Benoit Virtual Book Tour

M. D. Benoit

Dominique Benoit is now in the second day of her virtual tour and can be found at Joshua Palmatier's blog for the rest of the day; i.e., will answer questions posted there today.

Check out the list of tour dates, and remember that Benoit will be appearing HERE on April 4th, 2007.

Fire on UofL grounds

Fire as seen from my wife's office window

This one is from my wife's cell phone, taken about a month back when there was a fire on the grounds next to my wife's office. About the time she snapped this photo it occured to her that the fire was also moving towards the parking lot, and ours was one of the half dozen cars in the stalls right by the front doors. She ran out and moved the car; we came back later and found the the burn line had come within about 20 feet of where we park.

But no harm done in the end, partly because one of the campus security staff stood between the fire and the building with a fire extinguisher. Not sure that holding off a grass fire that way is exactly my idea of a safe job.

More lunch time art

Tigana's serviette art

Tigana produced this "portrait of a young girl in dress with a bow" while we were waiting for our order at East Side Mario's the other day. Photo is from my cell phone again, so little blurry, but I think you can make it out.

Three more videos

From John Herber's blog:

Why Star Trek Fans Can't Get Dates

And these two from Randy Reichardt's blog

Kids complaints choir (great example of class music project)

Stop Motion Battle (what a battle between magicians would really look like)

Upcoming Book Tour - April 4th, 2007

From 28 March to 11 April, M. D. Benoit will be going on a virtual book tour to promote her upcoming alternate reality novel, Synergy. During that period, ten people (myself included) will host her on their blog for one day. There will be discussions on the book, interviews with the author, and so on. Every day during this period, on her own blog, Life’s Weirder than Fiction (http://mdbenoit.com/blog), she will announce where she will be that day, as well as talk a bit about her host.

Synergy’s Virtual Book Tour will culminate with a Virtual Book Launch, on 14-15 April (http://mdbenoit.com/synergy). M. D. can be contacted at mdbenoit (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'll be hosting the Benoit Virtual Book Tour April 4th. Please be sure to come by the blog on that day, as she will attempt to respond to whatever comments you leave on my blog that day.

Infestation

photo of our roof, showing replaced cedar shakes

Regular readers know that we have had problems on a couple of occasions with field mice; we've also had to deal with ants on an ongoing basis. But our current infestation is completely different. As we came home one evening, I happened to look up at the roof of the house as we drove into the garage, and saw that about 10% of the roof tiles were gone. Not just gone, but replaced with new cedar shakes. I stopped the car, got out, pointed up to the roof, and announced to Mary and the family the only possible conclusion: "Oh my, we have elves!"

Yes, hard though it may be to comprehend, we have an infestation of elves. This isn't the first time they've shown up either, On a previous occasion, we'd returned from summer holidays to find the garage doors re-painted, and the doors to the garbage bin replaced. And about half the time during the winter, my sidewalks are shoveled before I even get home, and the garbage put out on garbage day before I get up.

Well, okay, it's possible the sidewalks and the garbage are my retired next-door neighbour, Ralph, or the neighbour on our other side who often seem to trade off taking turns shoveling -- it's that sort of neighbourhood. I try to keep up my share and do their front walks whenever I happen to be out there before them (usually requires a continuous snowfall where I've gotten home after they've already each had a go, but it's a couple of inches deep again.) But painted garage doors? Redoing the cedar shakes on the roof? That is clearly beyond mere neighbourliness.

Okay, it's remotely possible that these home improvements are orchestrated by Joe, the previous, previous owner. Indeed, Joe originally built this house for his own family and as the showplace for his contracting company. He loved this house. He still thinks of this house as his masterpiece. So, since I am as handy as a Homer Simpson, and am basically incapable of even recognizing when something needs attention, we've told Joe that if he sees work that needs doing, to just go ahead and do it.

