"They drew a tough hand, historically speaking. All the bad news of the modern era had just arrived more or less at the same time: mass media, advertising, psychoanalysis, mechanized warfare. The rise of electric light and internal combustion had turned their world into a noisy, reeking travesty of the gas-lit, horse-drawn world they grew up in. The orderly, complacent, optimistic Victorian novel had nothing to say to them. Worse than nothing: it felt like a lie. The novel was a mirror the Modernists needed to break, the better to reflect their broken world. So they did."
Enter Wharton, Joyce, Lawrence, Faulkner, Hemingway, et al, he argues, who threw out the idea of neat, tidy plots and offered up instead messy, unrelenting, and sometimes confusing reflections of their chaotic world. They also, along the way, threw out any consideration of whether what they were writing would be popular. "The motto of Ezra Pound's 'Little Review,' which published the first chapters of Joyce's 'Ulysses,' was 'Making no compromise with the public taste,'" Grossman says. "Imagine what it felt like the first time somebody opened up 'The Waste Land' and saw that it came with footnotes. Amateur hour was over."
But we don't live in the Modernists' era anymore. Even so, their sensibilities still define what "literary novels" should be, Grossman argues, and that ought to change. Perhaps, he says, it's time to make peace with plot.
The sea change is already happening. Writers like Chabon, Lethem, and Gaiman are proving that plot and--gasp! genre fiction!--can still be literary. Even Thomas Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy ("the oldest living Modernist in captivity") have turned to the tropes of genre in their later years, going with the flow, as it were. But it's when Grossman brings up young adult fiction that my antennae really perk up, because he says what so many of us who write for young readers have been saying all along:
"There was a time when difficult literature was exciting. T.S. Eliot once famously read to a whole football stadium full of fans. And it's still exciting—when Eliot does it. But in contemporary writers it has just become a drag. Which is probably why millions of adults are cheating on the literary novel with the young-adult novel, where the unblushing embrace of storytelling is allowed, even encouraged. Sales of hardcover young-adult books are up 30.7% so far this year, through June, according to the Association of American Publishers, while adult hardcovers are down 17.8%. Nam Le's 'The Boat,' one of the best-reviewed books of fiction of 2008, has sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and trade paperback, according to Nielsen Bookscan (which admittedly doesn't include all book retailers). In the first quarter of 2009 alone, the author of the 'Twilight' series, Stephenie Meyer, sold eight million books. What are those readers looking for? You'll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they're lazy and can't hack it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. They need something they're not getting elsewhere. Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel 'The Hunger Games' instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because 'The Hunger Games' doesn't bore them."
That's always been a driving force behind my writing: "don't bore them." At the same time, I'm trying to write novels that have themes and symbolism and meaning. But first and foremost: I want to entertain. It's that last bit, entertainment, that the Modernists threw out with the bathwater. I think it's high time we brought it back, not just in fiction for young readers, but in fiction for all readers.
One thing Grossman doesn't point out about the rise in young adult lit: a lot of that readership really are young adults, not just adults "slumming" in Plotville. So what happens when those young adults become adults? They're going to want more of the same. Perhaps that's what will really drive the change from Modernist to Postmodernist/Nouveau-Retro fiction--young readers will bring their lust for plot with them into adulthood.
Read more...
"Yeah, I wear my hat cocked to one side. Just you wait. Ten years before now, everybody's going to be doing it."
Welcome to Week Two of Project Runway Season 6, friends--and congratulations to Week One winner Christopher, who defied our expectations here at Gratz Industries. He joins the ranks of Week One winners from seasons past: Austin Scarlett, Santino Rice, Keith Michael, Rami Kashou, and Kelli Martin. Interesting company, to say the least.
"Hold still while I lodge a small dead bird in your hair to complete the look."
