Make Your Own "Canorpheum"

In 2007 my wife and I spent some time touring the jungle in Borneo.  Whilst we were there I got the unique opportunity to play some of the authentic village instruments, in particular anything percussive.

 I searched high and low while we were there for some small instrument I could bring home as a special treasure and ended up bringing home 9 plate sized gongs... and they do get played now and again, especially by some young boys of mine.

What I learned from the trip though, is that the "authentic" instruments from villages in Borneo are not the ornate and beautiful carved gems that many of us might see in an import store down Specialty Lane in Super-Hipsterville, CA but are put together from the most basic materials that scavenged from the nearest renovation project.

For instance--  The instrument I am playing in this photograph is largely old wood floor boards which have been sized so that they make different sounds.  These are tacked onto old plywood with what looked to be shoe tacks, and the blocks themselves rest on rubber cut from the soles of old flip-flop sandals.  A couple Balsa-wood sticks from the forest and some paint and you've got yourself a pretty ingenious indigenous instrument.

Since that trip I have been longing to create my own unique instruments, and I have finally found the resources I needed to do so.

It started with some empty Pringles cans which I collected post 4 year old birthday party.  Add in some scrap planking and screws that were left over from the bed I made (in the last post) and some rubber bands stolen from the junk-mail rolls that perpetually appear on our front doorstep and I had myself a design for what I have called The Canorpheum.

I'm in between on providing the schematic on how to make one yourself... seems excess... but I have it for anyone that wants to comment.  I was lucky that the boards were already cut almost perfectly for the box itself.  I had but to chop a couple boards here and there, and use a drill and jigsaw to make the template for the cans to sit in.

Now all it needs is some paint.  I'm using the iPod to create some unique stencils of the boys (Fotofiti for anyone who cares).  Take a listen:

Stay at Home Furnishings

So last week I was involved in a production of one of the world's only Parkour-Plays as part of a #GIGYYC grant that was won by a friend of mine late last year.

He phoned at the end of January to say that he could have ~$1200 if he could put up a play inspired by Parkour by March 30th.  He just needed a script...  And as proud as I am of this project we are all overwhelmingly proud of (every ticket was sold) my wife knew that it was keeping me from my real passion -- dumpster-dive furniture fashioning.

That's right.  Be it known that I have always had a real knack for handy work, in particular carpentry.  And there is no subfield in carpentry more respected and awe inspiring than that of quality home furnishings.  Yes, I know it seems like I have never actually built anything, but when you've spent as long as I have thinking about building stuff, I'm practically an expert.

In all seriousness-- I get this phone call midway through March:

Tom, I have an odd favour to ask, you see there's this old palette I saw in the alley behind the church, if you get a chance while you're out with the boys to swing by and pick it up--

Sorry what?!

An old palette, look I saw on the internet [during a late night in front of the t.v. of course] that you can make a headboard for a bed from an old palette and I was hoping you'd pick one up for me.  I know it's weird but ---

Yes, it's weird.

but, really, don't feel obligated to pick it up...

and when your wife says that -- well let's just say I wasn't married yesterday.

"Seriously Dad, you built this?!" Not likely...

She didn't however mention that this palette was 7 feet tall at the time she suggested I pick it up.  I did manage to shove it into the back of the van on a wild tangent to my normal daily errands and didn't give it much more thought until (while sitting in the Mr. Lube line-up) a kind sales clerk mentioned "Ha! Sorry, I didn't realize you had two kids [in the back of the van] can't hardly see the second one for the giant palette in the way."

So then I get this email a couple days later with about 19 sites related to at-home-scrap-recycling-keep-your-husband-busy-projects with no other explanation than --- this was what I was thinking about.

Now and again I wish that my life was more like the movies and she would send me a message saying "this is what I was thinking about." and it might come with some sort of pseudo-sexy attachment suggesting perhaps a little romantic rendezvous was heading my way... but no.  Just links to DIY sites... as though she's saying -- hey, do it yourself.  Yes, that's what she said.

