I Want to Be Big Like You, Okay?

Title's a recent favorite Franklin quote. Happening pretty quick too, though maybe not from his perspective...


Just a few bits of the last couple weeks:

Playing at his favorite park, Hiawatha:

Hard to spot with all the action, but note that as he's kicking the soccer ball he's also holding a tennis ball, ready to throw it :)

Snack break:


Followed, as you may have heard, by a tasty dinner at Circa:

Tasty, and diaper-free! Exciting times!

Calmer moment at home last week:

He's really into matching lately, so here he's trying to replicate the block towers on the box—glad we hung unto the box long enough for him to enjoy it on this level!

Less calm moment at daycare last week, as he and his classmates invited us (and Grandma, per Franklin's request) to a potluck and a play:


Goldilocks, with the kids trading off parts. Franklin ended up in a lead role, but as you'll see he missed a cue:

Or was he hamming it up for the crowd? Hmm...

Lest this end up being Franklin's blog, here's a bit from a couple of weeks ago:

Cocktails at Vito's (cool place!) before hearing some Baroque music at Town Hall.

Fun night, and I saw my first theorbo, so that's cool:


Otherwise, well, as you probably know the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl, and Franklin is excited:






And the Jayhawks are looking great lately too. Fun time watching them beat Texas today with Wendy and Roman and the rest of the Seattle KU alumni crew:



Rock Chalk, dear reader.

Awards Season Buzz

Now that awards season is in full swing, here'a quick word on some of our 2014 favorites.

I was thrilled to see that Gina Rodriguez won a Golden Globe for Jane the Virgin. Great show:


Having trouble finding good links, since in many cases the rave reviews—like the one in the New Yorker—came in articles about more than one show, which doesn't seem quite fair... But, well, I guess that's what the awards are making up for :)

And no harm in noting that the average from 21 "top critics" on Rotten Tomatoes is, yes, a not so shabby 100%.

In many ways it's quite different, but my other 2014 favorite is Mozart in the Jungle, which shares a kind of dreamy a-bit-more-than-realist tone.

Such a great show. We already watched the whole season (in barely a week), and I'm already looking forward to re-watching it, the sooner the better!

We recently read a pile of lists of the best albums of 2014, and picked up a few, all quite good. Hands down, though, my favorite is the New Pornographers:


Haven't seen quite as many movies as we'd have liked, but recently saw a couple of solid entries.

Birdman:

Very good. Not my favorite ever, but definitely worth seeing.

And the Imitation Game:

A movie about a computer scientist and philosopher? Named after a section of a philosophy paper he wrote? Yes. Doesn't hurt that the cast is great and the story is incredible either.

Almost as fun as the movie was returning home and reading the 1950 paper about whether machines can think. Good stuff. And free online: http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/LIX/236/433.full.pdf.

Also fun at first was the cryptic crossword referenced in the movie (solve it in 12 minutes or less and come help the British crack the German enigma code!). Fun at first, until I realized that there was no way I was going to solve it any time soon...

Well, that's about all for now. Meanwhile the award for best Halloween costume of 2013 (yes, 2013) goes to... the bee! Franklin spotted it after his bath tonight and insisted on wearing it for a while:

Cheers, and congratulations to all the nominees!