A Cheery Grin Will Get You In

I think Franklin is basically guaranteed admission to Santa Claus' party, at least according to these lyrics:

For whatever reason, that seems to be Franklin's favorite Christmas song... He heard it on one of our CD's, but it's not one I know very well, so I'm happy to have that video to help out!

Meanwhile our holiday festivities will take place under some great new decorations:

Santa & reindeer from Grandma Christine, plus super cool painting of Grandma Christine (third from right) with the rest of the Kuta family:

Franklin's Great Aunt Pauline, Great Uncle Al, Grandma C., Great Grandpa & Great Grandma Kuta, Great Aunt Dorothy in her Sisters of the Resurrection habit, and cousins (once removed) Alex and Louis in front.

Great painting, and great idea to hang it there, Emily!

And in front of that painting, we will toast and celebrate and listen to even more Christmas music. A little incongruous but here are a couple of my current favorites:




Also heard some nice music last week on Alki Beach during the Christmas Ship Festival. No sound, but here are a couple of photos:




And now, at last, I'm on holiday break. So, let's see... how about story time at the downtown library?


Franklin was really into the puzzles afterward:



I'm pretty sure he did this by himself. But can't be positive: he was really in the zone, and when I came over to see he said, "no, you go away!" :)

Also time to do some complicated cooking! Like this delicious Winter Vegetable Curry from the Times:

Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Even time, as you probably heard, to join Franklin's class from the Intergenerational Learning Center on their first field trip!


Bus ride!


To a park!

Myrtle Reservoir Park. Definitely have to go back there soon!




All right, I'd better go wrap presents! Have a great holiday, reader!

Little Man, Big Culture

Franklin got a taste of Japanese culture this week:

I wish I had video footage of the women's reaction when we asked if they had a kimono Franklin could try on...

On Friday, Franklin had some fun at Octo Sushi:

Mostly ate the salmon teriyaki, but he was a good sport.


Thanks to Pete for the photos!

And he loved Emily's miso soup:


It's not really related to Japan, but Franklin also had fun showing Grandpa Ray and Grandma Rhonda around the Chihuly glass museum:






But the high point of Saturday must have been the Japanese cultural festival. Awesome Taiko drummers, interesting exhibits, and, of course, the chance to model that kimono:

Our Young Master at Work

I love that Franklin gets to express his artistic side so often at daycare.

And I love that I don't have to clean up afterward! ;)

My favorite part about this series, though, is definitely the kids lined up watching/waiting for their turn:


Last weekend Franklin also enjoyed his first visit to the Seattle Aquarium. He was in too much of a hurry to see many fish, or pose for many photos:

But he seemed to enjoy crawling and practicing his walking with Tyler and his parents.



Crazy to see how much he's grown! I mean, just compare this recent lunch with Pete photo to some of the earlier ones:


In fact, as you probably heard, although he still fits in the carrier, on our recent hike to Rattlesnake Ledge he made it clear that he wanted to do some hiking himself. I really can't get enough of that video, so I'm going to go ahead & post it again here:

All right, reader. Hope April's treating you well so far!

Handy Dandy

Emily and Franklin picked up some (washable, thank heavens) paint and paper the other day, and we gave the little man the chance to make his mark.

Did I mention how wise it was of Emily to get washable paint? :)

But a couple handprints ended up looking pretty cool. Maybe the best of the bunch:


Meanwhile, he's made the leap to technology, and is now using those hands to feed himself with a spoon:

Also using the spoon to fling applesauce, but ate an impressive amount yesterday. Quite a guy.

Finally, Magen the other day shared these great photos of the Iwanski kids using some pretty sophisticated tools. Snorkel set:


And a diaper on an Elmo doll:

My favorite part of that might be the response I got when I asked if Elmo was in fact wearing a diaper: "Elmo IS wearing a diaper...one that was a part of Amelia's birthday gift from you guys. Evan actually loves to play with Amelia's doll...so this was a way that everyone could enjoy changing a diaper :)"

Speaking of, I've got something to do. Until next time!

Art for Art's Sake

Franklin's daycare was open late on Friday for a "parents night out," which is a pretty cool idea. Turns out that us getting a car to take advantage of that was not the greatest idea... But on the upside, I was finally able to get an up-close look at some of the young man's art that they've got hanging up there:


And how great is it that he's got an outlet for this that doesn't involve me cleaning up any chalk or marker? :)


Meanwhile, we've had a weird, cold, dry, and very foggy week. Franklin and I enjoyed seeing St. Joseph church emerge as we approached on our walk yesterday:


Glad to see the robins undeterred by the strange weather:


But of all the fog photos I've seen this week, this time-lapse video from the Seattle Times roof is making a strong case for my favorite.

Speaking of other people's pictures, I was pleasantly surprised to see these shots from last weekend's rally & march show up on Flickr:




All right, reader, we may have heard this tune before, but I'll let our young artist play us off:

Cheers

Reading Materials

Well, Merrica was wondering how the Workshop went, and that's inspired me to post a few bits of text for your reading pleasure today.

First, I've posted my handout from last week, containing a few juicy quotes that I think together suggest that Aristotle might view large systems and patterns (my particular concern in this project is with climate) as operating not at random or even as byproducts of individual things pursuing certain purposes, but for a purpose of their own:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/106467305/NWAPW-2012-Handout

I got some tough questions, but that's for the best in the long run. Fun, friendly group... and the prof. who hosted things invited us all to his house to try his homemade wine: very Oregon :)

My interest in this project stemmed from my fascination with Aristotle's brief but mind-blowing discussion of natural selection (note: Aristotle died thousands of years before Darwin was born). Just so happened that that brief discussion was mentioned in the issue of the New Yorker that I was reading on the train to Oregon.

