the strange case of origami yoda

Two weekends ago I drove from my home here in DC to western Pennsylvania, picked up one younger brother, and then headed to my grandmother’s house in upstate New York.  On our way back to DC from that delightful stay, Lincoln (aforementioned younger brother) and I listened to the audiobook of Tom Angleberger’s The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.  I, ahem, engineered that little bit of listening time to fit into our trip.  Use what you have, right?  Our joint thoughts were that it was cute, funny, and entertaining.

In this funny, uncannily wise portrait of the dynamics of a sixth-grade class and of the greatness that sometimes comes in unlikely packages, Dwight, a loser, talks to his classmates via an origami finger puppet of Yoda. If that weren’t strange enough, the puppet is uncannily wise and prescient. Origami Yoda predicts the date of a pop quiz, guesses who stole the classroom Shakespeare bust, and saves a classmate from popularity-crushing embarrassment with some well-timed advice. Dwight’s classmate Tommy wonders how Yoda can be so smart when Dwight himself is so clueless. With contributions from his puzzled classmates, he assembles the case file that forms this novel.

Tommy and his friends are in sixth grade.  They’re doing their best but, well… each is facing his/her own challenges.  Most challenged of all?  Dwight.  Dwight can’t seem to function like a normal human being, and Tommy and his friends don’t know what to do about it.  That’s why it’s strange that Dwight’s origami finger puppet of Yoda seems so wise.  Yoda gives good advice – but is it because Yoda IS Yoda, or does Dwight have anything to do with it?  Tommy puts together a case file to make a final decision – because he needs to know if he can trust Yoda on one specific answer. 

Angleberger has created a memorable cast of characters in Tommy, Dwight, Harvey, Kellen, Quavondo and Sara (to name a few).  Each of them contribute either an interaction with origami Yoda for the case file or comments on the same.  Some believe that Yoda has an actual connection with the Force, and others think that Dwight is the one behind Yoda’s answers.  The main question that emerges is whether Dwight, socially-awkward Dwight, can have the sort of insight that Yoda possesses.  And if so, why doesn’t he use it for himself?  WHY is he such a mess?

The book is by turns sweet, funny, intelligent and awkward – like real sixth-graders!  It will appeal to all ages, and be an especial hit with boys, by nature of the Star Wars references alone.  My brother (currently age 23) turned to me at one point and asked “Do you SEE what sixth-grade boys have to go through?!”  I was really amused and glad that we could discuss it afterward, and laugh during the listen.  A good bonding experience, for sure.

A word on the vocal artists: most of the narration was stellar, but Lincoln and I both agreed that Harvey’s ‘voice’ was annoying in the extreme.  And possibly that’s as it was supposed to be.  Who knows?  In any case, it’s a fun listen, and I’d recommend it even to those not usually audiobook aficionados.

Recommended for: readers aged ten to fourteen, young Star Wars fans, and anyone who remembers the agonizing days of middle school – and knows they require a healthy dose of humor and patience to survive.

silly, poetic christmas

I've been absent around the blog lately...because all my siblings are home for the holidays. I LOVE it. Tonight I asked Lincoln to write a poem. He came up with this in about ten minutes. Not Robert Frost, but it’s fun and he’s very sweet to indulge me. For more (and better) vintage Lincoln, check out his creative parody of the tune Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Enjoy!

Silly Holiday Poem

Wrapping presents, stuffing stockings

To the Walmart shoppers flocking

Candy caning, misltetoeing

Tasty eggnog freely flowing

In the air is Christmas spirit

You can see it you, can hear it?

Sleigh bells ring but where’s the snow?

Is it coming? Prob’ly no

Cousins, friends, all invited

Not that I’m all that excited

Yet they’re here to share the fun

But I’ll be glad when it’s all done

touristing

Lincoln’s visit is giving me the excuse and opportunity to play the tourist here in Atlanta.  Over the last couple of days, we’ve visited the World of Coca-Cola, The Varsity, Emory’s campus, and the Decatur Arts Festival, as well as checking out several restaurants (Savage Pizza, La Fonda, The Porter...yum!) and going to the movies.

