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COTTONTAILS IN SPACE

After successfully landing on the moon, Neil “Cottontail” Armstrong was famously quoted as saying, “One small step for a bunny, one giant hop for rabbitkind.

Space is the “Illustration Friday” word of the week. So I dusted this old chestnut off and redrew it.

LEST WE FORGET 4: Children are honest judges.

“Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.”

            —-Mar MacCraker

“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses them.”

            —-Plato

•          *            *             *

Children are honest judges. Their judgment may be harsh sometimes, but it comes from an honest heart, unscripted. So, if a children’s writer is looking for an authentic and honest review of his/her stories, who can do it better than the children? Granted the review may not be formal and may not even be in writing! I had one such judgment, unsolicited but authentic and relevant.

A few months back, a friend of mine invited me to his nine-year old grandson’s birthday party. I obliged. At an appropriate time, my friend asked me to tell the children some of my children’s stories. I did, including my favorite: “Mr. Moon Leaves Home” which is about how the moon got his phases.   

In this story, which was published in Skipping Stones Magazine (Vol.22, No.1 Jan. – Feb. 2010), the moon is married to three wives and must stay at the home of each wife for a specified period as required by tradition.

The first wife is beautiful and charming but stingy and lazy. She doesn’t give her husband food claiming it’s not ready, lekani vipyenge –“let it be thoroughly cooked.” The moon is starved, he grows thin. That’s why the moon looks like the letter,  ”C” in the first phase; thin and gaunt. Frustrated, the moon decides to leave his first wife because she is Navipyenge, stingy.

The second wife is kind and resourceful but has limited food supplies. When her husband arrives, she quickly puts together a meal of leftovers, explaining that she hasn’t got much food but the moon is happy to have something to eat. AS days go by he gains some weight, and develops a potbelly. That’s why the moon looks like the letter “D” in the second phase. But his days are up and must leave Natulang’anya, The scrounger, for his third wife.

The third wife is homely, overweight and spends her time lying down on a reed mat next to the fire place where a pot of fresh stew is brewing. When the moon arrives, he is told to “dish out the stew for yourself.”

 “Is it ready?” he asks.

Zubulaninge waka,  “Just dish out,” she says. “And eat whether cooked or not; the stomach will know what to do with it.”

For the duration of his stay at his third wife’s home, Mr. Moon eats well, gains his full weight and is happy. That’s why the moon looks like the letter “O” in the third phase and the bright star by the moon’s side is Zubulaninge – The generous one –, his third and favorite wife! 

At the end of my stories, the children laughed and capped. Some fidgeted. And others volunteered to tell their own stories

 End of the first episode.

On December 31, 2013, my friend and grandfather of the boy whose birthday party I attended sent me a text message: “A week or so ago we were  driving and observing the FULL MOON and our grandson shouted ‘Grandpa look he’s with his third wife.’ Wow see your legacy…?”

“I am most humbled. This is authentic, unscripted true evidence the message reached him! He is my true reviewer. Hug him for me,” I said returning his text message.

Then on January 3, 2014 the same friend sent me another text message: “I can’t believe my ears our Grandson just spotted the crescent moon and screamed ‘Gpa now (the) he’s with old mean first wife again poor man.’ Hope you can see moon there too…”

I saw the message about an hour after it was sent and by that time the moon had already gone down!

You be the judges. But for me, this shows the kid loved the story, believed and sympathized with the main character, and was thus able to apply it to real life situations; unsolicited.

Looking for a motivational gift this holiday season? Inspire them with a Maggie Christmas! Maggie Vaults Over the Moon is the story of a courageous teen, Maggie Steele, who finds the strength to overcome a tragedy and rise to new … Continue reading →

By Alyn Shipton

When Harry Nilsson took a call on 7 September 1978 to tell him that the Who’s drummer Keith Moon had been found dead in Nilsson’s London apartment, it was a shock for two reasons. Firstly, Moon was the second star to die in the flat, the first having been Mama Cass, who had also borrowed it as a temporary London home. Secondly, after years of carousing together, it was impossible to believe that Moon’s iron constitution had finally succumbed to a lifetime of drink, drugs, and general excess. He had seemed indestructible, recovering from collapses on stage, gargantuan hangovers, accidental overdoses, and a myriad of events that would be stressful and difficult for anyone else — from fisticuffs to motor accidents.

