| I've added this song to my "Small Words" page. "Shack" was originally of the desert southwest/Mexican origin (probably), and "gull" is from Welsh (long ago), but otherwise the words are old to ancient English. Though the stereotypical "anglo-saxon words" are four letters, the longest word ("evermore") is plenty old and English. It's two four-letter words stuck together. Musically, this is (as is the song "El Paso," also written by Marty Robbins) in the style of Mexican music. Marty Robbins grew up in Arizona. This song has quite a calypso and seaside element, whereas "El Paso" is in the traditional "ranchera" style (northern Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas). |
Songs with "bear/bears" and "pajamas" both.
These things might have come up because there's a six year old at my house.
I'm not makine a serious play, just pointing out that in one day, these two came up: Bananas in Pajamas theme song, and "Down By the Bay" by Raffi. smile emoticon
It's possible there's a third. The world is weird like that.
Teddy Bear's picnic is close, but no... pajama.
(And no specific bedclothes, when their parents take them home to bed.)
"The flight of Mr. Robert Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer, though, for the moment, he is, as he has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone." * |
| Sometimes light makes a picture on a wall, or table, or ceiling, because it passed through, or didn't pass through, some object or substance. Sometimes it's water, or a treebranch in the wind, and the image has motion. Sometimes it's through a tinted window or a prism, and the image has colors. Some things are shadows, and some are projections, and some are combinations. This first one is my shadow, and the frames of the windowpanes in the front door, falling on a map of the U.S., at Emily Schnarr's house in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. |  |
photo by Sandra Dodd |
Everyday Mysteries (July 27, 2011): We don't know what will happen today. Plans can change. Unexpected things happen, and we don't even know whether they will be pleasant surprises or oopsies. Life can be mysterious. Learn to love surprises! photo by Sandra Dodd A beautiful mystery (June 2, 2013):
photo by Colleen Prieto The Mystery of the Moment (January 11, 2013):  "What's in there?" Even before children can talk they wonder. They want to look in boxes, suitcses, open drawers, look into cabinets. Life is a mystery—a puzzle full of wonder with things inside other things, surprises in disguises.When I was a kid, I was curious about buildings, houses, garages and sheds in my home town. I had a goal of going into every house. I tried to go into every business. Visiting friends, selling cookies, trick-or-treating and Christmas carolling got me peeks into private homes. Some folks are curious about how machines work, or similarities in the skeletons of different birds. Some learn how guitars are built, or what makes a soufflé rise. Notice what your children wonder about. Help them explore the world. Nurture your own curiosity. You can't know what will happen, or what you will find, and some of it will be wonderful. A mom named Amy left a comment on a Just Add Light and Stir post: I had always wanted to learn to be live in the moment, but it seemed a great mystery. Having my daughter and becoming an unschooler, I finally get it! . . . We are living together, happily, every day. What a nice way to be. photo by Sandra Dodd |
| Open and willing (March 23, 2013): I don't worry anymore that my children won't learn everything they need to for this life. I also see that joyful learning can only happen if we are open  and totally willing to see every moment, every interest, everything as opportunity. We never know what a tidbit of information, or an experience might lead to...and not knowing can bring a sense of mystery to this whole Unschooling life. If we keep that sense of mystery, that feeling that this COULD lead to big things, (but if it doesn't that's ok too) we will so much better be able to serve our children well when supporting and encouraging their unique interests and pursuits. That's what it's all about for me.Being an avenue instead of a closed door. —Ren Allen April 2002 photo by Sandra Dodd I did use this squirrel on another post. If you follow the link to the rest of what Ren wrote, you'll know why I brushed it off for this. I saw this squirrel in Lyon, France. It was carved in the 17th century (at least the carving above it says "Maison fondeé en 1684"). |
*He commanded that no one talk about the incident in which they were personally involved and affected by, preventing parents from investigating the truth of their own kids’ actions and involvement. All were expected to accept his solitary findings without question. It is not “gossip” or “sowing discord” to discuss or even argue about actions in which one is personally involved.
Survivor Blogs
This page began as a listing of bloggers who grew up in and were affected by the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements—which is best captured in a loose array of leaders and organizations, including Bill Gothard and ATI, Dough Phillips and Vision Forum, Doug Wilson, Michael and Debi Pearl, Joshua, Alex, and Brett Harris, and Michael Pearl—but it has since expanded.
When I first met you – Courtship, Part 1
And then you broke my heart – Courtship, Part 2
All hell broke loose – Courtship, Part 3
DANGER, regarding leftover Halloween candy.
Quoting a warning:
"I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent, whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."
Damn it, demons. Keep your demonic cooties out of the treats of the innocent.
Now perhaps this is part of the ravings of a mad woman possessed by imaginary angels. And perhaps I'm misusing the word "perhaps." But nobody fabricated that quote to make fundamentalist Christians look bad. (Why Celebrating Halloween Is Dangerous) Even the counter-opinion pro-Halloween-for-Christian-kids article is based on thinking that the claims of scaredy-Christians and neo-pagans are true about the dark and dangerous alleged history of Halloween.
But still... claiming that the candy itself is cursed is FUNNY! What a waste of emotion and belief, to see evil everywhere.
Other commentary on her article:
Witches Put Demons In Halloween Candy? More Could Believe That’s True Than You Might Think. (Center for Inquiry)
Demons Get Busy in the Vortexes of Hell (The Atlantic)
Christian Broadcasting Network Warns Against ‘Demonic’ Halloween Candy (Huffington Post)
The next day, a friend was over talking to Marty and me and mentioned the mystery of what might've been in that library.
In the course of a long conversationa bout saved things, and lost things, I mentioned the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archives. Neither Marty nor Bo knew about it. I use it frequently.
Today, planning to send them a link to it, I was in looking to see where it's backed up, because we had talked about that, too. When I first knew about the Internet Archive, I read that it was at The Prisidio, in San Francisco, which doesn't seem geographically stable. I guessed that it might be backed up in Bouler or some high-plateau sort of facility. I was in there reading about the history of the Internet Archives and some courtroom commentary and uses, and saw, at the bottom, a link to the Official mirror of the Wayback Machine at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina . Huh!
Then I looked up the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
and found that it's a real (and really big) place, built as close as they could figure or get to where the original library was. That seems like as bad an idea as storing the internet archives in San Francisco, which seems prone to fire, earthquake, mudslide and maybe tsunami. Being on a historic military compound won't save them from any of that. 
So the backup is where the LAST Alexandrian library sank into the swamp! Mediterranean! Or burned. Or gradually declined. But I had already read, by then, that there was a backup at Sun Microsystems in Santa Clara, or that that's where it all lives now, maybe.
The Wayback Machine is named after one on Rocky and Bullwinkle that sounded like that, but looked like WABAC. Rocky and Bullwinkle didn't time travel; they weren't in those segments. A boy named Sherman would be taken into history by Mr. Peabody, a dog. I found a list of their destinations, and was sad to see they didn't travel to the Library at Alexandria. They did visit Cleopatra. Amazon Prime will show that and two other adventures here, free with Amazon Prime, $1.99 otherwise, and probably unavailable to some portion of humans on earth, in 2013.
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, tile art found while they were excavating to build the new library:
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That looks plenty enough like this:
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I know what the second dog is looking at, and listening to. WHAT is that gold mouse-hotel-looking thing the top dog is posed with? Another thing mentioned last night is how long gold lasts. In a fairly recent conversation with Will Geusz, we were talking about how long tile lasts, if you don't drop it and break it, because an artist has put some of my words on tile plaques (here).
So here's what I intended to send to Bo and Marty. The oldest stored version of my unschooling web page: http://expage.com/RadicalUnschooling. Marty was 11. He's 24 now.
Here's the page that hosts the Wayback Machine: archive.org
And in a related topic, also at the Internet Archive, people can upload sound files, and many of my conference presentations are there (if you search Sandra Dodd and maybe add unschooling). http://archive.org/details/BigNoisyPeace
Retronaut had a photo of "Sheep on the strand" (in London in 1923). One of the busses had an ad for "The Unfair Sex." I thought it might be a movie, but it wasn't... yet.
I googled "The Unfair Sex" and 1923, and found a newspaper article describing a production of the play in 1931, but it mentions ..."'The Unfair Sex,' the Savoy Theatre Success of 1925..."
You might need to click an "I agree" box to see it, but the site seems safe and stable.