In less dignified company is Week One loser Ari Fish. How her look was any kind of red carpet dress--now, or in the future--and how she could make such a pretty girl look so awful were the two questions that left us shaking our heads. (Honestly, when we saw the model afterward with her hair de-funkified and wearing normal clothes, we looked at each other and gasped. It was like Jekyll and Hyde.) The producers will no doubt miss her kaleidoscopic outfits, handstand antics, and "What if we don't sketch?" moments, but us? Not so much. As Wendi said after the aufing: "She was never a real contender, so she might as well go now." Ouch. Cold, but true. Ari moves on to be the perpetual hostess in the eliminated designers bunker.
Early impressions of everyone else? Well, as we said, Christopher surprised us. For not having fashion school experience, he did good. But please, Christopher: no more of this "Smocking? I've never even heard of that." One of us here at Gratz Industries could barely tell you the difference between a cuff and a collar, and he's still heard of smocking. Besides, rule number one of faking it: Never admit you don't know something. Just nod and say, "Oh. Smocking. Yeah. Cool." Christopher's earnestness might just be his undoing.
It's like my daddy always tol' me, never cross a girl with two names.
Carol Hannah's dress looked overworked, and Gordana's looked a little stiff--much like she was for her first challenge. We rolled our eyes at Johnny's drama, but when he showed up the next day ready to work and broke down the construction of his dress with Tim in the workroom, we sat up and paid attention. Love him or hate him, the boy appears to have vision, and the talent to create it. Louise and Logan we like, and Nicolas looks like he'll be a contender. The jury's still out for us on Shirin, Irina, and Althea, and Epperson needs to wow us. And Ra'mon? The producers seem to be singling him out as this season's Weepy McEmo. Observe: the various faces of Ra'mon in this week's handful of preview videos--
Excited.
Dubious.
Fraught.
Clenched.
In tears.
The one positive thing we can take from all this, at least, is that Ra'mon is wearing different outfits each time. Either he keeps soiling himself and needs constant wardrobe changes, or he's around for four or five more episodes. We're sure he'd rather ride the emotional roller coaster for as long as he can if it means staying on the show. And for what it's worth, we'd like to see more of his designs.
Three designers we're not terribly excited to see more from are Mitchell, Malvin, and Qrystal. (We'll probably learn to spell Qrystal's name without looking it up just about the time she's aufed.) Yes, Mitchell gets something of a pass for mismeasuring his model--or her mismeasuring herself--but really, smocking? When you've never done it before? The dress he was building might have worked on Nicole Kidman, or maybe Gwyneth Paltrow, but not the Lohan. And speaking of Lohan, props to her for keeping a straight face when Qrystal told the judges she could see Lindsay wearing her shiny tropical explosion to the next Grammys. We weren't so straightfaced. Qrystal's a dynamic personality, and we like her--but the girl's going to have to up the taste level to succeed. As for Malvin? Wow. Mr. "I Don't Do Red Carpet Dresses But I Want to Be a Fashion Designer" can't be long for the Project Runway world.
Last season we had a lot of fun using past performance as a predictor of future success, so we thought we'd give it a go again this year and bring back the Big Board of Shame.™ Here's how we play:
Each week, designers earn a point value based on how their looks place on the runway. We give 4 points to the winner, 3 points for second place (easily identified as the first person sent off after the winner is announced, so there's some drama to the announcement), and 2 points to the third place designer. Each designer who is safe--neither in the top three nor the bottom three--earns 1 point. For the losing designers, third worst of the week earns -2, second worst earns -3 points, and the aufed designer gets -4 points.
Why do we even bother giving negative points to aufed designers? Because we keep track of where people place after they're gone too, giving us a sort of hierarchy of losers, which we can also compare to those designers still around. Thus, aufs have to count for something.
So here's how things shake out in the first week:
Christopher: 4 points (One 1st place) Ra'mon: 3 points (One 2nd place) Johnny: 2 points (One 3rd place) Althea: 1 point (One safe) Carol Hannah: 1 point (One safe) Epperson: 1 point (One safe) Gordana: 1 point (One safe) Irina: 1 point (One safe) Logan: 1 point (One safe) Louise: 1 point (One safe) Malvin: 1 point (One safe) Nicolas: 1 point (One safe) Shirin: 1 point (One safe) Qrystal: -2 points (One 3rd worst) Mitchell: -3 points (One 2nd worst)
--------------aufed--------------
Ari: -4 points (One auf)
Three or four episodes in, the Big Board of Shame will really start to show us who's playing for keeps, and who's overstaying their welcome. For those looking to keep track of wins week to week, Lifetime's Season Six Scorecard is a great reference, as is the magically updated, no frills Season Six Wikipedia chart.
But what about this week, you ask? More on that, after a pregnant pause...
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SPOILER ALERT: As we point out each week, we don't have any prior knowledge of what's to come, other than (usually) the guest judge, (sometimes) a vague idea about the competition, and (occasionally) whatever preview videos Lifetime chooses to air. Using all these sources of public information, we make guesses about who will be in and who will be out. Often bad guesses, but (every now and then, we hope) fun ones. If you prefer to be surprised by this week's episode, we suggest you stop reading now and call your mother. Seriously, how long has it been since you called just to call?
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"Now that celebrity judge is big!"
This week's guest judge is big, Heidi tells us in the teaser. Big! She also says the designers will "create a look for an actual celebrity." You know, not like Lindsay Lohan or somebody. No, it has to be somebody bigger! Somebody that will make all those designers put their hands to their mouths and scream! Somebody like...
Ladies and gentlemen, the star of Rollerball...
Rebecca Romijn!?She's the big Week Two guest judge? The woman whose biggest role was playing Mystique in all those X-Men movies? I mean, yeah, she was hot in all that blue latex paint, but boy, look at her now. She's really let herself go. She's...
..wait, she's what? Pregnant? Oh. That's what Heidi meant when she said big. We get it now. It's a maternity challenge.
Oh crap.
Christopher impregnates his dress form.
Yes, true believers, we're only two episodes in, and we have our first "you're not designing for stick figures" challenge, which usually throws more than a few of the designers off their games. They'll be using their models though, never fear--the models will just have to wear poochy baby-on-board bags around their tummies. Much silliness will ensue.
This girl has just doubled her body weight.
And of course the desingers will get into the act as well:
Epperson, the family man.
Some of the preview videos are clearly all about this episode, and they're all models and designers running around saying, "Ha-ha, look at me, I'm preggers." Others, like the official Lifetime preview video, include a number of scenes that can't be from this episode, like this one:
Or could Mitchell really be making hot pants for a pregnant woman? Well, he did send a model down the runway in almost nothing but her underwear...but, no. We refuse to believe it. Whatever he pulls out this week, it'll be enough to get him to whatever episode it is where he whips up the short shorts. The drab gray short shorts.
The person we think will have the real trouble with this one is Malvin. If Malvin doesn't do red carpet, it's a sure bet he doesn't do maternity either. Is there a designer left who is more ill-fitted for this challenge?
"If you want to wear it, I don't want to make it."
Barring any further evidence (we have no runway judging shots to analyze this week!) we're picking Malvin to cut the cord and leave the gentle, nurturing womb of Project Runway for the real world. Or whatever passes for the real world for him. We think he'll be joined in the losers bracket by Mitchell, and...let's say the mercurial Ra'mon, in a stark turnaround from last week.
But who will turn this mutha out? Well, we have to think that if Qrystal has any kind of chance at taking home a prize, it has to be this time, as her previous work has specialized in plus-sized, sorry, "plus sexy" outfits. But we're still leery of that purple people eater she sent down the runway last week. Let's give her third place. For the top two, we'll say...Nicolas, and Althea, with Althea hatching her first win.