But while that sounds like a reasonable explanation -- at some point one would expect a bill to show up. But the roof been fixed for months and no bill has appeared...so how could that be the contractor? I'm telling you, we have elves. It's the only explanation.

Kasia Sings the Blues

(Again, apologies to Googlers looking for that Polish singer....)

Kasia has started to sing original compositions about her life -- commentary on events as they unfold. For example, on the way to day care in the morning, we often get this:

Oh, I don't wanna go to school,
Don't wanna go to school
Don't wanna go to school,
Oh, don't wanna go to school today.

The thing is, it comes across as the Blues, not as whinning or complaining, or as an actual request not to go to school. (She actually seems okay with day care when she gets there and enjoys being with her friends.) She just sings her stream of consciousness, and it often has this rythmic repetition and slight melancoly, as if she's been listening and preforming the Blues for years. But once out of her car seat, it's all smiles and and three year-old giggles.

What's fascinating to me is that Kasia's Blues style is developing in contrast to Tigana's more musical theater and country tendencies -- perhaps reminiscent of Carrie Underwood. I'm sure that the emergence of Kasia's self-compositions reflects Tigana's current preoccupation with singing and songwriting (Disney-style "why can't we all just love each other" compositions) as Tigana starts voice lessons...but how in the world did Kasia come up with the Blues as her own thing? We are not particular fans of the Blues, never play it on the radio or CDs... and lord knows neither Mary nor I sing about the house -- so how does a three year old reinvent such a distinct genre?

Though come to that, who allowed Tigana to hear country? I figured that must have been the inevitable fallout of living in Southern Alberta, even though Country is banned from our house. It is the one musical form I cannot stand. I'd much rather listen to traditional Chinese Opera than Country. Hell, I'd rather listen to Klingon Opera than Country. But living in Lethbridge, I knew that Tigana would be exposed, and now that she has taken to it, what can I say? I'm not about to tell her she can't sing that way. I'll just bite my tongue and attend her Country concerts, if it comes to that.

(Or is it just that Country singers all sound like 8 year olds, never having outgrown that annoying twang thing that kids get at this age?)

Some clips

This one forwarded by Chartlon Barreto is pretty funny:

Apple's iRack

And this one posted on Central Ganglion by Bernie Klassen is also hilarious:

British shopping channel

Wind

Tigana and Kasia inside their tent, enjoying being blown across the yard.

We're all sleep deprived today, because in addition to switching to daylight saving time early this year (insert standard commentary on American cultural imperialism) there have been exceptionally high winds last couple of nights, which in Lethbridge is really saying something. The noise of the wind buffetting our house was bad enough, but of course it also woke up the kids and drove them up to our room, to ensure that no one slept soundly.

I took the kids into the backyard after work to pick up our castiron garden furniture, which had been tossed about the place, and watched tiny Kasia trying to walk against the wind. It brought back the memory of Tigana at this age, playing in the playground at Montessori, when the wind literally picked her up and deposited her a couple of feet away. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it. But as Mary and I rushed over to see if she was okay, Tigana looked up at us mournfully and asked, "Mommy, why does the wind hate me?"

A couple of days later I was putting Tigana's jeans in the wash when out of her pants pocket pours a collection of rocks and sand. "What's this?" I demanded, having previously warned her about leaving stuff in her pockets. "I'm sorry, Daddy, but I was trying to keep the wind from picking me up." What could I say to that?

Lethbridge -- the city that blows you away!

Two Launches

On Sunday, we took the family to the Helen Schuler Nature Center for their 2PM nature walk program, but found that this week's program was instead sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency, and dealt with the sky. The talk was perfect for Tigana, bit old for Kasia, but the highlight was the launch of a model rocket -- read, 2 liter plastic pop bottle and pint of water. The speaker had the kids draw pictures, and then taped them to the rocket as payload. They launched the rocket from a safe distance, and its explosive take off ripped all the payload off in flight. To Kasia's great delight, her drawing drifted through the sky back from the distant launch site right into her waiting hands. It was way cool.


In other news, M.D. Benoit (author of Jack Meter mystery novels) is launching a new SF title in April, and will be conducting a national book tour -- and "I'M Not Boring You Am I?" is scheduled as one of her stops! Stay tuned for further details as they are finalized.

March of the Emperors

I found this one amusing, (recommended by Donna McMahon):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_mlwnAmr0

Ned, Still Under the Bed

Well, we had been interested to see if Tigana's love of the stage would survive 9 performances of the same play, but she came through as enthusiastic as ever. Indeed, she was a little depressed it was over.

Most interesting point for Tigana was a performance we weren't at, where one of the lead actors fell ill and had to be replaced at the last second...Jeremy, who plays the head bed bug, stepped in to the title role, and the stage manager stepped in as head bed bug... but there were apparently a couple of spots where in the ensuing confusion, that the villain ended up playing off bed bug Tigana rather than the stage manager, who was still running the lights and sound cues.... Friends of ours in the audience later told us, "I had no idea from what you'd said that Tigana had such a major role." News to us too!

But the whole experience was great for Tigana...second time in front of a paying audience, but first time for an actual "run", of which she was in 9 performances; first time to see the sort of dedication it takes to be an actor, when the lead showed up to play Ned, but was then taken straight to hospital instead; first time to see that the show must go on, even if an actor can't be there; first time seeing the improve 'winging it' that makes acting such a seat of the pants profession and such an adrenaline rush. And seeing the synergism of that cast (many of whom work in the same improve group)....

We caught the last 15 minutes of the performance with the missing actor, and knew the play well enough to know when the fill-ins missed a cue, or misspoke a line or whatever, but the energy was so high, the ad libs so great, it just didn't matter -- I'm sure no one in the audience noticed, and I thought it a great performance.

I was also amazed that for each of the four performances we did attend (including first and last of the run), Kasia was enthralled throughout. This is a testament to both the writing and the acting, since our Kasia is sufficiently burnt out on TV that not a lot keeps her attention.... Only problem was now she wants to be a bed bug too!

Oh, and Tigana got to keep her costume after the play, so I put it on a life-sized robot Tigana made last year, and stuck it under her (bunk style) bed... I'm keen to see how long before she notices that her bed has bed bugs....

Runte's Law

After a couple of weeks with the kids (Kasia 3 and Tigana 8) home from school full time, I was reminded of Runte's Law:

"The willingness of a child to help with chores is inversely related to their ability to do so."

Ned, What's Under Your Bed?

...is a play for children by Jeremy Mason which had its premiere performance today. I enjoyed the performance immensely, which I say quite aside from the obvious bias that Tigana was cast as one of the bedbugs.

I was already impressed with Mason (and fellow actors Andy Jenkins and Jamie Dunsdon) as instructors at the Empress Theater summer drama camps, and as writers/actors in the Empress Theater's summer series plays. I had been struck by how much more effective this camp had been for Tigana than some of the others she had attended. Part of that was the camp's structure, which incorporated the children's performances into a Vaudville night along with skits and musical numbers by adult performers -- so that kids got to perform in front of a real paying audience, rather than just a room full of relatives, as is the usual conclusion of these sorts of summer camps. Furthermore, Tigana had the opportunity of going to the Empress Theater's summer plays and seeing her instructors actually acting which allowed her to "connect the dots" in a way she wasn't able to with the other camps, where the instructors were just another group of "teachers" to her. But mostly I was impressed by the synergism of the group of young actors/writers/instructors that Stephen Delano had managed to recruit for the Summer program. You could almost see the creative sparks flying between these people, and I loved that Tigana got to see and benefit from that.

So when Jeremy invited Tigana to take part in this play, we were delighted. This was Tigana's first opportunity to be in a real play run with multiple performances and to perform in a theater in Lethbridge. Indeed, Tigana would be in the children's play that we normally attend as part of our Boxing Day afternoon tradition.

