All the Painted Junk.

 I'm not much of a mall person. I can go once a year--or less--and that's enough.  Shopping and exercise are two of my least favorite things, so combining them is even lower on my list.  However, in El Paso lots of events happen at malls.  Why?  I have no idea.  Probably because they have air conditioning and are cheaper than big event centers.  In any case, we've found ourselves at the mall a lot recently.

A couple weeks ago I added a little daily enrichment to the girls' school day.  Every day we watch a blurb on an instrument from the orchestra, a piece of music from a baroque or classical composer, and a couple minute video about a renaissance artist. The girls' enthusiasm depends on the day and whether they've had breakfast yet.

Thanks to social media, the inspiration for most of our adventures, I heard about a Sistine Chapel exhibit coming to a local mall.  I bought tickets and bundled some grumbling girls into the van.  They were going to get some fine art exposure even if they didn't want it.

The exhibit wasn't very big, but it was awesome. It began with a video about Michelangelo's life and the chapel itself, and his colorful, love/hate relationship with the pope who commissioned the ceiling. Massive copies of the frescos were arranged with videos and placards explaining the subject, history, and symbolism of each painting. I was surprised by how much they had retained from our enrichment videos; we discussed foreshortening, chiaroscuro, perspective, realism, symbolism of placement and colors, the choice of characters depicted, how frescos were made, tempera vs oil paint, and more.  They particularly liked the depiction of the Last Judgment, one of the busiest and most detailed of the frescos. 

They were less enthused about the other, more indecent exposures in the art, but we added an impromptu human anatomy lecture and also had a good laugh.

Sorry, guys.  You know it looks ridiculous.

Anyway, it was one of our favorite trips we've done here.  I'm hoping that more of these traveling exhibits come through.  As incredible as it would be to go to the actual Sistine Chapel, I think that we got a better view of the art at this exhibit, where we could walk up to the paintings instead of squinting at them from 60 feet below.

Highly recommend.  Check your local mall today.  You never know what kind of junk they’ll have on display.

Animated

My kids watch a lot of anime.  As in a concerning amount.  Even with filtering out the more questionable shows (roughly 98% of all existing anime), they watch enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they started speaking Japanese over breakfast one day.

Okay, so maybe that's a bit hyperbolic.  A bit.  At any rate, when they heard there was an anime festival at a local mall, I knew how I'd be spending my Saturday.

They were planning to go in full costume, but since General Conference (a particular group of church meetings) was going on that same weekend, they didn't have the time and had to settle for fan-gear. 

The mall thoroughfares were lined with vendor booths selling everything from dice and artwork to character-scented nail oil and official costumes.  A makeshift theater had been set up that was streaming Studio Ghibli movies all day.  A Pokémon GO tournament was in full swing.  A costume contest was scheduled for later in the afternoon, and, judging by the sheer number of cosplayers, it was going to be a doozy.

The girls were in heaven, inspecting every booth, geeking out over every character they recognized and spewing excited compliments. Honestly, one of the things I love about anime and other nerdfests is how welcoming they are.  Yes, there are always some toxic die-hard toolbags in any fandom, but generally people at these things are just fantastic.  If someone puts effort into dressing up, the crowd doesn't care.  Naruto, Inuyasha, Spy X Family, Dragon Ball Z, Ghibli, The Last Airbender, Sailor Moon, Bleach, Tails from Sonic, Star Wars, the odd Jurassic Park guy with a velociraptor and so many more I didn't recognize...It was fabulous.

Everyone left satisfied.  Bren got to flirt with the Dark Side, Echo got called out by a stormtrooper as likely to go Dark, Leah got to stop by the kitty café, the smalls all enjoyed their Pokémon mystery boxes (complete with snacks and Pokémon swag).  Most importantly, we got to leave the house.  All in all, a pretty good day.