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Archive for the ‘T.’ Category

Tony Abbott–Goofballs #2 The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue (2012)

Posted in Adventure, C., Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Kids Corner, Mystery, Short Books, T., The Plants, Tony Abbott, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on November 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

goof 2SOUNDTRACK: THE PLANTS-“Monster Under My Bed” (2013).

plantsI found this song on the WXPN Kids Corner 25th Anniversary CD (WXPN plays it a lot, and it’s a good Halloween song).

The song opens up with a lot of horns—a kind of horn solo section.  When the actual song melody starts it has a vaguely spy theme feel, although the main verse is a little sillier.

Lyrically, the song is all about the real concern that there is a Monster under the singer’s bed.  The song is fast and bouncy—especially the verses, so you know it’s not meant to be too scary.  But then the song slows down and we get the big surprise of what the monster actually is.

The song is pretty funny.  And the final verse—”monsters are nothing but make believe” is a very satisfying one.

[READ: October 12, 2013] Goofballs #2: The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue

I didn’t love the first Goofballs book, but I really enjoyed this one a lot.  It’s possible I was a sleepy dad while reading the first one or maybe it suffered from first book in a series stiffness.  But this new book hits its stride and doesn’t stop until the end.  What I especially liked about this book was that it knows its audience.  So it is a detective mystery, but the mystery isn’t too complicated, nor are there tons of impossible to figure out clues.  While I don’ think any kids would figure out who did it (I didn’t), the trial and error of figuring out the culprit is what’s fun.

It is Badger Point School’s 100th anniversary and there is going to be a huge party which includes the unveiling of a statue of the first principal.  Everyone is very excited.

Until the principal went to look at the statue and discovered that under the tarp that was covering the statue was not a statue at all—it was a stack of chairs.

Well, the Goofballs are on the case (without even the principal asking them).  They start finding clues—a broken pencil, a scrap of paper that say HEES GRATE (we had fun guessing what that could mean) and even a splash in the school’s pool. (more…)

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One Hot Summer (J.P. Case Middle School, Flemington, NJ, May 18, 2012)

Posted in Alice Cooper, Bowling for Soup, Dance, Frank Mills, One Hot Summer, Phineas and Ferb, T. on May 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED May 18, 2012] One Hot Summer

My five-year old daughter T. was in her second recital last night.  Last year she performed in one routine and this year she moved up to two–a ballet routine and a tap routine.

And my little girl got to lead the group out on stage!

She performed in two routines, “Ice Cream Ballet” (to the tune of Frank Mills’ “Music Box Dancer”) and “Hot Dog!” (the closing theme from the Mickey Mouse Show).

As with last year, I have no intention of critiquing any performances on the stage tonight.  Every girl and boy tried his or her best and they all did better than I could do.  However, I want to make some general observations about the performance.

This year’s theme was all about summer, so imagine my surprise when the first act was a dance routine set to “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper!  I feel like one of the big things that the dancers need to learn is to really exaggerate your excitement on stage–really get into it.  I know it is very hard to let loose in this way (although I noticed some of the boys really got into it), but if you just think about the sentiment of “Schools Out” you’d expect these kids to be wildly excited–exaggeratedly so. (more…)

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Cirque Zuma Zuma (RVCC Arts, Branchburg NJ, May 3, 2013)

Posted in Acrobats, Big Apple Circus, Branchburg, NJ, C., Cirque Zuma Zuma, Futurama, Peking Acrobats, RVCC Arts, Set in New Jersey!, T. on May 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 3, 2013] Cirque Zuma Zuma

zumaCirque Zuma Zuma was the final theater show of our 2012-2013 season.  When I bought tickets for this I didn’t realize that it was designed as an all ages show (hint, shows that start at 7PM are for families, shows that start at 7:30 are for adults only).  So I felt a little bad that the kids didn’t come as there were so many kids there.  And they would have enjoyed this, although it’s probably just as well that they had a nice night with their grandma.

So Cirque Zuma Zuma is an African-based show of dance and acrobatics.  There was a large banner that said that Cirque Zuma Zuma had been on America’s Got Talent.  Now, I don’t quite understand this as the announcer of the show seemed to say that the performers were from countries in Africa.  How could they be on America’s Got Talent if they are not American?  I don’t get it.

zuma2Anyway, the show got off to a rousing start with drumming.  Lots of drumming.  There was a man with two drums (big bass drum sounding drums) and then two drummers who were playing what I thought of as an African bongo but which I believe is called a Djembe.  And, man, they pounded the hell out of these things.  It was amazing how musical three (or four) drums can sound.  They played lead drum parts while the bass drum kept a steady rhythm.  And then the dancers came out.  Two women and a man dressed in what I assume is a traditional outfit.  And they danced.  Ecstatically.  Nonstop.  For about eight minutes.  And what frenetic and crazy dances they were.  They moved with such force and power.  It was really amazing and it looked exhausting.

Then came the acrobatics.  And was surprised at just how many of the acrobatic pieces were the same as ones done by the Chinese acrobats.  It strikes me as odd that two very distinct cultures would do the same kinds of things.  Are these just standard feats that contemporary performers learn?

The first was the climbing of and doing handstands on a stack of chairs.  The big difference here was that these chairs were very large (as opposed to the many tiny ones the Chinese acrobats use).  It was still impressive, and the chairs looked quite wobbly, but it was weird to open with a show stopper from another Cirque.

Other things that they did which we had already seen were jumping through hoops, spinning hula hoops, foot juggling and hat juggling.  It was very strange to see these same things.  The big difference was the music, which was African as opposed to Asian. (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs the Mecha-Monkeys from Mars (2002), Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs the Jurassic Jackrabbits from Jupiter (2002), Ricky Ricotta’s Might Robot vs the Stupid Stinkbugs from Saturn (2003)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, Children's Books, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), Mad Scientists, Musicals, T., Threats, Yuck! on March 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Me Ol’ Bamboo” (1968).

bamboo  rickymarsThis song comes from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the movie.  It is a strange little set piece in the early section of the film.  In terms of the movie it is utterly absurd: Caracticus Potts (Dick van Dyke) is looking to make some quick cash.  He heads to a carny circus (that has just popped up) with his crazy haircutting invention.  A brawny guy sits down and gets a terrible scalping.  Potts runs away through various parts of the circus and ultimately ends up in the chorus-line-type set up with a dozen or so guys getting ready to sing this song.

When the song starts Potts is able to follow the routine fairly well, although he’s always a step or two behind. But by the second verse he is now in charge of the song, singing extra lyrics and then doing a bit of a solo routine which the other guys then follow.  Now, I realize it’s a musical and as Clark asked the unasked question, “how do she know the song they sing when she is hearing it for the first time?” But even in the logic-defying world of musicals, shoehorning this set piece into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a stretch.

And yet, if you’ve been reading, you know we watched this weeks ago and I can’t get it out of my head.  The song (weird as it is being about a bamboo pole) is really catchy.  And the dance routine is, simply, amazing.  I don’t know much about Dick van Dyke’s performing skills, but man he knocks it out of the park.  And, more amazingly, there are some really long takes before they cut away.  And ensemble of 12 or so doing a very complicated routine for more than a few measures is really impressive.

The more I watch it, the more impressed I am and the more I understand why they shoehorned it in.  Check it out:

[READ: February 22, 2013] Ricky Ricotta Books 4-6

This is the second set of three Ricky Ricotta books.  They don’t vary all that much from the first three–Ricky and his Might Robot get in trouble, and then they save the day.  What I did like was that Pilkey adds some valiant assistants who add a new dimension to the rather simple story.

In Book 4 Ricky and his Robot are bored of playing hide and seek so they decide to go skateboarding   The Robot uses the Ricotta’s minivan as a skateboard and of course, he crushes it.  His parents hold them responsible for paying for it (which Ricky calculates will take 259 years).  Meanwhile on Mars, Major Monkey hates living on a cold, dead planet and he wants to take over Earth.  But he has been watching what’s been going on down there and he knows what happened to the three previous villains (I though that was a nice touch).  He also knows that the Mighty Robot has stopped all of their plans.  So he sends a decoy to distract the Robot.

