Spelling Pet Peeve of the Day

The culprit: Spelling an exclamation of glee as "Yeah!" when it should be spelled as "Yay!"

I understand why people frequently make this mistake since the word "yay" just sort of looks wrong. But it's not. Really.

Just keep in mind that the word "Yeah" is an informal form of "Yes"--you know, as in the Beatles song "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah!"

"Yay," on the other hand, is a variant of "hooray" and shares the same vowel sound as the second syllable of that word. So when you want to express this exclamation in writing, think "Hooray!" and you'll remember it's spelled "Yay!"

By the way, I'm glad to know that this isn't just my pet peeve. Random House has got my back.

More Photos

I've once again managed to work through our photo backlog and am pleased to share our latest online photo album:

Melody & Julianne: July - September 2009

Photos include Julianne's first day of preschool, Melody's return to dance class, and a seemingly endless run of events celebrating Melody's fourth birthday. Enjoy!

New Photos Aplenty

Always running behind by several months, I've finally managed to make a healthy dent in my monstrous backlog of photos. Check out the newest two photo albums posted to my website:

Melody & Julianne: April - June 2009
Disneyland Adventure: August 2009

Photos include Melody's first dance recital, a visit from my mother and my brother's family for Passover, and the kids' first visit to The Happiest Place on Earth. Enjoy!

Disney Vacation: A Cautionary Tale

There comes a time when every parent must make a pilgrimage to the mecca of all things family entertainment. Yes, I'm talking about Disneyland.

When I began sharing with friends, family, and coworkers that Marcie and I were planning on taking Melody (age 3 and half) and Julianne (age 2) on this journey, we received no shortage of advice. Much of it had to do with taking regular trips back to the hotel, drinking lots of water, bringing snacks, renting strollers, and other such tactical recommendations. Much of this advice was heeded and indeed helpful.

But if a parent planning on taking two very young kids 18 months apart to Disneyland came to me today and asked for advice, here's what I'd probably say: Don't.

OK, I'm kidding (mostly) and overstating my point for dramatic effect as usual. The fact is for the most part, the two days at the Disneyland park itself were largely successful--albeit exhausting for us parents (a.k.a. "the mules"). Furthermore, the long drives to/from Southern California actually went surprisingly well, as did the visits to my mother's house that bookended our time down south.

The real nightmarish days were those immediately before and after the days spent at Disneyland.

Let's start with the day before.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I learned we arrived too early to check in (darn, should have called first) but Julianne had already spotted the pool--a pool only accessible with a key that could only be obtained after checking in. Without going into great detail, let's just say that by the time we finally got a room, the kids were beyond impatient and simultaneously over-excited from being in a new place and the highly anticipated arrival of their cousin Sarah. And yet, we still needed to schlep all the bags up to the room, unpack all the necessary swimming gear, apply sunblock to both kids, get Melody to use the restroom, change Julianne's diaper, and get all four of us changed into bathing suits--all before we could even get out the door. Needless to say, the kids rapidly melted down in a quick one-two procession. It was a huge explosion of whining, crying, and screaming--a performance my brother, who was kindly helping me with the bags, had the privilege to witness firsthand.

Next came dinner. We were all hungry and yet far from the comfort of our kitchen. So we really had no choice but to to let the kids have snacks, which subsequently made for an appetite-free Julianne upon finally arriving at Buca di Beppo for dinner. She wasn't interested in food and regrettably, the crayons provided by the waiter did little to hold her attention. I knew my window of opportunity to escape unscathed was limited, but being tired and hungry myself, I waited too long to extricate her from the situation before she had a classic two-year-old public tantrum.

The result was what I call the "Daddy Walk of Shame," If you haven't taken this walk yourself, I'm sure you've seen it. There I was, holding a flailing, screaming child in my arms (no easy task) and just trying to get out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. Of course, everyone is in the way and I'm steadfastly marching through what feels like and endless tunnel of impatient people waiting for a table, entirely without any sympathy for my plight, and all staring at me with that "You must be a terrible parent" look in their eyes.

Admit it: You've probably made that look yourself when annoyed at a screaming child getting in the way of your otherwise pleasant night out. I know I have. Boy, do I regret that now.

I knew that once I got Julianne out of there, I'd have no problem getting her to calm down and be herself again. I was correct. We had a pleasant time hanging out in the car and talking. But it was just such a humiliatingly endless march to get outside and away from public scorn. Yuck.

That night at the hotel was no great shakes either (least of which because the room with a promised "kids suite" offered no real privacy between the kids' sleeping area and that of the parents) but I won't go into that here. I'll just skip to the end of the second Disneyland day.

