But Mom, It's Educational!

We’re four weeks into summer now, and the kids have been sleeping in, lounging, loafing, and otherwise gleefully wasting time. Well, that’s not entirely true. Mia and Jacob have been running with the cross country team most mornings. Mia has a part-time nannying job. Jacob and Philip have been practicing their instruments. And they’ve all been helping to walk the dog and clean up around the house. Of course, since they’re around the house more, there’s a lot more to clean up.

But when they’re not doing their duties with admirably moderate resistance, they are practicing the fine art of goofing off. As intermittently conscientious parents, we have initiated earnest conversations with the kids about using their time well because these are formative years and their minds are full of potential etc., etc., blah blah blah. As a result, the children have taken to figuring out how to justify as wholesome and edifying whatever amusement they currently favor.

Such as watching a cheesy, Arthurian soap opera.

You’ve never heard of cheesy, Arthurian soap operas? Well, obviously you are a cretin American . The Brits, always on the vanguard, have enjoyed the television show Merlin for an entire season already, whereas the show only began airing in the U.S. about two weeks ago.

Not to worry. It is possible (if you know how to navigate the deep web) to obtain the 13 episodes that have aired in Britain. For educational purposes. Of course. Because anything about King Arthur involving actors with British accents must be educational.

The premise of the show is that Merlin, the great wizard of Arthurian lore, was not always a great wizard. No, at one time, he was a nerdy but handsome teenager who worked as a servant for the young Prince Arthur all the while keeping his magical powers poignantly secret. Curiously enough, the main female players in Arthurian legend, Guinevere and Morgana, were also teenagers at the very same time in the very same castle. At least according to the show.

I can tell you as a professor of British literature with some actual knowledge of Arthurian legends: this is all very silly. The show has barely anything to do with the real source texts for Arthurian legend. I mean, the producers of the new Star Trek movie are fastidious scholars by comparison, having based their “reboot” of the ST “legend” on painstaking research into their canonical sources. The Merlin folks, on the other hand, use phrases like “loosely based” and “reimagining.”

But who cares? Four remarkably attractive young people in period costumes getting into all kinds of perilous mischief right under the nose of grumpy old King Uther, who is only trying to run a decent, magic-free kingdom—this is a formula for some deliciously decadent, strangely addictive entertainment.

Speaking of formulas, we've seen all the episodes now, and let's just say one can recognize some well-established... patterns. It is entirely possible to sum up the whole season with one composite episode. So here it is, our loving tribute to our new TV crush. Consider this your free sample.

Merlin: An All-Purpose Episode

EXTERIOR. CAMELOT. DAY.
Establishing shot of Camelot castle in Wales, which the French have thoughtfully preserved for the show somewhere in their country.

Cut to Medium shot of evil sorcerer-type person engaged in evil sorceror-type scheme—poisoning the water supply, kidnapping innocent townspeople, sending zombie undead knights into Camelot, etc. Dramatic music. Perhaps some cackly laughter.

INTERIOR CASTLE. DAY.
Merlin is doing little servant chores about the castle. Gwen bursts onto the scene with furrowed brow and a water jug on her hip.

GWEN
Oh dear oh dear! Something has gone terribly wrong!

MERLIN
What is it?

GWEN
Camelot is under threat! We are out of water/missing townspeople/experiencing a creepy disease/helpless against zombies and/or griffins! Also, I have a secret crush on you and we never get to have a decent conversation, what with all the evil villains around here!

They run off.

INT. TOTALLY PREDICTABLE, MEDIEVAL-TYPE THRONE ROOM. DAY.
(Uther’s throne, by the way, suspiciously resembles the coronation chair on display at Westminster Abbey. Wait. Has anyone checked lately to see that it’s still there?)

NAMELESS EXTRA
A terrible problem is threatening the kingdom!

UTHER
Gaius, you’re the stock wizened, bookish character: what do you make of it?

GAIUS
I’m afraid, sir, that this surely involves sorcery.

UTHER
Aha! Well! Never mind asking further questions to ascertain the scope or nature of the problem. I shall have to take immediate draconian measures. Because I hate magic. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I shall execute someone! By morning!

Morgana floats into the throne room in a gauzy, flowing, jewel-toned gown. Close up shot of Morgana’s furrowed brow, panning to her fetching bosom.

MORGANA
Oh king, you must approach this problem with wisdom, caution, and noble judgement!

UTHER
And ruin the episode? Certainly not! I have a responsibility to protect this kingdom and to maintain dramatic tension. You are my ward and the obvious hottie of the show, therefore I expect you to obey me reluctantly and go flouncing out of the room.

Morgana throws a glance at the hunky, chain-mail-clad Prince Arthur, who is brooding and pacing about, chin on fist, in the corner. She flounces out, reluctantly obedient.

UTHER
Arthur, you must solve this problem for me so that I can stand around in leather gloves, appearing stern and kingly. Go out there and prove how princely you are by doing something dangerous and useless!

ARTHUR
Fine!

INT. ROOMS OF GAIUS, THE COURT PHYSICIAN. DAY.
Gaius is twiddling randomly with sciency-looking gadgets, usually involving candles, beakers, and string. Maybe beetles.

MERLIN
What shall we do about the terrible problem besetting Camelot this week?

GAIUS
We must solve the problem with science. Or perhaps by whacking it with sticks. Sometimes that works in the middle ages. Whatever we do, you musn’t reveal that you have magical powers. The king hates magic. Hates it, hates it, hates—

MERLIN
Yes, but Arthur is now about to do something pointless and very dangerous.

GAIUS
Oh yes. Right. Merlin, your destiny is linked with Arthur’s. You have no choice. If you do not use magic, then Arthur will surely perish! And probably everyone else, too!

MERLIN
But you just said…

GAIUS
Just promise me you’ll be careful.

MERLIN
Um. OK.

Merlin, having puzzled for a while over this problem, decides to use his lifeline.

INTERIOR. DUNGEONY PASSAGEWAY.
Merlin strides along passageway, which opens out into a large, CGI cavern. A large, CGI dragon flaps into view.

MERLIN
I need your advice. What shall I do?

DRAGON
Every time I give you a straight answer, you ignore my advice. Therefore, I will say something mystical in my Shakespearean-actor voice. Here goes. The answer lies in the golden woods. Only the sword of emeralds dipped in unicorn poo can save you now. Make haste, or Arthur will die and you will not fulfill your destiny!

MERLIN
Always with the destiny. But where am I going to get… oh never mind.

INTERIOR, PRINCE ARTHUR'S SUPER-COOL, FUR-TRIMMED TEENAGER BEDROOM. DAY.
Merlin is doing something slavish such as polishing Arthur's boots.

ARTHUR
You know, Merlin, I’m feeling a little angsty about this dangerous and pointless task my father has given me. Too bad you’re too witless and clumsy to help me. Ha ha. [He claps Merlin on the back.] Still, I guess I appreciate our moments of awkwardly expressed brotherly affection. It takes my mind off Morgana’s cleavage.

MERLIN
Uh. Yeah. Ha ha.

INT. GAIUS' ROOMS. EVENING.
Merlin is practicing magic words, but nothing is happening. Gwen bursts in.

GWEN
Merlin, what are we going to do?

MERLIN
Do you mean about the fact that you are the only non-white regular cast member in the show, and therefore must appear undefinably multiracial in order to cover all the bases?

GWEN
No, I mean about the problem besetting Camelot this week.

MERLIN
Oh. That. Well…

Morgana bursts in (different gauzy gown this time).

MORGANA
Yes, what are we going to do?

MERLIN
Let’s make a plan that involves breaking all the castle rules, since we are naughty teenagers. But don’t tell Arthur. He’s the prince and has to appear responsible.

Arthur bursts in.

ARTHUR
What are you doing? Is it something against the rules? Because if so, I want in.

OTHERS
But… your father!

ARTHUR
Haven’t you people ever heard of Freud?

OTHERS
Hunh?

ARTHUR
Never mind.

MERLIN
Well, I’m going to go break some rules.

OTHERS
Well, we’re coming with you.

MERLIN
No you’re not! It’s too dangerous!

The four naughty teenagers then argue about who’s coming with whom to do what, whether or not Arthur should actually do the useless and dangerous task, who should fool the adults with a haplessly planned distraction, who gets to be the noble sacrifical hero taking the heat for the others, etc. Arthur and Morgana alternate between sniping at each other and flirting. In the next few scenes, Merlin sneaks about the castle. Or perhaps all four teenagers sneak about the castle, the girls inexplicably wearing flowing, hooded capes that create large shadows and trail behind them around every corner.

EXTERIOR. THE CASTLE YARD. DAY.
Arthur is busy hacking away with a broadsword at the weekly guest actor dressed up as an evil minion/creepy druid/rotten brigand/zombie knight.

ARTHUR
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

MINION/DRUID/ BRIGAND/ZOMBIE
Why are we having this sword fight? CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

ARTHUR
Because every episode has a sword fight! CLANG, CLANG, CLANG! It’s an Arthurian convention! CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

MINION/DRUID/ BRIGAND/ZOMBIE
I don’t suppose I get to win, do I? CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

ARTHUR
Nope. I’m the one in the opening credits. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!

At this point, it’s time for the show’s climax. This might involve the teenagers getting caught sneaking about the castle, OR the sword fight saving the day. Alternatively, we might need Merlin to go tramping about a woodsy soundstage in his rustic leather jacket, conversing with low-budget special effects. Whatever it is, at some point, Merlin will whisper magical words.

Close up of Merlin, hiding behind a tree or farm cart, his hand outstretched over or toward some object.

MERLIN
(in a vaguely Welsh accent): whusha whusha whusha whusha whusha whusha

***Something dramatic happens.
Music swells appropriately, beginning with throaty, lush lower strings and concluding with cymbal clashes and french horn blasts. ***

MINION/DRUID/ BRIGAND/ZOMBIE
Urghhh!

Druid/zombie keels over. Arthur flips off the bucket he is wearing as a helmet. He sweats handsomely into the camera.

EXTERIOR. TOWN SQUARE. DAY.
Lots of straw and animals and burlap-clad people strewn about.

TOWNSPEOPLE
Hooray! We have no idea that Merlin just used magic to save the day! We’ll give the credit to Prince Arthur instead! We are happy random townspeople again!

ARTHUR
[Sweating] There, Daddy. You see I’ve saved the day. Again.

UTHER
Yes, son. Yes, I suppose you have. And it’s a good thing you’ve rid the kingdom of magic once again. Because I hate magic. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Witty banter between Arthur and Merlin. In the background, Morgana looks lovely in yet another gauzy gown while Gwen appears puzzled, but happy.


END.




So. You can see how we could become enamored of such a show. I’m a little worried that my students will start watching it, because if they do, they will like it much much better than the real stuff I teach in my courses. And we will be forced to lament once again the sad deprivations suffered by people in the medieval period, when they had only rhyme and meter to entertain them rather than BBC television.

The Pitter Patter of... Oh, That's Just Disgusting

A little postcard from the vacation Ron and I recently took in Boyne City, Michigan

We've hiked in the Rocky Mountains, we've hiked in the Yorkshire Moors, we've hiked in Zion Canyon. So you would think that hiking in the northern Michigan woods might seem dull and unremarkable by comparison. But if you think that, as we foolishly did, you would not have counted on...

Night of the Living Caterpillars... mwah ha ha ha ha!

Actually, it was the afternoon. We hopped out of the car at the trailhead to hike the Jordan River Pathway, a pleasant little wind through the East Jordan River watershed that was recommended to us by the nice lady behind the desk at the lodge. As we started down the trail, we heard an odd popping noise. "I wonder what that is?" I remarked cheerfully to Ron, our junior naturalist curiosity fully engaged. Then, we saw a charming little caterpillar on the trail. Awwww... isn't that cute?

Then we saw more, hanging out on some low-growing leaves. Well, there sure are some caterpillars around! And look at all those caterpillar tents in the trees! Golly!

We hiked on.

Then we realized, as we hiked deeper in, that caterpillars were everywhere. On the leaves, on the trail, even hanging over the trail from little silken threads. They were writhing in large moving groups on branches crossing the trail. They were congregating slimily on certain trees, heading from one place to another on a caterpillar parkway. And from up above they were... they were dropping on us! Gross! Could that be what that plopping noise is?! Caterpillars falling onto the forest floor? Eeeuuuw!

