Monday, December 24, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
We interrupt this broadcast...
Just wanted to let those of you regular checkers (and one or two irregular ones, you know who you are) know that I'm taking a little hiatus right now. Everything's fine, I'm just sharing my thoughts elsewhere for a little while.
In the words of Tim Gunn, 'Carry on.' ('Make it work' wouldn't really work in this context.)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
There goes the neighborhood
Warning on the DVD versions of the early 'Sesame Street' seasons: 'These early "Sesame Street" episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.'
As Virginia Heffernan reports in the NYT, the 'Sesame Street' we visited as kids (late 1960s-early 1970s) is not the same safe place we remember. Nothing has changed, really, just how we look at it through the lens of today's world. I call it retroactive television gentrification.
The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.
Back then -- as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 -- a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.
So let's see. The buildings probably should've been condemned. If you're fat now, blame Mr. C-is-for-Cookie. The 'just be yourself' message made the world safe for depressives everywhere today. And the 'don't talk to strangers' message pounded into our heads by our parents had its exceptions, such as for the smiling, bald, mustachioed black man hanging out on our street. He was a teacher, after all. And, barring cops and members of the clergy, who could be more trustworthy?
I checked out the website. The first set 'includes episodes from the first five seasons, as well as 45 bonus segments. The box set features appearances by Jackie Robinson, Carol Burnett, Jesse Jackson, and Johnny Cash. Musical milestones include the original versions of Ernie's Rubber Duckie, Kermit's Bein' Green, and Ladybug Picnic.'
Whoa! Jesse Jackson and Johnny Cash!? Talk about subversive!
The article goes into more surrealities (so they say). I guess my entire office is irrevocably damaged, our early literacy and 'Hair'-era social skills be damned.
I've got to get my hands on those DVDs.
Bruce Stringbean
On a similar note, this story brought to mind other PBS shows of that time. Remember Morgan Freeman as 'Easy Reader' on 'The Electric Company'? (I knew Rita Moreno from that show -- 'HEY YOU GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!' -- before I ever saw her in 'West Side Story.') And 'ZOOM' -- remember that? 'Zooma zooma zooma zoom.' I remember writing the show (they recited the address in every episode -- all together now, 'Boston, Mass, oh, two one, three four...') inquiring about becoming a 'ZOOM' kid. I got back a lengthy letter and application, but what it all boiled down to was that living in the Boston area was a necessity, and having an agent helped. But I didn't want to be a child star -- I just wanted to wear one of those striped shirts, speak ubbi dubbi and run around screaming. It looked like a lot of fun.
I can still speak ubbi dubbi. Well, sort of. It wouldn't take much for me to pick it up again. Too bad no one wants to teach it anymore. Maybe if the 'ZOOM' kids were declared enemies of the state, the CIA would actively recruit for more ubbi dubbi speakers, just like they do with Arabic.
Allah peanut butter sandwiches!
Retroactive television gentrification, folks.
As Virginia Heffernan reports in the NYT, the 'Sesame Street' we visited as kids (late 1960s-early 1970s) is not the same safe place we remember. Nothing has changed, really, just how we look at it through the lens of today's world. I call it retroactive television gentrification.
The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.
Back then -- as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 -- a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.
So let's see. The buildings probably should've been condemned. If you're fat now, blame Mr. C-is-for-Cookie. The 'just be yourself' message made the world safe for depressives everywhere today. And the 'don't talk to strangers' message pounded into our heads by our parents had its exceptions, such as for the smiling, bald, mustachioed black man hanging out on our street. He was a teacher, after all. And, barring cops and members of the clergy, who could be more trustworthy?
I checked out the website. The first set 'includes episodes from the first five seasons, as well as 45 bonus segments. The box set features appearances by Jackie Robinson, Carol Burnett, Jesse Jackson, and Johnny Cash. Musical milestones include the original versions of Ernie's Rubber Duckie, Kermit's Bein' Green, and Ladybug Picnic.'
Whoa! Jesse Jackson and Johnny Cash!? Talk about subversive!
The article goes into more surrealities (so they say). I guess my entire office is irrevocably damaged, our early literacy and 'Hair'-era social skills be damned.