The plan was to spend a day or two in San Diego with my brother, sister-in-law and their daughter. It was a relatively short drive and the kids love playing with their cousin, so it made sense to add this to our agenda. Unfortunately, after two long days at Disneyland, the kids really just needed to go home, catch up on sleep, and get back to their routine. So this little detour proved to be a major disaster. We headed for San Diego after dinner and Melody fell asleep almost immediately in her car seat. Unfortunately, due to the logistics of getting their room set up (not to mention all the usual baggage schlepping), it was impossible to transport her without waking her. Fellow parents probably already know what that means. Waking a sleeping child in deep sleep means your sleeping angel gets dramatically replaced with its evil Doppelgänger. Yes, at a drop of a hat, our sweet little Melody, no doubt dreaming of her recent time with Mickey Mouse and his friends, transformed into Schmelody, the Villainous Witch of San Diego. Not much else really needs to be said on this topic.

And the next day was even better.

I won't describe in excruciating details all the whining, screaming, tantruming that went on that day. But I will say that it all came to a head when Julianne and Melody were in their cousin's bath (complete with said cousin's bath toys) and Julianne performed an act she hadn't done since she was a newborn: she pooped in the tub. With her sister in it. The result was an hour of screaming and general bedlam. I also ended up having to do a very thorough cleaning/decontaminating of that tub with no small amount of bleach. And to add to our guilt, my sister-in-law Kim rightfully opted to throw away all the bath toys. On the plus side, at least the bathtub was so clean you could probably do surgery in it.

Things finally settled down when not only Julianne and Sarah, but also Marcie and Kim all went down for naps. So I used that time to take Melody to Target with me to buy a replacement bath pad and a new Cinderella bath toy set for Sarah. Melody has always been a great shopping companion so that little trip finally turned things around and the rest of the day was relatively uneventful. However, despite being in beautiful San Diego all day, other than that little shopping errand, we never left the house.

The trip ended well with a short return visit to my mother's house and a fairly pleasant drive back home. But boy, did those days surrounding Disneyland really color my memories of that vacation.

So in the end, I suppose my less dramatically overstated advice on taking kids to Disneyland are these:

• Renting strollers truly is highly recommended (ours even napped in them)
• Plan nothing other than the time at Disneyland
• Bring lots of snacks and plenty of water
• Don't rush and expect to see a lot less of the park than you did in your pre-parenting days

The fact is that the kids really did have a great time and are already asking to go back. We'll try to hold off for at least 2-3 years, which I think is when the kids will be less prone to uncontrollable emotional explosions. Any sooner would be playing with fire. I don't think I could handle another Daddy Walk of Shame.

Moviemaker Melody Strikes Again

I'm pleased to present Melody's follow-up to The Princess and The Wizard. This new movie was a much less ambitious effort than that previous one and it took us all of about 15 minutes to shoot the basic footage. However, it took me at least 10 times as long to edit it.

I have to give Melody credit for giving her sister the starring role this time around. At only two years old, younger sister Julianne has proven to be quite the ham.

By the way, the house shown in the various exterior shots throughout this little movie is not ours. I thought it would be fun to use a house much nicer than the one we actually live in. One can dream.

Facebook readers, please note that this version corrects a rather embarrassing typo in the subtitles that regrettably will have to live on in perpetuity on the Facebook version.

Hope you enjoy Melody's latest effort!



Here's a direct link to the video on YouTube, where you can see it at a larger size and even in near-HD if your Internet connection and computing speed supports it.

Melody Makes a Movie!

My 3-year-old daughter Melody has become very used to the sight of her mother in our home office working on video projects for her business Life Visions Productions. So it shouldn't have surprised that one day seemingly out of the blue she said to me, "I want to make a movie like Mommy." My response: "Sure, we could do that." Over the course of the day following that exchange, Melody began to outline the story of a young princess kidnapped by a grumpy wizard.

With the certainty you can only find in little kids (well, I suppose politicians as well), Melody declared that Julianne (our 2-year-old) would play the princess in peril, Marcie would play the Mommy Fairy, I would play the Grumpy Wizard ("because only boys can be grumpy wizards" she explained), and she would be the heroine, Fairy Melody.

We shot the little movie in short bursts of fast and furious activity over a couple of days. You have to work very fast with kids as young as mine because they lose interest quickly. In fact, even at that frantic pace, we lost Julianne after just one scene. Once we completed the forest sequence that opens the movie, she didn't want to have anything more to do with the project. So I did the best I could to edit around her absence. After my final edit was done, it still wasn't good enough for Melody and we ended up doing some re-shoots a week later. It turns out she's already a better filmmaker than me because the new ending is much better!

And now, without further ado, here it is:



Here's a direct link to the video on YouTube, where you can see it at a larger size and even in near-HD if your Internet connection and computing speed supports it.

By the way, be sure to keep watching after the closing credits. I put together a montage of silly dancing and funny outtakes in the spirit of closing title sequences in movies like Something About Mary and Cannonball Run.

