a peek inside the fishbowl

The science behind how our minds actually affect our bodies, from loneliness to optimism http://t.co/Uq7saZZgxc pic.twitter.com/HhFKzs1rCN

— Brain Pickings (@brainpickings) June 24, 2014

• How the American diet has failed, washingtonpost.com
• Cool at 13, Adrift at 23, nytimes.com
• What Izzy Asper told me about the great Canadian media ‘convergence’, globeandmail.com

I opened up Mark’s laptop to discover that someone in this household (I’m guessing it was one of the girls) was looking up the origin of the phrase: LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE.

I find this fascinating for a couple of reasons.

1) It’s a wee insight into the inner workings of their brain. I’m thrilled that they’re curious about language and the world we live in.

2) This kind of quickie research is a real sign of the times.  When I was a kid, I don’t think I spent a lot of time wondering about things like this. And if I did, there’s no way I could easily find and answer. At the age of 13 or 15 I could have taken the bus to my neighbourhood library, talked to a librarian, found the card catalogue, flipped through the cards to find the right title, jotted down a number on a scrap of paper, made my way to the stacks, found the book (and that’s a big maybe), leafed through the pages, and read about the origins of the phrase… but having Google on board is a heck of a lot simpler, isn’t it? Especially for something that’s not really that pressing; a mere curiosity.

Here’s something that’s worth noting, dozens of websites have attributed the saying to a paraphrasing of a poem by William Blake – copied below. But this is incorrect, at least according to a few folks on Reddit. There’s a William Blake online archive and there’s no mention of this poem or one like it.

Upon a closer reading, it doesn’t actually seem like Blake at all. I doubt he would have used the word “whoppers” for starters.

Maybe the lesson here is that Google might win out of convenience, but it’s still important to remember that what we read online isn’t necessarily fact.

“The Liar” (by someone who is not William Blake) 

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?

When I asked of your career
Why did you have to kick my rear
With that stinking lie of thine
Proclaiming that you owned a mine?

When you asked to borrow my stallion
To visit a nearby-moored galleon
How could I ever know that you
Intended only to turn him into glue?

What red devil of mendacity
Grips your soul with such tenacity?
Will one you cruelly shower with lies
Put a pistol ball between your eyes?

What infernal serpent
Has lent you his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all these whoppers sprung?

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Do they dangle in the night?

We did something totally new here at Casa Fishbowl, we launched a rocket. (!)

This process started a few months ago with a visit to the Hobby House in Vanier. Have you ever been? It’s chock full of great stuff, mostly, er, hobby related wares (hence the name HOBBY HOUSE) but I picked out a cool puzzle and Mark bought himself a model rocket.

Here’s where I confess that I know absolutely nothing about model rocketry, but I do know that Mark was pretty happy about bringing it home. He spent a few evenings assembling it in the basement.

I can share these observations:

• The rocket is reusable. He bought three “engines” to go in his rocket. This makes it good for three launches.
• It has a maximum altitude of 335 meters (1100 feet) and has a little plastic parachute hidden in the cone to enable a safe landing (at least that’s the theory).
• This whole thing solidified my belief that there is a 12-year old boy inside every grown man. (This is not necessarily a bad thing.)

The model didn’t take long to build, but then we had bit of a dilemma. Where in Ottawa does one go to launch a rocket? Especially in the west end? It needed to be a sizeable public space that’s not too close to residential areas/people/trees. We looked at various maps and didn’t come to any satisfactory conclusions but eventually settled on the field behind Dulude arena near Carling and the Queensway. (Note: it’s also very good area for kite-flying.)

And THEN we waited for good weather, and I’m glad we did, because the perfect windless and sunny afternoon practically fell into our laps. We drove over hoping their wasn’t a baseball game going on, plunked ourselves down in the middle of the field, and watched the chief builder get ready for liftoff.

It was pretty darn exciting. The golden afternoon, the plush grass under my feet, the rocket burning a trail up, up, up into the sky. I certainly understand the appeal now.

Emma nabbed a video of the first launch for posterity. (Yes, that’s me shrieking.)

It was so exciting that it wasn’t until afterwards that I remembered to be afraid. Oy. What if the thing tipped over and launched sideways? I shudder to think about it. That being said, please be cautious if you decide to try building and launching your own model rockets!

Sidebar: Here’s the thing about doing these kinds of activities with kids; you can include as much or as little of the science as you want.  You know when you blow up a balloon you pinch it at the end, and if you let go it moves really fast, zig zagging everywhere until it’s run out of air? Well, that’s essentially what’s happening when you are launching a rocket, but bigger and heavier rockets need fuel to achieve liftoff and overcome gravity. Cool stuff eh?