So, Mr. Possumblogger...

...now that you don't have soccer practice and games, what do you do with your time? Glad you asked, Imaginary Friend!

Last night was spent helping Boy with his reading fair book project report presentation deal thing. Everyone in the whole elementary school has to come up with some sort of large two-dimensional somethingorother which illustrates some salient point or character in the book, some interesting bits of pasted-on verbiage, and a "commercial" intended to spark the interest of the viewer of the artwork and cause him or her to rush willy-nilly to the public storehouse of books and beat down the door to get a copy.

As with all modern elementary school homework, this wall hanging/exercise-in-marketing cannot actually be done by a child, but requires Parental Involvement™. To make it even harder, the Parent™ must not allow his influence to show through to the finished product, but rather work in the idiom of a primitive folk painter, allowing the finished example to not look like an adult did it, but like a highly intelligent and enriched child had done it. Much like a clever Cold War Russki spy, my fingerprints had to be carefully erased, the five year course of architectural education neatly hidden, the secrets of the adhesive properties of tape, glue, paste, and friction artfully disguised as mere happenstance in the hands of a child. And I have a Past. There have been shoebox dioramas for Curious George, model bicycles and Christmas lights for Genies Don't Ride Bicycles, a Revolutionary War campsite with soldiers handpainted onto clothespins, models of Elizabeth Regina I done with a Styrofoam ball and Pringles can--each artfully and skillfully rendered, and each having at least two and one half minutes of actual Student Participation™ (cleverly redirected toward activities such as helping Daddy find the glue, or throwing away paper scraps, or sitting quietly beside the table waiting for instructions rather than dangerous stuff such as cutting out things or lining things up).

Last night's project was a "character hanging" (no, not Tom Dooley) which had to use, for some odd reason, a wire coathanger as the base. Onto this was to be attached a paper plate (or other suitable renewable-resource-based product) head, and below a cut-out body of sorts, the whole of which was intended to create the Gestaltic avataristic essence of the book's main character. The crudely photocopied instruction sheet on how this thing was supposed to look included a couple of pictures of some other kid's work, which I must say, looked like hammered crap. This was going to be a cinch.

In this case, Boy's chosen book was Arthur's Christmas, by the creator of Arthur the lovable aardvark, Marc Brown. (And not to be confused with Arthur's Perfect Christmas, or Arthur Decks the Halls, or Arthur's Christmas Rave and Arrest, or Arthur Samples Adult Holiday Beverages)

Having read the book twice, and after consulting with Mama, Boy was determined to complete a hanging showing Arthur in pajamas holding a package wrapped in Pokemon wrapping paper. Okay, whatever, son--although in the story Arthur has decided to get Santa a present and winds up whipping up a huge bowl of glop. ::sigh:: Reading comprehension means little when there is the opportunity to insert a bit of artistic license in the form of Pikachu on red shiny paper.

So, to work. Corrugated brown cardboard box lid provided a suitable head (paper plates...PLEASE!) which was quickly cut out and upon which a scrap of the white side of the box was cut out into requisite dorky glasses and pasted onto head. Body of poster board--crudely, yet pleasantly and accurately rendered and outlined and patterned in thin blue stripes, little hands of brown cardboard. Onto this was glued six strips of paper (cut out entirely by Boy, but only after having been carefully lined off by Dad and after repeated admonishments not to screw up the cutting) which had short sentences inscribed upon them: "He wants to make Santa a present," "He asks his parents for help," etc., which were carefully inked in Sharpie marker (!) but only after a certain Dad had provided faint penciled-in lettering to follow, and last, the two final pieces of graphic excresence, a larger piece of paper with the title of the book, and the vaunted "commercial." The title block was based upon the candy-striped border of the book's cover, which was carefully outlined by Dad, then colored expertly by Son, except for one teeny mistake in which the order of red-white-red-white was jarred by a red-white-red-red-white incident. Having had some experience at this Game allowed me to know that this was an acceptable level of wrongitude, which a less-experienced parent might have been tempted to correct. Oh, no--leave it be. It only adds to the artifice. In the center was the shaky, outline-lettered title, spelled absolutely right, yet slightly off center enough to show that charming lack of attention associated with child's artwork. All colored in and looking good. Last the spiel about the book, which was written on another large paper, this time with a framework reminiscent of the arched window on the front of the book. Once more, Wonderdad lightly drew in Boy's words--well, more or less his words, except edited for content, spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and Boy colored in the shutters and background and inked the text.

The final result was stunning--the elegant, simple style of Marc Brown's illustrations, with their economy of strokes and elemental forms, makes constructing a recreation with plausibly deniable Parental Involvement™ that much easier. And Boy had a good time.

We were sitting there at the kitchen table, and he was excitedly coloring in the various bits of stuff and chattering about the book, and he stopped for a moment and said, "You know what, Daddy?"

"What, Buddy?"

"I sure like having you as my daddy."

"Yeah, well I like having a little boy just like you to be a daddy for."

So, even though soccer is over, I still have plenty to do to stay occupied. Tonight we have Middle Girl's soccer party, then tomorrow one of the kids' church friends is having a birthday and we're all going to see the new Harry Potter flick, and I really need to scrape the pumkin guts off the front porch from Halloween, and I really, REALLY need to check on those mousetraps I set out last month, and I need to go to the dump, and the seat cover on the truck needs to be replaced, and there's all that stack of laundry, and then there's the Auburn game to watch, and then there's church on Sunday, and then there's that whole 'being a good dad' thing.

I manage to stay busy, I suppose. ANNYway, all of you take care of yourselves and I'll see you Monday.
posted by Terry at 4:05:00 PM