Oh, and on a final note, we showed a rough cut of the movie to Marcie's local cousins last week. They enjoyed it so much that my two oldest nieces, Jianna and Kaylie, asked me to help them make a movie of their own with a plot that's pretty much exactly the same as Melody's. So if that all comes together, you can look forward to another video addition to The Shapiro Files.

New Photo Albums Now Online

I'm pleased to announce that our latest collection of photo albums are now posted to my website:

Melody & Julianne: October - December 2008
Shapiro Family Holiday Visit: December 2008
Melody & Julianne: January - March 2009

These albums cover all the autumn/winter holidays, Julianne's 2nd birthday, Melody's activities at school (including my very brief return to stage acting), and a whole lot more.

Plus, don't forget to check out my photo album collection page to view all of the albums I've posted over the past number of years (including some pre-kids theater albums).


January 2009: The kids showing off their matching winter couture

Live Theater, Real-Time Disasters

A theater friend of mine recently posted a fun blog entry about how mistakes during a live performance can actually enhance the experience of seeing a show. It reminds the audience that something real is happening right in front of them, something that everyone is participating in--audience and cast alike.

While I've experienced my share of mishaps on stage, my time as a music director and pit musician was especially full of such unexpected challenges that could only happen in live theater. For example, there was the time when the nearly 50-pound digital piano I was playing slipped off its stand and ended up in my lap while I was simultaneously playing and conducting. The audience that night got to enjoy a rather surprising "cluster chord" noise coming out of the pit and a momentarily missing 1st trumpet, who left his station to rescue me.

Then there was the time I was conducting Secret Garden in Boston and during one of the quietest, most emotional moments, my second keyboardist accidentally hit the wrong button on his control panel and a Techno beat came blaring out of his amp. I could barely make it through the rest of the act due to my uncontrollable (albeit pit-appropriate-quiet) laughing.

Another favorite memory was when I doing a performance of JC Superstar in Davis and the music director/drummer/producer (ya gotta love community theater) had to deal with a mid-show technical issue and wasn't able to make it back to the pit before the next number, which happened to be in the rather unusual 7/8 time signature. Just as we were about to start the song sans-drums, much to my surprise, one of the actors suddenly appeared behind the drum kit and played the whole song in 4/4.

And finally, I should probably share at least one acting-related story. During a performance of Last Night of Ballyhoo, I was in the dressing room when fellow cast member Anne burst in with a look of panic on her face and declared, "They're ad-libbing!" She was referring to the actors on stage who had resorted to making up lines because someone was late on their entrance. I told Anne that I thought perhaps she was the one who was late. After a beat, she bolted out of the dressing room.

Moments like these remind me why there's nothing quite like live theater.

Another Sign of the End of Times

Has there been a more misguided and tonally wrong ad campaign than this?

While I do give Starbucks credit for helping to raise the level of sophistication of the average American coffee drinker, its fatal flaw has never been the price of its coffee: it's the poor quality of that coffee! Because Starbucks' bean selection and brewing process has never been even close to real coffee houses like Peets, they've effectively trained their customers to chose more caloric and sugar-filled items on their menu--drinks that indeed are more pricey than plain coffee. But in these tough economic times, such drinks are perceived as luxury items, meaning customers are likely to revert to plain old coffee. However, Starbuck's lousy coffee leaves these customers no other alternative in their stores and the result is a loss of business. Thus, I find it more than just a little ironic that the main argument (a defensive one at that) of the new campaign is that their presumed superior coffee is worth paying a little extra for.

So just how off the mark is this new campaign? Look no further than this video of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz speaking to a group of painfully stilted employees acting as though there are actually people who have never heard of a Starbucks before.

Ghost of School Days Past

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've recently been on quite the nostalgia trip as a result of many Facebook reunions with grade school friends. For about a week, I felt I was living in two realities: the world of an eight-year-old and my present "grown up" existence.

It's been quite a trip.

As part of this virtual reunion, a number of us have been scanning/posting old photos from our collections and the subsequent exchange of comments have been so much fun to participate in--not to mention downright addictive. At least a few of us have stayed up way too late reading/posting at the expense of our regular daytime capabilities. One of the photos that's caused a particularly spirited exchange was of our fifth grade class photo. Fifth grade was, by far, my least favorite elementary school year for two key reasons: one, my best friend Todd had moved away the previous summer and two, Mrs. Ferguson.

Mrs. Ferguson stands out in my memory as easily the worst teacher I've ever had. Entirely out of touch with the needs and sensibility of her students, her approach to her pupils was comparable to a germaphobe at a leper colony. Her every utterance and every gesture conveyed her undisguised disgust with us. And we weren't particularly bad kids. She just made us feel that way. The result: we became what she assumed we were.