I've got to get my hands on those DVDs.
On a similar note, this story brought to mind other PBS shows of that time. Remember Morgan Freeman as 'Easy Reader' on 'The Electric Company'? (I knew Rita Moreno from that show -- 'HEY YOU GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!' -- before I ever saw her in 'West Side Story.') And 'ZOOM' -- remember that? 'Zooma zooma zooma zoom.' I remember writing the show (they recited the address in every episode -- all together now, 'Boston, Mass, oh, two one, three four...') inquiring about becoming a 'ZOOM' kid. I got back a lengthy letter and application, but what it all boiled down to was that living in the Boston area was a necessity, and having an agent helped. But I didn't want to be a child star -- I just wanted to wear one of those striped shirts, speak ubbi dubbi and run around screaming. It looked like a lot of fun.
I can still speak ubbi dubbi. Well, sort of. It wouldn't take much for me to pick it up again. Too bad no one wants to teach it anymore. Maybe if the 'ZOOM' kids were declared enemies of the state, the CIA would actively recruit for more ubbi dubbi speakers, just like they do with Arabic.
Allah peanut butter sandwiches!
Retroactive television gentrification, folks.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Say what?
Okay, let's go back a bit. 1986. Sophomore in high school. Chicago had just gotten cable the year before, and MTV played videos (but only by white people, Michael Jackson notwithstanding) and didn't have TV shows per se. The big, big video that year -- and for a few years afterward, as this and that program continued to award it 'Video of the Year' accolades -- was Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer.' But from that same album, So, came a bunch of other hits -- 'Big Time,' 'Don't Give Up,' 'Red Rain.'
And if you were anywhere from fifteen to thirty during that time, you knew the other one. It wasn't a huge hit until the following year or so, I don't think. Not yet.
I read this AP article about movie themes yesterday. The Eighties were full of memorable songs from movies, songs that don't require artists or film titles -- 'Don't You Forget About Me,' 'Power of Love,' 'Ghostbusters,' etc. etc. But, in my opinion, the one that can still send a good portion of Generation X (how I hate that phrase) wistfully staring into the distance is Peter Gabriel's 'In Your Eyes.' The song is practically inseparable from the scene in Cameron Crowe's 1989 film 'Say Anything.'
It's late at night. Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court have had a falling out. Diane wakes to a sound. She's not sure what it is at first, but then she sees. Standing outside her house, boom box aloft, is Lloyd, serenading her the only way he knows how (okay, we do see him playing guitar earlier, but this is a bit more poignant).
It's an iconic image -- more so to people of my generation than, I suspect, the Challenger explosion or the protests in Tiananmen Square. And yet, it almost didn't happen.
"That needed to be the perfect song. We even brought in a songwriter, a la Bacharach, to come in and write for that moment, and that really didn't work," [Cameron Crowe] said in an interview. "Nothing worked but that song. It was written in the script to be a Billy Idol song, `To Be a Lover.' It was the week that I liked that song.
"But then when it came time to film that scene, he realized the upbeat Idol tune wouldn't work. We tried every possible song. Then I was driving to the editing room one day and I had the wedding mix from my wedding in my car. I was listening to stuff on it, it brought back memories, then `In Your Eyes' comes on. `I drive off in my car!'" he gushed, quoting Gabriel's lyrics. "It's a song about instincts! I put the pedal to the floor and we put it in the scene and it worked."
Billy Idol. Yeah, the white hair and snarling lip are icons unto themselves, and although 'To Be a Lover' is a rocking song, I don't see it working. Can you?
I remember seeing 'Say Anything.' I'd gotten back in touch with an old grade school friend and we went to see it the first weekend it was out. Both of us were in between boyfriends at the time but as we left the theater we were clearly moved. I remember telling people about the movie, saying, 'See it with somebody you love.' And we did love each other, but that time was already long gone, slipping away like the decade that named it. One thing was for sure: No one we knew deserved that song. John Cusack may have been our neighbor to the north in Evanston, but to us, Lloyd Dobler was a work of pure fiction and always would be.
