tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74689311832087916292024-03-19T01:34:25.596-07:00T.J. Mitchell: San Francisco Dad & AuthorT.J. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086845860634591478noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7468931183208791629.post-64492946201637600742013-04-29T23:29:00.001-07:002013-04-29T23:29:46.496-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">The Slogan Contest</span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My wife is branding. Re-branding, I guess. She is searching for a new slogan for her forensic pathology consulting practice, PathologyExpert, Inc. The current slogan is "Science on Your Side." I have proposed:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She'll Slap You with Some Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She's Super Sciencey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dr. Judy: Science Tool</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Justice, Well Done - With a Side of Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Science, Sideways for You</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She Sells Science Siding</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For You, Special Today: Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Science: Because I Like You</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Science You Want? Science I got</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sassy Sassy Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Slide into Some Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unleash the Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Slip Sliding the Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">None of these ideas of mine has met with the approval of the persnickety doctor in question. So I hereby throw it out to the blogosphere: find PathologyExpert, Inc. a slogan. As incentive, I offer a prize. If Judy chooses your slogan for her company, I will name a dead body after you in our forthcoming forensics-detective novel "The First Cut."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Submit your proposed motto in the comments section below. The deadline for submissions is June 15. Feel free to use anonymous Internet handles, but please be prepared to offer your real name in a private email correspondence at a future date should you win the contest and wish to attain immortality in demise, in print, in "The First Cut."</span>T.J. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086845860634591478noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7468931183208791629.post-25141334425765891152012-06-05T00:17:00.000-07:002012-11-30T06:04:04.384-08:00Down by the ViewSurprise is one of the things that makes a city great. On Thursday my wife and I made an afternoon date to meet at the post office at Sutter St. near Kearny in San Francisco's financial district. Along for the date were our three children. We had to renew their passports.<br />
<br />
Kiddie passports are a big pain in the neck. Both parents have to be present, as do all the children. You have to bring along original birth certificates, social security cards, a multitude of forms you have spent hours wrestling with ahead of time on a hopelessly user-hostile website, exactly correct photographs, and a checkbook - because they don't take cash or credit. This is exactly as much fun as it sounds: less than a fender-bender, but more than a root canal.<br />
<br />
It took us about an hour. After we were done my wife had to go to a meeting, and I wanted to find a way to kill a couple more hours with the kids, so we could all go home together. First, though, we had to find parking.<br />
<br />
San Franciscans complain about parking a lot. Too much, really. I usually scoff at their whining, having burned several months off my life span in cumulative block-circling time on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, begging God for a parking space or an easy death. This time, looking for a space in the middle of the day in San Francisco's North Beach, I began for the first time to sympathize with the parking-whining of my fellow Friscans. But then, just as I was ready to give up, a space appeared, and I grabbed it.<br />
<br />
The kids needed to pee, of course. We were only a block or so away from the foot of Lombard Street, with its flocks of tourists but, oddly, not many businesses nearby. Right behind my parking space, however, was a church, with the gate to its cloister wide open, and a pretty fountain beckoning us.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUlyKADD0xT7nLB7ECgy4H9gGxwcD1-mrxPWisSVJnMhISg1dHe9KuPd_L_pUcviUm_prQel_vhyphenhyphen_FTUKNX7Doa6-kYZm8p6t5i_a1kHv2dxPFHuanUYGDkunl8sFLMBUna-NDnCs7CyY/s1600/IMG_3444.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUlyKADD0xT7nLB7ECgy4H9gGxwcD1-mrxPWisSVJnMhISg1dHe9KuPd_L_pUcviUm_prQel_vhyphenhyphen_FTUKNX7Doa6-kYZm8p6t5i_a1kHv2dxPFHuanUYGDkunl8sFLMBUna-NDnCs7CyY/s400/IMG_3444.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
So in we went, looking for a bathroom. What we found was the surprise.<br />
<br />