This sort of self-fulfilling prophesy was a common topic among the materials I studied years later while pursuing my teaching credential at UC Davis. I especially remember a research study in which a teacher was told that one of her classes was an honors/gifted class and the other, a standard-level class. But in reality, they were both the same "average" class. Guess which class ended up achieving higher test results at the year's end? You guessed it: the class the teacher thought was the honors class.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Ferguson's expectation was that her students would consistently miss the mark. Naturally, that's exactly what we started to do. A perfect illustration of this comes by way of long-time friend Tammie:

"I believe Mrs. Ferguson was responsible for giving me low self esteem. I had never gotten a bad grade until her class. She really made me feel dumb. After that my grades in middle school were awful. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that my grades improved. I realized at some point that there was some hope for me and completed college with honors. She was a horrible teacher who knew nothing about children. I will never understand how or why she choose to become a teacher. She should have been a prison guard."

Tammie is lucky that she was able to ultimately repair the damage that Mrs. Ferguson did and succeed later in her school career.

Here's a similar tale as told by grade school friend Stephanie:

"I remember one incident in particular when she threatened me and then chased me around the classroom. So as I ran by a chair I pulled it out in back of me to stop her from catching me and she told Mr. Anderson, our Principal, that I threw a chair at her!"

I was there when this happened and I still remember it. It was all pretty shocking. Stephanie was definitely not anyone's definition of a bad student and always a very nice person (still is!) and the fact that she was in that situation was really just hard to believe. And of course, Mrs. Ferguson's embellishment of the facts makes this whole situation downright Kafka-eque.

There are lots more stories like this, but I thought I'd share one of my own. This really isn't as bad as either of the above, but I still feel a sense of injustice when I think about it.

In addition to music, I used to love to write stories and draw pictures. So it's not surprising that I thought I'd combine those two interests and compose what today people might call a graphic novel (a comic book/novel hybrid). I don't remember much about what it was about, but it I know it was a space opera of sorts and was probably a major Star Wars rip-off.

Because we had a combined grade class (grades five and six), we had lots of gaps in each day's activities when Mrs. Fergusen would be teaching the other students and we'd simply have to do some busy work. As a result, I had lots of free time during the day to work on my story. One day, I had my story-in-progress on my desk and I had to get up to sharpen my pencil. When I got back to my desk, my story was gone. I asked the classmate who sat next to me if he knew what happened to it and he explained that Mrs. Fergusen took the entire stack of papers (it had grown to a respectable volume by that time) and threw it all away.

Despite the embarrassment of having to dig inside a trash can in front of my peers, I retrieved the papers and stormed up to Mrs. Fergusen and asked why she did that. Her reply was something to the effect of, "Because you were using school supplies." She further went on to explain that doing something like this was inappropriate and not something to be done in the classroom.

Being so young and fairly inarticulate in such situations, I really couldn't bring myself to generate a meaningful reply. However, I was absolutely shocked that a teacher, someone who should value positive creative expression, would actually discourage me from engaging from such pursuits--especially since it didn't have any negative impact on my schoolwork. Even at that age, I knew this was a horribly misguided value system from a person who clearly should have nothing to do with young people. But even if I give her the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge the gray area of using school supplies for personal creative pursuits, the fact that the handled this by throwing away my work with nary a word of explanation is completely unforgivable.

Years later as I trained to be a teacher myself, I kept thinking back to that incident with Mrs. Fergusen and how incredibly damaging such an act was. She was essentially telling me that creativity and artistic expression has no place in school. What I wouldn't have given for more students who had such creative impulses in my classes! This is exactly the type of thing a good teacher is supposed to encourage and foster in their students. Why would she discourage this? So I could instead goof around with my classmates while waiting for our next lesson?

Absolutely incredible. 30 years later, this still gets my ire up. Great teachers can make an amazing positive impact on the lives of their pupils. But opposite is also true: bad teachers can cause irreparable harm.

As for me, the whole incident made me so upset that I abandoned my graphic novel project and eventually threw the whole thing away myself in disgust. I've never attempted a project like that again, but at least never gave up writing. Like Tammie, I'm lucky that I was able to pull myself out of that self-defeating hole Mrs. Fergusen buried me in. But I bet that all of us in that class still carry at least a little piece of that emotional damage in our collective psyche to this day. After all, the fact I'm writing about this now after so many years must say something in and of itself.

Who knew nostalgia would have such a dark side.

Catching Up with Old Friends

Through the magic of Facebook, I've been getting in touch with people going all the way back to my elementary school days. It's been such a nostalgia trip.

With all this reconnecting, I realized some people might be finding their way to this blog for the first time. So to those of you new here, welcome!

For those of you seeing these postings republished as "Notes" on my Facebook page, here's a direct link to the actual blog. I usually post a new entry once or twice a week. So I hope you'll keep coming back!