I'm certain that 'In Your Eyes' was -- and continues to be -- a theme for countless weddings and even high school dances. I didn't get my 'In Your Eyes' moment until the mid-Nineties, and even then there was no Lloyd Dobler standing outside my window. Just a homeless person in the doorway across the alley looking back at me in the dawn. And even though I should have been happy, having spent the night alongside a would-be Lloyd Dobler with the So album as a soundtrack, I felt alone and would stay that way for a long time. By the time I got dressed and hit the road a few minutes later, the person was gone.
And if you were anywhere from fifteen to thirty during that time, you knew the other one. It wasn't a huge hit until the following year or so, I don't think. Not yet.
I read this AP article about movie themes yesterday. The Eighties were full of memorable songs from movies, songs that don't require artists or film titles -- 'Don't You Forget About Me,' 'Power of Love,' 'Ghostbusters,' etc. etc. But, in my opinion, the one that can still send a good portion of Generation X (how I hate that phrase) wistfully staring into the distance is Peter Gabriel's 'In Your Eyes.' The song is practically inseparable from the scene in Cameron Crowe's 1989 film 'Say Anything.'
It's late at night. Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court have had a falling out. Diane wakes to a sound. She's not sure what it is at first, but then she sees. Standing outside her house, boom box aloft, is Lloyd, serenading her the only way he knows how (okay, we do see him playing guitar earlier, but this is a bit more poignant).
It's an iconic image -- more so to people of my generation than, I suspect, the Challenger explosion or the protests in Tiananmen Square. And yet, it almost didn't happen.
"That needed to be the perfect song. We even brought in a songwriter, a la Bacharach, to come in and write for that moment, and that really didn't work," [Cameron Crowe] said in an interview. "Nothing worked but that song. It was written in the script to be a Billy Idol song, `To Be a Lover.' It was the week that I liked that song.
"But then when it came time to film that scene, he realized the upbeat Idol tune wouldn't work. We tried every possible song. Then I was driving to the editing room one day and I had the wedding mix from my wedding in my car. I was listening to stuff on it, it brought back memories, then `In Your Eyes' comes on. `I drive off in my car!'" he gushed, quoting Gabriel's lyrics. "It's a song about instincts! I put the pedal to the floor and we put it in the scene and it worked."
Billy Idol. Yeah, the white hair and snarling lip are icons unto themselves, and although 'To Be a Lover' is a rocking song, I don't see it working. Can you?
I remember seeing 'Say Anything.' I'd gotten back in touch with an old grade school friend and we went to see it the first weekend it was out. Both of us were in between boyfriends at the time but as we left the theater we were clearly moved. I remember telling people about the movie, saying, 'See it with somebody you love.' And we did love each other, but that time was already long gone, slipping away like the decade that named it. One thing was for sure: No one we knew deserved that song. John Cusack may have been our neighbor to the north in Evanston, but to us, Lloyd Dobler was a work of pure fiction and always would be.
I'm certain that 'In Your Eyes' was -- and continues to be -- a theme for countless weddings and even high school dances. I didn't get my 'In Your Eyes' moment until the mid-Nineties, and even then there was no Lloyd Dobler standing outside my window. Just a homeless person in the doorway across the alley looking back at me in the dawn. And even though I should have been happy, having spent the night alongside a would-be Lloyd Dobler with the So album as a soundtrack, I felt alone and would stay that way for a long time. By the time I got dressed and hit the road a few minutes later, the person was gone.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Fahrenheit 451, or money to burn
I'm so embarrassed. I may have to move.
Several months ago, a tax was proposed for this foster burg of mine. A very small one, mind you, to support library expansion and improvements. By 'very small' I mean two-tenths of one percent, or twenty cents on every hundred, or two dollars on every thousand you earn. So if you made $50,000, it would be $100. You've spent $100 on stupider things, right?
So today, Election Day, we had a referendum on this most inoffensive tax. I mean, who could complain? Not childless people paying for public schools. Not pacifists paying for the military. Not renters paying property taxes, nor the homebound paying for the roads. What could be less objectionable than supporting something that, if you could read the ballot, you probably knew about and used at some point in your life?