The decoy says that Mars is in trouble so the Mighty Robot flies off to help.  But when he gets there he is trapped by Major Monkey’s ambush and he is stuck on Mars!  Then Major Monkey flies aback to Earth knowing no one can stop him. (more…)

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Dan Gutman–The Get Rich Quick Club (2004) [audiobook 2005–Angela Goethals]

Posted in Angela Goethals, Audiobooks, Boredom, C., Children's Books, Consumerism, Dan Gutman, Funny (ha ha), Hoax, T., UFOs on March 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: March 11, 2013] The Get Rich Quick Club

grq

I grabbed this audio book because I knew we were taking a longish trip and I wanted something for the kids to listen to.  It’s hard to find a book that both a 7-year-old boy and  5-year-old girl will enjoy (although truth be told, T. and C. are up for just about any story as long as the language isn’t too hard–nevertheless, I try to find stuff that’s age appropriate.  (Which means that the stories I’m excited for them to enjoy are about two years off yet) .  The library has a great online resource (Listen NJ) but the search features are awful–it’s really hard to search by age and it’s also hard to find stories that are a good length (2 hours or so). There’s so many that are 8 hours or 8 minutes.

But anyhow, I knew that Dan Gutman was a fun author (C. loves the whole My Weird School series) but I didn’t know this story.  And it turned out to be great.

The story is set in Maine.  It’s about five kids.   Gina Tumolois the leader.  She says right out that she always wanted to be rich.  Her hero is Bill Gates and she wants to be a millionaire before she is a teenager (she’s 11).  She is unabashed about her love of money.  And she is very bummed that she has none.

The summer starts and she is bored.  Because she has no money.  So she and her friend Robert , who hang out in the branches of the tree in the park behind their house start talking about what to do for the summer.  Then their friend Quincy comes over.  Quincy is my favorite character because she is from Australia and she speaks in Australian slang (which is very helpfully translated every time she speaks–you can learn a lot of great funny slang including some very finny words for “idiot” from this book).  There’s also the Boggle twins, 8 year old boys who are a pain–and unstoppable liars. (more…)

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Big Apple Circus: Legendarium (TD Bank Ballpark, Bridgewater, NJ, March 9, 2013)

Posted in Acrobats, Big Apple Circus, Bridgewater, NJ, C., Circus, Illusion, Magic, Peking Acrobats, Set in New Jersey!, T. on March 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 9, 2013] The Big Apple Circus

bigappC.s Cub Scout pack got tickets to the Big Apple Circus again this year and we decided to go.  Once again the Circus came right on the heels of Chinese acrobats, so I didn’t think I would be impressed, but once again, the circus did a very good job.  I’ll get my one gripe out of the way first.  Our seats were awful.  Not the circus’ fault obviously, but they claim that there are no bad seats.  And while ours weren’t bad (we were to the back right of the circus floor), all of the action is played to the front, so we missed a lot of the most dramatic poses, we missed the backdrops that they put up and clearly missed the overall feel of the show.  And given how many seats were empty in the good section, I was a little bummed.  Because the show itself was spectacular.

The signature character of grandma was gone, replaced by a funny clown couple (Acrobuffos), who did a lot of grandma’s interactions with the crowd, but as more of a jealous couple routine.  They were quite funny and I’m impressed that the woman had some kind of playballs in her pants making her rear enormous–and she was able to actually bounce on them.

I also didn’t realize when we went that there was a story/theme of the history of the circus or the history of New York, or some kind of history (Legendarium!).  Including a penny farthing bicycle!  So there were stories about circuses of old and some story about Broadway and arrowheads.  The ringmaster was decent but nothing special.  But again, you go for the acts, not the ringmaster. (more…)

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The Golden Dragon Acrobats present Cirque Ziva (RVCC Arts, Branchburg NJ, March 3, 2013)

Posted in Acrobats, Branchburg, NJ, C., Golden Dragon Acrobats, RVCC Arts, Set in New Jersey!, T. on March 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 3, 2013] Cirque Ziva

zivaIt’s Chinese Acrobat time again!  One year ago we saw the Peking Acrobats at RVCC and this year it’s time for the Golden Dragon Acrobats!