As for Rebecca Romijn, we think we can accurately predict she will have twin girls: Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip. How do we know? Well, this season of Project Runway was filmed a year ago, and she had the healthy baby girls on December 28, 2008. Congratulations, Rebecca! You and John Stamos must be loving your "full house." Ha ha ha ha--
Wait, what? She's not married to John Stamos anymore? Dang. We knew we shouldn't have let our subscription to US Weekly run out in 1997.
Tune in next week, when we admit how horribly wrong we were. In the meantime, enjoy the musings of Andre and Uncle Nick, as they reflect on Episode One. Let's hope they do these all season long!
Now you can have your very own creepy vampire stalker to watch over you while you sleep. (Making you feel safe?) Ick. Thanks, Bookshelves of Doom, for the link to this and other supremely bad Twilight merchandise.
How great is this? A March 1987 PBS pledge drive where Doctor Who fans man the phones to keep the station that shows their favorite show on the air. Check out the disappearing TARDIS mug you get with a $75 donation--and the bank of Who cosplayers around the 2:26 mark. They're also excited to introduce "The Prisoner!" I'll say this--they do have those phones ringing.
Look at the fabulous chicken waterer our friend Michael Kline made for us. Isn't it awesome? Don't you want one just like it? (It works for cats too.) How about a gorgeous set of bowls, just right for cereal or noodles? Or the perfect coffee cup? Then it's (almost) your lucky day. Michael is having an online sale on Etsy tomorrow (Tuesday 8/25) at 10 am. He NEVER sells his work online - it always goes straight from the kiln to fancy galleries or (occassionally) sells right out of his studio - so this is your chance. Want to see more of Michael's work? Visit his blog here or his website here. Or check out the pottery porn at the end of the video Alan did about a day spent helping him fire the kiln. We are slowly filling our cabinets with the work of local potters and Michael's is the best of the best. Really, it's beautiful work. Check it out - then go buy some for yourself.
This was one of those rare and perfect weekends here at Gratz Industries - wonderful weather, no place to go, and two whole days spent making. Dragon*Con is coming up fast and evidence of our preparations was everywhere. There was lots of foam. . .. . . with scraps big. . .. . . and small.As soon as she saw them, Jo scooped up as many small scraps as she could carry and dumped them on the floor of her room.They became cushions and beds in Tinkerbell's house.There's always time for Battleship.There were sketches taped to windows for easy tracing.And when there were no sketches in the way we saw this fawn just a few feet from our house.There was painting. . . . . . and carving. . .. . . and sewing. . .. . . with a new project in my handwork basket, just waiting for me to put my feet up and watch an episode of Firefly with Alan. Aaaahhh. A perfect weekend. I hope yours was just as wonderful.
Welcome back, true believers! They said it was over. That it would never air. That we would never hear Tim Gunn say, "I'm dubious" again--but they were wrong! At long last, Project Runway Season Six is ready to air. For sixteen designers and sixteen models, it means the end of a long, contractually-obligated silence, as filming on the season wrapped months ago, culminating in an oddly anonymous runway show for the three finalists at Bryant Park. (Which one of us attended! Click here for the full report.)
What's new? The question ought to be, "What isn't?" Heidi, Tim, Nina, and Michael are all back, but that's about it. Project Runway has gone all LA on us, whisking the production over to the left coast and leaving behind all its old familiar haunts. (Is there a Mood Fabrics in LA? Aha, there is! So maybe not everything's different.)
What else is different, of course, is the move to Lifetime Television. But while this change was at first bemoaned by fans of Bravo who couldn't imagine their beloved show on the network of Lifetime Original Movies and Reba reruns, Lifetime has done everything right that Bravo did wrong last season. A quick glance at Lifetime's Project Runway site is almost impossible; there's just too much good stuff there not to lose an hour or two: designer portfolios, profiles, intro videos, buddy icons, wallpapers, games, even a nifty choose-your-own-Tim-Gunn-message you can send to a friend's phone. It's like Lifetime got Project Runway to go on a date with them and went nuts and drove off to Vegas and married it. Bravo, on the other hand, acted like a scorned partner last season, making Project Runway Season Five sleep alone in a hotel room while the lawyers drew up the divorce papers.
Oh, and can we just take a moment to point out how smart this is? Lifetime announced today that every episode of Project Runway will air for free--with commercials--online at MyLifetime.com the Saturday after the show premieres on Thursday and encores on Friday. Huzzah! FINALLY! Someone who understand the power of rerunning a show online! Seriously, kudos to Lifetime. They seem to be doing everything right.
And thanks to Lifetime, this Thursday will be a full night of Project Runway goodness. At 8 p.m. ET is a special Project Runway All-Star Edition (but hey, where's Uncle Nick!?), at 10 p.m. ET is the premiere of PR Season Six, and then afterward is Models of the Runway--a behind-the-scenes look at PR from the models' point of view! It's so much Project Runway fun we might just explode.
But here at Gratz Industries, we're in the business of making predictions, not providing scheduling reminders (or exploding), so let's get down to the prognosticating, shall we?
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SPOILER ALERT: As we point out each week, we don't have any prior knowledge of what's to come, other than (usually) the guest judge, (sometimes) a vague idea about the competition, and (occasionally) whatever preview videos Lifetime chooses to air. Using all these sources of public information, we make guesses about who will be in and who will be out. Often bad guesses, but (every now and then, we hope) fun ones. If you prefer to be surprised by this week's episode, we suggest you stop reading right about now and go take a nap so you can watch Project Runway programming until 3 a.m. tonight.
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This week's premiere is called "Welcome to Los Angeles!" but we prefer "A-Lohan Against the World," as celebrity disaster Lindsay Lohan is week one's special guest. What better way to prove Project Runway is so LA than featuring a tabloid superstar as your first guest judge? Seriously, what could go wrong with this? Nothing we can see--as long as, you know, they don't ask her to drive the designers anywhere. Or let her near the booze.
This week we'll get the obligatory shots of designers arriving at the airport, getting out of cabs, and lugging large suitcases into their rooms, where they will make awkward small-talk as they not-so-secretly assess each other's threat levels. Then--oh my gosh!--someone will discover an elegantly printed card that wasn't sitting there on the counter before or that has been slid under the door, and everyone will head to the pool or the roof (or both! this is LA, after all) for champagne and hellos with Heidi and Tim. The only surprise this year will be that the designers won't be insulted by having to run, scramble, grovel, or otherwise debase themselves to collect material for their first challenge. (That will undoubtedly come later.)
Instead, the designers will get a night to simmer in the hot tub before being the only people on the planet to be surprised the next morning when Lindsay Lohan bounces out from behind the Project Runway scrim. Lindsay will then ask the sixteen wide-eyed and over-anxious designers to design a red carpet dress for her to wear to some relatively minor event, so that if she has to pick the lesser of three evils she won't be seen by too many people. Lindsay will exit stage right to have a drink, and the designers will load into this year's sponsor cars and be whisked away to Mood Fabrics' LA branch, where they will have far too little time and far too little money to make appropriate fabric decisions.
Back at Parson's, er, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, the designers will have one day to finish their looks. Their models will have been randomly assigned to them to save time, and one poor model will lose the lottery and get Ari Fish as her designer. (But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) We don't expect too much drama in the workroom this episode, and like most early-season PR installments, we probably won't feel like we've gotten to know any of the designers too well either.
At least we'll still have Tim, Heidi, Nina, and Michael as friendly faces. Heidi will certainly be happier--LA is her home. As for the others, New Yorkers all, we'll have to see how they like spending a few weeks away from home. What is it Heidi always says of Michael Kors? He's "the king of jet set fashion?" Guess he's going to have to prove it this season.