We hiked faster. We hiked very very fast. I kept my hooded sweatshirt over my head in order to prevent ploppage in my hair. When we stopped for lunch, I did not sit down. I would have sat on caterpillars. I would have had them in my shorts.

We managed to survive about a seven-mile, extremely brisk hike. Before we got into the car, we performed one last inspection for unwelcome stowaways.

When we got back to the condo, we showered thoroughly (eesh!) and then, in true junior naturalist style, we googled "tent caterpillars" on the web.

Guess what. Yeah, apparently northern Michigan is in the midst of a huge forest tent caterpillar infestation. These outbreaks occur every 10-15 years and last 2-5 seasons. Not only that, but we hit the woods (of course) just as the little buggers were finishing their eating cycle, just as they were about as big and busy and numerous as they could possibly be. Next week will be better as all 3.5 trillion caterpillars--that's my personal estimate on the population--will be turning into moths. (Note to self: no hiking at night with flashlights until the first frost.)

There's more. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, that plopping sound we heard was not what we thought it was...

"Anyone who has been in the woods during a FTC [forest tent caterpillar] outbreak knows not to eat an open faced peanut butter sandwich there. It might sound like rain but it's really insect frass."

You don't know what the word "frass" means? Neither did we. You know, English is an amazing language. We have a special word for caterpillar excrement!

That's right. We spent our afternoon hiking through the woods during a once-in-a-decade caterpillar poop storm.

The good news: "This frass serves as fertilizer just like any other manure." Oh yay. Caterpillar poop helps the ecosystem. It's the circle of life. That totally makes up for the nightmares I'm going to have this week.

We spent the rest of our vacation lounging by the condo pool. We decided we like our nature better on TV.

UPDATE: A little entymological etymology on the word "frass."

Transitions

Ah, the month of June. When the raging rapids of the school year's end give way to calm pools of summer serenity ... or something like that. We did manage to make it, as a family, through exams and final grading and all those end-of-year extra things like trips to Cedar Point (Jacob) and soccer team parties (Mia) and exasperated math teachers who want that homework NOW (Philip).

But this year we've also been coping with some bigger-than-normal transitions. Jacob has successively graduated from middle school and seems poised gracefully for the start of high school in the fall.


As parents, we've learned that this transition is easier on the parents the second time around. We don't feel quite so instantly aged this time. (But no, that's not us - that's Ron's parents and Jacob, looking sharp in a colorful tie)

Mia has been transitioning into a girl with a driver's license. This transition, we've discovered, is scarier and more awkward than we imagined.

So we'll move on to another transition: moving to a different house. When we moved into our house in 1996, we were a couple with a three-year-old and a baby. Now that we are a family of larger people with more stuff, we all dream of a little more space. So we spent the winter working hard to make our house market-ready--so hard, in fact, that I now have a chronic case of tennis elbow from scrubbing and painting. Our charming, sparkling Alger Heights home officially went on the market in April. And now, we wait, and hope, and more than anything else: clean. Over and over.


Meanwhile, my department is moving this week out of the Fine Arts Center at Calvin, which will be undergoing major reconstruction over the next 16 months. So last week I packed my books into boxes and said goodbye to the little office where I have labored for 12 years. This was a happy moment, I must say, because even in our temporary digs I will have a much nicer space: much more room and a window (finally!). We will be waaaaaay across the Beltline from campus, though. Theme for the year: hiking.


So it feels as if we are living out of boxes for the moment, camping out right in the midst of our regular lives. I struggle to be comfortable with transitions, but I'm trying to think of a time in my life that wasn't full of them. Well, it's been a long time, let's just say that. These are all transitions full of hopeful possibility, though, and for that we are grateful.

The next wave in music-making

This is seriously one of the coolest things ever. Well, computer-wise, anyway.

The Orb of Happiness

Today was a beautiful, sunny, proto-spring day. It took us a while, though, to recall the name of that bright yellow thing in the sky. Here in Michigan, we haven't seen much of it in the last five months. The sun! Oh yeah, that's what it's called.

