It was just a regular Sunday night at our house nbd

Everyone just hanging out doing their thing

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

"Invention ... does not consist in creating out of void, 

but out of chaos."

-- Mary Shelley

(That's the bottom of the chair that is supposed to let the chair spin around. But why would you want to spin in a chair when you can just spin?)

Mr F, Chair Pioneer, gets told it's time to get ready for school.

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

Your best ideas, those eureka moments that turn the world upside down, seldom come when you're juggling emails, rushing to meet the 5 P.M. deadline or straining to make your voice heard in a high-stress meeting. They come when you're walking the dog, soaking in the bath or swinging in a hammock. Carl Honore

In In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore wrote of the "Slow Movement," which seeks to do everything at its proper pace.  The Slow Movement now encompasses anti-homogenization movements, ecology and Christianity, fashion trends, local produce and goods consumption, a leaving of digital means of producing art, and even parenting: "slow parenting" is the practice of refusing to schedule as many activities for kids so that they can discover their childhoods themselves.

The general idea seems to be to take more joy in the moment: in the task of creating, in the process of getting there, in the minute-to-minute existingness of life, rather than on the goals.  To worry less about what we are achieving and more about what we are doing.

 Put another way: When was the last time you spent a few minutes just hanging upside down from a hammock?

"I Went To Find Me In The Library." (Mr F, Chair Pioneer)

The other day, I asked Mr Bunches where we should go for our adventure.

"Fitchburg Library," he said, which is the library one town over, where they were rumored to actually have the much-sought-after Star Wars ABC  book on the shelf!

Mr F is not really a fan of libraries, at all, and when we got there, he reacted about as I would expect: hiding behind a bean bag in the kid's area before I could make him learn:

While Mr Bunches worked with the librarian to find Star Wars ABC (which had been TAKEN OUT! *gasp* and had to be reserved)  Mr F saw me pick out a book and head his way.  He took defensive measures:

That didn't work. I still made him read a book about a striped sheep that was different from the others.  More on that in a moment.  Anyway, after we read that book, I helped Mr Bunches with looking for other books, and then I was heading back to the seating area with the book Mr Bunches and I were going to read when Mr F caught sight of me coming with a different book in my hand.

Enough's enough, he seemed to say:

Anyway, two final thoughts about the books we read, or almost read:

First, the one Mr F and I read, Digby Differs, was ridiculous.  This sheep is striped like a barber's pole, and feels different than the non-striped sheep.

One day, a balloon striped like him goes overhead and the sheep follows it to the city, feeling a kinship with it. But the balloon floats away, and the sheep wanders around the city noticing other things like a soda cup that are striped like him but not fitting in, so he hops on a train (!) and hoboes it out to another part of the world where he finds a lighthouse that is striped just like him!

Story over, right?

WRONG.  The sheep then travels to a different hillside that is identical to the one he left right down to being filled with non-striped sheep, but this hillside is within sight -- barely -- of the striped lighthouse.

The story finishes with this muddled idea

“Digby was different from the others, but it didn’t matter — because here, it was O.K. to be different.”

WHY? I mean, it's not like I need a ton of backstory in a kid's book, but there is simply no reason a kid should know that the first sheep are somehow worse than the second, or understand why it's okay to be different in one place but not in the other.  Even The New York Times was puzzled:

 What makes the coast more hospitable than the countryside where Digby started out? Can he really be happy with the lighthouse as his only striped companion? Is the lighthouse a symbol of God, and has Digby found religion? Koch’s happy ending is peculiar, but then again, so is Digby, and for some readers those unanswered questions may be a source of pleasure.

I will say: I had no idea, when I read the book the first time, that there might be some sort of religious subtext.  Then again, I didn't really get that the Narnia books were Christian until they were made into Christian movies, so I may not be the best guy to pick up on that.

ANYWAY, Digby Differs was nowhere near as bad as:

This is the one I was going to read with Mr Bunches but luckily I previewed it.  It's a charming little book with hand-drawn stick-figurish trees and elephants inside.  I will not spoil it for you right away. You can watch an animated version of the book -- the drawings are the same, just animated -- right here.  It's only about two minutes:




The Elephant and the Tree - English Version from Huang Kun Quan - KQ on Vimeo.