We had stumbled, for the first time and serendipitously, into the <a href="http://www.sfai.edu/">San Francisco Art Institute</a>. The front of it looks like a Romanesque church, complete with Tuscan-hill-town clock tower. That's where we entered.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncXAL_brW-rYNBrb7VHmMwLZ8cbRtlbJqHOH_NrmjVEXJWEAqUctJg8nNmQXWw-6Ag-YAF9ItAeCC7YahYPqqDcwG7XVKb-wO1-ryT2oxDWrJDKpSkma32C0Cvh8zIprAruv77Sksxug/s1600/6212+154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncXAL_brW-rYNBrb7VHmMwLZ8cbRtlbJqHOH_NrmjVEXJWEAqUctJg8nNmQXWw-6Ag-YAF9ItAeCC7YahYPqqDcwG7XVKb-wO1-ryT2oxDWrJDKpSkma32C0Cvh8zIprAruv77Sksxug/s320/6212+154.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Around the corner was the Diego Rivera Gallery.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNhm2t314b-LAPdgUA0bMQaIvBtPfMLL3mfI1a1KfloxGehrmwYs1uM0OGQiYBTOTiKV_QfIdl_GNkR667tGqB1wnhBNyZVoMfBPlg3yiJELDQmv1n6Vz6EkhSX56X2hTucsyqStwhA0/s1600/6212+147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNhm2t314b-LAPdgUA0bMQaIvBtPfMLL3mfI1a1KfloxGehrmwYs1uM0OGQiYBTOTiKV_QfIdl_GNkR667tGqB1wnhBNyZVoMfBPlg3yiJELDQmv1n6Vz6EkhSX56X2hTucsyqStwhA0/s400/6212+147.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
Peeking in, I could see the usual clot of ironic art-student sculpture mounted on ironic unfinished wooden crates, so I figured this was just some exhibition space named in honor of the great muralist Diego Rivera. It was only after I wandered into that gallery, still looking for the bathroom and following my kids, that I found out how wrong I was. Because when you enter the Diego Rivera gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute - when you wander in off the street, through open doors, passing no security checkpoint and paying no fee - you come across this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggME4RcMTYd4ZDmv3J_6ZcnOWw16_HWuJYZznM2YmrziiN9Joc-gftoegve5qdvl5VkbDxyWy47hKdPGH-afyuScGDgZSI08C_5VkvUWU_GoVUZfg4l-XmoXwEkK0vvI7ei_MN-6tRmio/s1600/6212+151.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggME4RcMTYd4ZDmv3J_6ZcnOWw16_HWuJYZznM2YmrziiN9Joc-gftoegve5qdvl5VkbDxyWy47hKdPGH-afyuScGDgZSI08C_5VkvUWU_GoVUZfg4l-XmoXwEkK0vvI7ei_MN-6tRmio/s640/6212+151.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
We had stumbled into <i><a href="http://muralsandmosaics.org/rivera2.html">The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City</a>.</i> It was painted there on that wall by Rivera in 1931, and looks as fresh today as it must have then.<br />
<br />
After admiring the fresco I made my way, reluctantly, out of the gallery. There was an open office, so I intruded politely to ask about a bathroom. "They're down by the View," the guy in the office advised.<br />
<br />
"The View?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"Just go down the long hallway. You'll see what I mean."<br />
<br />
What he meant was this:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPC5j4cb42fhwNxOrsE6JpixC1OTwSPDScWMF3kRkON9MENNs9f6kZ9UdI6UGcv9LTYdw9ShGQN8A7414TWMIiK4UoIKL8pccLKthqhp-PKv0XVS-9w_VxU0KDJgX6rRotS_dTIm-mMOs/s1600/6212+153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPC5j4cb42fhwNxOrsE6JpixC1OTwSPDScWMF3kRkON9MENNs9f6kZ9UdI6UGcv9LTYdw9ShGQN8A7414TWMIiK4UoIKL8pccLKthqhp-PKv0XVS-9w_VxU0KDJgX6rRotS_dTIm-mMOs/s640/6212+153.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Okay, that's a view all right. The back side of this art school masquerading as a quaintly faux-Romanesque chapel is a bold, poured-concrete modern slab with a 360-degree open air vista of perhaps the most beautiful urban waterfront in the world.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0o-6c6HowJZmo3vqsiSetRRwM8hl39aI9JUWhzpVYoMBEsTSe6oV0LSfwEHxS6sTTe2BBc2WuEQVV-va19q-y3HN1UACPdZMIreSA9LG6wGlFHNwHvdYLPgrF3AFrHGy2xj-Eit_-3w/s1600/6212+158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0o-6c6HowJZmo3vqsiSetRRwM8hl39aI9JUWhzpVYoMBEsTSe6oV0LSfwEHxS6sTTe2BBc2WuEQVV-va19q-y3HN1UACPdZMIreSA9LG6wGlFHNwHvdYLPgrF3AFrHGy2xj-Eit_-3w/s400/6212+158.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
That's what I mean by 'surprise.' All of this in the course of an afternoon of unpleasant bureaucratic errand-running and mundane parking and bathroom issues. No, I'm not a native San Franciscan - but I feel like I sure have gone native. And, I keep telling my kids, "you don't know how lucky you are." No, they don't, naturally. We never do, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhGZIJ1AgnHM2HgeU2eslXReBMjt_Y8LPQZXB9k0aGOgrbYuSoT8AGk-pTZI8WgHQR56HaMzJh8as8U4pYTgRB0iTSmeRrDZxYDx2T2soVsugt6HQj76sf_BctKjArc1L1cz86xQhEY5L1/s1600/Nahant+Wharf+Gray+Skies+2+Small.jpg">do we?</a>T.J. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086845860634591478noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7468931183208791629.post-5569234804026258792012-05-25T15:51:00.000-07:002012-05-29T23:55:19.992-07:00RaspberryJudy and I collaborate by e-mail. The raw material for the book "Working Stiff" is her ten year-old journal, chock full of medical and law enforcement shorthand and jargon. We can never work on the writing face-to-face, because whenever we are together with each other we are also with our three children. They are not especially demanding children, but that's like saying salmon is not an especially fishy fish. Leave it out on the counter long enough, and you'll smell it. Leave our kids together in the house long enough, and you'll hear some demands.<br />
<br />
So my working day consists of the child-free hours between my dropping the last one off at school, and picking the first one up. During those same hours Judy is at work herself, so I email my questions to her, and she answers them from her laptop during lunch break. I crafted one such email while I was putting together the chapters on what an autopsy consists of, and how exactly she performs one. My questions about the science tend to be interrupted by more mundane musings. Here is the email I sent my wife, verbatim:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">1.) What's the most money you've ever
