Kites in the rubble

Lawrence Downs of the New York Times describes how children in Haiti make out of sticks and scrap plastic:

"The Haitian boy’s kite starts with thin sticks — woody reeds or straight twigs scraped smooth with a razor blade and cut to equal length, about eight inches. These are lashed in the middle to make stars of six or eight points, sometimes more. Thin plastic, ideally the wispy kind from dry-cleaning bags, is stretched over the frame and secured with thread. Rag strips are knotted for the tail, then tied with thread to two of the star’s lower points: a Y with a long, long stem. More thread is tied to the kite’s taut chest, the rest spooled on a can or bottle."

Downs notes the extreme hardships of survival, and then drifts, like the kites he describes, into poetry:

"One way to resist is to fly. The kite makers dance through the camps with rubbery exuberance, trailed by younger children, all lost in the moment, the most important in the world. Kites battle kites, their makers yanking their lines to cut each other’s, as the kites whirl and spin. When one kite wins, the jubilation is explosive. It’s one of the few signs of joy you see in Haiti, entirely handmade."

photo by Lawrence Downes

via Boing Boing


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Fun in the Hospice

Your local funsmith is happy (and I do mean happy) to answer any questions you have about making things more fun. Take for example this one, in which a fun-follower asks how to make it more fun to visit someone in a hospice.

People who are beyond healing are most definitely not beyond fun, or a good laugh with someone they love. I don't know if games can help people face death. But they can definitely help them affirm life. And perhaps that is the best we can do for them.

I'm not planning to take the "Tibetan Book of the Dead" approach into the hospice with me. Though I admit guided fantasies can be powerful tools for helping people embrace the inevitable. And I'm sure that for some building a shared fantasy about death and the afterlife would be a rich source of very deep fun. Especially if it weren't taken seriously. In fact, how about making it a shared process, you know, each of you take turns adding a sentence.

I can tell you this about me. I think, if I were dying, and still had the energy, I'd prefer the life-celebrating silliness of it all. I'd want to play just those kinds of games with you, the one's I call Pointless.  If I wanted to play with fantasy, maybe we could play with something like the Frog of Enlighten-upment . If I wanted to get morose, I'd try It Could be Worse, but I'd more likely play something openendedly insignificant, like Plenty Questions, or a good game of Redondo, each of which is fun enough and loving enough to lead the living and dying wherever they want to go together.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith