Conflict and consensus

I've had a bit of a tough day. There was more conflict than I prefer, and that's difficult to take at a time when the semester is winding down and we'd all like to move forward.  I get frustrated at three steps forward, two steps back, and sometimes it feels like all three steps.

But tonight I get to spend two hours with my amazing students in the Craft Wisely class, the ones that accomplished so much this semester.  They will be explaining, in the most animated and convivial way possible, what quality work means to them.  Judging by the practice presentations they did earlier in the semester, I expect tonight to be less a high-stakes evaluation moment than a celebration of their abilities and insights -- as well as a collective affirmation of the work we've done together.

For a look at our sale in moving pictures, check out this video from the UCA YouTube channel.  Can you feel the love?

I still believe

An old friend sent me a link to this YouTube video.  It's getting passed around to snickers about its earnest optimism and era specificity, I'm sure.  But the thing is, I still feel this way.

 

It's the question that the 2012 elections will test, the question that the Tea Party was formed to answer in the negative.  Can our government be more competent and honest?  Can it do good?

I know that the structures of bureaucracy and power are inherently corrupting; I agree that they need to be restrained by a vigorous defense of individual liberty.  But I also know that there are things only government can do -- ensure the effective flow of interstate and international commerce, protect the public health, invest in infrastructure for the benefit of all rather than the few.

It's striking that the two presidents who campaigned most squarely on that promise, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, were both victimized by economic crises not of their own making that caused the public to question their effectiveness.  There's another name that belongs on this list of "saying yes," and that's Bill Clinton, one of the most successful presidents with regard to centrist governing and effective budget management.

Our cynicism about government is based on the failure not of the institution, but of some of the people within it.  I still believe that the right people with the right determination can do good and do right.  Like Jimmy, I say yes.

Oh, looks gooooood!

I don't care if they call him Captain Arkansas or Captain Americus Vespucci.  This can't be legal.

Malco Motors from James Spears on Vimeo.

One keyboard, four hands

A lengthy Blogger outage kept me from posting last night, but here's what I was going to offer: Video documentation of our kids' piano recitals.  They both did fantastic and are eager to continue learning. Best of all: post-recital treats!

Summing it up

It's been slightly more stressful than I prefer for the week between Christmas and New Year's, traditionally an oasis of downtime.  Our furnace conked out on the 26th, and finally got fixed this morning; in between we stayed warm with borrowed space heaters, but were worn down by uncertainty about when the needed part would come and whether it would work.

Still, even with that hassle, we had a much more enjoyable post-Christmas week than many people across the nation, who were snowed in or stuck in airports for days.  We were warm, we had our gifts to enjoy, and we could get out for treats.  I knit a balaclava to keep Noel's head toasty when he goes to Sundance in a few weeks.  And today, with the heat back on in quantities sufficient to keep a tropical fish healthy, we finally completed Cady Gray's most heartfelt Christmas wish (and the holiday video below).

So here in one tidy package are our wonderful holidays, from what we were thankful for to what we'll be writing thank-you notes for.

Window to another world

The best thing that happened to our kids this year -- at least if you asked them -- is their discovery of gaming videos on YouTube.  Forty-part walk-throughs of entire games with commentary ... speed runs racing through games from start to finish in the shortest time possible ... special levels, secrets, or extraordinary achievements.  It's like an endless documentary history of the worlds that so fascinate them.

I think the attraction for Archer, judging from the tidbits he shares excitedly with us while he's watching, is that these are environments with very clear goals, very clear rules and very clear exceptions.  This is his version of fiction, and in a limited way, he ascribes motivations and even minor emotions to the in-game characters and to the players.  Every so often he emerges from the back of the house to tell us about what he's seen, and it's all about how you get from world to world, or how many coins were accumulated, or where the infinite one-ups were to be found, or what boss is the most difficult.  There's a story there, albeit one starved of most emotional color and nuance, about how to get from point A to point B and what the notable achievements are along the way.

Lately they've been working their way through the various Pokemon games.  Cady Gray tends to favor the more colorful Mario game commenters -- she comes out to tell us about something hilarious that the player said, rather than what was happening in the game -- while Archer goes for a just-the-facts style from his players.  But she and Archer are on the same page when they watch Pokemon game walk-throughs.  They follow the accumulation of Pokemon, their leveling-up and evolution, and the journey to the various arenas to battle other trainers.  It's a quest combined with a sport, with collecting, and with an exercise in taxonomy.  Both of them seem equally invested in the story and the strategy.  I have to conclude that the combination of elements hits their mutual sweet spots.  There's memorization, strategy, infinite recombination, sorting, and scorekeeping.

When they watch the games together, Cady Gray asks questions about why things happen, and Archer answers with statements of what happened.  An example: Tonight they were watching a Sonic the Hedgehog speed run, and Cady Gray asked whether Sonic can ever get rings back after he loses them.  Archer responded: "I don't think he can, and if he touches an enemy when he has no rings, he immediately loses a life."  There's something there about the difference between the way an autistic and neurotypical kid interact with the world -- one wanting to interrogate the way it works, one wanting to memorize the rule book.

Take a bow

Archer got to play on one of the music department's beautiful new Steinway grand pianos today. Noel made a very brief video of his end-of-semester recital, the highlight of which (in my opinion) is the deep and elegant bow at the end of the piece.

On the air

Venita Jenkins from the UCA publicity office and her videographer Aaron were kind enough to come out on short notice to film some of our Craft-In a couple of weeks back.  It was so windy that day that the interviews we recorded on the scene had audio obscured by the noise of the wind against the mikes.  So they truly went above and beyond by coming over a few days ago to re-record them inside.

Here's the video from the UCA YouTube channel.  Feel free to share!

In absentia

I spent the day complaining to anyone who would listen about being gone on Halloween.  (Then I showed them pictures of the kids on my cell phone to drive home how painful this was for me.)  Luckily, I have a husband who not only dutifully dressed them in costumes and took them around the neighborhood, but shot and edited a video so I could see it from afar.  When I called this afternoon, Noel told me they were totally psyched for trick-or-treating. I hope they had as much as it looks like they're having.  And look how great my Poké Ball costume turned out!

All our summers

One more video before we let summer go completely.  The kids had a wonderful few months and turned a year older.  See if you can see them leaving childhood behind in the course of these six minutes.

Mighty swings and trick pitches

If the weather is fine, we will spend Labor Day at the ballpark catching one more Travelers game. Noel assembled a brief video of highlights and lowlights from our early morning wiffle-ball matches on vacation a couple of months back.  Note especially Archer's eye-of-the-tiger batter's scowl and Cady Gray's determination to cheer and celebrate regardless of whether she knew where to run.

Day 2

Fortunately, we stayed in the zone of sleet and snow yesterday. By this morning, we had a good few inches of optimum packing snow. In this video from yesterday, the snow is powdery and dry -- not the best choice for most snowball fights, but perfect for our kids who don't really want to be hit by chunks of ice.

Christmas mashup

Today's post about those worthy of knitted gifts is at Toxophily.

And if you want an idea of how joyous our holidays have been, here's the official video.

Mmm whatcha say

Today's post about a lotta sweater for a lotta man is at Toxophily.

Noel put together a little video of our Thanksgiving, complete with magical appearance of turkey and cute kids saying what they're thankful for. Check it out.

The five-cent tour

Noel cut together a quick video of our 24 hours in Eureka Springs. As the billboards for all the hotels say, "BIKERS WELCOME." Note: The original music Noel put in the background was rejected by YouTube and replaced with something lame.