Parker Family Christmas Tradition

So it occurred to me this will be the first Christmas that the entire Parker family will spend together. I think a cool tradition to institute would be a 12 Days To Christmas Movie Marathon. Here’s my proposal for the line-up:

December 13th The Nightmare Before Christmas

14th Home Alone (every other year Home Alone 2)

15th The Family Man

16th A Muppet Christmas Carol

17th Elf

18th The Grinch

19th The Polar Express

20th The Santa Clause

21st A Christmas Story

22nd It’s A Wonderful Life

23rd How the Grinch Stole Christmas/Mr. Krueger’s Christmas

24th The Nativity Story

Comments? Suggestions?

Short Film Outline

Here’s the rough outline I have so far. Any ideas/insight appreciated…

Scene 1

OPENING: Open with black screen for a few seconds, then you can hear the clicking noise of a slide projector shifting slides. You hear once, twice, then the image blinks on.

SHOT 1: camera starts in a darkened closet then the closet door is opened. After a few seconds of rustling a GIRL comes into view. She has climbed onto one of the lower shelves of the closet and is peering at a higher one (where the camera is).
She shifts a few objects, pulls them off the shelves. After a moment of rustling through the items it seems like she hasn’t found what she wants. She begins to put the items back, but hesitates as she peers thoughtfully into an old plastic shopping bag. She replaces all the items but the bag and shuts the door.

SHOT 2: A broken flashlight can be seen on the ground (top off, batteries falling out). Feet enter the frame and exit, followed by a lamp trailing a cord down the hallway.

SHOT 3: A moment later camera follows cord down the hallway and it can be seen snaking into a darkened bedroom.

SHOT 4: Wider shot of darkened and cluttered room with an elaborate blanket fort inside. Rustling is heard, then a soft click and the fort lights up.

SHOT 5: Close up of hand holding the tiny slides and fingers tracing the cardboard edges.

**Montage of holding slides up to the lamp light, and sorting them into piles**

I don’t know how to make it flow into this next part!!! Any ideas??

Scene 2

GIRL somehow obtains a slide projector. I am having second thoughts about having her pick it up at Good Will. Actually I just can’t clearly envision this scene so I’m going to bypass it for now. Maybe in the beginning she just finds the slides AND the projector??

Scene 3

SHOT 1: girl pulls from a storage closet a big box of cords. She lifts them up in a tangled knot.

SHOT 2: presumably later on she sits on the ground with the cords and is plugging them one by one into the wall to test them. She tries 3 or 4 that don’t work. Finally one does and the slide projector blinks on.

Scene 4: Many sheets and towels and other laundry are hanging on an outdoor clothesline to dry. The girl walks through them casually, then tiptoes to undo the clothespins on a white sheet and yanks it from the line, dashing away.

Show and Tell: Darwinists’ Attacks Against Intelligent Design

1. Intelligent Design is just Creation Science in a new suit (name-calling).

2. Don’t listen to these guys, they’re not real scientists (credentialism).

3. If you actually understood science as we do, you’d realize that these guys are wrong and we’re right; but you don’t, so you have to trust us (expertism).

4. They got some details of those complex systems wrong, so they must be wrong about everything (sniping).

5. The first amendment requires the separation of church and state (politics).

6. We can’t possibly find a fossil record of every step along the way in evolution, but evolution has already been so well-demonstrated it is absurd to challenge it in the details (prestidigitation).

7. Even if there are problems with the Darwinian model, there’s no justification for postulating an “intelligent designer” (true).

Animal Vegetable Miracle

Newest research obsession: community supported agriculture and the perks of eating only locally grown produce and growing your own food.

I have been reading the book Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and fantasizing about having the means to buy a CSA share for one of the local family farms in Utah and beginning to do stuff like grind my own wheat, raise chickens, and make my own cheese or pickles.

It may just be a passing obsession, but there are a lot of good reasons to re-evaluate the way we eat in contemporary America. We have become so completely removed from the process behind one of our most basic needs: to eat.

One day I have dreams of having a nice little vegetable patch and buying most of my food from local farmer’s markets

Since this is mainly a show-and-tell I pledge to post some sort of writing on Wednesday when I’d usually post show-and-tell. Goodnight! I’m off to read another chapter in that book…

The Mords

One would say they looked like the unlikely combination of a slug and a rhinoceros, if two such animals existed.  One would also have reason to think them dumb grumps.  This is a common misconception.  Mords are, in actuality, just about the smartest, friendliest, most chivalrous large-herd-animals you are likely to meet.  They are just terribly slow, which sometimes comes off the wrong way.

For example, if you were to inquire of a Mord concerning his position on, say, affirmative action, you would probably be met with an eyebrowless glare (judging glares without brows is tricky business).  But what you would likely not know is that roughly two and a half weeks later, said Mord would utter a brilliant dissertation on the subject, with no one present to hear.

It is said that Prince Gesundheit got his name when King Fatpan and Queen Leafnut, unable to come up with a mutually satisfactory moniker, vowed to go with the very next suggestion they heard.  How were they to know that the Mord whom they asked was not answering their query, but responding to his nephew’s sneeze from three weeks prior?

A fortnight after the Prince’s christening the same Mord, when asked about his stance on global warming, was heard saying “Mortimor Von Belt-Whip!”

