Regarding a Tutu-Free, Bassless Member of the Family

What has Simon been up to lately, you ask? Many things:

1. Booby traps. Toothpaste that splats out of the tube when you squeeze it. Scotch tape across the faucet openings, so the water sprays at you in a horizontal sheet. Baskets of confetti strung on ziplines across the yard, waiting for the postman to walk by.

2. Detecting logical inconsistencies. And pointing them out with gusto verging on scorn. This can be a bit wearing at times, we'll admit. Though we were impressed at the Pete Seeger 90th Birthday Sing-a-Long when he turned to us and said, "Didn't John Henry say he would die with a hammer in his hand? Then how come he laid down his hammer right before he died? Huh? That doesn't make any sense!" Honestly, in 39 years of singing "John Henry," this had never occurred to us.

3. Magic tricks. Palmed marbles that mysteriously drop into glass bottles with a satisfying clink. Mind-reading maneuvers. And card tricks of every stripe. "Pick a card," he'll say, blatantly pushing one of them at you from the fanned array. Sometimes he'll let you pick your own card, but when you put it back in the middle of the deck he keeps his finger firmly lodged in the gap, and then turns away for a second before whipping around saying, "Is this your card?" Or: "Look, here's the two of hearts -- I'll put it on the top of the deck, and then -- Presto! -- it's at the bottom!" Which it is, sort of, except that this two of hearts appears to be a former two of diamonds, altered with a red sharpie. But my favorite card trick of all is the one where you think of a card, and then he pulls one out of the deck at random and says, "Is this it?" And it never is, but every once in a while it's close, and then he is very excited.

This obsession may have been inspired in part by "Houdini: the Handcuff King," a graphic novel by Nick Bertozzi and our old pal Jason Lutes. There aren't too many things that can make Simon sit still, but this depiction of one of Houdini's great escapes -- in handcuffs & leg irons, stripped to his underwear, dumped off a bridge into the Charles River -- is one of them. Not to give too much away, but there's a lovely bit where his wife comes pushing through the crowd at the last minute to give him a desperate goodbye kiss -- during which she passes a lockpick from her mouth to his.

4. Making money. Josie's purchase of an electric bass with babysitting funds has inspired Simon to dream big when it comes to potential purchases, but has not necessarily made him particularly interested in any of the lucrative opportunities that present themselves each week -- folding laundry at a dollar a load, mowing the lawn for $5, etc.

But the other day I sent him to the bakery to get a snack while I finished up one more thing at my office, and he came back with a small milk, a tiny lemon merengue pie, and a huge smile on his face:


And a handful dollar bills, which he proceeded to lay out on the table and study carefully while consuming his extravagant treat.

"Mom, are all dollar bills exactly the same?"

"Well, pretty much," I said distractedly, still trying to finish off one last e-mail, "But there's some numbers that are different on each one, do you see that?"

"Oh yeah!" Silence for a moment. Then: "Mom, do they make the pictures on dollars really detailed so it's harder for people to copy them?"

This led to a brief discussion about currency design & counterfeiting, and a much longer discussion about J. S. G. Boggs, the artist who draws pictures of money and then attempts to exchange them at face value for goods or services. Boggs's art is about getting people to think about what makes money valuable, and whether his work -- the product of his labor -- can have that same kind of specific value. He never pretends it's real money: his spiel is more like, "I'm an artist. I drew this. Don't you think it's worth something?" But he has been arrested for counterfeiting on more than one occasion.

Simon was fascinated by this tale -- mostly because he found it amazing that anyone would think a drawing was worth money. I said, "Well, it takes a lot of practice to learn to draw, right? And it takes time to make a really good drawing. And sometimes people will pay you for something that takes time and skill."

"But it's not that hard to draw a dollar!"

"Well, why don't you try it -- if you draw me a picture of this dollar, I'll give it to you."

"Really?! You'll give it to me?"

"Sure. But it's got to be a really careful drawing, not just a scribble."

So when we got home he set to work.


It took a while, but Simon was motivated. By dinnertime, he had completed this:

And after careful consideration, we determined that it was indeed worth this: