sam the knight

Sam has become rather interested in knights, ever since we showed him "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" a few months ago. But unfortunately the end of the movie (see a clip here) really affected Sam's definition of what constitutes a "knight." For a few weeks after seeing that show, Sam kept telling me that "knights don't have heads." Oh dear!

We've finally been able to convince Sam that knights can have heads, but he still thinks that "knights can't see." This actually is a pretty logical thought on his end; Sam thinks knights aren't able to see because their helmets have visors. So whenever Sam pretends to be a knight, he keeps his eyes shut very tight. I suppose that J and I should work harder to clarify this misconception, but it's really cute to see him squeeze his eyes shut.

Here's a recent clip of our little knight:

richard saunders vs. titan leeds

I've just started to read a book on Benjamin Franklin, titled Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and his Electric Kite Hoax (by Tom Tucker). The book basically argues that Benjamin Franklin never conducted his famous electricity experiment, in which he flew a kite during an electrical storm. I haven't gotten to the bulk of the argument yet, nor have I decided whether I buy into this author's argument. But I was interested to learn that very soon after Franklin was extolled for his experiment in May 1752, a scientist in Russia tried to replicate Franklin's experiment, and ended up dying.¹ According to Tucker, Franklin histories have dismissed this Russian man as "foolishly unaware," but "Russian and Estonian sources...reveal the victim to have been a brilliant, very aware scientist...and a skilled linguist who followed Franklin's every word in English."² Hmm. So can one really survive flying a kite in an electrical storm?

Although I'm not very far into the book, I have been most amused by its discussion of Poor Richard's Almanac. I knew that Franklin published this almanac under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, but I didn't know much else about the publication. I had no idea it was so humorous!

Poor Richard's Almanac burst onto the market by predicting the date for when his competitor Titan Leeds (another almanac writer, who did not publish under a pseudonym) would die. This publication caused a lot of back-and-forth writing between "Saunders" and Leeds over the next few years. You can read a little bit of the episode on pages 7 -10 the Electric Kite Hoax book (see here). I laughed out loud when I got to the top of page 10. Franklin was quite clever.

The portrait of Ben Franklin was painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785. For more information on the portrait, see here. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

1 Tom Tucker, Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and his Electric Kite Hoax (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003), xix.

last day to vote!

I'm sure people are getting tired of my requests to vote for Fictionist, but this is a big deal for my friends. This is the last day that you can vote for the band, and it looks like they are really close against another band, "The Sheepdogs." Please vote for Fictionist HERE, and give them five stars. And if you want to tell others about the contest, that would be fantastic. Oh, and if you could like the band on FB and tweet about them through the Rolling Stone page, that would be much appreciated (they get added points in the competition for those two things).

Thank you! I sure hope they go through to the next round!

mother's day

I came across this nice picture of my mom this afternoon, while looking for pictures of her in my scrapbook. My mom put most of my childhood scrapbook together, and I like that a lot of the commentaries are in her own handwriting. From what I can tell from this picture's placement in my album, this photo was taken in the beginning of 1986. So, in this picture my mom is about a year younger than I am right now.

Since my mom's death about 18 months ago, I have had difficulty deciding how I want to honor my mother on Mother's Day. Last year I didn't know what to do; I remember that I ended up calling my dad to let him know that I was thinking about mom. Although I know that many people buy flowers to put on their mothers' grave, I don't know if that's the approach I want to take each year.

This year I thought I'd just write something on here: Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you and miss you. I think about you every day. I continually grow in appreciation for all that you did for me (and all of your children), even though you aren't with us anymore. Mom, your memory is very much alive, not only on this Mother's Day, but on every day of the year.