Nilsson had met Moon as part of a circle of hard-drinking London friends, including Marc Bolan, Graham Chapman (of Monty Python), and Nilsson’s long-term buddy Ringo Starr. They would meet in mid-afternoon, drink brandy for six or seven hours, and then make their way to Tramp, the exclusive nightclub for more brandy and excitement. Their friendship blossomed during the making of Nilsson’s “Pussy Cats” album in Los Angeles, where as well as contributing some percussion tracks to the album (produced by John Lennon during his “lost weekend”) Moon was a fellow tenant of a beach house in Santa Monica. Lennon, Starr, Nilsson, bassist Klaus Voormann, and various of the other musicians moved in there with the idea of developing musical ideas by day and recording late into the night. What actually happened was days spent recovering from nights on the town, a round of drink and drugs in the afternoon, and then sporadic action in the studio at night. Nilsson’s voice deteriorated, and had to be re-recorded later in New York, but the partying continued unabated until Lennon called a halt to the sessions, realising the album was getting nowhere fast.

Keith Moon on drums. The WHO, MLG, Toronto, 21 October 1976. photo by Jean-Luc. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons.

However, from then on Moon and Nilsson were inseparable, whenever their respective musical schedules brought then to the same town at the same time. They often stayed together at Nilsson’s Curzon Place apartment, trying their hands at cooking (“everything came out a sort of grey mess,” Nilsson recalled) and even on one occasion attempting a weekend of sobriety. There were adventures on the Isle of Wight when Starr was filming “That’ll Be the Day” — Moon arrived, in style, by landing a helicopter on the roof of the hotel where the cast was staying. There were more attempts at recording together, and there were endless parties, including one at which Moon punched a hole in the wall of a London hotel while giving actor Peter Sellers a lesson in unconventional methods of opening bottles of booze.

The musical empathy between Nilsson and Moon is best seen in action in the somewhat bizarre musical sequences from Starr’s movie “Son of Dracula”. Although the band is miming on screen, Nilsson in full vampire costume as “Count Downe” pounds the piano and sings, as Moon thrashes away at the drums. The glances between them show them enjoying a sense of being fellow conspirators in musical mayhem, ably assisted on screen by Peter Frampton on guitar and Klaus Voormann on bass. Mostly, of course, Moon will be remembered for his highly individual drumming with the Who, but his moments on record and on screen with Nilsson are particularly poignant, given the unexpected nature of his death exactly 35 years ago today.

Alyn Shipton is the award-winning author of many books on music including Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter, A New History of Jazz, Groovin’ High: the Life of Dizzy Gillespie, and Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway. He is jazz critic for The Times in London and has presented jazz programs on BBC radio since 1989. He is also an accomplished double bassist and has played with many traditional and mainstream jazz bands.

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Boosted by enthusiastic reader recommendations and strong online sales, the popular teen novel Maggie Vaults Over the Moon continues to soar as a best-seller at Watermark Books & Cafe, the region’s No. 1 bookstore. Listed among works by world-class writers … Continue reading →

Welcome to the Teens!

Last year was definitely a pre-teen time for Puppicasso and me.  Many new creations, activities, and attitudes were realized — but our offline life got in the way of our blogging life.  And since the world didn’t end, he decided to resume his predictions.  So, the first part of this year will be a cleaning house and catching up on the life of Pupp.

The motto of this year will be, “Always put one paw in front of another, and go forward no matter what.”

One small paw for Pupp…

… one giant leap for Puppi-kind.

We wish you a Happy 2013!  Enjoy this Millennium’s entry into puberty — hormones will rage and change will be the constant!

Puppicasso wishes to extend a special shout out to Neil Armstrong for use of his likeness and spirit… he is missed.

5 Stars Desert Baths Darcy Pattison Kathleen Rietz Syvan Dell Publishing 32 Pages      Ages 4 to 8 ………………….. Inside Jacket: As the sun and the moon travel across the sky, learn how twelve different desert animals face the difficulty of stay clean in a dray and parched land. Explore the desert habitat through its animals [...]