Playing the Alphabet Game

Last Thursday, Joy and I packed up the family and drove to Illinois so I could attend a conference on music in small towns hosted by my old workplace Millikin University and so Joy could hang out with our friends in Champaign.

The trip over there took a long time - we had an hour's worth of errands to run before we could get out of town and then lunch took over an hour as we juggled two kids, four meals, and a line in the restaurant about 10 deep. Trying to keep Sam entertained was entertaining itself, so Joy decided to play the alphabet game with Sam.

She told him the ground rules and then pointed to a passing sign, exclaiming "I see an 'A' in 'Auto!'" Sam quickly caught on, almost too well. He would sign the alphabet song to the next letter, declare we were looking for "D," and then start looking on every sign. And when he got stumped, there was always pterodactyl. On that "D," Sam couldn't find one and so said, "Hey, my friend pterodactyl is flying next to the car. And look, he has a sign in his hand. And on that sign is the letter D. Look, look, pterodactyl has a D."

Sometimes we wished he had made up a sign instead of reading what he saw. While looking for "G," Sam suddenly yells out, "I see a G in that sign that says 'Girls! Girls! Girls!" Joy quickly said, "And I see a "G" on a sign over there." Thankfully we got to put off the "What does XXX" mean for a few days - he didn't notice that element of the sign until we were driving back yesterday.

Maurice Jarre Dies, Few Take Notice

On Monday, I began furiously prepping my film music class for Tuesday evening. We've reached the 1980s in the class and I was sorting through various scores and movies to determine what I wanted to play for the class. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s saw the fruition of the synthesized score, I wanted to play them an example, but figured most had heard the use of synthesizer in action films, and I was already showing two science-fiction movies so needed some contract, otherwise I would have played bits of Vangelis's excellent score for Blade Runner. Suddenly, Maurice Jarre's intriguing score for Witness came to mind and so I pulled it off the shelf and began writing about it.

I covered Maurice Jarre two weeks ago when we were in the 1960s and we discussed his magnificent score for Lawrence of Arabia. I gave a bit of his background (his training was in percussion, which points to why his scores are so rhythmically based), flashed a picture, and moved on. I decided I needed to flash a picture with his birth date again, so I googled him to make sure I had it correct. And there, buried a few links down, was Maurice Jarre's obituary. I teach contemporary music; composers die and I dutifully mark in their death dates in my notes, slides, and handouts. But I had never had a composer die between two mentions in my class two weeks apart.

Even that oddity wasn't what really struck me. Instead, I was stunned that I hadn't heard anything. Nothing. Here was the composer of Lawrence, Doctor Zhivago, Fatal Attraction, Witness, and Mad Max III, yet few in the American press or blogosphere took note. So, here's a bit of Jarre, his overture for Lawrence of Arabia, his greatest accomplishment:

Surprisingly, Jarre was not the first choice for the score. Director David Lean wanted Malcolm Arnold, who scored Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai, then tried for William Walton, then Benjamin Britten, then Richard Rogers (of Rogers and Hammerstein), and finally Aram Khatchaturian. But Jarre brought an admirable restraint to the film. Yes, he used a full symphony orchestra, but also an electronic instrument – the ondes martenot, a plucked string instrument from the region – the cithara, and an Arabian hand drum – darbuka. He then used his timbres to produce two sounds: English tunes that represent Lawrence and the West and Arabian tunes to represent the land and Lawrence in Arabia. A forward-looking score for its time.

Noah's New Game

Noah is slowly mastering his body. He moves around (a little too quickly) by crawling, he pulls up on everything from legs to ledges, and he can get little bits of food into his mouth. He's also naturally started reaching for me or Joy when he's in someone else's arms. This has led to a new game this week we've taken to calling "pass the baby."