Brooke: Nattfari

*names are tentative and will probably change.

Nattfari was skeptical when she arrived. He set down his nets and watched as she strode confidently onto port with Sigridur behind her, following as a shadow in her steps. The mother wore a thick cloak to shield against the rain, but held her head erect as she fixed on him a fiery gaze—daring him to object before a word had even been spoken.

He scratched his chin, eyed the child gravely, and he spoke.

“You’ve brought the girl.”

She said nothing, only pulled Sigridur forward to stand at her side. Sigridur’s small head protruded comically from a thick animal skin, a cloak like her mother’s wrapped around her tiny frame. She tried not to shiver as she stood, and fixed Nattfari with the fiercest gaze she could muster. Even standing at full height she reached just above her mother’s elbows.

Nattfari was shaking his head, “and you intend for this little–”

“She comes with us,” the mother interrupted. Her voice was strong, her arm reached out possessively around her daughter.

“The boat is no place for a child”

“She is strong, she can work.”

As she spoke these words she silently felt the thick coat of animal skin draped around her daughter and was thankful that it hid the child in all her frailty.

“I will not allow for it.”

“Then I will leave,” said the mother turning as she spoke.

“Ha!” said Natfarri, looking at her mockingly, “you cannot leave.”

The mother shot around with a renewed fierceness. “The child comes, or I will leave,” she growled.

Nattfari frowned. “We will bring the matter before Garduar”

Five More Short Story Ideas

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Fill in the blanks.

Bellies

We watched their to-and-fro-ing

Like a bowl of warm dough growing

Or a belly’s gladly bulging button beaming breached and glowing

 

A ripe rotating spectacle

Suspended by the flowing

And the fondly draped attention

Of a mass of rolley-pollies

 

Finally I can say

If but for today

I’m okay

And they’re okay

 

 

Five Short Film Ideas

Meow Meow (Remake of the Austin Parker Classic)

Meow Meow is the coolest guy in Maritime High School. At the lunch table, no one but Garry seems to notice that he is a sock-puppet cat on the hand of Marcus. While everyone else hangs on Meow Meow’s every word, Garry (along with the audience) only hears a series of “meows” that obviously are coming from Marcus’ mouth.

OTV

The Rising Cost of Oil is the top story on every major news station as Hank flips through the channels. The media’s obsession with oil gets more and more ridiculous as a bewildered and frustrated Hank stumbles across a weather report predicting “oil storms,” a cooking show presenting recipes featuring crude-oil as an ingredient, a news feature about a group of kids who start a business which started as an “oil stand” (like a lemonade stand), a soap opera in which Dame swoons over a container of oil, and other such nonsense.

Facetious?

Brandon is known for being a tease and faning offense at the smallest criticism, usually to comic effect. But when boss Ned and he get in a fight that starts out playfully but gets out of hand, both have to decide whether they were serious or kidding and how to best resolve the trivial episode without damaging the other’s pride.

Three Thirty

Mom Cheryl (39) is up at 3:30 AM making pancakes before she hops on a bus to the hospital where she is a Physician’s Assistant. Daughter Jane (19) is home at 3:30 AM from hanging out with friends and is getting ready for bed. Mom and Daughter seize the opportunity to share a meal at this odd hour. They reminisce about years passed when they were best friends (recalling how they used to call pancakes “Flap-Janes”) and briefly bemoan their diverging lifestyles which afford them fewer and fewer encounters.

Pick-Up

The director of a kids camp (Derek) sits on a bench to wait with a misbehaving child (Ben) for the parent to come pick him up early. Derek delicately attempts to lighten the mood by playing a game in which Ben has to lift up his shirt – giving him an opportunity to look for bruises from a parent in question. No bruises. As they continue waiting, mostly in silence, Derek ponders on who’s to blame for Ben’s situation and feels helpless to find out. A stressed-out father shows up, a feat of great difficulty in the middle of his busy day in the office, and seems to be genuinely pleasant.

Dot Dot Dot

The slope of the earth was reminiscent of a large green glacier. It came down from Northwest Peak like a rumbling tear drop. Beyond The Edge there was nothing – how could there be, it was The Edge?

Only three colors existed in this peculiar realm; The Birds were red, The Trees were green, and The Mords were gray. Every once-in-while, a precocious pelican, or perhaps a keen kiwi would take a break from his red apple with a green worm inside and imagine how wonderful it would be to eat a different colored worm.

“Whaddaya mean ‘different color’?!” a pessimistic pigeon would inevitably say with a thick Brooklyn accent (as pessimistic pigeons do).

“Well, it would look kinda like… You know when you sit on a Mord’s back and you get so comfortable you fall asleep and then you wake up and realize you could’ve been killed and start to panic but then see that the Mord’s asleep and everything’s okay… you know that feeling? It kinda looks like that.”

But shortly after the words “it would look kinda like dot dot dot” all but a few patient penguins would return to the business of exhuming green worms from red apples. And let’s face it, the penguins’ puny brains couldn’t keep up with such a run-on sentence.

What a ticklish notion to think the first time they would actually glimpse this indescribable color, it would be the last thing they ever saw.  And hot – O, so hot!  But that won’t be for a while…