Ladies and gentlemen, madames et messieurs, my fellow children of all ages: I have arrived. I am now one year old.
The occasion was marked in the traditional fashion, with a sumptuous feast of cakes and delicacies attended by all the beloved friends and family who have helped me to reach this milestone. There was much rejoicing.
Also, there was much booty. My cousin Evan, marking his 2nd year on this our fair mother Earth, was celebrating by my side and the two of us, hearty compatriots, arm-in-arm, through great vigor and an extraordinary collaborative effort were able to blaze a trail through the dense forest of presents that filled the house from floorboard to beam, the generous expression of abundant affection made concrete and lovingly enveloped in festive wrappers, which were ripped asunder with great gusto and much boisterous laughter. The mamas helped, too.
My Manny, peculiar obsessive that he is, made a gift to me of the novel, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. It seems that the author Kurt Vonnegut and I share a birthday, and, as the late Mr. Vonnegut is my Manny's favorite writer, he considered this parallel quite a portentous dollop of serendipity. I thanked him for the book, but did express some minor disappointment at its complete lack of illustrations. He then promised to next year give to me a copy of Breakfast of Champions.
He then said to me, "Well, now you've come full circle, Simon. The planet has completed its circuit around the sun and you have arrived back at the same point where you started."
I replied, "In some sense that's true, relative to our sun we are in an equivalent position, but overall we're hardly at the same point where we were one year ago."
He blinked at me, and seemed confused.
"Look," I said, "imagine that I am a point of light, and that all my motions are drawn onto the darkness of space like a pen filled with silver ink draws on a black page. At the most intimate scale we can follow my daily motions across the surface of this planet: being brought home from the hospital after my birth, crawling across the carpet, travels with the mamas, yours and my little walks around the neighborhood. Are you with me so far?"
He nodded.
"Good. Now, the analogy with the ink on the page breaks down pretty quickly, firstly because the surface of the Earth is not flat like the page, it is rounded, so we're dealing with motion in three spatial dimensions, not two. Secondly, the surface of the Earth is not our canvas, but space itself is, and we know that while we move across the surface of the Earth, at the same time the Earth itself is moving through space, in several different directions at once.
"Say you and I walk up to the European grocery around the corner, to peruse the curious Russian chocolates and the comely Russian cashiers there. Our motion across the planet surface would resemble the shape of the letter 'C'. But at the same time that we're walking the Earth is rotating too, at this latitude maybe at about 600 miles per hour, so that 'C' is stretched and bent. Also, while the Earth is rotating on its axis it's also orbiting the sun at more than 33,000 miles per hour, so that line tracing the course of our progress is ever more drastically stretched and distorted.
"Now you might think that in the course of one year the map of my progress would describe hundreds of ringlets (366 to be precise, remember, this is a leap year), artifacts of the planet's daily rotation throughout its revolution, completing a circle around our sun that arrives back at its initial starting point. You might think this, but you would be wrong, because as the earth revolves around its sun, our solar system, the sun and its planets, are revolving in an outer spiral arm around the center of this, our milky way galaxy, and at the same time that galaxy is locked in its own secret and curious motions. The circle is broken, and it becomes something more complex, a coil.
"Even standing still we find ourselves moving through space in a multitude of contrasting directions, at cumulative speeds near inconceivable, and that hypothetical evidence of our progress, that point of light etching its brilliant map on the inky void, describes not a straight line, not a curved line, not a circle, but an intricate visual melody, a pattern of loops and arcs and whorls mirroring and reproducing themselves at all scales, cosmic and microscopic, like some filigreed fractal finial, a tapered luminous spring stretched and twisted and twirled, and wherever we are at any instant, even at our most solitary and still, we are at a place and a moment which we will never return to again, as we continue turning on wheels within wheels, within wheels, spiraling out into ever-expanding empty space..."
He gave me a long, silent look, and then asked, "What do you think you'd like to be when you grow up, Simon?"
I thought for a moment, then replied, "I think I'd like to be a crazy upright bass player in a band with at least half a dozen bare-shouldered, marimba-playing cuties ... but there's still plenty of time for me to change my mind." He nodded, and seemed satisfied with this answer.
