon.   In typical INMOH style I submit this, one of my absolute favorite videos.  I wonder why there hasn’t been the equivalent of a Beatles Anthology for the Stones (I guess everything past the 70s would explain that)?  Great editing, great performance.   Keep watching past the credits.

123

In response to Radio Lab’s recent Shorts #16 featuring various images representing life after death:  I just wanted to record a memory from my childhood.  I was probably eight or nine, living in Wichita, Kansas where my dad pastored a church.  Across the street was a Baptist church.  One weekend the Baptists decided to do a balloon release.  The idea is that you release hundreds of balloons with a scripture tied to the string.  If someone finds the balloon they read the scripture, go to their (preferably Baptist) local church, and become a Christian.   Well, apparently the church underestimated the amount of helium required to send their balloons cross-country.  My brothers and I had been observing this event behind the bushes in our front yard with great interest.  The Baptists released the balloons into the air, and about 70% immediately rose up into the air and quickly crashed into our yard.   I, along with my siblings, took this as a sign that it was safe to claim the balloons as our own.

I wish I had a photo of that day.  I wish I could see my brothers and I leaping into the air in the midst of a balloon downpour, grabbing handfuls of those apostolic balloons, while, in the background,  the Baptist congregants watched their missionary dreams stolen by the pastor’s kids across the street.  I’ve often wanted to apologize to those Baptists.  I’ve often thought Heaven would feel like that day.  Like you’re eight years old and suddenly a cloud burst of helium balloons lands on your front yard.

122 (or 29)

Today my baby turns 29.  She is the best person I have ever known.

121

I Come to Shanghai released their  first album today.  Hit the link to download the album for whatever price you choose ($10 will get you a physical copy of the CD and a digital download).  In the meanwhile, feast your eyes on the video.

120

There was actually a different post 119, but only astute reader Eric [I may just refer to him as ARE from now on, this is the second time I've referred to him as astute reader Eric.  Or maybe ARRRGH.] saw it.  It was basically about how I didn’t listen to Michael Jackson as I was growing up (except in school-sponsored events), I listened to CCM artist Carman.  I know most people won’t know who Carman is, so I provide proof below.  Of the many great moments some of my many favorites: Simon, apparently a powerful warlock, still takes time out to play with an Ouija Board and buffer his dwarf thief in Dungeons and Dragons.  And the frog ribbit.  And, of course, “wheezing like a dying animal.”

I also stated in the original 119 post, I think that with all this talk of greatest performer ever we should all just admit that Victor Borge was the greatest performing artist of the last century.  A couple of the many examples:

this week in kids #12

Caden’s fear of the dark has continued unabated over the past few months.   In an effort to help him get over this Jamie steered him toward the Mercer Mayer books during a recent library visit.  Caden came home with There’s a Nightmare in My Closet and a few other books by Mayer.   As I was putting them to bed that night he asked me to read one of them.  His eyes grew larger and larger as we progressed through the story.  It quickly became apparent that the story was having the reverse effect on Caden than we’d hoped.  Instead of making him laugh at the idea of monsters in the house it was reaffirming his worst fears.  The illustrations showed the father displaying empty closets and rooms to his son, proclaiming there were no monsters.  As soon as the father left the room the monsters would appear for the boy to see.  Lines like: “Dad said there were no monsters in the closet.  But he was wrong!” quickly tore down everything I’d tried to reassure Caden of for months.  Thanks, Mercer!  We finished the book and I tucked Caden in for the first of many times that night.  It wasn’t until nearly two hours later that he finally fell asleep, whimpering in his room.

A couple nights later it was my turn again to put James and him to bed.  I sat on the bottom bunk with Caden, and James asked me to tell them a story.  “Do you guys know the story of Rumplestiltskin?”  I asked.  They didn’t so I began telling it to them–and quickly realized it had been so long since I’d heard it that I barely had a grasp of the basics of the story.  I remembered the young woman somehow getting herself locked in a room in the castle with hay and told she had to spin it to gold but I had forgotten that she was there because of some rash bragging her father had done to the king.  I also remembered that she had been rewarded by marrying into the royal family but I couldn’t remember exactly how that had worked out.  I definitely hadn’t remembered that she had to marry the greedy king who had threatened her life if she wasn’t able to perform the miraculous spinning.  So in my version she got to marry the good prince and the king soon died after they were married.  I did remember the terms of the deal between her and Rumplestiltskin so once I got the king out of the way I started feeling comfortable with the story and settled in, embellishing the tale with knights and the quest to find the name.   As I neared the end of the tale I remembered that R. had been betrayed by singing about his name within earshot of one of the queen’s messengers.  I had absolutely no idea what the words to the song were but by that point I’d already committed to telling them what he’d sang.  Here are the actual words:

to-day I bake, to-morrow brew,/the next I’ll have the young Queen’s child./Ha, glad am I that no one knew/that Rumplestiltskin I am styled.

Here is what came out of my mouth:

oh no one knows/that I am Rumplestiltskin/and if they asked/…I surely… wouldn’t tell them…

Both boys had been into the story up to this point but at the conclusion of that little ditty the air went out of the room.  James frowned and looked away, Caden stuck his thumb in his mouth and laid down.  I quickly finished up the tale and said goodnight.  Caden sat up and said “Dad, can you take that book out of the room?  Over there.” He pointed at their bookshelf.  I looked at the roughly sixty books on the shelves and said “Which one?”  He got out of bed and pulled There’s a Nightmare in My Closet from where he’d hidden it underneath some other books.  “Sure,” I said.  “Did this book scare you?”  He nodded quietly.  “This book has been very bad.  Do you think we should punish it?”  He nodded again smiling.  So he spanked the library book.   Hard.  He  didn’t get up once for the rest of the night.

A few evenings ago Thatcher laid out his personal version of advanced interrogation techniques.  If Caden doesn’t like something we’re having for dinner he tends to sing about it.  A typical song will go something like this, “I don’t like corn/I don’t like cooorn/I don’t like corn” repeated with gusto until one of his brothers tells him  to be quiet at which point he’ll whisper sing for another ten minutes “I don’t like coooorn…/I don’t like cooooorn…/I don’t like cooooorn…”  James reached the breaking point and said “Stop it, Caden!  You’re torturing me!”

Thatcher quickly interjected, “No, James, two–no three things would be torture.  One, Attila the Hun and some guys pull on your limbs.  Two, sticking your head in a bee hive for one day while they sting your face.  Three, smelling a cabbage for an hour.”

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When I was in the fourth grade my elementary school had a Michael Jackson day.   All the classes gathered in the library and the teachers talked to us about how cool Michael was.  We also listened to the song “Man in the Mirror” and discussed what the lyrics meant.  So weird.