The Golden Dragon Acrobats performed a series of exciting and amazing feats on stage.  It was not quite the spectacle of last year’s Peking Acrobats, although there were many similar elements.  The Peking Acrobats were completely over the top.  Cirque Ziva felt a little smaller but with more flash in costumery and sets.

ziva1It opened with a series of…wheels?  Round cage-like apparatus that you climb in and roll around–C. and I actually saw these in a Jackie Chan film recently–they seemed to be a part of Chinese military training (somehow).  But the Golden Dragon Acrobats did much more than Jackie did with them.  With different sizes and numbers of participants they used these wheels to wondrous effect–spinning and rolling and climbing on and off.  It was mesmerizing.

And then it was time for the women to show off.  The first item was called “Thousand Hands.”  Six identically dressed women (with super long golden nails) stood one behind the other and then their arms spread out in a wild and wonderful array.  They worked in beautiful synchronicity and it looked amazing.  For Peking we were upstairs in the balcony, and being able to see all six women from the top spoiled the effect somewhat, it was much more impressive here.  Then they moved onto more, amazing contortions (see the poster above which I don’t even understand even though I saw her do it).  They did both group formations and an individual performance (and we all agreed the woman was mind blowing and a little gross). (more…)

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Ian Fleming–Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car (1964) [audiobook 2003–Andrew Sachs]

Posted in Adventure, Andrew Sachs, Audiobooks, Cars, Children's Books, Fawlty Towers, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Marriage (Happy), T., Threats on March 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: March 2013] Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang

chittyI knew of this movie (although I haven’t seen it in decades) but I didn’t know it was based on a book.  And I had no idea the book was by Ian Fleming!  The creator of James Bond!  Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is his only children’s novel and it was released posthumous;y (he died a few months before it came out).  I’ve never read any James Bond and I don’t love the films all that much so I can’t really compare this to his more famous works.  But it seemed like it was written by a guy who knew from spies and scary villains (I actually guessed that he had written this before the Bond books and it was a kind of lead in).

So the story starts off simply enough.  We meet the Pott family: Caractacus, the father, a former Navy commander and now an inventory of slightly wacky things–known in town as Crack Pott (ha); Mimsie, the mom, sweet and good natured and up for adventure, and the eight year old twins: Jeremy and Jemima.  Most of Crack Pott’s inventions aren’t very good but he eventually makes up a candy that is also a whistle and sells them to Lord Skrumshus and his candy company for a tidy sum (and Fleming goes into the details of the money saying how it’s a small sum up front but since Lord Skrumshus sells billions of candies it’s  good deal–Fleming is full of grown up ideas like that in the book and is clearly trying to impart some wisdom to his audience).

Since they live near the motorway, they decide to buy a car.  But they don’t want one of those black beetles that you see everywhere.  He wrote this book in 1961 so I’m not entirely sure about what kind of car he was talking about there.  The family decides to buy a one of a kind old car from an old man in a garage.  The man raves about the car and wishes he could keep her, but he has to sell it for scrap.  Pott offers him a few quid (everyone loves the car and its license plate read GEN 11 (like Genii)) to have the car delivered to his garage.  He spends the next several months fixing her up.  And when she starts, the noises she makes gives her the name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Their first test drive is a marvel and they get her up to 100 miles per hour!

WHAT??  100MPH?  In Rural England??  Wow.  And who knew they used miles and not kilometers (it’s pointed out much later in the book that they use kilometers on the continent) in the 60s?  (It became mandatory there in 1978).  The car is  marvel!  She even has all kinds of buttons that Pott hadn’t figured out what they do yet.  And on their next venture they decide to go to the seaside on a warm day.  But so do 20,000 other cars, so there is a massive traffic jam.  Chitty Chitty shows what she can do and takes over the controls–she grows wings and a propeller (which all come naturally from the car parts) and she flies over the traffic!