OH MY #*#%&#%& GOD.  A children's book ends with a shot of its two protagonists chained together in a pen dreaming -- only dreaming -- of the days when they were happy and free.  OH AND ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS IS DEAD.

I don't even know how that book exists.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit-- Aristotle. (Mr F, Chair Pioneer)

A few weeks ago, the podcast "99% Invisible" did an episode about how all great architects and designers try to reinvent the chair. (Find it here; it was really good). in which they said

The chair presents an interesting design challenge, because it is an object that disappears when in use. The person replaces the chair.

Mr F is turning everything designers know on their head.  He is the disruptive force that sitting has been fearing for all of human existence.

Mr F And The Summer Of Alternative Chairs

He is truly ahead of his time. Or possibly off to the left of his time.

He's in there somewhere. (Mr F, Chair Pioneer)

"In Russia, chair sits on you!"

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

When Mr F sits around the library,

He sits AROUND the library.

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

There is what is

And there is what isn't,

And there is what could be

That's where Mr F lives.

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

Plato's theory of forms argues that ideas are real, and that the reality of ideas is separate from the reality of things.

Plato says that the idea of a thing is that perfect form of the thing that we hold in our minds as being the one true version of that thing.

This idea is itself a real thing, mirrored endlessly in the imperfect forms of things that surround us.

But what if Plato's theory is incomplete?

What if we can apply our idea of one thing to the reality of another, and in so doing, move that one thing closer to the idea of the other?

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

Four feet away lie both a bean bag chair and a bed.

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.” -- Agatha Christie

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

"If the Wright brothers hadn't put their lives on the line, we would not be flying around the world these days. So we need pioneers."

-- Felix Baumgartner


Starting your Xmas shopping Friday? Why not give an ebook? WHY NOT GIVE EIGHT? For $7.92 you could send that special someone all 8 of my ebooks, available on Amazon.  Ebooks like this one:

"Santa, Godzilla, and Jesus Walk Into A Bar," a/k/a The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told (By Me).

Nick, a nearly-failed UFO maker, finds a tiny brass trumpet lying in a gutter – moments before a dead body drops from the sky and he’s chased down the street and into a major adventure by Sexy Cop. Before he knows it, Nick is doing battle with Wenceslas’ Xmas Machine, helped by Angels, the Secret Army Under The Bed, and a man in a robe, as attempts at world domination mix in with Nick’s attempts to convince Sexy Cop that they are soulmates.



"if you've ever wondered what Douglas Adams might have produced if he'd been locked in a room for weeks at a time with only Twinkies and Jolt cola, you should read "Santa, Godzilla... it has that same frenetic energy that Adams has only weirder."
-- Andrew Leon, speculative fiction author.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT ON AMAZON FOR JUST $0.99! 

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

Ben Franklin said "The discontented man finds no easy chair."

EVERYTHING is an easy chair to Mr F, who must be the most content person in the world.

In Case You Missed It In The Intro To That Longer Post Below This (Life With Unicorns)

Mr F, Chair Pioneer!

The debris you see to the side of the picture is cast off paper towels, as yesterday I cleaned ALL OF THE WINDOWS for Sweetie, because you know what has two thumbs and is an awesome husband?

THIS GUY.

(Imagine that I am pointing those thumbs at me. Otherwise, that joke doesn't work.)

For your Independence Day Viewing... (A Photo Essay)

A Mr Bunches Jumping Montage...

And Mr F, Chair Pioneer, takes his show on the road:

...

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

-- Henry Rollins


Reinvent yourself.  Once you've done that, reinvent everything around you.

-- Mr F (probably.)

Mr F, Chair Pioneer (Life With Unicorns)

That is a reclining chair with a footrest. But you wouldn't want to use it that way, right? That would be boring.

Mr F, Chair Pioneer

Sitting is where you find it.