Archie

Today Daddy met Archie Moore for the first time, although we've seen him quite a bit on social media since his birth.  It was a quick drive after church up to our old stomping ground in White County, which is where Alan's mother lives.  She was glad of the visitors, and Archie was too - it was a good chance to head up and see the gang once more.

This morning, Madison and Mommy slept in a bit, mainly because they needed it.  But Daddy drove back in between services to pick Madison up, and bring her to church.  She really wanted to go, and Daddy didn't want it to be an 'epic fail' sort of moment.  So she joined the other kids for the second service.  The numbers were down today, probably because of late nights and the Fourth of July weekend, but it was still a good service, from worship to the message of "GO."  It's the last message of our "Space Camp" series (unless we decide to do one on Wednesday).  The kids enjoyed it, along with one more new skit that Daddy wrote at the last minute, one based on the 'go/no go' requests that are shot out rapid-fire just before commencing with the launch sequence.

When Daddy returned from Cleveland, it was time for the Phantom Menace.  Madison wanted to know what 'menace' meant.  And then 'phantom.'  And then we were set.  Except the popcorn -we were out of that.  Oh, but what's this?  Daddy actually stopped to get popcorn on the way home!  And he also stopped to get her some of her favorite drink, mango peach iced tea.

Madison didn't remember watching Episode I before, but she did some time ago.  I guess that made for a richer experience this time around!  She liked the movie, and is looking forward to Episode II, which she has not seen before.  She did, however, see clips of it when we were at the Sci Fi breakfast place a few weeks ago, with Greedo, a few stormtroopers, and some jawas.

Tonight, she was off to bed earlier.  The reason?  Art camp.  She's signed up for art camp.  That'll be this week - we saved some money on registration, and Madison was quite excited to be able to go.  Last year the theme was "Under the Sea" or something like that (which amazingly went with our series at Kidpak, and our vacations too).  The year before was something to do with science.  And this year, the theme is folk art.

"What's folk art?" she asked.

And then we too artistic types struggled to give Madison a definition?  How would you define folk art? No cheating - don't look it up.  The best we could tell her was, "Do you remember the House of Blues?"  Yeah, we went there.  But the best answer of all for this nine-year-old would be, "You'll find out tomorrow morning."  Indeed, there's a display of folk art there at the gallery, and hopefully it'll answer a few questions.  If not, there's always a visit to some folk art galleries around here, or maybe even Reverend Finster's old place in northwest Georgia.  We have always wanted to go there - maybe we can take a field trip!

Anyway, tonight we read from the next book in the series "Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue!"  Fortunately, Daddy was reading a little ahead, and sort of changed a bit of the dialogue on one chapter tonight.  This book will completely blindside you with something you don't want to talk about extensively just before going to bed.  No warning at all, and just like Princess Leia's blaster: BLAM!  Lesson learned:  I'm reading ahead beforehand.  The other books have been safe ground, for the most part, although some of the dialogue is a little coarse.  We're editing out a fewwords we don't want her to be blurting out in school, just to keep her out of trouble.

That said, it's time for bed.  We're all getting up earlier in the morning, and it's been quite a full day.  May the force be with you.

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FOLK ART:  paintings and decorative objects made in a naive style.

Oh, man, they went there with the description?  What do you think of when you hear the word 'naive?'  Let me help - here's the definition, from the same source:

NAIVE:  showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.

So apparently by definition, folk artists "lack experience, wisdom, or judgment?"  I'm not a folk artist by any means, but I'm thinking this definition is way off.  I mean, the stuff on the top floor of the High Museum lacks 'traditional rules of proportion and perspective' quite a bit.  That is to say, a lot of them look like colorful wads of paint smashed upon an oversized canvas.  Most folk art takes more skill than some of that stuff you see in the 'modern art' sections of our galleries.  And additionally, most of the objective public would find the folk art more favorable than some of this stuff we call fine art, or modern art.  Sure, there may be an accusation that most of the objective public are uncultured Philistines with no education at all about this matter.  That being said, it all comes down to who is the one that gets to make these definitions.  My suggestion: we find them and give that person a good noogie.  Or at least a well-deserved Indian burn.