Star Wars

Friends

The blogger editor ate my original text for this post about 2 weeks ago, which I have to say is a real bummer, because it was actually quite entertaining.

I'm over it now, really.

This is going to be a fairly Daniel-centric post, but I wanted to start with this picture of the kids enjoying themselves massively at a "Pirate concert" put on by a local library. Pirate Pete was the perfect match for their sense of humor.

The title of the post refers to the fact that letting Daniel watch the original, 1977 "Episode IV" of Star Wars has done nothing but pour fuel on the fire of his interest.

In this, what is thought to be the original "Star Wars"-inspired drawing from right after the artist's 5th birthday, we can see a re-enactment of the climactic battle scene from Episode IV.

Done entirely in the "Restaurant Crayon" style, we see some of the inherent limitations of the medium, in that only 4 colors are available and "Yellow" is so faint as to be useless.

The ships with a circular middle are TIE figthers, the red and green ones with oblong shapes are X-Wings. Blue clouds of debris represent exploded space ships, while the green cloud is the remnants of the recently exploded Death Star.


In this drawing, from late May, the Brown figure is Chewbacca, firing a blaster. Luke Skywalker is clearly identifiable as the guy doing battle with Darth Vader, and in the lower corner, Han Solo is assisting, using a blaster that mysteriously shoots two rays simultaneously.

On the left side, Daniel has cataloged the "valid" colors for light sabers, and on the right, one can see an X-Wing fighter shooting at a TIE-fighter, with the Death Star below.

The caption displays an increased level of confidence with his lettering, while indicating that the "R" is still challenging. Bidding for this priceless item of "Early Daniel" will begin at $100.... :)


Oh, did I mention that he's growing his hair out to "Be like Luke"? For those of you who may have forgotten, the hair styles of 1977 were - well - mullet-ish.

As I mentioned - this is "Rev 2" of what originally was a long, funny, serious update about Daniel, and I've forgotten many of the original talking points, but I do know that I highlighted that Daniel can read. Like, he really can read. We don't know exactly when this happened, but already in April, the Pastas pointed out that we might be shorting him when we said he just had awesome book memory. Since then, he's started reading signs, books-he's-read-before. Simple readers (with some encouragement), but the highlight was that he read a letter from Farmor just before going on vacation there. That he did without the assist that illustrations or context provide.

Playing preferably involves a lightsaber, or a sword. Pirates are cool, Star Wars is cooler.

And I'm stopping now before Blogger eats my post again. We're just back from 10 days in Norway, and when I get some posting energy back, I'll tell you all about it, but it was a good time.

Love,
ADRE.