crooked house

Paper, Paper, and Paper.

Three quick links having to do with paper: first, you can download patterns to make  working paper locks from the amazing Flying Pig, a site dedicated to animated paper toys. (Thanks for the heads-up, Nela.) Second, if you like the idea of origami but sometimes find it a bit too finicky -- or your child does -- why not try the brilliant instant origami? (Via swiss miss.) And check out these photos of artist Elsa Mora's gorgeous paper sculptures and paper cuts. The red and white doll pictured above is one of hers.

The Interimaginational Institute for Fantastical Exploration and Cartography

This map of Mysteria is the work of etsy seller Alison Whittington. She's also done maps of The United Kingdom of Jubilation (sounds like the name of a funk  band or perhaps a charismatic church), Strange Island, Unicornia, the Sea of Laughter, and many more. You can see close-ups of these if you visit her shop, The Interimaginational Institute for Fantastical Exploration and Cartography. I don't know if she does custom work but I'd love to get her to make one for my brother. I'd ask for My Home Bay, a map highlighting places that were important to him during his childhood in the town where we grew up, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. He had a vivid imagination and a real zeal for being a kid and there'd be some really fun points of interest.

Mystery on Fifth Avenue

An architectural designer called Eric Clough takes a wealthy client's fanciful request to hide a poem about his family in the walls of his New York apartment (during its renovation) to extremes -- he develops an elaborate hidden mystery, complete with cryptic puzzles, secret compartments, pop-out  panels, and a great number of locks and keys, for the family to solve. No, it's not a terrific new children's book. It's real. Interesting side note: Clough tried to get Jonathan Safran Foer to write an accompanying book  -- but Safran Foer had a new baby and was too busy and sleep-deprived to grasp the request. So instead, Clough had employees of his own firm put one together. I love this. Doesn't it seem like something Ellen Raskin might have made up? You must view the slide show.

Nobody, Twobody, and Super Granny

Yesterday as we drove up to the deserted playground, Luke said, "Oh no! There's nobody here!"

"That's okay," I said. "You can still play by yourself."

"It's no fun to play with nobody," said Luke. "It's only fun to play with twobodies."

I'm the no-fun nobody he gets to play with until twobody shows up. Lately we've been playing interminable "real-life" versions of the video game Super Granny. I am usually ordered to be Granny, which means I have to walk around crooning "Come to me, my precious"  and rounding up great numbers of invisible cats in order to lead them to a special magic doorway, generally located in a tree trunk or at the bottom of a slide, that takes them to the "next levo." Luke gets to be the monster and charge at me blandishing a stick. (Don't worry, no actual hitting is allowed.) If I dig an imaginary hole quickly enough, he'll fall into it and I'll be safe. If not, I'm toast. At which point I have to collapse onto the ground and say, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" Of course -- and unfortunately -- in these cases Super Granny always gets "anuvvo life" and I have to get back up and do it all again. There are more rules, they are elaborate, and subject to frequent change. I think we played for a solid hour yesterday before another kid showed up.

So I was extremely happy this afternoon when Holly, our babysitter (who now has her own baby and therefore isn't free as often), came to play. She's out there playing Super Granny right now. I've got five minutes before her family will be here to pick her up and I'll have to take over.

The CatDog

Luke saw a Pomeranian similar to this one at the playground. "Look at the catdog," he said.

(And no, I don't know why I've been treating the blog like twitter lately. Perhaps my attention span has become even shorter than it used to be which does not seem humanly... uh, what was I saying? Who are you? Where am I?)

Imagining Houses

From Christina Hardyment's excellent The Canary-Coloured Cart: One Family's Search for Storybook Europe:

...we settled down on an ancient tree stump to play one of the girls' favourite games, one of the few that for some reason they play without conflict of any sort. They describe, according to strict rules of precedence, what sort of houses and gardens they'll have when they grow up. No plagiarism is allowed, although a polite request to include a similar feature is treated on its merits. First the outside appearance of the house is drawn by each of them in turn. Then the garden. Then each room inside.
   As I dozed off to this gentle litany, I recalled a very similar game I used to play walking to school with my best friend. When we walked past the burnt-out ruin of a Victorian villa in the Hampton Road, it started automatically: systematic rebuilding and restoration by mutual agreement. I'd never told the girls about that, yet here they were rehearsing their domestic futures in exactly the same way. Their imaginations had obviously been well-fueled by their recent experiences. Ellie included a giant water-chute; Tilly wanted a carved Tyrolean balcony edged with red geraniums. One of the most unexpected of my experiences as I watch my children grow up has been the slow, intermittent recollection of my own childhood, as if I was watching the patchy fragments of an old and long misunderstood film, its sound distorted and interrupted, its meaning occasionally devastatingly clear. I suppose all parents go through it. It ought to be a salutary experience -- natural psychotherapy. Just then it seemed like a predetermined tyranny.

And then those girls grew up to keep design blogs. Actually, I do wonder what became of Hardyment's four young daughters, who seem to have had an enviable education. I've enjoyed the book so much I'm now absolutely compelled to track down Hardyment's Dream Babies: Childcare Advice from John Locke to Gina Ford.

It Has Come to This

Yesterday during the frenzy of soccer practice, Luke mistook another woman with blonde hair for me. He ran up to where she was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidelines, put his hands on her knees, and shrieked, "My nose!" into her face. He's got a bit of a cold and wanted a wipe-down.

She was a lot thinner and much better dressed than me. I felt weirdly flattered.

New Print On-Demand Sites

Tikatok is a new site where kids can write and illustrate stories -- and then have them published for a fee. I can't decide if this is a good idea or a bit of a money-grab. The writing program looks good -- it's got lots of prompts for children who get stuck -- but I'm not familiar with the other writing programs for kids that are out there. And if you want to publish one of your kid's stories in book form and handmade isn't good enough for you, there are already a couple of sites out there (like blurb) that print nice-looking books.

And here's a site, MagCloud, that allows you to publish your own magazine. They even take care of mailing and subscription management.

Lynda Barry Talks About Creativity

Lynda Barry talks about creativity and her new book What It Is on CBC radio's Q. You can listen to the podcast here -- just fast forward about a third of the way through.

And Then...

DAVID (lifting LUKE out of the tub and wrapping a towel around him): Now you WALK down the hall to the bedroom, okay? Because your feet are still a little bit wet and the floor is slippery.
LUKE: Okay.
DAVID: Remember that time you jumped out of the tub, ran down the hall, and fell and smashed  your head?
LUKE: Yes. I had to go to the hospital.
DAVID: Yes, you did. You have a very good memory.
LUKE (very seriously): Yes, and then they screwed my head back on!
DAVID: Uh...