You know where this is going. With more than half the precincts reporting, the library tax is losing two to one.
Have I mentioned how embarrassed I am?
What's particularly interesting is that until just a couple of weeks ago, no one objected. Library expansion? A no-brainer. But then some groups started to protest. The lobby of the very poor (who are usually the only ones I see using the computers in the library anyway) said that even .2% was too much when every penny counted. A local religious fanatic said that voting for the tax would give tens of millions of dollars to an institution that promotes 'anti-Christian thinking' (presumably because, at least at my local branch, we don't have a diorama of Jesus riding a dinosaur). And, taking a page from the George W. Bush school of taking care of your own but no one else, some venture capitalists made a push for selling bonds to take care of the proposed expansion.
On top of that, there's the misinformation out there. TC's mom, who lives in a different county, urged him (after the fact) not to vote for the tax, because it would take 'twenty cents out of every dollar!' I'm not good at math, but clearly someone spreading that rumor is a lot worse with the decimal point. (My husband replied that he wouldn't mind spending twenty cents on a dollar for the libraries. How much are we spending on the War of Terror, anyway?)
What bothers me most of all is the signal this is sending out. No one, it seems, gives a damn about the arts and humanities in this community. While Stan 'I've been married for two decades and don't want gay people to marry each other, even though it's no threat to me' Lee is getting his ass kicked in the Attorney General race, it's of no great consolation to me in light of the overwhelming ignorance and arrogance of those who say, 'I'm not against literacy, I just don't want to pay another tax.'
I use my public library -- a LOT. Even as a child, I was there so much I ended up volunteering. My local Chicago branch was, in retrospect, a real hole in the wall, but like as with Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was my world. I got my first library card at four, as soon as I learned to sign my name. My mom fought Ms. Frick, the librarian, for my right to take out books the staff thought 'inappropriate' for my age. So as you can see, I'm pro-library, and an extra hundred or so bucks is money well spent. But then that's just me.
When I was little I used to think that libraries got all their money from overdue fines, so I'd hold onto a book so I could give them that extra nickel or dime. I mean, who else was looking out for them?
Maybe I should start doing that again.
Several months ago, a tax was proposed for this foster burg of mine. A very small one, mind you, to support library expansion and improvements. By 'very small' I mean two-tenths of one percent, or twenty cents on every hundred, or two dollars on every thousand you earn. So if you made $50,000, it would be $100. You've spent $100 on stupider things, right?
So today, Election Day, we had a referendum on this most inoffensive tax. I mean, who could complain? Not childless people paying for public schools. Not pacifists paying for the military. Not renters paying property taxes, nor the homebound paying for the roads. What could be less objectionable than supporting something that, if you could read the ballot, you probably knew about and used at some point in your life?
You know where this is going. With more than half the precincts reporting, the library tax is losing two to one.
Have I mentioned how embarrassed I am?
What's particularly interesting is that until just a couple of weeks ago, no one objected. Library expansion? A no-brainer. But then some groups started to protest. The lobby of the very poor (who are usually the only ones I see using the computers in the library anyway) said that even .2% was too much when every penny counted. A local religious fanatic said that voting for the tax would give tens of millions of dollars to an institution that promotes 'anti-Christian thinking' (presumably because, at least at my local branch, we don't have a diorama of Jesus riding a dinosaur). And, taking a page from the George W. Bush school of taking care of your own but no one else, some venture capitalists made a push for selling bonds to take care of the proposed expansion.
On top of that, there's the misinformation out there. TC's mom, who lives in a different county, urged him (after the fact) not to vote for the tax, because it would take 'twenty cents out of every dollar!' I'm not good at math, but clearly someone spreading that rumor is a lot worse with the decimal point. (My husband replied that he wouldn't mind spending twenty cents on a dollar for the libraries. How much are we spending on the War of Terror, anyway?)
What bothers me most of all is the signal this is sending out. No one, it seems, gives a damn about the arts and humanities in this community. While Stan 'I've been married for two decades and don't want gay people to marry each other, even though it's no threat to me' Lee is getting his ass kicked in the Attorney General race, it's of no great consolation to me in light of the overwhelming ignorance and arrogance of those who say, 'I'm not against literacy, I just don't want to pay another tax.'