Lack of sunlight tends to depress one's spirits, a fact we Michiganders deal with as best we can through indoor sports, or quiet wintry hobbies like knitting, or burying ourselves in our work, or perhaps less healthy strategies such as retail therapy, yelling at the children, or self-medicating with chocolate.

At our house, Jacob and I have been indulging in old episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Sometimes the episodes are full of the best in good old-fashioned sci-fi: cool gadgety pseudo-science, explosions, Klingon battles, and regular characters amusingly possessed by aliens. Those episodes are silly. Well, sillier. Other times we're reduced to groaning at Ferengi love triangles. Ugh.

But perhaps DS9 has inspired my latest coping strategy for the late winter blahs: light therapy. One of the DS9 ethnic groups - the Bajorans - have these orb thingies that are supposed to create divinely-inspired, dreamy experiences when you open their little casings and look at them. They've got the orb of wisdom, the orb of prophecy and change, the orb of time, and so on. (The curious or similarly geeky can learn all about it here).

So when, at a friend's recommendation, Ron bought me light therapy lamps for Valentine's Day, I decided we should call them the "Orbs of Happiness."

See how happy I look? These little boxes blast you with full-spectrum light and are supposed to put your skewed body clock and your sunlight deprived, mood-controlling body chemicals back in balance. The brand name is actually "HappyLite." And I think they might really work. We'll give it a few more months and see if the intially promising effects continue.

Meanwhile, may I suggest to the manufacturers that they offer the Deluxe DS9 version, complete with nifty Bajoran casing? I would buy one in a minute, and I bet I'm not the only hopeless geek who would....

Papa always told me...

"... If you marry that good-for-nothing bum, you won't have a pot to pee in."


Papa wasn't thinking of home improvement projects, but there it is.

The Promise of Spring, sort of

In early December we got a bit of a snowstorm, that came somewhat unexpectedly, and buried Mia's car, parked in front of the house:


Yesterday, after a month of typically Michiganian grey skies and persistent snowfall, we dug that Hawaiian-blue Cabriolet convertible out of the snow as a form of both protest and plea:


Spring IS coming, isn't it? Eventually?

Tracks

In the black-shadowed pines
on the shore
beyond the pond
owl was sitting.
When he saw me
his eyes flared like matches
and he did his big loose hunch,
stirring up the bronze of his shoulders,

and hissed,
and seemed about to fly away.
Who knows why he didn't but instead
clamped his orange feet down
on the black limb
and stared into my face, though not my eyes--
had I been mouse or squirrel
I would have cried

for my life. And thus we stayed
for a long time. I would have given
a great deal
to have invoked some connection
eye to eye
to know what he thought of me

here in the world -- his world --
his gauzy and furzy acres,
sour, weedy, lush,
mortal.
But except for the hiss, he did not make
the least sound, simply stared

as though if he wanted to he could lift me
and carry me away --
one orange knife for each shoulder, and I,
aloft in the air, under his great wings, shouting
praise, praise, praise as I cried
for my life.

-- Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early: New Poems

Advent Stuff

December is a difficult month for those of us who have an uneasy relationship with stuff.

Family and friends ask, “What do you want for Christmas?” and we’re supposed to have to hand a list of things we’d like to own, but don’t really need. A sweater, or electronic gew-gaws, or maybe a kitchen widget. The things on the list can’t be too expensive, or too luxurious, lest one appear greedy and craven. Nor can they be too common, lest one appear needy (or, in an insult to the consumer gods, indifferent). And of course, the gift ideas have to be real – you can’t tell your sister who drew your name out of the hat at Thanksgiving that what you really want is for all the children of the world to join hands and sing together in a spirit of harmony and peace. For some reason, family members tend to scoff at holier-than-thou gift requests.

Meanwhile we struggle: Should I want anything? Aren't I filthy rich already by world standards? Does giving away end-of-the-year donations balance out the stuff under the tree? Aren't we supposed to be using this time of year to not to get-get-get, but to get rid of stuff, to empty our homes and hearts to make room for Christ's coming?

So it has been good during this season to think a bit more deeply about stuff. We had opportunity to do so this past week through some correspondence with good friends of ours, faculty at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, who lost their homes and (nearly) all their worldly possessions in the California Tea Fire.

