anyway.
A Penny for Your Thoughts
2009-06-16
: Real and Fictional
When Sebastian was just three we lived in an apartment in Amherst with a grad student named Jake. Sebastian and Jake bonded over music; they were both big fans of Jonathan Richman. They'd put on his disks and run around the living room with their arms outstretched, making airplane noises.
One day Sebastian came up to Jake with his eyes very wide. "Let's not pretend to be airplanes," he said. "Let's really be airplanes."
Jake made his eyes very wide too. "Okay," he said. So they ran around the living room, arms outstretched, nrrow, nrrow! Wangity-wang, wangity-wang I'm a little airplane nrrow!
I think Jake had double-majored in philosophy and cognitive science, and was now pursuing some kind of cogsci masters. Sebastian made him a happy, happy Jake.
1. On 2009-06-16, Graham wrote:
|
This is totally an acting technique. "Don't pretend to be angry, be angry". "Don't pretend to be a 16-year-old girl, be a 16-year-old girl". Graham |
2. On 2009-06-16, Matthijs wrote:
|
Oh, that's really, really great. I can so recognize the feeling they must have had. |
3. On 2009-06-16, Callan wrote:
|
There was this thing Richard Dawkins noted in one of his books, where as a child he didn't just pretend to be an owl, he pretended to be an owl who was pretending to be a tree. It had never struck me to deliberately double layer pretending, before. |
4. On 2009-06-17, rm wrote:
|
My son and daughter used to get into imaginary play in which they'd say "let's pretend we're brother and sister." |
5. On 2009-06-17, Matt Wilson wrote:
|
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul To see how an ice cream felt Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul And I tried to melt! |
6. On 2009-06-17, Jon H wrote:
|
When my nephew was about that age, for quite a while he'd insist he was Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls. |
7. On 2009-06-21, Steve wrote:
|
I pretend to be a grownup. Sadly, it is nor that much fun . |
8. On 2009-06-24, misuba wrote:
|
"Don't pretend to be a grownup, be a grownup!" This thread has offered me an appealing new way of understanding that latter clause. |
This comment thread has an RSS feed:
link http://www.lumpley.com/anyway_comments_rss.php?entry=458