And for those of you curious what I've been doing these past 30 years, this tongue-in-cheek encapsulation of my life will help you get caught up. For anyone interested in my theatrical endeavors, you might enjoy this page. And finally, I have hundreds of photos from the past several years posted here.

Please leave comments, send messages, or post to my Facebook wall to keep in touch. It has been so much fun hearing from all of you!

Mysterious Noise (Me and My Imagination)

For several months--possibly years--there has been an engine revving noise disrupting my otherwise very quiet neighborhood on a regular basis. Marcie and I usually notice the sound in the early evening around 7pm and then again later in the night around 10-11pm. Each occurrence typically lasts between 5 and 10 minutes.

Like so many random outdoor noises in our post-industrial world (airplanes, sirens, robot rebellions ....OK, maybe not that one...yet), the sound of a revving engine isn't something I'd necessarily pay much attention to. However, the loudness and regularity of the noise has resulted in it becoming impossible to ignore. And once you become consciously aware of an annoyance like this, it's hard not to let it get to you after a while.

Still, we've had absolutely no idea where the sound was coming from and what was causing it. With nothing to go on, I decided to let my imagination run wild.

One of my more elaborate postulations was that there was some sort of domestic drama being played out in my neighborhood. This invented scenario involved a teenage girl being raise by ultra-strict parents that forbid her to date. But despite her parents' best intentions, she meets and falls in love with a James Dean rebel type who skips class, frequently drops the "f-bomb" in mixed company, and rides a motorcycle. Each night around 7pm, the girl sneaks out of her bedroom window to meet up with her rough-around-the-edges beau. In contrast to her furtive exit from her home, he stridently sits atop his running motorcycle right in front of the house, revving his engine in reckless abandon (thus the noise). But as is often the case in these tales, looks can be deceiving. The boyfriend is really just a sensitive and misunderstood guy who has had some tough breaks growing up. He's surprisingly thoughtful and is always mindful to bring the girl home by 11 each night (thus the second round of engine noise) so she can get enough sleep for school the next day. Ah, young love.

OK so maybe that one is a little over the top.

Another scenario I invented involved a disgruntled auto mechanic who was stealing customers away from his employer and secretly servicing their cars in his garage at night. But perhaps he had some reason to stick to the strictest of schedules--so much so, that he would only do engine work for 10 minutes at a time, once at 7pm and once again between 10 and 11.

But alas, neither of these scenarios proved to be the real reason for the noise. Rather, as is often the case, reality is simultaneously more prosaic and weirder than imagination.

A few nights ago around 7pm, Marcie and I were in the kids' room getting them ready for bedtime when once again, that pesky revving engine noise starting doing its thing. I looked outside the window and noticed someone parallel parking a small white car. I didn't think much of it and returned to the family. After all, a car that small couldn't possibly make that much noise, could it? Still, the noise lingered and I kept breaking away from our kiddie nighttime ritual to peak out the window to see if I could find the source of that sound. But again, all I saw was that little white car parallel parking. All at once, the noise stopped and I noticed that the taillights of the car turned off moments later. A coincidence?

I re-engaged with the kiddies, but the noise started up once again shortly thereafter. Returning once more to the window, I noticed that the white car's driver had resumed parallel parking. It was at this point that I began thinking that perhaps it really was that small car making that sound. But how? Maybe the muffler fell off? Perhaps its owner souped up the engine to be more like a race car? I couldn't quite figure this out, but then something more obvious hit me: Holy moly, this person has been parallel parking their car in the same spot for at least 5 minutes! How long does it take for someone to park a car?

The noise ceased yet again and the car's taillights turned off. Ah ha! It really is that little white car. But what a strange combination of things: an innocuous compact car with a big engine noise, plus a driver who needs a minimum of 5 minutes to park!

At last the driver emerged. She walked to the back of her car, looked at the rear tires and at the car parked behind her, and then...gets back in the car to resume parallel parking!

It seems that we have someone on our street who has some sort of abnormally loud car engine and some serious OCD (either that, or she's just impossibly bad at parking). Either way, it's all pretty odd.

I kept watching (can you blame me?) and saw that the driver finally was satisfied with her parking. She then walked up the street and opened the door of a different car and got in. She quickly started it up and drove away.

Very mysterious.

I'm guessing that the person has some sort of arrangement where she drives one car at a certain time of day and then drops it off and picks up a different car around 7pm. Perhaps she has a car sharing arrangement with a friend or her husband/ex-husband? Or maybe she drives one car during the day and then another car for a night job that ends around 11pm? Hmmm.... The possibilities are endless.

By the way, her little white car was still parked on the curb the following morning. So I had a chance to look at it up close and learned that it's an older VW Jetta (one of those mid-to-late 80s box-like models). Not exactly a car you'd want to turn into a race car. So maybe I was right about the muffler?