When they fly to the beach it is crowded so Chitty flies the to an island in the middle of the English Channel.  And they have a lovely picnic together and take a nap.  Until the tide starts to come in.  Chitty escapes and they take off.  But they head away from London and towards France!

And here’s where the story turns into a wild Bondian adventure rather than a cute family story about a magical car.
(more…)

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Tony Abbott–Goofballs #1 The Crazy Case of Missing Thunder (2012)

Posted in Adventure, C., Cat Doorman, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Mystery, Short Books, T., The Decemberists, Tony Abbott on February 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

goof1SOUNDTRACK: CAT DOORMAN-“So Many Words” (2012).

CatDoormancover1-500x500This is a fun folkie kids song about unexpected ABC words.  There’s a line about “flipping through my OED” and indeed the list of words for A is impressive : archipelago, allosaurus, abacus.  I actually thought she might do all As, in the song but then she moves through the alphabet (bandicoot, eavesdrop, yarmulke).

The song has some big fiddles, which sound fun, and Cat’s voice is lilting and fun too.  I’m led to understand that Cat has a number of alt rockers on the album (Chris Funk from the Decemberists, for example) although I can’t find too many details about the album.

You can hear the track here.

[READ: February 11, 2013] Goofballs #1 The Crazy Case of Missing Thunder

As faithful readers know, I love Tony Abbott and so does C.  We’re still waiting on another series to come in from the library, but in the meantime I found this book on the shelf: Goofballs #1.  It appears to be a brand new series from Mr Abbott and it is aimed at a slightly younger audience than Droon and the other series.  The print is bigger, there are lots of pictures and there’s only 8 chapters.  So I decided to read it to both kids at bedtime.

I fear that they just weren’t quite as into it as I thought they might be.  And I fear I wasn’t really that into it either.  It feels a little forced.

The story is about Jeff, Mara, Brian and Kelly, four kids who are silly and who get called goofballs all the time.  So they decided to join together and become a detective agency.  Well, first they had solved some mysteries around town together–like the mysterious pizza problem (which got them their own pizza named after them, The Goofball Pizza: cheese garlic pineapple and peanut butter).

Then the kids get a call for a real mystery–Randall Crandall has lost his thunder.  Turns out that Thunder is the beloved pony of Randall Crandall and he has gone missing from his stable. (more…)

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The Moscow Ballet–The Russian Nutcracker (RVCC Arts, Bridgewater, NJ, December 8, 2012)

Posted in Ballet, Branchburg, NJ, C., Children's Books, E.T.A. Hoffman, Fables, Fantasy, Moscow Ballet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russia, RVCC Arts, T., Toys on December 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 8, 2012] The Russian Nutcracker

nutcrackWe decided to take the kids to see The Nutcracker this year.  Fortunately, it was being performed at our beloved RVCC by the Moscow Ballet!  I saw The Nutcracker performed by the Boston Ballet about a dozen years ago, and the performance was stunning (it was also expensive).  This performance was definitely scaled down compared to that one, and it was also shorter (which was good for our kids).

I honestly don’t remember all that much from the Boston Performance (except that when the tree gets bigger, I was blown away).  There wasn’t much blowing away with this show.  As I say, it was scaled down tremendously–the stage itself was about half the size.  But that said, it was charming and the performers–especially the men–were amazing.

I really enjoyed the opening which was quite simple, with the families approaching the castle for the Christmas party–it was fun seeing the adults dressed as kids skipping about while the proper adults strolled casually.  Typically the first act is longer than the second and it’s certainly less exciting.  I don’t know the ballet well enough to know if they cut any of the scenes, but it didn’t seem quite as long as I remembered.  The kids were a little less excited by the grown up fancy ball dancing, but they held up very well.

I enjoyed the sequence where Masha (she’s not Clara in The Russian Nutcracker–I wonder just how different the two are) and her brother have a fight over the Nutcracker.  Masha’s brother was quite funny and the broken Nutcracker was amazing in his life-less-ness.  Indeed, all of the “toys” were incredible. (more…)

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