Above is a photo from the lobby of the World of Coke, where we tasted 60+ varieties of Coca-Cola and other Coke products from all over the world.  I definitely enjoyed the ginger sodas from Africa.  Stoney Tangawizi rocks!  We also shot film both today and on Sunday at the Arts festival to make a short movie, and the results of that will be posted eventually.  Come back and check it out!

lincoln

I’m the oldest of five kids. We’re all really close in age, but with two girls and then three boys, you can imagine that there was a bit of a divide in responsibilities, activities and personalities. Right now I am being visited by #4 in line, Lincoln. He’s hanging out in my TINY Atlanta apartment until he has to report for his summer internship. It’s been fun (and dare I say it, lazy?), but consequences of two people trying to share this much (or little, as it were) space are by turns hilarious, annoying, and ridiculous.

Maybe I should explain a bit about Link. He’s almost 21, very witty, athletic, slightly introverted leaning strongly towards social, and a multi-talented guitar player, juggler, unicycle rider and reader of Ancient Greek. I also, by way of explanation to my friends, describe him as the sibling most like me, in pure personality terms. We’re both private people with serious social tendencies, we’re basically intellectual, and we like the same foods. There was a point in my childhood where I thought Lincoln was mine. Not as in, I thought he was my child, but I felt very proprietary about him. I would translate his toddler mumblings for my mother, make his sandwiches at lunchtime (we were the only two who refused to eat mayonnaise), and read to him from picture books.

Lincoln has grown into an interesting, humorous and amusing young man. He doesn’t dispute my assessment of our similarities, but to be fair and balanced (for posterity and for when he reads this post later and is horrified) I asked him the other night how he thought we were different. I, of course, proffered the question with the attending statement, “Beyond the obvious stuff. Like you’re a guy and I’m a girl, etc.” This is what he came up with. 1. He’s just plain better looking. 2. He likes camping more than I do. 3. He has different interests, including a different major (Christian Thought…I was Spanish), different musical tastes (he likes The Beatles and oldies in general, basically everything except and I quote “stupid rap and hardcore scream-o. And heavy metal.”), and he swing dances.

Lincoln is a self-confessed lyrical learner. Or something like that. Basically he knows all the lyrics to any song he’s ever heard, and will start singing at the least provocation if he makes a connection between conversation and song lyrics. He’s also been enjoying sitting on my bed, strumming his guitar and making up song lyrics. In the space of writing this post, he’s made up songs disparaging my pet rat, praising jelly beans, and disagreeing with my decision to see a movie later tonight. It’s a trait he gets from my dad, this making-up-nonsense-songs bit. You would think it would be endlessly annoying, but he’s FUNNY. It’s not fair. If I were bugging him this consistently, I would be the evil, nagging, bossy, boring sister. But he just has this quality that makes you laugh or at least smile and lose any anger you were trying to hold onto. Which makes him great entertainment.

So I’m enjoying his visit. We’ve been to a Braves game, out to dinner a couple of times, and around my neighborhood. We’re saving the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola for Monday. And no week would be complete without some misadventure. So far we’ve (correction: he has) broken the hot water tap on the shower, had to trek down past the airport to find a bank he could make a deposit at, and woken up most days at 11am or later. That’s where the lazy comes in. And last night we tried to go to Twain’s, a cool bar in Decatur to play pool, and got kicked out because the small one is too young (lest you think he is actually short, he’s 6’5”…"small one” is just my nickname for him). These events, combined with the fact that this must be the only 10-day stretch of the year in Atlanta without a predicted sunny day are conspiring to make his visit somewhat ridiculous. Fun, yes, but still ridiculous.

He's asking now if he'll want to read what I've written. The words libel and slander were bandied about. So little faith!

adventures in flight

It has been rather a long time since I last posted.  In the meantime, I’ve been to my brother Peter’s college graduation (from my own alma mater), and afterward road-tripped back down to Georgia with the next youngest sibling, Lincoln.  He is visiting me here in Atlanta for a week and a half before he goes off to his summer internship in South Carolina.  A state which is not that far from Atlanta, really.  At least, it doesn’t look like it on a map.  It’s a quarter inch to a half inch away, depending on how big your map is.

