I’ve been trying to get my 5-year-old interested in collage. Turns out the answer is fart jokes. So now we’re “collaborating” on this very important project. His Bernie Sanders collage is delightful modern dada:
When you let your 5-year-old hang out in the studio with you
Sometimes I’ll let O come out to the garage with me if I know I’m doing some lighter work that doesn’t require my full concentration. Yesterday when we left to have lunch, he said this:
Write your own sequel
My kids and I are big fans of Jon Klassen’s hat trilogy. Our current favorite read is Triangle, his book with Mac Barnett. My 5-year-old was thrilled when I told him there’s going to be a sequel called Square, but when I told him it wasn’t out yet, he got so impatient that he decided he’d write his own sequel, Rectangle.
It reminded me of the Bradford Cox story in Steal Like An Artist:
Bradford Cox, a member of the band Deerhunter, says that when he was a kid he didn’t have the Internet, so he had to wait until the official release day to hear his favorite band’s new album. He had a game he would play: He would sit down and record a “fake” version of what he wanted the new album to sound like. Then, when the album came out, he would compare the songs he’d written with the songs on the real album. And what do you know, many of these songs eventually became Deerhunter songs.
When we love a piece of work, we’re desperate for more. We crave sequels. Why not channel that desire into something productive?
I posted the Cox story on Twitter and novelist Austin Grossman said of his book Soon I Will Be Invincible, “I got tired of waiting for a Watchmen sequel so I wrote one.”
Tired of waiting on a sequel? Write your own and see where it goes.
PS. My 2-year-old hasn’t drawn a sequel yet, but he is working on fan art:
Mood
Drawing by my 5-year-old.
Don’t say it’s easy, don’t say it’s hard
Almost every morning, the 5-year-old asks me to transcribe a Kraftwerk song for him to play on the piano. This morning it was “The Telephone Call,” off Techno Pop. It’s a little complicated, but it’s no harder than “Tour de France,” which he memorized in a day, even though it has a B flat to remember and goes up and down the staff. But as I was going through the notes with him, I said, just to be encouraging, “Oh, this is easy, you’ll have it whipped in no time.”
He attempted the melody several times. I tried to show him a few things. Then he broke down in frustration, totally flipping out on me, screaming, “Papa, it is easy for YOU! It is NOT EASY for me!”
I had inadvertently doomed the endeavor from the start.
I have learned with kids to only give help when it is needed. Every day, I’m learning when to hold my tongue.
Don’t say it’s easy, don’t say it’s hard, don’t say a word about how you think it will go…
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