The Glowing Edge

Tag: The Maker

  • The Maker: Where I’m From

    The Maker: Where I’m From

    This poem made my eyes fill with tears when the Maker read it to me. Maybe because he’s the youngest, maybe because there were so many unexpected insights offered, line after line. I can’t decide whether it’s very twelve (years old) and boy (so much food!), or entirely, surprisingly, out of the boundaries of that sort of reckoning.

    Whatever it is, I find it rare and beautiful…

    Recaptured below with original spelling intact:

    Where I’m From

    I am from rich coffie, from

    busted paintballs to sizzling

    bacon. I am from calm scent to

    blasted remixes. I am from the

    faint russtle of leaves to the loud

    obnoxious alarm of five o-clock.

    I am from my bright red

    guitar, from soft flannel P.J.’s.

    I’m from juicy grapefruit to

    crispy bacon, from dry lips in

    the morning. I’m from crunchy,

    sweet, and yummy. Dark to light,

    bland to rich. I’m from down

    at the rock, from heartless school

    desks, to campfire chats.

    I am me.

  • DIY Ninja T-Shirt Headwrap (and Other Ninja Secrets)

    DIY Ninja T-Shirt Headwrap (and Other Ninja Secrets)

    The Maker is here to give you all the ninja secrets you need.

    I remember shooting this a couple of months ago, and being once again surprised at the stuff this boy keeps inside his head. I know, I know, YouTube. Still, for an 11-year-old dude, he impresses me.

    So. Click “play” and learn to make your silent secret ninja tee-shirt headwrap.

    And because the new video made me think of another he did, I’ve re-posted that one too, so that you can  find out how to do a ninja bow (both with and without a sword.

    But more importantly, you will uncover super secret hidden knowledge about any ninja fight you might find yourself in. Because unlike with normal people, there’s no ring, ropes, or bells. (Notice how I just made myself “normal”? That felt pretty awesome.)

    In fact, it’s terribly important that you watch the second video through to the end. Otherwise you could have your ignorant ninja head chopped off.

    I think.

    Maker-Ninja knows all. If you have ninja questions, please post them and I’ll implore him to reveal more of his hidden ninja secret knowledge.

    Image by thedalogs on Flickr

  • What Boys Eat For Breakfast

    What Boys Eat For Breakfast

    You knew this was gonna be weird, you just didn’t know how weird.

    I have to begin by saying that this is not at all an unusual breakfast food combination for any of the four guys I live with. But somehow the pepperoni-sausage-and-black-olive pizza, hard boiled egg, and cantaloupe just demanded I take a photo, and The Maker was willing, if not yet fully awake.

    And I was fairly pleased about his choice of whole grain toast, I might add. Fiber!

  • The Maker on Stilts

    The Maker on Stilts

    Summer’s here and The Maker, nearly eleven, has an entire raft of projects underway.

    Recently he disappeared for most of an afternoon and came home walking on these fantastic stilts that he made with his grandpa.

    Me: Dude! Those are awesome!

    TM: Thanks.

    Me: How long did it take you to learn to walk on them?

    TM: Three or four tries.

    Me: How tall are they?

    TM: The brace is eighteen inches.

    Me: So what do you plan to do on them??

    TM: Probably get past the creek to places I haven’t been.

    Me: Oh. (thinking for a moment) Where haven’t you been?

    TM: Past the creek.

    Me: Well, right. Of course. So you can wade across the creek on those things?

    TM: Sure.

    Me: Can you go up stairs?

    TM: Yup.

    Me: What can’t you do on your stilts?

    TM: Kick a soccer ball. And I can’t do “no hands” but I can do “one hand.” I hold one stilt in my hand and the other in my elbow pit.

    Me: Do you think girls will like your new stilts?

    TM: (uninterested) Sure.

    Naturally I commandeered the new stilts for my own turn. None of the boys believed I would get up on the first try, but they didn’t know I had spent half my growing up years on stilts.

    Stilts!

  • He Likes Pie!

    He Likes Pie!

    It’s possible this was written as a rap.

    Whatever it is, I found it folded up and drifting around my kitchen, as I find many odd bits of flotsam and jetsam in this house.

    I read it out loud, and found myself giggling. I particularly enjoyed the garbeldy-gook at the end. The Maker is ineffable, buoyant, inexplicable. Oh, and he likes pie; don’t try to convince him otherwise.

