I like the idea of parents as puppets on the “other side.”

I wonder if there will be an amiable agon over this issue of family.

In fact, I’m even curious at Willard’s take on Blake as “father” figure (for the Tyger or the children).

I quietly bristled inside at the first attempt to impose a “Holy Family” componenet (as drab and uninvolved as it may be) because I want to be Blake’s advocate. (And I realize that Willard’s Blake is not my Blake; I need to keep that in mind). Blake was rather radical and revolutionary in his views on the power of the imagination to transform reality. “Family” would read as hypocritical and institutional, an imposition of control on the human spirit. Hence my fondness for the idea of children unanchored, children as free pilgrims.

The trope of “escape” from a stultifying family environment, seemingly a liberatory gesture, still can keep the Oedipal anchor at full weight.

Hmmm. I will keep thinking and questioning how the “family” is ultimately portrayed.

I am trying to be delicate because I don’t know how many interpretations of the phrase “family values” exist among our numbers.

In case you were wondering what one looked like. (Yes, it’s already in my Curio file.)

And look at this: http://www.oldtoyz1.com/tiger.jpg!

It does not, however, function as an online gizmo. Otherwise, it is exactly the kind of thing you seek.

This is an aside, but while I’m there. Could this Curio program work with the High School One Act Play development site? Which could become part of Lacuna. In brief, we’ve talked in the past about creating a resource web site for high school students and teachers who might want to build their One-Act Play entries for competition out of a year-long collective creation process.

I can foresee a time very soon where I will need to create a separate blog for WBI, where we can brainstorm ideas for this major project. Or should we keep all that here?

There’s a fabulous program called Curio which allows you to brainstorm and store and sort and all kinds of cool stuff. I’m going to start a Curio file for WBI where I can drop all our ideas. I can then export it periodically as PDF or PowerPoint or even webpages.

So indulge me for a moment in my fondness for Blakeana.

Old man with bad eyesight reading scripture with a magnifying glass in the drawing room at the beginning, everyone respectfully listening.

At the end when we return to the drawing room (Ah, mustn’t me always return…) the adults are transformed somehow due to Blake’s influence. The Old Man has now clearly lost all eyesight and become Milton intoning passages from Paradise Lost.

Blake admired Milton…you see.