pulled off a corpse? How about jewelry, electronics? Is it your
responsibility to take charge of loaded guns that might be on the
body but were not used?<br />
<br />
2.) Review for me briefly what you do when you find a huge wad of
cash on a body.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
3.) Don't mention the fleas to your mother any more. She's
driving me crazy. She refuses to believe her dog could have
fleas, so she contends that Dina's picking them up in the sand at
the playground. I don't know much about fleas, but I do know they
like warm, furry animals. I doubt very much they hang around in
cold, damp sand waiting for furless little girls to come along.
Even if they did, they wouldn't last long on Dina's skin. Your
mom's now insisting we get an exterminator to examine the kids'
rooms while we're away next month. Would you please keep an eye
on the flea bites, examine Dina nightly, and don't talk to your
mom about it. There's nothing we can do about it anyway -- the dog
is on flea medication and its owner is in denial. We don't even
know if these bites are from fleas. This note has nothing to do
with the book, but your mom just interrupted me in order to raise
the subject, again, so I want you to know. Back to business.</span>
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
4.) I just now had a flashback to my days as a secretary at
Carolco Pictures, trying in vain to spell RESERVOIR DOGS
correctly. Day after day I'd type it RESEVOIR DOGS. It would seem that thanks to my
native Boston accent, that interior 'r' is not only silent but
also invisible. Now I'm working off your journal, and
couldn't for the life of me figure out why the computer kept
telling me I was mis-spelling "paraphenalia." I swear it has
never occurred to me that this word is spelled - or pronounced -
"paraphernalia," with two r's. OK, now back to business, I
promise.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
5.) I think I got the description of removing the kidneys the way
I like it. You can check it tonight. Do you remove the adrenal
glands from the kidney or leave them on? Please describe the
physical appearance of the adrenals.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
6.) You wrote that you reach way down into the retroperitoneal cavity
and pull out the bladder, uterus and rectum all at once. Don't
you have to sever the rectum from the anus first? How do you do
that?</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
7.) I conclude the section on organ removal with the following;
is it accurate?: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br /></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> We're
now finished eviscerating the patient. Everything
I've described, from Y-cut to testicular replacement, only
takes about half an hour and is the easiest part of an
autopsy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"> 8.) Did you know that "raspberry"
has a silent 'p' in the middle? I didn't, not until the
spell-check caught it. Fascinating.<br />
<br />
9.) Make sure you buy two or even three of those cleaned
Dungeness crabs again tonight when you go to the Cal-Mart, and
have them put 'em on ice. We'll have them for dinner after you
get home with Leah. Don't forget to buy milk, too. Do you find
me highly distractible? Did you know "distractible" is not
technically a word according to this e-mail program's spell
check? Maybe I misspelled it and it's supposed to be
"distracterble" or "distractspible." Again, fascinating.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
10.) When you take a nerve tissue sample from the stock jar,
which nerve do you cut? Does the tech put the sample in formalin
immediately, or does it just sit there in the jar until you're
done with the autopsy?</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
<br />
11.) You have in your notes: </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Breastplate
goes back in abdomen, or back in place in chest.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"> What does this mean, "back in
abdomen?" Do you try to cram it into its proper place, and if it
doesn't fit you just plop it on top of the bag of organs and sew
the whole mess up?<br />
<br />
That's all for now. Love, TJ</span> <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br />
</span>T.J. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086845860634591478noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7468931183208791629.post-64450647010756858922012-05-21T13:27:00.001-07:002012-05-25T15:05:54.646-07:00Scary?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “Dad,
what’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?” Danny asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I replied
reflexively. “ALIEN.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “What’s it
about?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “Um,
well... it’s about this group of... well, sailors really. On a spaceship, sometime in the future. They’re on like a high-tech space tugboat,
towing a gigantic space barge of minerals or something. The ship’s computer picks up some kind of
alien signal they think is a distress call, and the company orders them to go
check it out...”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> We were on
our tandem bike, hauling down to his choir rehearsal. Twice a week we have this invaluable
father-son bonding time for half an hour.