If either Joy or I stands next to the other while holding Noah, he gets a glint in his eye (his right one) and makes a wild lunge, hoping to be caught. One successfully passed, he cackles, wiggles his way around, and makes a second lunge back to where he started. He really likes starting with me and flinging himself to Joy because there is a significant height difference so he gets a little air time. I usually end up having to catch him around my waist because he likes that feeling of falling so much. There is no end to this game, and Noah laughs during it more than at any other time of the day. Let's just hope he doesn't try to play it when one of us isn't paying attention.

Pictures to Fill the Void

We've been on Spring Break for the past week, and while I haven't been teaching, I've been writing up a storm. I've put together a presentation next week for a conference at Millikin University (my old stomping grounds), substantially revised a chapter of my book, and rewritten an article after getting reader comments back from a journal. Needless to say, at the end of the day I've been trying to have fun with Joy and the boys with every spare minute.

Still, I wanted to quickly share some fantastic pictures with you. Two weekends ago we were in Wichita visiting Heather and Adam and Ana, and we scheduled a photo shoot for the three kids with the wonderful photographer who has done all of Ana's portraits, Sarah Shah. She chased our kids around for a few hours on that Sunday and just posted a sneak peak of the results at her site. Just follow the link and click on "enter blog;" the portraits of the kids are under the March 22nd entry.

Walking a New Path

During the first weekend of Lent, our church hosted a spiritual formation retreat, two days devoted to exploring new spiritual practices with the idea that you would latch on to one and instead of just giving up something for the season, take on a new practice. Joy was one of the organizers and helped us in praying the hours, a practice stretching back to antiquity that forms the basis of much of Western music.

One of the greatest things about the retreat was the inclusion of our children. Childcare was provided both down the hall for older kids and in the nursery for the babies, but the children joined us at every meal and for the hours and they practiced the disciplines on their own as well. Since we did things like praying in color you can easily imagine the children taking part, but what about walking a labyrinth? Walking a labyrinth is an ancient prayer technique that lends itself to quiet meditation, reflection, and communion. Children running on the labyrinth seems antithetical, but my church is now realizing that no matter if you actively stay in the lines as you walk:or strike off on your own:
you are participating and striving to know God. As a parent, leading my children intellectually comes naturally; leading them spiritually takes work. It is nice to be part of a church that makes it a little bit easier.

My Son is a Chipmunk

This past weekend, we traveled to visit Joy's sister Heather and her family. Heather and Adam's daughter just turned one, so between Ana and Noah, not to mention Sam, we had our hands full, especially when it came to mealtime.

Noah's just starting to eat table food and Ana is a pro at it, so each meal, we would sit around the table and tear up bits of our food to throw to the kids. Noah was a bottomless pit, eating fruit and bread and vegetables as fast as we could put them on his tray. By far, his favorite food of the weekend was green beans, and he and Ana sat at the table long after the rest of us were finished with supper downing every stray bean that came their way.

After we ate, the kids were playing on the floor and the adults were talking, when Heather heard Noah picking up the air vent on the floor. She stopped him, and I came over to gently guide him to safer exploration. As I was urging him along, he sneezed, and I saw a green bean fly out of his mouth. "That's strange," I thought to myself, but took no action. Then he bumped his head and cried out. More green beans fell out of his mouth. This concerned me a little, so I reached my finger inside his mouth to discover that Noah had filled his cheeks with green beans and was slowly eating them as he played on the floor.

He's continued this trend since getting home (we found pear stuck up there yesterday), though it could have been going on for weeks. My best guess is that living with Sam, who constantly grabs cheerios and other goodies off Noah's tray, has taught my youngest a survival mechanism of stuffing all his food in his cheeks and storing it there until needed. He's either a chipmunk or a gerbil, but quite funny no matter which you decide.

Our Daily Lives

Some of you asked for photographic proof of Sam's new penchant to use himself as a human canvas. I'll refrain from the bottom shots for modesty and to protect myself from any lawsuits, but I thought you might enjoy seeing the unibrow he regularly gives himself now:I'm not sure if he's hoping to play the Wolfman in a remake - Child of the Wolfman or something along those lines - or preparing for a career in body art. Either way, it certainly keeps our lives interesting.