The play, which had a character who was obsessed with films, was made into a silent movie in 1926. http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19310330.2.9.aspx I googled "The Unfair Sex" and 1923, and found a newspaper article describing a production of the play in 1931, but it mentions ..."'The Unfair Sex,' the Savoy Theatre Success of 1925..." (You might need to click an "I agree" box to see it, but the site seems safe and stable.)
The play, which had a character who was obsessed with films, was made into a silent movie in 1926. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017499/
I could have kept following trails. Some of that will stay in my mind, though, and the idea that something from the 1920's could have such a web presence says something interesting about the progress of the internet.
Put things online! Add to our shared wealth of information.
Amsterdam, Australia, France... Netherlander ducks, Just Add Light and Stir, England and New Mexico, 85 years.
So... Julie Daniel sent me some photos to us in Just Add Light and Stir. This one would've have been legible at the small size I use for that blog, but I liked it, so I thought I should share it. Then I wondered what it's about. An act of kindness? Lack of dedication to one's nation? Sports! Conservation. Connections? Different readers will connect it to different things in their thoughts and lives.
I don't know where the sign exists (where Julie took the photo), and I don't know who loved the story enough to make sure money was spent on a sign that would be there a long time. Wikipedia says this, about that (and some other things):
Pearce won all of his races with relative ease. He defeated his first opponent Walter Flinsch of Germany by 12 lengths and his second opponent Danish rower Schwartz by 8 lengths. In the quarter final he was easily beating French opponent Saurin when a family of ducks strayed into his lane. Pearce momentarily stopped rowing to let the ducks pass; he still won by 20 lengths and broke the course record. In the semifinals, Pearce was pressed by David Collett of Great Britain, winning by three-quarters of a length (roughly 1.5 sec). In the finals he became the first Australian to win gold in the single sculls by defeating Kenneth Myers of the United States by 9.8 seconds. In winning he established a new Olympic record, some 25 seconds faster than the previous mark. This also earned him the Philadelphia Gold Cup, which represented the amateur champion of the world. He was awarded an Honorary Life Membership of the Sydney Rowing Club.That was sweet, about the ducks. Had he lost the story would have a different tone. But he didn't have teammates to be angry about it; he was there alone. And he could've been even better prepared, but there were rules then that aren't now:
In preparation for the 1928 Olympics, Pearce attempted to enter the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta, but was barred as he was a carpenter by trade: the rule relating to amateur status then in force barred anyone "Who is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer." This socially discriminatory wording was deleted in 1937.One thing leads to another!
Hi Sandra –So I played Rum Tum Tugger in the lyrics game, and then I was sitting on the couch singing it along to myself.
Robbie right away asked “what is that song?? I LOVE it!!!!”
I pulled it up online so he could hear it sung better than he’d hear it from me :-) and I told him it’s from the musical Cats which I had gone to see when I was little. He wanted to know right away if we could go see the show. He went to see his first theater show (A Christmas Carol at a small local theater) just last weekend and now he’s ready for another and knows just what he wants the next one to be!
Hopefully we’ll be able to find it playing, maybe in Boston, in the near future. And until then, I’ve added a filmed DVD version to our Netflix queue which should be fun to watch.
A happy consequence of a fun game – we have something new and interesting to go and do together!
Colleen :-)
Somewhere there's a photo of her posing with the make-up kit she bought at the theatre, with her face "catted up." I'm putting this note here in hopes that when I find the photo I'll bring it here.
A week ago, Holly and I saw Emma Fuller star as Annie in a Landmark production of that musical, in Albuquerque. Her mom, Beth, was in the company
and played four parts. Emma is unschooled. Though Holly had seen her a couple of times this year, the last time I had been with Emma was in London in the summer of 2011. She was wearing a pink raincoat she had bought in Paris. In the musical, the Warbucks house provides Annie with a new coat, which she loves, and it was also pink, but fancier, and longer. But seeing her with that coat saying "I LOVE IT!" reminded me of her other pink coat, in London, not so far from where Holly and I saw Cats.
I could go on, connecting one thing to another. If you could, too, that will help you with lateral thinking—with your own learning, and that of people around you.
Keep your ideas bouncing in unpredictable directions! Let them spring and fly.
I've started a page for song lyrics play on facebook, here: Lyrics Game, Goofin' with Songs
For any reader who doesn't have Rum Tum Tugger in mind already, here it is:
At the grocery store near us is a sign on the door, so I see it often.
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