Great article/book review (by Anthony Gottlieb, former editor of the Economist, speaking of Merrica) about new research (or should that be "research"?) in evolutionary psychology, and I highly recommend it.

Which makes me feel funny about quoting the ending, but it's just too clever to leave unquoted:
Barash muses, at the end of his book, on the fact that our minds have a stubborn fondness for simple-sounding explanations that may be false. That’s true enough, and not only at bedtime. It complements a fondness for thinking that one has found the key to everything. Perhaps there’s an evolutionary explanation for such proclivities.
Full article here.

My other train reading was, of course, the Times, where I read a fascinating review of the new FDR Four Freedoms Park in New York City:

Space sounds super cool, and it's a fascinating story, since the park was built so long after the designer's death. And that Four Freedoms speech isn't too shabby either!

Huzzah for people named Franklin!

Speaking of, in our unexpected but seemingly unstoppable drive to fill his shelves with 80-year-old books, we recently picked up a copy of one of my very favorite books from my younger years:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Okay, well, you've been very patient, so how about a quick look at some of the fun had back home in Seattle while I was away at the Workshop:

Franklin Beasts It!

Another fun week in the wild with my friend Franklin.

He seems to like the print his Grandma Rhonda and Grandpa Ray sent:


And he had another nice lunch outing with Peter:

To keep track, I've started a set on Flickr.

And he was a great sport when his mom and I went out to see another movie. This time Beasts of the Southern Wild:

Not quite sure I would use words like "joy" or "joyous" as in the New York Times and the New Yorker write-ups, but it was certainly full of life. And unlike any other movie I'd seen in some time. Memorable and compelling, if not always exactly fun...

And as you may have heard, he was happy meeting some babies at the drop-in class (16 babies with parents; still just one dad), and luckily they were happy to share their toys:


And of course he enjoyed brunch with Wendy last weekend:


Okay, reader. Better go. Lots to read, write, and get ready before the road trip begins next week!

Where We Are With Beauty

Been a great (but busy!) quarter, especially with my Freshman Seminar classes. We're again examining different accounts of the relationship between beauty and knowledge.

Spent a nice afternoon at the Seattle Japanese Garden last week.


And last night we saw a very, very odd shadow puppet and silhouette-based modern-day adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. The show (Shadow Odyssey) was pretty raunchy and definitely a loose translation of Homer, but how could anyone resist this description from their website:

Picture this: you walk into a dimly lit tent. You sit back in a chair or get comfortable on a pile of pillows. Then, the show begins: on all four walls surrounding you (plus the roof above) live actors in silhouette, shadow puppets and hand drawn projections interact to bring to life Shadow Odyssey.

I don't see the students until next week, but I can't wait to find out what they thought!

Finally, have you seen this video clip?

It's a version of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, from the 2001 movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and I absolutely love it. Showed it in my classes just yesterday.

A Week in Images

So, first of all, this amazing photo showed up on Facebook the other day (thanks for the pointer, Vince!):

Here's the caption from KING 5's Facebook page:
Check this out! Thatcher Kelley snapped this photo from his plane on approach to Sea-Tac Airport yesterday. “I popped up my camera with a 70mm lens attached, waited for the wing and blurry jet exhaust to clear the view. I quickly focused, jammed my face against the seat in front of me to get the best angle, and snapped the shot just before Rainier disappeared from view.”

Over the weekend, KEXP treated us like VIP's as a thanks for our support. Pretty fun free James Blake show at the Triple Door.

Not familiar with his music? Here's my favorite song:

Want to think more about that? Pitchfork gave it a nice little review last year.

And of course schools' going now. Friday found me using the camera on our laptop to check my outfit:


Finally, I saw this article about personal QR codes and couldn't resist:

Well, now that you've got my info, I'd better run. Happy Tuesday!

Almost Ready...

And not a minute too soon! Can you believe that tomorrow is the first day of school? I really hope I am almost ready!

Just got back from the Northwest Ancient Philosophy Workshop at the University of Victoria. Good workshop. Long days, yes, but good workshop. Can't wait for next year!

I also served as the external member on an MA oral exam committee at UVic. Weird being on the other side of one of those, but I liked being part of the decisions. And I really liked feeling like I belonged on that side of things!

... and it was an interesting bit of Aristotle being discussed, so that was a nice bonus :)

Meanwhile, school is starting... I'm hoping to do another trip to the Seattle Japanese Garden for my Freshman Seminar on knowledge and beauty. Maybe a guided tour of the garden itself this time?

I've also secured tickets to Stephen Greenblatt's talk at Town Hall. According to that link, Greenblatt "examines how... one manuscript, plucked from 1,000 years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it."

That manuscript? Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things. Philosophy! Huzzah!

Curious? The New Yorker ran a nice article, but it's behind their pay wall (psst, hey you—let me know if you're interested & I can loan you our copy). And NPR aired a discussion just yesterday: why don't you give it a listen?

I'm trying to expand my horizons this year by including some more recent (20th Century!) philosophical discussions of beauty. Found a promising piece on feminism and aesthetics my Mary Devereaux. Being the 20th Century, the discussion touches on film... And now I wonder: should I show a film? What would I show? And would I have to provide popcorn?

The second question is tough, but as to the first, well, Devereaux mentions one of my favorites, so here's a possibility:


Finally, speaking of beautiful things, I absolutely love this photo that Emily's uncle posted on Facebook the other day:

©1987 Scott Hughes - All Rights Reserved www.hughesphoto.net

Okay... Happy new school year, reader!