Watching Jeremy rehearse the kids (16 of them), I was again blown away by what an exceptional teacher Jeremy (along with the rest of his gang) is. As a Faculty of Education professor, I have unrealistically high expectations teachers, but Jeremy is a natural. He had structured the play so that he was always with the kids when they were on stage; he explained how each scene worked in the sort of concrete ways I struggle to get my student teachers to aim for; and he has this natural charisma that makes kids love him. It was a pleasure to watch.

So...the end product this afternoon lived up to my expectations...it was a great kid's play, well performed by all. I was, of course, most interested in Tigana's performance, but enjoyed the play and the acting for its own sake as well. Most amazing of all, the play kept Kasia's (now age 3) undivided attention... something even a new episode of My Little Pony has yet to succeed in doing. And Kasia totally 'got' the play -- she kept saying to her mom, "That man is really mean!" whenever the villian (ablely played by Andy, who has I believe one of the best evil laughs in the business) was on stage.

All that remains is to see how Tigana copes with 9 performances of the same play, including several dates where she is doing both the matinee and evening performances -- a very different experience than the single school or end of camp performance. So far, so good -- she has already noticed the difference between performing for a full audience this afternoon, and a much smaller audience this evening....we subsequently had a long discussion about 'energy'. I am so proud of Tigana, and so pleased with Jeremy and his crew that I my gushing at everyone involved has become positively annoying... I'll have to try to tone it done as the play continues....

The Skating Party

My daughter's school organized a skating party during school hours in the run up to Christmas break. I volunteered as one of several parent drivers for this field trip, a short car ride to the nearby rink. My daughter, and others, had to borrow skates from parents who loaned pairs their own children had outgrown, or not yet grown into; the school promised to provide hockey helmets for those who did not have them, which included our daughter. (School Board regulations required that every student have a hockey helmet; bicycle helmets were deemed insufficient.) My daughter had had skates, but outgrown them and had chosen to do drama and gymnastics this term, rather than skating lessons, so we hadn't gotten around to replacing them.

When we arrived at the rink, I helped my daughter and another girl into their borrowed skates, then went in search of helmets. The rink staff pointed out that they did not have a key to the school locker that contained the helmets; the schools staff had assumed the rink would have a key. The rink staff produced a smaller bag of helmets for a few lucky kids; others came with their own; but my daughter and about 15 others were left standing on the sidelines watching the rest of their schoolmates skating. One of the parents (a male) approached the teachers with the problem. One of the teachers volunteered to drive back to the school for a key, but we were already 15 minutes into a one hour skate time, so calculating round trip and the time likely required looking for the key at the school, this seemed impractical.

Where upon another male parent said, "No problem, just give me a minute to go out to my truck." I'm wondering, who drives around with a truck load ot hockey helmets, but I figured, maybe he was a junior hockey coach and just happened to have the right size heluts on hand.... But no, he returns less than a minute later with his tools, and calmly proceeds to drill out the lock.

I have to admire the pragmatic logic of his approach...here is a guy who gets things done!

Ten seconds later, the helmets are handed out, my daughter and her friends hit the ice, life is good.

But I'm left with the realization that I could never be that guy. I mean, quite aside from the fact that any attempt on my part to drill out a lock would inevitably end with at least one (and possibly more, depending how close the spectators crowded in) ambulance being called, I suspect I lack the sort of male self-confidence that would allow me to drill through someone else's lock. I'm more like the guy in Dr. Strangelove who can't bring himself to break into a Coke machine to steal a quarter so he can use a pay phone to make the call to stop WWIII because, well, breaking into private property and stealing iwould just feel wrong.

Part of me is still astonished that no one said, "Hey, what are you doing? You can't drill out an official lock" but of course nobody did because the guy just acted like he had the authority. Nobody questions that kind of confidence. With that kind of air of self-confidence, he could have walked into a bank, gone up to the vault, and just drilled away, and the only comment would be, "Hey, can't you do that any quieter?"