Academic goobers that we are, we grieve with them especially for the loss of their books. We know that books are like good friends who shape your soul, whose company you enjoy repeatedly and whom you long to introduce to others. Losing them is a big deal.

We all have our stuff-fetishes, the physical objects that we cling to most tightly. Perhaps one of the hardest spiritual tasks for this season is to remember that no thing is permanent, nothing is ultimately ours. We can hold our stuff with gratitude and appreciation, but we have to hold it lightly. Our friend Lisa De Boer--one of those Westmont faculty who lost her home in the fire--wrote this to us about a discussion she had with her students once classes resumed after the fire:

I was teaching about Gothic cathedrals this morning, and a student asked if workers ever died, falling off the scaffolding of a cathedral. Well, the short answer is “yes, of course they did.” The longer answer involved taking a poll of students who had ever had a serious infection, or an appendectomy, or any other illness that could easily have led to death…naming the number of medieval occupations that involve regular hazards to health, life and limb…and talking about general life expectancies.

Our assumption that we will have a long and healthy life is so strange and modern. So is our assumption that our homes are durable and our possessions really ours. How many people in earlier ages and even today, haven’t been burned out of their homes in war or disaster and have had to pick up again, often in a different city or country, with no insurance and very few supports?

While I do feel and grieve my loss, there is also a strange “lightness of being” that I experience at times, of being just a bit more aware of my basic humanity—minus the trappings—than I was before.

"Lightness of being." Our friends, though their trauma, offer us this wisdom and this reminder. May we all find that lightness of being as we await the coming of the light.

Another Casting Announcement

Earlier we announced that someone, perhaps connected with the Kohls corporation, is evidently planning a made-for-TV movie about our lives. The two starring roles have already been cast, and now the producers are cleverly leaking photos of some of the other casting choices.

Here, for example, we see a young fellow who is apparently going to be playing the role of Philip. Quite the impish little moppet--and well dressed, too!

We're also cluing in to the idea that the daily dullness of our actual lives will have to be jazzed up to make this sucker sell on the Hallmark channel. So our real-life, mostly-mutt Maizey will become not one but two radiant purebred yellow labs. Meanwhile, apparently Ron will be commuting to work not in a 1998 Geo Prizm with 100,000 miles on it, but instead will be roaring along astride this painfully hip vintage road machine. In fact, maybe he doesn't work at all, since we appear to live now somewhere in the Scottish Highlands.

Tune in next week for previews of "our" smiling family handing one another food processors and cozy socks under a 10-foot Douglas fir laden with hand-crafted ornaments--all on sale!

Hermeneutical Sophistication

A few weeks ago Debra and I - along with the estimable Nathan Bierma and his wife, Andrea -- visited our friend Nick Overduin and the wonderful people at 1st CRC in Toronto. They've made use of Deb's books and Nathan's in their small groups, and so wanted to meet and chat with them. Meanwhile, I came along to give Nick a week off from his pulpit duties. We had an enjoyable ride up on Saturday, and a lovely evening eating some fabulous Ethiopian food (our fave).

The worship service and other events on Sunday were very satisfying, but I was entranced by a display in the church's narthex.

It is the product of a children's Bible study of the story of Noah. Next to idealized Bible school pictures of an ark full of elephants and giraffes and so forth are comments the students made, like these:

• "The water could not have been this calm."
• "The animals could not have been this familiar to us."
• "They must have taken animals on the ark to be eaten, not saved,"

and my favorite:
Instead of fostering a childish view of scripture (not childlike), whoever was in charge of this study encouraged the children to read their Bibles with their brains turned on, working alongside their faithful trust in Scripture's trustworthiness.

To paraphrase someone I admire a great deal, I've not seen such hermeneutical sophistication in all of... well, in a lot of places I would expect to find it. Children taught this way are much less likely to fall into biblicist patterns of thinking about inspiration, or have their faith shaken to the core when they learn, for example, in their Religion 101 classes, of the documentary hypothesis.

Mark it up as one more thing 1st CRC in Toronto is doing well.

My Grandpa Always Told Me...

...that you've got to toot your own horn, 'cause no one else is going to toot it for you.


Guess Grandpa wasn't right about everything.

Or he didn't know anything about the CICW.