So who's in and who's out this week? We barely guess right when we've been able to watch the designers, and you want us to pick without seeing a single episode yet? Sheesh. Well, we already gave our preseason rankings, but we're already taking one of our predictions back, based on new evidence. Check out this still from Lifetime's season six preview:
Stop looking at Heidi's legs and count the designers. That's right--fifteen. And we start with sixteen. This is clearly a week two shot. So all we have to do is figure out which one is missing, and we know who gets aufed in week one! Er, well, the trouble is, some of the boys and girls kind of look alike--particularly the ones with blonde, shoulder-length hair. But we've been over this photo a couple of times now, enlarging it as much as we can without everyone turning into pixelated blobs, and we've come to the conclusion that the odd designer out is Ari Fish. And when we say odd, we do mean odd. If ever there was a first episode competition that would knock this girl out, it would be a red carpet gown. From our pre-season rankings:
Ari might just be the longest shot of them all, but like kooky Elisa before her, she may stick around a few episodes for the entertainment factor. Where do we begin? Ari is an art school student who transfered from painting to ceramics to textile design. Her influences are "geometry, ergonomics, American Indian ritual wear, nomadic tribe wear and athletic apparel," and in a video she tells us she's into leopard print, track suits, muumuus, tight pants, and Mickey Mouse sweatshirts. Our favorite moment: when she shows us the reversible, waterproof, jacket she's making for a friend, and tells us it's sleeveless because "he's going to be in the desert." Which of course begs the question: then why does it have to be waterproof? All Tim says of Ari is that she's "deeply conceptual." She'll be around only as long as other people make mistakes.
Guess no one makes bigger mistakes than she does this episode. So while we thought Logan Neitzel would be the first to go, we're calling a do-over. Our apologies to Logan in retrospect, and our condolences to Ari in advance. In fact, if the following still from the season preview video is a final ten, paired up in teams, we may have to reassess a few of our guesses--including Logan again:
Are these just the best and worst teams, with other designers already safe in the back room? But then, they usually keep out sets of six--three winners and three losers--even when there are teams. And there's none of the odd spacing that comes when some of the teams leave and the others keep their places. Hrm. Are we looking at a top ten here? If so, that's six of the girls, and only four of the boys. [Left to right, best we can tell: an Irina/Gordana superteam, a Carol Hannah/Shirin whippersnapper team, a Logan/Althea tall team, a Nicolas/Louise emo-goth team, and a Christopher/Epperson boys club team.] Perhaps this is the season the women rule Project Runway from beginning to end--pretty fitting for the show's first season on Lifetime. (Let the conspiracy theories begin!)
So, we have video evidence to help us pick the aufing, but who wins immunity next episode? This is a crap shoot. For no particular reason, we're going to predict that Irina wins first place in week one. We were tempted to go with Rodney Epperson, or Gordana--we have good vibes about both of them--but we're going with the girl whose models Tim says "look as if they've been in for a dozen fittings, and they haven't." Plus, we know how Lindsay likes the ladies.
After the real winner is named and we're made to look like idiots, we can at least take some consolation in the after dinner mint that is Models of the Runway, in which a variety of size zero waifs reveal that the walking clothes hangers on the show can be just as petty and shallow as the designers.
We kid. A bit. We really are looking forward to the behind-the-scenes look, as long as it keeps most of the focus on the models' relationships with the designers, and what takes place during the show--not just the models sitting around not eating in their apartment. At least this time it sounds like they have an apartment for the models, so we won't have any more foolishness with models disappearing on their designers due to flightiness or better gigs.
Only fifteen models here, just like fifteen designers in the above still shot. That means this is a shot from episode two. If we cared enough, we could figure out which girl goes home first. But we don't.
And what about a prediction for the All-Star Challenge, we hear you ask? Uli. For no other reason than she's one of our all-time favorites, and we want her to win.
See you next week, when we bring back the Big Board of Shame™ and start picking favorites!