My question now is for everyone reading this blog. You've had some time to get to know me across the past year, learn some of my talents and my weaknesses, my preferences and my dislikes, what do YOU think I will eventually be when I grow up? I'd be curious to hear some honest thoughts from other perspectives, so don't be shy about chiming in. You can leave your notions in the comments section at the end of this post. Right now I think I'd like to go have some more cake...
I am become camelopardalis, the giraffe. I was born with velvety horns, and have a black prehensile tongue, two feet long. I have a lovely spotted coat and can kick a lion to death if the need arises.
Giraffes are social animals, but nearly silent, and we rarely make a sound. We like to travel together in herds to storytimes, and to laze about in the midday fluorescence, looking at picturebooks.
I mainly eat leaves from the acacia tree, sometimes more than 100 pounds a day, but I have also been known to travel house-to-house in quiet residential neighborhoods, hoping to receive small gifts of candy from the good people who live there.
I am the tallest animal in the world. I sleep only about a half-hour each day, and usually only in 5-minute naps. I have no tear ducts but I have been seen to cry, although no one has ever caught me taking a bath. And I don't have to share any of my candy if I don't want to.
My Manny and I went on several walks this past Summer, some of them all the way up to Elizabeth Park. The first time that we walked there I fell asleep on the way, and when he woke me up we were completely surrounded by ducks. I was very impressed! So impressed, in fact, that I decided to learn a new word, right there on the spot.
Another time we walked to the center, and on the way we saw a green heron - a very beautiful bird! Here is a picture of it sitting on a rock in the brook, with a handy arrow to indicate its exact position...
...and here is another picture of the same species of bird, stolen from the intartubes, and likely not taken with a cameraphone at a great distance...
After we saw the bird on our walk, we went right to the bookstore to grab a Sibley guide and look it up. At a distance we thought it might be a young blue heron, but when we spotted the listing for the green heron we knew that's exactly what it was. Here is a photograph of our moment of discovery:
And what I said before about the Summer heat baking the brain is definitely true. How else can you explain why I would try to balance a horse on my head? Handy tip: If the weather is very warm, a stuffed horse atop the head will not help to keep you cool.
Hello everyone! Please forgive my long absence from the blog. One thing that I've learned in my first turn through the seasons is that the heat from the summer sun tends to bake the brain a bit, to slow the synapses, to make the mind meander. But when the weather cooled and the leaves began to turn from green to red - so beautiful! - I suddenly felt myself come back to my senses, and then I came back to the blog. Look at these pumpkins!
I'm not quite walking yet but I've really got this crawling thing down, and I scoot all over the house wherever I please. Clyde the cat doesn't know what to think, and still looks shocked when he sees me chasing after him now. In fact, just the other day I was playing with him in the living room when he got up and walked into the kitchen. I followed right behind him, but he wasn't in the mood to play anymore and he went right up the stairs.
Well, I'd never yet climbed up a single stair, at home or anywhere else, but I didn't see why I shouldn't at least try to - everyone else seems to have a pretty fine time tromping up and down staircases all day long. So I first got one knee up, and then the other, I wobbled and I wiggled and I climbed up onto that bottom step. My Manny was very impressed (he'd followed me into the kitchen as I followed Clyde) and offered much enthusiastic applause.
Well, he was even more impressed when I climbed up onto the second step. And by the time I squirmed up onto the third he was in complete shock and hovering right behind me, trying to keep me safe, looking worried that I might fall at any moment or wrong move. But I didn't fall, and I didn't misstep. I kept on climbing up and up and up until I made it aaaaaalllllll the way up to the top, up to the second floor of the house.
How 'bout that? I woke up in the morning having never yet climbed a stair in my short little life, and all of the sudden I had climbed a whole flight of them - fourteen stairs! It was pretty exciting, and my Manny told me he was very proud of me.
I said, You just wait. I said, This is just the beginning.
I cut my finger - a very sad event, but not as serious as the excessive bandages might suggest as they engulf my whole hand and wrist, turning my arm into something not unlike the clubbed tail of an ankylosaur. Rest assured, the bandaged hand was only to prevent me chewing on the bandaged finger. Which I certainly would have done, because let's face it, I'm a baby. I have no self control.
