Month: October 2010

Hazel just made a “computer” from a shallow box with things glued in it (the keyboard) and a blank box lid (the screen) plus an old mouse. Then she put a ball in front of the “screen” and said “there’s a ball on the screen”, practiced typing, and so on.

Some bad times in this recent holiday overseas (just back) give me pause. I would not, at this time, recommend travelling with a small child for four weeks. Some of the moments have been wonderful, as always, but the general feeling that remains is still a dull pain. Anyway:

They Might Be Giants’s Here Come the 123s! has a song called “Triops has three eyes”, which repeats that phrase quite a few times. (She usually prefers their more recent Here Comes Science, and it makes me so proud each time she listens intently to “Meet the Elements” or “I am a Paleontologist” that I can’t say. Anyway.)

She also loves Toy Story 1 and 2, which we have, and she watches, on the iPad. Remember the claw aliens from Toy Story? Three eyes. While we watched Toy Story 3 (amazing) on the plane home, I leaned over to her to explain that we were looking at the claw aliens.

She says: “No, they’re triops.”

I really hope Jucy works out for these two: Cindy Nelson & Francesca Gasteen at TIFF 2010. Mostly because they’re great and they deserve it, but a little because they starred together in Five, a film I directed and edited a few years ago in the 48 Film Project. All the dialogue was ad-libbed; they were terrific. The sad part was having to cut almost all of Francesca’s part to get it into the five-minute time limit. If you find me in person, ask to see the extended cut with Francesca’s part reinstated.