impressed

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From bOINGbONG, it's the Human Beatbox. We've seen this kind of thing before, but the polyphonic mastery of this guy is amazing. How long do you have to practice to get this good?

(bOINGbOING is also on top of the exciting field of squirrel flinging, by the way.)
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once upon ein time

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"Es war einmal..."

So begin these fairy tales, retold in German (with the hard-to-read fraktur typeface, no less) by Moritz Hartmann, and illustrated by the great Gustav Dore. I've uploaded the first of these, "das Rothkaeppchen," aka "Little Red Riding Hood" (or cap), to my flickr page.



Along with the full-size fullpage scans, you'll notice I've also messed with some of the illustrations in Photoshop, blurring the engraving lines of selected portions of pictures to hint at what Dore's original monochrome paintings must have looked like before the engraver worked his particular craft on them. I plan to try and scan a story a day, more or less, until the book is finished.

Some terrifying and disturbing images will follow. You might want to park the wee ones in front of a "Die Hard" movie until the series is finished.
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white pizza

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Last night for dinner I cooked up some southwest chicken with rice and black beans and corn and onions and peppers. Sarah was upset because they were all mixed together, so she wanted something else for dinner. We said that wasn't a reason to make another dinner. She went ahead and tried it, and it was too spicy. Well, that was a reason, so I nuked a couple of frozen White Castle cheeseburgers. After that, a fairly normal night, though she didn't really fall asleep until almost ten. But it was reasonably peaceful.

I cooked up a white pizza for supper tonight, which Sarah and I had chosen at the store. Once it was cooked, Sarah declared that it had green stuff on it and she didn't want green stuff and she didn't want pizza and life was just so unfair. She eventually weakened and grudgingly took a bite, and decided it was good after all, and I should get that kind of pizza again. Cathy didn't care for white pizza, and mostly left hers untouched, so Sarah had some of hers as well (as did I).

It was nice out -- warm, and getting dryer. All traces of snow seem to be gone from our place, though the other (less sunny) side of the street still has its dirty frozen snow. Just luck we got this side! Sarah went out and played on her swingset after dinner. Then she watched more TV while I scanned more Dore fairy tale pictures. After that, we did our teeth -- I brushed her teeth again, but she is now starting to feel like doing it herself, and she did a good job. Yay!

Then she wanted to play in the sink. She filled it up with water, leaving it running while she went to the bedroom to get toys, which she dumped in. I fished out a mechanical car and a battery-powered Minnie Mouse thing (we've never seen it work; we got it used) and told her about things you never put in water. We discussed what else doesn't go in water. Books, musical instruments, teddy bears, stuff like that. I put the car and mouse out to dry and hope they'll be okay.

Then, bedtime came, and Sarah realized it was one of my two nights off, which coincide with her nights to melt down. We gave her lots of reassurance, but she is still sorry that I am not up there with her while she goes through the stages of dropping off. Cathy read her her three books, and she came down here to be with me for another quarter hour until 9:00, when she has to finish her goodnights and start "lying still, eyes closed," as we are always telling her. She took it in good grace, so maybe things will be quiet up there. I hope.
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a cheerful one

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I've scanned the second of the fairy tales from that German 1873 edition. They aren't quite as scary as the 18th century versions, but with Gustav Dore's art, they reach some pretty Gothic levels of horror. Witness this cheery fellow:



That's Mister Giant to you, in the story of Tom Thumb. The picture I took this example from is probably the scariest thing in the book. Click on it to see all the current pictures in the "Es war einmal..." flickr set, including a rather lovely study of a lantern beam at night.
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small mystery

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I was wondering why there is so much laundry to do all the time, and why Sarah uses so much.

Well, I knew Sarah likes to change clothes at odd times, and she's been wearing more than one shirt at a time for a while -- a long-sleeved shirt inside a short-sleeved shirt. Tonight, getting ready for the bath, she removed three shirts, and put on four afterwards.

Post script to the bedtime thing. Cathy never came downstairs. Sarah showed up once, tiptoed around, and went back up. At about ten of eleven, she came down again, smiling broadly. I went up with her and told Cathy her shift was over. Sarah continued to goof around. "Lie still, eyes shut," I told her, as I always do. "Stop talking," I added. Sarah said this was so hard to do, and kept messing around with stuff. She also said she was hot, and got the idea of removing the outermost shirt. I also suggested rolling the comforter down a bit.

She asked why Cathy and I like to stay up so late. I said it was because there were things we could get done when we didn't have to do other things. I didn't come right out and say that we could hope to get a thing or two finished when she wasn't looking to us for entertainment.

She finally dropped off at about 11:20.
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