Of Bounty Hunters, Knights, and Alpacas

This morning my son and I were playing with one of my Star Wars figures--the bounty hunter Dengar--and some toy farm animals. At one point I put Dengar on the back of an alpaca, pretending that he was riding him.

A little while later my wife called me back into the living room, excited about what O had just done. He stopped playing, went into his room and found a library book, opened it to a specific page and pointed to the picture and then to Dengar. The book is from the "I Spy" series, the picture of a knight on horseback. Dengar, looking sort of knightly in his pointed head gear and grey/brown space armor, had been riding the alpaca, which looks a bit like a horse.

I love seeing old and familiar things through my sons 19 month old eyes. Stuff that I have known for most of my life--like Dengar, whom I first encountered in 1980 at 8 years old--can take on new roles when viewed out of context, with no preconceived notions of what is or isn't "correct".

Isn't that really what this gaming hobby I love is really about, anyway? Roleplaying games are just "let's pretend" with a set of guidelines to let multiple people partake of the same story without stepping all over each other. We take something familiar--like medieval knights, mythology, or outer space--and give them a spin with friends to see what falls out. Playing with my son is like gaming, where things old and familiar to me are new again and take on unexpected roles in his hands.

Long live Dengar, Knight of the Alpaca!

The post-Christmas post

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, it was especially nice to have almost the whole family in one place. It was my son's first Christmas, and he definitely won the Most Loot prize. It'll be a while before he can take full advantage of most of what he got, though, as he's still in the "grab it and stick in mouth" stage. Not quite big enough to use the building blocks or toy truck just yet. It certainly was fun watching him tear paper, examine things, laugh, and occasionally try to eat the wrapping paper.

I made out pretty well myself: a new iPod Touch, a Le Creuset dutch oven (I've been wanting one for several years but never expected to actually get one), some socks, Epic Mickey, and a few books I was not expecting (but really wanted)-The Lego Book, The Secret History of Star Wars, The Making of Star Wars, and Prince Valiant, Volume 1: 1937-1938. I actually gave a copy of the Prince Valiant book to a friend this year, and was planning on getting it for myself at some point soon. What goes around, comes around!

Manhood for Amateurs

I completed the first book of my "50 in 2010" on New Years Day-Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Fathr, Husband, and Son by Michael Chabon. I actually started it a while ago, getting about 1/3 of the way in, but it was a library book and was recalled before I had a chance to finish it. I checked it back out a couple weeks ago, and decided to kick off the new year by finishing it. I've read some of Chabon's work before-a few short stories, a couple essays, and his fantastic tribute to the pulp adventure stories of Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard, Gentlemen of the Road.  

Manhood for Amateurs is a collection of essays about being male, and the roles in life that men play-son, husband, father, brother, son-in-law, and so on. Chabon is definitely a geek-comics, sword & sorcery, science fiction, to name a few typically geeky things that had (and continue to have) a major impact on his life. Between the writings about being male and those about interests that I share with him, I found myself relating to almost all the essays one way or another.

Reading these essays made me think a lot about who I was growing up, where I came from, who the male figures were that influenced my life, and where my life is now. As I read about his life as a father, especially the birth of his first child, I was thinking to the future. Who will my child be? What will they be like, and what will their influences be? I am looking forward to sharing the things I liked as a kid-Lego bricks, Star Wars, comics, playing in the woods, and so on. Will my son enjoy the same things I did? Or will we be strangers to each other, not able to comprehend what/why we are different?

So, as not to stray too far from the original point of this post, I highly recommend Manhood for Amateurs. Knowing a number of people who read my blog, I have a feeling they will relate to, and enjoy, Chabon's essays in many of the same ways I did.