Hello folks, I've been having lots of fun times these days! Many close encounters with the animal kingdom, both domesticated and feral. I finally got a hold of Clyde the cat! His fur was just as soft as I'd always imagined.
Another time, while out walking with my Manny, we were scolded at some length by a red-winged blackbird. It fluttered just above our heads and made quite a racket as we passed a stand of conifers where it must have had a nest. All told it harangued us for about a hundred feet as we walked along, and when we'd stop it would rest on a low branch and watch us. It was amazing to see one so close. Unlike Clyde, who has fur, the bird had feathers, velvety black and bright orangey-red. We didn't have a camera with us that day, but we've found a photograph online to use for illustration purposes:
I've been spending plenty of time in parks lately, lazing about in the green grass with the Mamas, and once we rode down to the Long Island Sound and spent the day near the water. I don't have to worry about the bright sunshine as much because my pediatrician says it's OK for me to use sunscreen now.
Also, I'm sitting up on my own, without any help! I might tip over once in a while, but I always get right back up. I'm practicing finding my balance up on my hands and knees, and I'm sure I'll be crawling any day now. And everyone better get ready, because once I start I don't plan on stopping.
I think the best thing I've been able to do lately was to ride the merry-go-round with Mama Sandy, round and round, on our own little brown horse. I think Mama Sandy enjoyed it, too. Look how happy she is:
Manny's note: It looks like we got off easy with the blackbird shadowing us on our walk. The good people of Chicago haven't been as fortunate lately.
The Mamas and I took a trip to Nantucket just last weekend, and I had a great time. Here I am riding the ferry in heavy seas:
Here's Mama Sandy carrying me around the island:
Here's Mama Cyndi enjoying some sunshine and orange juice just outside of our cottage:
On the homefront, I've been getting to try many new foods lately. I've had peas, and sweet potatoes, and bananas, and carrots, and just last night I had some prunes.
The only thing that I've had and didn't like at all was avocado. I mean, good for me or not, I really did not like the avocado. At all.
My Manny is still making me listen to different and interesting music, but these days he's starting to seem a little more paranoid about it. Just the other day he got very excited about a small tag on one of my jumpers, which he said resembles a logo used on the cover of the album Gordon, by a group of nerdy Canadian musicians called the Barenaked Ladies. Looking at them both together I think he does have a point, and the company website does seem a mite suspicious. Perhaps, like the ubiquitous post horn of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, the symbol is pervasive but overlooked, visible only to those who have learned to see it. Are nerdy Canadian musicians really scheming to put clothes on America's babies? Is the Yukon planning to infiltrate UConn? I won't hold my breath waiting for the mainstream media to cover the story. Everyone knows all the network news outlets are already deep in the pocket of Big Canadian Bacon.
My Manny had me listen to a couple of tracks from the album in question. Here's a video of me listening to the song I liked the best, Be My Yoko Ono. If I seem a little restless it's because this was probably the fifth time he'd played the song for me, and I was definitely getting bored with it by then. He says when he was in school he used to get together with friends and they would all sing along to the album. Now it seems he wants to sing it with me. Repeatedly. The video is worth watching if only for the last few seconds. And it is a catchy song, so enjoy.
For weeks now it's been perfect springtime day after perfect springtime day, and my Manny and I have spent many hours out touching new leaves, listening to all the treetop mockingbirds singing for their sweethearts, looking at all the different colors of dogwoods and tulips in bloom, and smelling the lilacs buds as they begin to open. He says that they're his favorite flowers, and after smelling them I can understand why.
Carley and Mama Cyndi had a birthday party. They may have gotten presents, but I've claimed their balloons for my own, and I used them to illustrate to my Manny the principle of buoyancy. I explained that the balloon's ability to "float" is evidence of the lower atomic weight of helium (which fills the balloon) relative to the higher atomic weights of nitrogen and oxygen, which surround the balloon and are the primary components of our atmosphere. Then I spent a good hour or so just yanking on the ribbons, and making the balloons jump up and down.