So many questions, so little answers.

On Filmstrips and Inherited Personality

Anyone my age will recall that before DVDs, Powerpoint presentations, and even VCR players, teachers had two multimedia options for classroom usage: movie projectors and filmstrips. If your grade school experiences were anything like mine, movie viewing was a very rare event that usually involved a beleaguered teacher schlepping a classroom of giddy children to the cafeteria/auditorium hybrid affectionately known as the cafetorium to be treated to aging scratch-filled short films on topics as diverse as the Gray Whale and the Dewey Decimal System.

But if a teacher wanted to stay within the four walls of their own classroom, their only option was using a filmstrip-based audio/projector system. If you're younger than me and have no idea what I'm talking about, the following excerpts from this Wikipedia entry should get you up to speed:

The filmstrip was a spooled strip of 35 mm positive film with approximately 30-50 images arranged sequentially. Typically a filmstrip's running time was between 10 and 20 minutes. Depending on how they were narrated or produced, filmstrips (which often came with an Instructor's Guide) were flexible enough to be used in both self-paced learning formats or in a full classroom.

The instructor would turn on a film projector that would show the first frame (image) of the filmstrip. The instructor then turned on a 33 RPM record or cassette tape containing the audio material for the filmstrip, which included narration. At the appropriate point, a tone would sound, signaling the instructor (or a student volunteer) to turn a knob, advancing to the next frame.

So why this sudden burst of nostalgia for yet another technical marvel that has been lost to the ravages of time? Well, it just occurred to me that there's a connection between my filmstrip memories and my daughter Melody's unique personality characteristics.

Let me explain.

From the day Melody was born, I have always felt that there is something something unmistakably familiar about her--more than just the fact that she has taken on some of my physical traits. In fact, the very first thought I had when I saw her for the first time was, "I know her."

As Melody transitioned from baby to a full-fledged human being, I've come to realized that her personality has come to eerily resemble mine as a child. I was always a little out of step with my peers, had a tendency toward self-reflexivity at an unusually early age, and was even frequently melancholy. I had an excellent attention span and could focus on a single book or activity for extended periods of time. I wasn't always all that verbally articulate, but was an active listener and understood more than people (adults especially) probably realized. At the same time, I adored silly things that made me laugh--especially made-up words and funny songs.

I see all these things in Melody. She definitely marches to her own drum. It just happens to be a drum that's remarkably similar to one of my childhood.

I also had one other distinct quirk that is also very prominent in Melody: I was extremely particular (read: anal) and regrettably, still am. Everything had to be "just so." For example, we had a routine in my Kindergarten class in which every child had to provide one pack of cookies as a part of a school-sanctioned cookie snacktime activity (this was the 70s after all). When you brought in your contribution, the teacher would place it at the bottom of a large stack of cookie packages. She would then draw each day's selections from the top of the stack so we'd go through the cookie packs in the order in which they came. Just the fact that I still remember this exact cookie dissemination system probably says something about the kind of kid I was.

For each cookie time activity, the teacher would select three packages and everyone in the class would get one cookie from each pack. I was very methodical about how I ate my cookies. I spent a fair amount of time assessing the characteristics of each cookie and determining a ranking of the three cookies--from least desirable to most.

You see, I noticed that most of my classmates immediately attacked their favorite cookie and then had to trudge through the remaining cookies with less enthusiasm. So I always made a point of eating my cookies in the reverse order--saving the best one for last. I actually remember getting grief from my classmates for eating the "yucky" cookie first. This always bothered me because I felt they weren't comprehending that I had a nobler, more long-term goal in mind--namely, by the time they had reached their third and most decidedly "yucky" cookie, I was very slowly savoring the most desirable cookie. Why my classmates never admitted the superiority of my approach is beyond me. But what's even more important here is that I had a very clear plan of attack when it came to cookie time. I followed it to letter every time and I never deviated from it--even when it subjected me to the ridicule of others.

I was just as particular during my filmstrip viewing experiences.

The teachers I had almost never controlled the filmstrip machine themselves, instead electing to select a student volunteer to do the honors. I always raised my hand when they asked for volunteers but was only selected once in all those years. Go figure.

So instead of being given the opportunity to provide the class with a professional, seamless filmstrip experience, I had to deal with some lame classmate who inevitably missed a cue even though the filmstrip-advancing tone on the audio tape was clear as can be! This drove me absolutely crazy. I could not stand my filmstrip being out of sync with the narration. Without exception, I was always dissatisfied by those who operated the filmstrip machine and vowed that I would be the most perfect filmstrip operator known to humankind...if only the teacher would have the wisdom to select me for once!

It still makes my blood boil.

