Necessity is the mother of invention

I found the cord. Here is Harper playing a violin sonata on her guitar. It sounded a little like Vivaldi, but she claims it was The Scooter Duck Song. Which is what she calls "Beautiful Scandalous Night" because apparently there is a picture on the screen at church when Mr. Seay sings this song that looks, to Harper, like a duck on a scooter. It's a mysterious thing, the toddler mind. She was singing along with "Beautiful Scandalous Night" on our way to church yesterday morning and she got to this lyric, "Cleanse your heart and soul, in the fountain that flowed.." She got pensive for a moment, then, "Would Flo like the Scooter Duck Song? Her name is in there." Flo is a character in the movie "Cars." My kid is already superimposing the sacred on the secular. All of those Francis Schaeffer bedtime stories are finally paying off!

I finished Slaughterhouse-Five yesterday. It's bizarre and affecting stuff. Fiction (and, in this case, satire) really is the perfect conduit for making a historical event (in this case, the fire bombing of Dresden in WWII) seem so vivid. It leaves you shaking your head at the end, saying, "How could I not have KNOWN about this?" I did the same thing a few years back after reading a novel set during the Armenian genocide. I think my good friend Sting must have gotten the title and theme of his song "Children's Crusade" from Vonnegut. Conspire as they may, I still cry every time I hear the national anthem or watch those Marine recruitment commercials. There's no amount of satire or soaring anti-war lyrics that will ever change that.

We watched "The Darjeeling Limited" this weekend. I thought the "making-of" featurette was more compelling than the movie, if we're honest. I find Wes Anderson and his Vision (not to mention his skinny suits) more interesting than the actual movies he makes. I also watched, regrettably, "Enchanted." I'm not making fun of you if you liked it. I just thought it was weird and kind of disturbing. **SPOILER ALERT!** Why exactly did the stepmother have to be a terrifying dragon in the last 15 minutes of the movie? I guess it's my issue with most Disney movies, even the totally animated ones--the evil creatures are so over the top. "Cars" is a notable exception. The bad guys actually have more human-like flaws--arrogance, vanity, the tendency to push other cars out of the way in order to win the race. Plus you get Randy Newman and James Taylor. "Enchanted" had THREE songs nominated for Academy Awards and I found them all pretty annoying. Ew, AND, **SPOILER ALERT #2!!** there are lots of roaches during one of the songs.

I watched the last 3 minutes of regulation time of the Kansas-Memphis game. I've never seen desperation fouling work that well. I had watched a few of the games while we were at my parents' because my mom is an ardent basketball fan. (My dad, interestingly, is an ardent basketball napper. He prefers NASCAR) It drives her crazy because if I come into a game after it has started I will always pull for the team that is losing, or for the school that I think is more academically impressive. She was really into the Stanford-Texas game and I started congratulating the Stanford players when they made points. "WHY are you cheering for Stanford??" she demanded to know. "Because it is really hard to get into Stanford--imagine if you had to make decent grades AND go to all of that basketball practice. And out-of-town games!" One of the many things I love about my husband is that he doesn't care at all about watching sports. In fact, on Super Bowl night, I watched "Persuasion" on Masterpiece Theatre, and I think there was a Final Four game on while I watched the second half of "Sense and Sensibility" last Sunday night. Last night I watched "A Room With a View." It was just okay. They changed the ending. Speaking of ending, I should. Here's a picture of a rare moment of sibling cooperation and fun: