Candid
camera obscura
Big kids can make their own images with
cell phones and digital cameras, computers, and video cams. But that’s
expensive, high-end technology — what’s a little kid to do?
My
7-year-old son and I “invented” a solution one day while fooling around with a
magnifying glass. A miniature reflection of the window he was facing appeared
upside down on his shirt, complete with tossing trees and blue sky. The
magnifying glass inverted the light streaming through the window and created a
smaller, topsy-turvy world right there on his belly.
I
ran around outside the window. He said I looked like a doll in a blurry movie;
the room was too bright to get a sharp image. I recalled seeing The Girl with the Pearl Earring, in
which Vermeer demonstrated a camera obscura — a wooden box that used a lens
and mirrors to show, inside, a crisp image of whatever it was pointed at.
We
made our own low-budget camera obscura by cutting a hole in the short end of a
shoebox, taping the 2-inch magnifying glass into it and using a large, opaque
cloth to cover our heads, blocking all other light. Instead of mirrors, we held
an index card in the box, tilted it toward the magnifying glass, and slid it
back and forth to focus the image on the card.
There
it was! The universe at our fingertips! My son took that thing everywhere,
capturing fleeting images of his world: blossoming trees, his friends, our
cats.
— Jennifer Loviglio
This week for families:
Brighton
Memorial Library Story times: toddlers, Mondays, 10:30 a.m.; preschoolers,
Mondays, 11:30 a.m.; PJ stories, Tuesdays, 7 p.m.; toddlers and preschoolers,
Fridays, 10 a.m.; families, Thursdays, 7 p.m. 2300 Elmwood Ave. 784-5300
Hochstein School Full
scholarships available for low-income kids ages 4-12, summer Arts in Action
Program. 454-4596, www.hochstein.org.
Preschool
Family Workshop Thurs, May 27. Art project, story, tour, for ages 2.5-5,
Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Tix: $15. 473-7720
ext 3056
Seneca Park Zoo 2222
St Paul St. Animal fashion show, Mon, May 31, for ages 4-6, 9:30 a.m. Tix: $22.
Hours: daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tix: $5, $4 seniors, $2 kids. 467-9453,
www.senecazoo.org.
Strong
Museum | One Manhattan Square, 263-2700, www.strongmuseum.org.
Information
on museum exhibits can be found in the calendar’s Museum section.
‘Shrek 2’
Ubiquitous marketing
notwithstanding, Lila and I were excited about Shrek 2. Lila loved the silly and gross humor in Shrek, like how he made candles out of
earwax and burped a lot. I liked the quick wit, cultural references, and heart
at its center. And Donkey gave us the great Eddie Murphy at his best.
Lila hoped Shrek 2 would be silly, and it is, perhaps even quicker-witted, and less reliant on
potty humor (the TV theme musical jokes are among the many screamers). We
started laughing — really laughing — immediately, and seldom stopped. It’s
a solid entertainment dollar value.
Toy Story 2 is
one of the great sequels of a great movie, even though its villain (Big Al)
isn’t up to the level of Toy Story‘s
(Sid). Shrek 2 doesn’t have that
problem, replacing John Lithgow’s Lord Farquaad with three archetype-bending
characters: John Cleese’s father with a secret, Jennifer Saunders’s brilliantly
conceived entrepreneurial Fairy God Mother, and Rupert Everett’s simpering
Prince Charming. What makes Toy Story 2 great, though, is its heart, the sadness of the abandoned toy, Jessie, planted
in our souls by Randy Newman’s terrific song, “When She Loved Me.”
That heart is slightly lacking here. The more sensitive
versions of Shrek and his now-wife, Fiona, don’t have as far to go on their
journeys to humanity, making the resolution less satisfying. The way Lila put
it was that Shrek was more sensitive and less Ogre-ish, and that Fiona had less
attitude. All true, but the invention, the writing, the voice talent, and the
spectacular look are all there, and Shrek
2 is still a blast.
— Lila and Adam Wilcox
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2004.