Today was beautiful day to hang out on the porch with a balloon or two, just enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. In truth, it's been magnificent lately, with broad green leaves suddenly draping the trees, and sweet blossoms blooming everywhere you look. My Manny says that this is about as fine a season as a person has a right to expect, and that I'm fortunate to have it for my first Spring. He says that sometimes Winter hangs on forever, and then it suddenly snaps into the heat of Summer, and that leaves a body feeling cheated. But not this year. This year it's perfect balloon weather.
That's right folks, I just got my first pearly whites, a pair of them in the lower central incisor region. I am now entering a whole new arena of mastication possibilities. Bring on that candy, dagnabbit!
But don't get the wrong idea, dental hygiene is a primary concern. I just got these babies, and I plan to take good care of them. My aunt Susan will be so proud of me!
That's right, folks, I'm growing up tout de suite, exploring and learning new things every day.
I have to say, baths have gotten a mite easier:
Also, I've lately been allowed to try some new foods, rice, and barley and oatmeal. I prefer the oatmeal.
I've also developed a taste for gypsy jazz guitar. The other day while my Manny and I were hanging out in the living room, there was a TV documentary on gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. As the credits started to roll they showed a film clip, and the song that was played in that clip, I'm told it's called J'attendrai, held me completely mesmerized the whole time it played.
So the Manny and I looked at the YouTube, and there we found the very same clip. Presented here for your listening pleasure, legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt and the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, with Stephane Grappelli on violin. The song in question -- that beautiful and buoyant song -- begins at 1:30. Enjoy.
Interesting thing about Django Reinhardt, at the age of 18 he was seriously injured in a fire, which paralyzed two fingers on his left hand. But like ballplayer Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown before him, whose injury to his pitching hand led to a devastating curve ball and a Hall of Fame career, Django's paralyzed fingers, rather than destroying any chance he had to play the guitar, led him to create a new, distinctive and influential picking style.
I only mention this because, while there have been some whispers, I firmly believe that my newfound preference for chewing my own foot will not be a hindrance in whatever future endeavors I choose to pursue. The world remains my oyster. And, for the time being, my tasty, tasty foot remains the pearl.
For Easter, we all went on an adventure, the Mamas, my sister Carley and I, to the unmapped Eastern wilds of the land known as Pennsylvania. We were going there to visit a very important person whom I had not yet met -- my brother Casey!
Mama Cyndi was very excited to see Casey...
...and he was happy to see me. Here he is reading to me from the epic poem Squishy Turtle and Friends, one of my favorites. I'm fond of its rigid structure of rhyming couplets of iambic quadrameter, although I will admit that on occasion the book's powerful imagery has gotten stuck on a rhythmic rhyming loop in my head, and kept me awake at night.
As I understand it, Easter is the time of year when we mourn a man who was nailed to a tree a long, long time ago for saying how great it would be for people to be nice to each other for a change. And we mark this sad event by painting the ova of common barnyard fowl, placing them in baskets along with chocolate lagomorphs, and wrapping it all in pastel cellophane...
...I might be off a bit in some of the details, but I think that's basically what Easter's all about. But in truth, I was just happy that it gave me an opportunity to spend time around people who like me, and whom I really like, too.
I was fortunate enough to receive several lovely gifts to mark this springtimey holiday, and some of them you can see here:
I very much enjoy the hardcover volume on trucks. The illustrations are vibrant, and the book's usage of an onomatopoeic subtheme as comic counterpoint to the primary narrative thrust is deft and satisfying.
My Manny, on the other hand, seems oddly enthusiastic about the peculiar fish on my shirt. I mean, to an almost unhealthy degree he likes my pufferfish shirt. I imagine we'll spend quite a few summer weekday afternoons together, that shirt and I. Most likely in public places. And that's fine by me, all I ask is that I be allowed to take my ducky along, too:
And while I don't want to belabor the point, I would like to state for the record that once more I have not been offered any candy, despite it being available in abundance as of late. So now, as an act of gently subversive protest, here is the late, great Mississippi John Hurt singing his Candy Man Blues at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival:
