Monday, February 21, 2011

A Syllogism

1. So we were playing a lot of Plants vs Zombies for a while there. Not just playing: I mean, a surprising percentage of my conversations with Noah, for a couple of months, hinged on Plants and Zombies. While he brushed his teeth, I would have to recite dozens of zombies, and/or plants, in the order in which they appear. Backwards. Or by toughness, or cost. With, naturally, many hints and corrections from him.

   At one point we went away to a cabin in the Black Forest with no internet access for a week. Noah played Plants vs Zombies anyway, with two decks of cards -- Uno for plants, I believe, and poker cards for zombies. The Uno card "3" was the cherry bomb, you see, because, of course, the cherry bomb is the third plant. And so on.

   Anyway, so when you beat Plants vs Zombies, as Aviva and Noah and I finally did, you get to see a music video, "Zombies on Your Lawn". The music, and sound in general, is one of the really amazingly well done things about that game.

   There is this excellent LARPish lipsynched version of the song.

2. Zombies are of course all the rage (ha) nowadays. I finally broke down and wrote a zombie story recently (it's making the rounds). And Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black mocked/claimed/elaborated/pwned this trend beautifully in their recent anthology Zombies vs. Unicorns (which I don't have yet, but I did stumble upon Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and it was really good!)

3. We have now pretty much stopped playing PvZ. For his birthday, Noah got a guitar. Aviva decreed that we need to have a family band -- you know, like the Partridge Family? And so we are all assigned instruments. I was assigned the drums. So far my drums are two chopsticks and a cardboard box.

   But: while we got Noah a guitar, and some guitar books, we didn't get him any lessons yet, because there's a spot in the great local music school only in summer.

   So Noah insisted that I work through the guitar book with him. And because, unlike me, Noah is patient and diligent and dogged, a side effect of this was that I accidentally started to learn, sort of, how to play the guitar.

4. So let's see if we can do the math here:
   1. Zombies on Your Lawn +
   2. Zombies vs. Unicorns =

      ---

Chorus:
(3->0)xxxxx Unicorns
022100 [5t]
(3->0)xxxxx Unicorns
022100 [3t] on the lawn
(3->0)xxxxx Unicorns
022103 [4t]
02210(3->0) Don't want
(3->0)xxxxx unicorns
022100 [3t] on my lawn
            When I   
022012 [5t] count to ten baby
 [rest 2]   Those
x(3->2)xxxx Unicorns
(3->0)xxxxx better be
022100      gone.
            Their 
xxx103 [4t] skin is soft as
xxx130 [4t] velvet. Their manes 
xxx120 [4t] ripple in the 
xxx100      wind.
            They are 
xxx103 [4t] trampling on the 
xxx130 [4t] tulips that are
xxx120 [4t] starting to come
xxx100      in.
            I am 
xxx103 [4t] getting such a 
xxx130 [4t] headache from the
xxx120 [4t] rainbows every
xxx100      -where.
            They are 
xxx103 [4t] swimming in the 
xxx130 [4t] swimming pool
xxx120 [4t] and clogging up the filters with their
033200      U-
055300      ni-
077500      corn
022100      hair.
Repeat chorus.