I'm back from Utah! I took lots of pics on my camera, but forgot the doohickey that lets me transfer them easily to my computer, so I'm late in blogging them. (I also spent a fair amount of time wrestling with the Blogger utility that's supposed to let you send pics directly from your camera to your phone, but that's a rant best left to another post.)
The view back down the canyon from Alta Lodge.
The view of "Mount Baldy" from the Alta Lodge's back porch. The first morning we were there, it snowed up there! There was also ice on our deck. In August!
A view farther up the canyon from the back porch.
This is what the view looked like without the snow and clouds. Together, Colleen Venable, Lauren Myracle and I climbed up to that first pass. That was about all our lungs would allow. I figure we were at about 9,000+ feet at that point. Alta Lodge sits around 8,500 feet above sea level, and that mountain in the background is aroun 11,000 feet in elevation.
There is a moose in this picture. Seriously. He looks like a speck at this distance, but that just proves how big he was, as this is looking over a wide valley. If you click on the picture, you can search for him, "Where's Waldo?"-style. I'll give you a hint--he's near the middle of the photograph, walking left-to-right, and is out in the clear part, not among any trees.
On the way home, we flew over the Grand Canyon! The pilot was great to let us know, and tilt the plane back and forth so both sides could see. I thanked him on the way out!
And now we return me to my regularly-scheduled life...
I feel like I've had circles on the brain all last week, from Jo's Green Lantern Costume to my Penelope embroidery, so I decided to do an Etsy treasury featuring lots of round things that I like. I keep wanting to do an Etsy treasury for real, but I don't have the patience to keep checking for a slot to be open. Enjoy! And shop indie!
There's a tiny bit of handwork left to do, but this is one (nearly) finished costume for Dragon*Con. You know what that means? One costume I won't be sewing in the hotel room. This one will be Jo's "hall costume." The most important consideration is that it's comfy enough to wear all day long - and this one will definitely fit the bill. I used my basic A-line pattern and appliqued a green lantern emblem on the front - very similar to her old Wonder Woman dress. One down, three to go. . .
We had a terrific time at last year's carnival so we couldn't wait to go back when it came to town this year. See Jo in that picture above? That was what she looked like the entire night - head thrown back and laughing with glee. I love to see her like that. The Paratrooper was definitely her favorite - and Alan was a trooper and went on it with her many times. I tried once, hurled almost as soon as I got off, and had to stick to the kiddie rides after that. Must remember to take Dramamine next time. . .Even the bee ride was a little much for me. Why do all these rides have to go around in circles in such a rhythmic way? The kiddie rides do have the best art, though. Look at these beautiful birdies! I love the squiggles that make the feathers on the breast.The super tall and wavy slide was awesome - and since we got there early on a school day there were NO lines and we could go again and again (and again and again) without waiting.Here's Jo on The Hurricane showing Daddy how much fun it is to ride with your hands up in the air. She thought she was showing him something new - cute!Such a daredevil. She asked me if she could ride The Paratrooper all by herself. I made the number one parent mistake of saying, "Oh, I don't know, Jo." She chose to take that literally and scurried over to read the sign, then came back and informed me that she COULD ride it alone. How could I argue with such initiative? So Alan and I watched while our tiny little girl sat in a car all by herself with her feet stuck out perfectly straight in front of her and rode the big ride alone. Oddly, she didn't laugh when she rode alone - she sang. I have no idea what she was singing (and she couldn't remember) but she definitely sang during the entire ride.The carnival looks a lot less seedy at night when the lights come on.One more spin on the carousel and it was time to go.See you next year, carnival!
There's an interesting article by novelist Lev Grossman in the Wall Street Journal about the death--and resurrection--of plot in literature. He points out that the Modernists who disdained plot had good reason:
Look at the fabulous chicken waterer our friend 
Want to see more of Michael's work? Visit his blog 
