Imagine

What if I blogged again? Then what would happen?

Summer so far

It's been a Peter Gabriel, Lolita, freezer-pop, Elmore Leonard, Six Million Dollar Man, Dennis LeHane, Van Halen, Farnesworth Invention, Little Debbie Swiss Cakes, pizza-on-the-grill, stray cat, Rent at Columbus Children Theater kind of summer so far. A bit on each:

Peter Gabriel isn't the coolest with the critics or the Wilco, Weezer, or Stones crowds, but I've been a fan since waaay back. Summer tends to be a time to look back rather than forward, and I'm following up last year's "Every Rush album in order" summer with a Peter Gabriel summer, though not in order, cuz I don't have them all yet. Highlights: Security, the one I first fell in love with, so I was, what, a sophomore? I thought I was younger. That always happens. Anyway, still love that album. Peter Gabriel 1 is much better than I expected, 2, I thought, is kind of weak, 3 is great fun, and immediately brings me back to mowing my parent's lawn listening to the cassette on my Sony Walkman. Next up are his Genesis-era albums, which I never listened to. Love his newer stuff. Have been playing In Your Eyes and Washing the Water on the piano.

I've been wanting to read Elmore Leonard for a while, and now I am. 'sokay. I'm reading Pagan Babies. No I'm not. I'm blogging. So I'm not very drawn to it. But the characters are fun. Doesn't live up to what I've heard about him. Maybe I grabbed the wrong one, but it's the one the library had.

I finally read Lolita, which I thought would be a funny choice to read on a trip to an educator's conference, and it was. Odd glances on the plane. Amazing novel, and it put me through things no novel has before. Much creepier than I expected - even hard to read at some points. I almost didn't get to part two after the last sentence of part one. Amazing voice, and I didn't expect it to be so funny. Then I watched both movies. Kubrick's is great - Shelly Winters is fantastic and James Mason is great, but I'm becoming increasingly okay with my annoyance at Kubric. The 1997 Adrienne Lynne version is very good and captures the tone of the novel well.

Freezer pops are summer. But whichever brand made yellow "Pina Colada" is not the brand for me. I eat, like, forty freezer pops a day.

Talk about looking back. I've got two pirated Six Million Dollar Man DVDS - the pilot and the bigfoot episodes. Youngest-son really liked it, and the rest of us had a blast, so I wanted more. But they haven't been released in the US.

So I bought the second season from Amazon.do.uk, and figured out how to hack my DVD player to be region free. Came in the mail yesterday. Haven't watched them yet. Excited, though.



At the beach I was looking for a pulpy but good mystery-thriller sort of thing, and I remembered reading that Dennis LeHane is one of the best, and I know he wrote for The Wire, and he wrote Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, which got great reviews, so I bought a used copy of Shutter Island, and spent the week laughing at it and sharing with my wife one implausible cliche after another. Then I came home, went to a movie, and saw this on my popcorn box:



I sent that picture to my wife, who also said "No way!" Then, just now, I find out it's being directed by Martin Scorsese. So maybe I'm an idiot.

Van Halen, Roth-style. Still awesome. At the library, I found a CD of Van Halen covers done by bluegrass bands. Extra awesome.

Farnsworth Invention, a great play by Aaron Sorkin. I saw it at the Alley Theater in Houston. Loved it.

Little Debbie Swiss Cakes do not allow me to sleep whenever they are in the house. They are never in the house for long.

We bought a new grill. It has defined our summer meals, including pizza on the grill, because I married oddly. But it was delicious, except for the one that caught on fire and almost burned our house down.

My daughter has fallen in love with a stray cat that has been coming around.

Took my oldest to see Rent at Columbus Childrens Theater. It was quite good. Having never seen the show before, he loved it.

A bit of summer so far. Now I'm just chewing up a rainy Saturday afternoon.

United Breaks Guitars

There is nothing more terrifying for a guitar player than knowing that you have to travel on an airplane with your guitar ... and check it with the other baggage.

Thanks Dave Carroll! This says it all with a great song and great video!

Creepy Doll Place

Interstate 30 East goes into Holden Beach, where our family has been going for years, my wife's family for years before that. And right before the scenery shifts from North Carolina rural to non-commercial beachy, there's a curve in the road. And right before the curve in the road, there is a weird, over-cluttered lot we've always called the Creepy Doll Place.

From the street, it looks like a setting from a cheap 80's horror movie, a place where the non-supervised vacationing teenagers go on a dare, where someone in a hockey mask teaches them the ultimate moral lesson about their debauchery the night before.

You miss Creepy Doll Place if you don't know it's coming, because you're either on your way to your vacation, on your way back home, or on your way to or from Wal Mart.

Creepy Doll Place became a punchline. And every year we'd say we'd stop to see it, and every year there was less time on vacation than we expected, and every year the mystery grew.

My brother joined us at the beach with his family this year, and he joked with us about the Creepy Doll Place. When his few days at the beach ran out without us having gone to see it, the dare was on. My brother's expectation was not just that I visit the Creepy Doll Place, but that I prove it.

Creepy Doll Place from Stefan Farrenkopf on Vimeo.

For less ironic but more professional information about Mary Paulsen, including a video about her latest project, click here.

My First Love

Before there was my lovely wife, before there was Tina Fey, before there was even Sandy Todd (in Mrs. Clapham's kindergarten class, 1970). . .

There was Jaime.

And somewhere in my heart, Jaime will always be.

There is true beauty in this world.




(Correction: Steve first reunited with Jaime in 1975. So technically, Sandy Todd was my first love. I mean no disrespect to Sandy. I will always cherish times she let me chase her around the story carpet, or the glimpse of her belly-button as she hung upside down on the swingset. But Sandy was not bionic. Nor was she Sainde. Bionics and exotic spelling loom large in the memory.)

Lark, Nightingale, Bangin'

So maybe I shouldn't have put my 9th grade students in this position.

On their test over Romeo and Juliet, they had to identify a series of quotations. One of them takes place the morning after their wedding night. So how do 9th graders refer to how the young lovers had spent the night? On a test?

Here's the quote:
"Wilt though be gone? It is not yet near day. / It was the nightingale and not the lark. / That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear."

Here are the first portions of their answers:

"Romeo and Juliet just were married and are celebrating in Juliet's bed."

"Juliet says this to Romeo the after their marriage when Romeo has to leave because it is morning."

"After Juliet and Romeo have their night together."

"This quote is said by Juliet when Romeo is leaving in the morning."

"Juliet says this when she and Romeo wake up in Juliet's bed after he spent the night and Juliet doesn't want it to be morning because if it is he has to leave."

"Spoken to Romeo in Juliet's room before he leaves for Mantua."

"Juliet is talking to Romeo and not wanting Romeo to leave after spending the night together."

"This is Juliet speaking to Romeo. They were laying in bed and they heard a bird."

and this kid:

"Juliet says this after Romeo snuck into her room and they had sex."

Wolf and Pig Animation

Seen this yet? Cuz it's awesome.