So this is what I think about when I think about filmstrips. Not their quaintness or they're education/entertainment value. Nope, I think about the incompetence of those who couldn't performing the simple task of turning a knob every time you hear a beep. I mean, how is that difficult? Beep, turn. Beep, turn. Grrrr...

In all events, this leads back to Melody. Like me as a child, she can be quite angst-ridden at times. Just the simplest things make her crazy. If she's lining up toys in a very particular way and accidentally bumps one piece out of place, or--horror of horrors--Julianne comes by and takes a piece away, we know we're in for a firestorm.

Or if we're sitting on the couch, she has to be to the left of Julianne, not to the right. She's usually agreeable to my sitting between the two of them, but if I sit to her left and thus cause her to effectively be in the middle, she won't have it.

We see the same behaviors when it comes to her washing her hands, putting on clothes, how high the zipper can go on her jackets, and on and on.

Naturally, being your typically involved parents, Marcie and I frequently worry that there's something of a disturbingly problematic nature behind this excessive anal and anxious behavior. It's only natural.

But then, I think about all the years of frustration filmstrips in school cased me and I realize that more than anything else, Melody's anxiety is most likely the result of an unfortunate collection of genes she has inherited. The types of things that drive her to such extremes of unhappiness seem far too familiar to me to be a coincidence. Oh, and did I mention that Marcie was a decidedly "Type A" child herself? You put us together and you get one very particular, anxiety-ridden child.

Don't get me wrong. I still think that Melody and Julianne are the two greatest human beings in the history of the universe. But I also suspect that for better or worse, Melody is in for years of quizzical looks and misunderstanding by others, hyper-self-awareness and unexplainable sentimentality, and most of all, frustration with the shortcomings of her peers. But at least she has something I never had: someone (me) who knows exactly where she's coming from. She might be wired up a little differently than others, but at least it's a schema I share and even understand.

Netflix Wrap-Up #20

Previous installments: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19

As promised in my previous Netflix wrap-up, here's part two of my Netflix DVD review backlog. Here we go...


The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) - An incredible true story of Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who experiences an entirely debilitating stroke and has to learn to communicate through the only part of his body with which he still has control: his eyelid. Thus, the story that unfolds is one he managed to tell solely through blinking. It's a very moving story of dedication and humility from someone who wasn't necessarily the nicest guy prior to his accident. In fact, what I really admire about this film is that Bauby can still be a bit of a jerk even in his mostly helpless state. That's more honesty than you'd normal ever get in a film like this and probably why it could have only come from someplace outside of Hollywood. My Netflix rating: 5 stars

English Promises (2007) - Another great David Cronenberg genre film that transcends the genre's usual trappings. I love the ambiguity of these characters and the fun way the plot tends to twist and turn along the way. In other hands, this probably would have been just a merely entertaining thriller, but in the hands of Cronenberg, the great Viggo Mortensen, and always-excellent Naomi Watts, the result is something that is both gripping and not without some psychological depth. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

The Orphanage (2007) - I love horror movies and will always seek out those films that people declare genuinely horrifying. This was one of those movies that I've heard repeatedly would keep me up at night. So with so much build up, I suppose I couldn't have been anything but a little dissapointed. While there was one genuinely creepy sequence involving a "One, two, three, who's knocking?" child's game, I was surprised at how predictable and tame the rest of the film was. Still, I can recommend this film to fans of the genre. I'm just not going to make any promises on its degree of scariness. My Netflix rating: 3 stars

Clerks 2 (2006) - Is it just me, or does nothing live up to its promise? The Orphanage promised to be terrifying and it wasn't. The Science of Sleep promised to be a deeply involving artistic exploration and it was merely skin deep. And now with Clerks 2, I was expecting a film that would cause debilitating laughter. Instead I found myself merely chuckling. For the record, I love the original Clerks. I revel in its crude-but-clever dialogue and do-it-yourself low-budget aesthetic. But Clerks 2 is largely a recycling of what made the original film so special. There are certainly a number of funny set pieces (especially the Lord of the Rings versus Star Wars debate), but it's all a little empty. Most problematic was a third act attempt at pathos that comes across as forced. I'm not panning this film, as I'll take Kevin Smith dialogue almost any day over that of most other filmmakers. I still think Smith has lots to offer as a filmmaker and it's very possible that his best work is yet to come. I was simply disappointed with this one. My Netflix rating: 3 stars

There Will Be Blood (2007) - You have to give director P.T. Andersen credit for his ambition. It takes a very special filmmaker to take something like Boogie Nights, a film about the adult film industry in the 70s and 80s, and raise it up to the level of a Shakespearian tragedy while remaining consistently entertaining and endlessly re-watchable. I have similar love for Magnolia, a film that wasn't as much of a critical slam-dunk as Boogie Nights, but which I think is no less impressive and captivating. So I'm not surprised that I was similarly impressed with There Will Be Blood--if not nearly as moved--as with Andersen's previous films. This story of an oil tycoon is really the story of America, with all its greed, ambition, and ugliness. It's a huge subject to tackle and I think Andersen mostly succeeds. My biggest complaints about the film are Daniel Day-Lewis's over-the-top performance (a more nuanced performance would have done wonders to this material) and a disastrous final scene. Still, another otherwise very impressive effort by a great filmmaker. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