But I'm inspired.  I'm feeling handy.  I can do this.  And you know what... I think largely because of the success of Mindfire (the play) I felt a little... well... indestructable?  As though I could do anything... so -- and here's my proudest accomplishment, I turned off the internet, turned on my time lapse and you can watch the results of my efforts w/o commentary and reserve judgement for yourself. (p.s. when the composer for the music reads this and watches the movie then I expect that artist to contact me with the correct permissions and attribution rights just like when that artist contacted me before he cut my head from my blog-photos and pasted it onto unicorns frolicking near rainbows...)

In the end the project cost maybe $100 and it took three solid days working with and around my two sons.  But it was fun, and it felt good to finish it, and for the first time I was really proud of my handywork.  Like I might actually be able to build nice things too.

Things of note:

Supplies (for those interested in facsimiles)

Wood = knotty pine, cheap cheap at the local hardware mart (6" sideboards, 8" top-board and 10" runner)
Stain = Minwax Wood Stain: Classic Gray 271
8 x 2" bolts, washers, and wing-nuts
2" #8 wood screws
1 1/4" #8 wood screws
6 x corner brackets
Wood glue
1 old weathered palette from some back-alley
Grand total ~ $70


The extra cost came from the steel finishing plate added at the end, totally frivolous and extravagant but super-keen!

Final Version (three days in)

Steel plate not shown in this picture
 -- but you can see it on Instagr.am!

I can't wait to show off my next project...  It involves music and Pringles (tm).

What Bored Dad's Do

I admit, it has been a while.

I wanted this to be a weekly journal of sorts, something to read that would let my friends know how the boys and I are doing, and something to read that might give you a snicker or two at my own expense.  Come Christmas time though, I found I really had nothing more of interest to say.

Life has become routine.  The mistakes I make now are simply expressions of earlier mistakes I had hoped I would overcome.  I've fallen into a holding pattern and the system has stagnated.

And What a Glorious Stagnation.

The honeymoon is over.  If phase one of staying at home is intense passion for creating new experiences with your children, then phase two is the calm indulgence that follows.  A balance between sustaining the children and realizing that you (as an adult, and an individual) have an identity, an individuality, a purpose beyond serving others, and suddenly you find yourself indulging fancies that serve only you.

Where you used to plan your day to suit your kids, you're now planning your kids to help suit your day.  You have systems by which you are able to sequester moments to yourself to do the things that stimulate your intelligence and restore vigor to a life that has become routine.  Like a marriage, the early passion and immaturity of the early years is sedated, and allows for more distance, and more space for "self".

And like a basket full of peanuts at the pub, you convince yourself you will only eat an handful, and the next thing you know you need a second beer to wash the first basket down.  Then you find yourself battling the guilt of leaving all those shells behind.

December I joined a panel of teachers as a facilitator for an Open Online Course, and started the process of engaging education in a whole new way (for me).  This was the first peanut.  This created that desire to have another, and then another...

January found me writing a "poem-a-day" with a group of Australians in an online forum.  A creative outlet that flexed the brain-muscle.  I invented a new style of poem called "The Sudoku" complete with a programmed spreadsheet to help calculate the poem's structure.  If you put all the words in the poem nine to a line for nine lines you get a perfectly filled sudoku square (words in place of numbers).  I learned what a Sestina was, and how to write one.  On the side I rewrote "The Velveteen Rabbit" from the viewpoint of a teacher who yearns to become real... Stay at home parents should not have time for all this!

February I was invited to write a script for a friend who has won a grant to bring "Parkour" to the stage in Calgary.  March 30th is the deadline to have a show, thankfully I'm not involved with the production of it, just creating the words behind it.  The working title is called "Have Kourage".  Meanwhile this same friend had me dress as a "Sexy" Lumberjack at a Lise Watier new product release party.  Inspired by my rekindled manhood I promptly came home, installed a window in my back-door and converted a toilet to dual flush.

Sometimes My Reality is Like Your Imagination

Now in March I'm finding I've got that dry, parched feeling you get when you've eaten too many salted nuts, and I'm looking for something to wash it all down with... and thankfully I've found the restorative properties of my boys to be sufficient refreshment.  The next event to plan is a four-year old's birthday party.