I pick him up from school and we bike together, me the captain and Dan
the stoker, that five or six miles. It’s
our only chance to have manly talks, and this particular week Danny had decided
he wanted to know about scary movies. He
was in fifth grade, and if memory serves, this is exactly when scary movies
became an obsession for me and my buddies, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I spent the
next several minutes reciting, over my shoulder, my recollection of ALIEN’s plot
to my son. ALIEN without an S, mind you:
the Ridley Scott one. Turns out when you
try to summarize ALIEN without the thrum of the engines, the
spooky music, the perfectly calibrated lighting, the underplayed and overplayed
acting, and the hissing cat, it’s not frightening in the least.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “That
sounds great! I want to watch
it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “No!” I
barked, again reflexively. “Your mother
will kill me!” And then another thought
came to me. “Besides, ALIEN may not
really be the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
It depends on how you ask the question.
It’s subjective, right? Opinion,
not fact.” He’d been learning a lot
about fact vs. opinion in class. “The
movie that probably scared me most in my life was WAR OF THE WORLDS, because I
saw it when I was a little kid.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “What’s
that about?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “Well,
there’s this mysterious meteor lands in a field...” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> So after I
told him the plot of WAR OF THE WORLDS we came to an arrangement. He would work his way up to ALIEN. We would have our very own home science
fiction film festival. We proceeded to
do exactly that, with his sisters joining us for some of the tamer
offerings. E.T., CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE
THIRD KIND, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, MEN IN BLACK, PLANET OF THE APES,
and a favorite of both me and my wife’s, GALAXY QUEST. We two adults kept laughing at all kinds of
things in that last one that the kids didn’t get at all. “What’s so funny?” Leah asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “It’s a
Star Trek joke.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “What’s a
Star Trek?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> So that, of
course, took us down a whole new path, one that led to Danny’s instant
conversion to Trekkie, Trekker, whatever.
His sisters can take or leave Kirk, but have turned into huge fans of
Mr. Spock.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Eventually,
after about a year of these occasional viewings, we worked our way up to ALIEN.
I gave Danny and his buddy Niko stern
warnings about how scary the movie would be, how I would not be held
responsible for the nightmares that were sure to plague them for months, nor
for the imagined stomach aches they might suffer. Then we watched. Big screen.
Subwoofer on. Curtains drawn. Sisters absent. And...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “Yeah, that
was good, but it wasn’t scary.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> When the
baby alien came bursting out of John Hurt’s chest, they had laughed
uproariously, and made me repeat the scene a couple more times. “That’s the stupidest looking thing I’ve ever
seen,” was Niko’s verdict. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“It looks like a bloody sock puppet!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I decided
to up the ante. The next week we watched
JAWS. Again, they liked it. Again, no nightmares.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> My
inability to make a scary movie impression on two people who should be at their
most impressionable led me to search my cinematic soul. I also learned that Niko’s dad is a big fan
of zombie movies. That, finally, jogged
my memory:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> TWENTY-EIGHT
DAYS LATER just arrived from Netflix. Let’s
see if those smug little twirps can sit thorough this one without tears!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I will keep
you updated of the result. In the meantime,
send suggestions. Keep in mind that
these are twelve year-old boys of the current generation. They’re hard to scare, but they’re still
pre-pubescent. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is
out of the running, for instance. So is
the movie that is really, truly, the scariest one I’ve ever seen, that I dared
not even try to describe to my son, or any child. It is the Dutch film <a href="http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/The_Vanishing/1086657?trkid=2361637">SPOORLOOS</a>. Trust me.</span></div>T.J. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086845860634591478noreply@blogger.com6