Thank You for Smoking (2005) - A mildly interesting look at the life of a tobacco industry lobbyist. There's not much insight here and I'm a little disturbed by it's Libertarian (bordering on Reactionary) undertones. But for anyone curious about how such people can live with themselves in such perceivably evil roles, it might be worth checking out. It has its moments. My Netflix rating: 3 stars

The Prestige (2006) - Ever since I was a little kid, I've always loved the art of illusion. I even had a toy magic set that provided me with hours of entertainment. So I'm always drawn to movies about magic and magicians. Last year, Marcie and I rented a similar themed film called The Illusionist, that I found greatly disappointing and predictable. So I was hoping the second time's the charm for this one. While The Prestige was a step up from The Illusionist, it was similarly predictable (the key secret was so obvious that I even paused the DVD and pointed it out to Marcie). Plus, the third-act incorporation of supernatural elements took the film from being a somewhat enjoyable story of two competing magicians to something a whole lot sillier. That much said, this is a beautifully shot and well acted little period piece and frequently entertaining. My Netflix rating: 3 stars

The Fog of War (2003) - A wonderfully ambiguous documentary about Robert McNamara, one of the key figures behind the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Is he sympathetic? Evil? Both? Hard to say, and that's why this is such a fascinating film. My only complaint about the film was some of the more gimmicky dramatic inserts--especially the repetition of falling dominoes. I thought moments like that put a little too fine a point on some of this material and really wasn't necessary. But otherwise, a highly recommended film. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

Inside Man (2006) - Spike Lee is an extremely gifted filmmaker who has largely worked outside of the Hollywood system. So it's interesting to see him work in the context of a big budget Hollywood genre film in which he's mostly focused on telling a simple story as entertainingly as he can. On that basis he mostly succeeds. This movie is a ball--sort of like Dog Day Afternoon meets The Italian Job. It's a heist movie, plain and simple, but with great performances and the types of visual flourishes you'd expect from Lee. He even manages to insert some commentary about race--particularly prejudice against people of Middle Eastern decent. So it was nice to see a little "old school Spike Lee" thrown in. That much said, this isn't a film you want to think about too much after you've seen it, as it doesn't hold up to much intellectual scrutiny. But if you want to have a fun couple of hours in the hands of one our best directors, Inside Man certainly fits the bill. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

Enchanted (2007) - As the father of two girls, I've certainly seen my share of Disney cartoons this past year, which made watching Enchanted all that more fun. This movie was so charming and Amy Adams so insanely adorable, it's hard not to have a wonderful time with it. Sure, there were certainly plenty of clunky slapstick moments and the film's climax was just like most Disney climaxes: over the top and brainless. But I probably haven't smiled this much during any other movie this year. So unless you have a heart made out of stone, it's pretty much impossible not to enjoy this movie. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

A Scanner Darkly (2006) - I really admire Richard Linklater's approach to his career. Similar to Steven Soderbergh (another director I admire), he'll do the occasional big Hollywood movie (School of Rock, Bad News Bears, etc.) to help sustain his career so he can then focus on more artistic fare, which is obviously where his heart lies. A Scanner Darkly is his second foray into rotoscoped animation after his fascinating Waking Life. But unlike the former film, this one follows a relatively linear plot (though some viewers might still find it a little hard to follow) and is based on non-original source material (specifically, a Philip K. Dick novel). I think the animation technique works particularly well for this type of surreal/futuristic story while not taking anything away from the cast's strong performances. While this film may not be everyone's cup of tea, it was much more accessible than I expected a whole lot funnier to boot. Robert Downey Jr.'s hilariously bizarre performance in particular makes this film worth a try. My Netflix rating: 4 stars

Man on Wire (2008) - A thrilling and moving portrait of Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. It's both a celebration of art for art's sake and a celebration of the Twin Towers. One of the most remarkable things about this film is that the events of September 11 are never mentioned, not once, and yet that tragic story is as much a part of this film as anything. After so many images of seeing those towers going down, it was really moving to see them going up. I've also heard this movie referred to as a great heist film, and I think that applies too. How Petit and his associates managed to sneak up to the top of the towers and execute on this feat (not to mention that shear marvel at watching Petit almost floating in air between the two towers) is absolutely amazing. My only problems with the film are an overly dramatic visual motif used when introducing characters and some unnecessary reenactments. Still, it's an incredible story and worthy of its recent Oscar win. My Netflix rating: 4 stars