I'm so stoked.

What Bored Dad's Do.
(Yes, that's fresh roasted Kale-Chip hair)

The party is to be a blend of engaging learning activities, collaborative and cooperative, that stimulate both the kinesthetic proclivities and intellectual capacities of my young men.  The event will be accompanied by a carefully constructed script, likely performed in costume... I look back on the selfish events of the past three months and realize that, as in all things, with proper reflection and firm grounding in "who you serve" those momentary relapses to self-indulgent fantasy can worked to polish the best parts of self so that our children can enjoy days dedicated to remembering the gift they were, how ever many years ago.

Dadvent Conspiracy

"I can do this."

That's how it starts for stay at home dads. They get a great idea, they have a wife who believes in them and at least one child who looks up at them with big glowing eyes and gives them the feeling that they are a world beater just before they fart and giggle. The kids I mean, usually not the wife.

Well, whatever. I said I was going to do the Dadvent thing, and one item on the list was to make a gingerbread house from scratch.

...And then I got this great idea. I was reading this "Do One Cool Thing with your Kids" app called Timbuktu (because you know all the coolest people you know get their ideas from cool-help books) and they posted a gingerbread recipe and I was like... woah there. This is the one.

"An amazing recipe to bake Gingerbread cookies with kids! via @TimbuktuMag"

Now hold on to your shorts (you who are lucky enough to live near either of the tropics) because this is where it gets wonderfully elaborate.

See there is this app I once used called 123D Make. (I include the details at the end 'cause it's free and like porn for geek dads... was that too crass? Sorry...)

First you draw a design, like this:


And it turns it into a 3D model that you can play around with like this:


But the best part is it lets you print off a template to build the model! Like this!


Remember what I said? "I can do this."

One 3D model design, one order of gingerbread and one wildly eclectic and adventuresome dad and we have the makings of a true sensation.

So I pulled up the recipe and I baked. And I rolled. And aside from getting the instructions backward at times, and putting it in the oven, and suddenly realizing that you can't cut gingerbread out using a template after it's been baked -- so pulling it out of the oven... I was able to start cutting, and trimming, and shaping, and then, when it was all done I knew I would soon have the COOLEST gingerbread tree ever created and my 3 year old would look up at me and realize that he has the single greatest father ever created and there would be angels dancing on my back lawn under the cover of twinkling stars... with a lute! Yes a lute, or maybe a Lyre.

Well, that's how I saw it going in my head.

Here's the timelapse:


So I ran into a problem. There was an inescapable design flaw. The template was built for cardboard I was definitely going to be working with -- well probably better tasting cardboard but it swells when it bakes!

My heart sunk and my dreams were dashed. There would be no more NHL in 2012. And my gingerbread tree wasn't going to be a stand-alone 3D-model, and my 19 month old was going to grow up a drunken reprobate... (Sorry to all you drunken reprobates who might be reading this... I mean no offence) And my beautiful wife, in all her house-coated glory, would look at me with sad eyes, and say, "Hon, -- the garbage?"

On to Timelapse 2. Did I want my sons growing up knowing their dad was willing to give up? Did I want them to think it was okay to be beaten by a bread? Did I have enough courage to press on, and was there enough icing sugar in the pantry to fix this disaster?


I did it. It wasn't what I thought it would be. It was better. Like marriage. Like my kids. Like my first prostate exam... will be... dear God I hope.



Dadvent. Tomorrow my kids will wake up, and we will break open bags of candy and together we will systematically destroy my sculpture and make it into something better. A memory... of time spent in the same room, making meaning from something utterly meaningless.

That's a door I want them to open. That's the conspiracy.

---

The "Two Apps I Mention and Endorse but Receive Nothing Aside from a Retweet in Return From But I Endorse Them Anyway Cause I Care About You" Header

123D Make Intro by Autodesk Inc.



Timbuktu - Free stories, fun and games for parents and kids by Timbuktu Labs, Inc.