    Here’s the translation, as it’s hard to read in the photo:

    Hi, my name is Seth and I like pie, So you can’t

    deny it so just stop trying to make me not like pie

    because it is impossible for me to not like pie

    cause pie is my life

    blebertiedo?

    hipapotamonstrositybiltacilatantovela

    I located further evidence of the claim in the driveway. In case there were any doubt.

  • More Violent Toy Inventions by the Maker

    More Violent Toy Inventions by the Maker

    Stuff like this floats around my house all the time.

    I’ll be cleaning out the cat box and see a corner of lime-green paper behind the washing machine. Voila, I learn how to make my own Smoke Bomb. (I keep waiting to find secret love notes to girls, but so far none of those have appeared.)

    In case you can’t read it on the photos, I’ll transcribe these two gems for you. Btw, be sure to note the safety directions on the Battery Bomb. (???!!)

    Battery Bomb

    take a Battery and a clothespin and you clip the clothepin to the Battery then throe it doun. (do only on Grass)

    Smoke Bomb

    Get a sheet of Paper and scrible chalk on it and Ball it up. Once you step on it it egnites.

  • First Snow of the Year!

    First Snow of the Year!

    Congratulations to The Maker, age 10, the boy who is first out into the first snow of the season.

    (I’m only barely remembering snow from earlier this year.)

    At least this year he didn’t put all the snow he could scrape up (which in NC, isn’t all that much) into my freezer. I know I took photos of that, but for whatever reason I couldn’t find them. Probably tagged them with “Wha–?” instead of “snow.” Any rate, these particular snowballs were launched joyfully outside at other people, and thus dispersed in an immediately effective and much more freezer-space-saving way.

    Oh, and the glasses are pretty wonderful, don’t you agree? I want me summa those.

  • The Dark Road to… Darkness.

    The Dark Road to… Darkness.

    Beware children! See how easy it is to slip from an ordinary good boyhood into shudder-inducing nightmarish-ness. Nightmarish-osity. Something dark that involves hissing and a small amount of drool, anyway.

    I was surfing through some of my recent pictures and came across these two from earlier this year — taken on demand from the Maker, who relishes a pair or five of those cheap plastic Halloween vampire teeth. I always purchase a “Party Pack” of these (the name makes me snort) and then I’m exceedingly careful never to touch the myriad pairs I see laying around the house for the next month or so.

    After about six weeks I don’t have to worry about them anymore since they’ve all been shared with friends and left at their houses, sliced and diced by the lawnmower, run through the wash and thrown out by me, or carried off by the cats. Tidy, huh?

    Nobody ever talks about who cleans up after Darkness.

  • In A 10 Year Old’s Head

    In A 10 Year Old’s Head

    The Maker is regularly given an hour in school to read, write, draw, or nap. (I know, you miss 5th grade. I do, too.) At some point recently he decided to write a story during his free hour, which I later found folded into quarters, floating around on a kitchen counter.

    I’m publishing it here because I think it’s interesting to see what a 10 year old boy keeps inside his head. In this case: new adventures, favorite foods, not cleaning up after himself, useless stuff, prominent fears, doing things he shouldn’t do, and superhero leanings.

    So little changes, huh?

    •   •   •   •

    As I walk down the street, birds are cherping People are talking. I notes [notice] a house that I havent seen in the Past! I walk up to it, the cars arnt there so I look trouw [through] the broken window and evorything is dusty, it looks like there hasent been someone in there for years! Why havent I notised this yet? I check the door, lockt, I climb in throu the window. I smell somthing good, at that moment I notis that I just happen to be hungry so I go in to the kitchen and one the stove theres a pot of boiled eggs, my favorit. I take one out, knowing that no one is here and eat it, yuk! It is filled with salt. I imidiotly sit it out on the table. I notis a key on the table. I pick it up thinking I might need it I walk up a winding starecase in to a room and see some uesles stuf. On the bed I see a copol of books, on of the titles are “THE MOST FAMOS ROBORIES” at that moment I hear a clock in the next room I go in hoping to find something uesful. in side is a man chaned to the wall! he says to me “hey kid could you help me get out of hear” I knew I shouldent of because when he was free he lafed at me and ran out of the hous. I chased him untill I lost my breath. I found a newspaper and on the front page I saw a  the same man that was chaind to the wall it said man caut robbing bank.