Anyway, with such goings on and traveling things, I haven’t been near a computer in a while, and am hopelessly backed up with fun little stories and adventures (many of which I have already forgotten or will forget and not post).  I likely wouldn’t have gotten around to blogging at all until Lincoln was gone if I hadn’t had the (bad) luck to get a cold.  So now, though I feel like putty recently scraped off a wall in a tenement somewhere, I have the time to write.  Er, blog.  In case you wondered, Lincoln is feeling well, and is out on the porch reading.  I am the invalid resting indoors on a perfectly lovely day.  Who knows what that fresh air might do to me!  I could get well!  Or something. 

The following is a bit of an entry that I started at the Atlanta airport when I was on my way to the graduation last Thursday.  It seems vaguely wasteful not to post a paragraph’s worth of useful material, so I’ll begin there.

The Wednesday night before I flew out, I went to see Star Trek (2009) for the second time.  I heartily enjoyed the film the first time around, when I saw it with friends on opening day, and I had to share the experience with Elizabeth, my fellow movie buddy here in Atlanta.  She was skeptical.  Said she wouldn’t go see it.  I offered to pay for her ticket.  She acquiesced (and drank cider in the theater!).  I think we both enjoyed it.  Last night I found myself at yet another showing of Star Trek with Lincoln, because he didn’t want to go alone.  He paid for tickets, and I really can’t complain, but please, oh please!, next time I go to a movie, can we see something new?  I was trying to remember last night if I’d ever seen another movie thrice in theaters, and the only thing I could come up with was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.  And that was only because it was playing on the $1 screen at my college campus the last two times.

Having said all that, Star Trek gets 5 stars.  It’s fun, it’s big, it’s action, it’s personal conflict and growth, it’s flashy, new and exciting.  In other words, everything you want a summer movie to be.  Elizabeth and I did go and see Wolverine, the first true summer movie, and it was mediocre and left me feeling unsatisfied.  Trek does not leave you feeling anything but full of excitement and maybe a little wonder at the glory that is big time film-making.  May all the rest of the summer movie lineup be as enjoyable.

Odd note:  Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original TV series, makes an appearance in the new film.  When I was listening to his dialogue, a little sensor went off in the back of my brain, and I kept thinking, ‘Where do I know this guy from?’  He was strangely familiar, but I’ve never watched the TV series or anything… so that was a really peculiar feeling.  Then I looked up his imdb.com profile, and voila!  Nimoy is the voice behind Civ IV, my one admitted computer gaming habit.  It was his voice that is always saying things like “As the potter is to the clay…” and “I got pig iron, I got pig iron!” to me in the middle of the night from my laptop speakers.  Weird.  With a capital ‘W.’  He has a nice, deep voice that sounds very like the grandfather in all of the stories that I’ve ever read.  Well, you know how when you’re reading (to yourself, silently) you give the characters voices to differentiate them?  No?  I’m the only one who does this?  Yeesh.  Maybe I should talk to someone about that…

Now where did I leave off on the real storyline?  Oh yes.  So the night before I left I went and saw a movie.  That was not the best choice.  Because the next morning I’d made plans to breakfast with my mother’s cousins (they’re from Portland, but were visiting Atlanta for a week, and wanted to see me), and I wanted, hypothetically, to sleep at some point.  Between packing and a head that wouldn’t stop whirring (happens a lot, I’m thinking of getting it replaced.  Anyone have a spare brain floating around?), I slept a maximum of two hours.  And then went to a very agreeable breakfast at a place called The Flying Biscuit.  This restaurant has a couple of locations, and is something of an Atlanta institution.  We went to the one Candler Park.  I had an amazing raspberry French toast breakfast and listened and laughed at the foibles of the extended family, and was toted back to my apartment in time to head off to my flight.

I rode to the airport with Elizabeth (she keeps cropping up, doesn’t she?), because her flight left at approximately the same time as mine, and Why waste a good ride to the airport when there’s one to be had?, which isn’t my motto, but is probably someone’s out there.  There are enough people on the planet to practically ensure that.  The plane that arrived prior to mine hailed from Sarasota.  Watching the off-loading process was quite a kick.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many airport attendants (aka wheelchair helpers) preparing to greet a single flight.  The plane was absolutely chock-full of the elderly.  And when I use that term, I don’t mean anyone with grey hair.  I mean a physically impaired, possibly walking with a canister of oxygen at their side type of crowd.  Sarasota is a popular destination with the old, old set, apparently.

And then, lickety-split, I was on my own plane and off to Pittsburgh.  Star space, flying biscuits, and plane rides…that’s enough winging for a while!