I use my public library -- a LOT. Even as a child, I was there so much I ended up volunteering. My local Chicago branch was, in retrospect, a real hole in the wall, but like as with Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was my world. I got my first library card at four, as soon as I learned to sign my name. My mom fought Ms. Frick, the librarian, for my right to take out books the staff thought 'inappropriate' for my age. So as you can see, I'm pro-library, and an extra hundred or so bucks is money well spent. But then that's just me.
When I was little I used to think that libraries got all their money from overdue fines, so I'd hold onto a book so I could give them that extra nickel or dime. I mean, who else was looking out for them?
Maybe I should start doing that again.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
I can't seem to make it through Sunday
As I say twice a year... Daylight Saving Time is kicking my ass.
Yeah, we got an extra hour this weekend, but I'm still knocked out. At least I don't have to feel guilty about wasting an extra hour. Not that the rest of the weekend was wasted, though. On Friday night we had company over for a small dinner party, then went to a party last night. Today TC had a friend over and I slept. I've been sleeping on and off since last night, pretty much. Both of us were up around one for an hour or more, then I was up and down (mostly down) all day.
I feel like I've been in a car accident, actually. Bruised and sore and exhausted. It's dark out and I'm thinking of taking TC out for ice cream or something. It's chilly and dark but it's been a long time since we've done that. Not that I'm fighting the urge myself either. It's never the wrong time of year for ice cream.
---
Read today that they've unwrapped Tutankhamun's face and that he's on display in Luxor (Egypt, not Vegas -- although that would be quite interesting, wouldn't it?). Of course, even with reconstructed ideas of how he looked THEN, he still looked better on his sarcophagus. (Isn't that always how it is? 'He looks so lifelike,' I'm sure they said at his funeral.) So of course, all my (waking) day I've been singing, 'Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia... King Tut.'
Now you will too.
Yeah, we got an extra hour this weekend, but I'm still knocked out. At least I don't have to feel guilty about wasting an extra hour. Not that the rest of the weekend was wasted, though. On Friday night we had company over for a small dinner party, then went to a party last night. Today TC had a friend over and I slept. I've been sleeping on and off since last night, pretty much. Both of us were up around one for an hour or more, then I was up and down (mostly down) all day.
I feel like I've been in a car accident, actually. Bruised and sore and exhausted. It's dark out and I'm thinking of taking TC out for ice cream or something. It's chilly and dark but it's been a long time since we've done that. Not that I'm fighting the urge myself either. It's never the wrong time of year for ice cream.
---
Read today that they've unwrapped Tutankhamun's face and that he's on display in Luxor (Egypt, not Vegas -- although that would be quite interesting, wouldn't it?). Of course, even with reconstructed ideas of how he looked THEN, he still looked better on his sarcophagus. (Isn't that always how it is? 'He looks so lifelike,' I'm sure they said at his funeral.) So of course, all my (waking) day I've been singing, 'Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia... King Tut.'
Now you will too.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Don't mention the war!
Earlier this week I was in line at the airport. It wasn't long, just crowded, if that makes sense. In front of me was an older woman who moved very slowly, as though afraid of the half dozen thirty-ish men in front of her. They'd advance, and she'd stay. I finally moved alongside her.
The group was a bunch of Germans. According to this woman -- who spoke in hushed tones -- it had only been two of them, but their friends kept jumping the line. Even those now in the line drifted in and out, as though looking for more members of their group. No more came.
My parents were born in the 1940s, during or right after World War II. They grew up in a world where the Germans were treated with suspicion. Even as Germany reunited when I was in college, I was nervous. After all, then, as now, roughly one-third of people in that nation born after WWII didn't believe the Holocaust happened. Maybe that's why the woman in line with me was so tense.
But I didn't think of that at the time. Instead I thought of Fawlty Towers, John Cleese's classic 1970s comedy. With only a handful of episodes, it doesn't take much to recall (even in reruns) most of the gags. In one notorious episode, innkeeper Basil Fawlty hosts a group of Germans and advises his staff, 'Don't mention the war!' Of course, he can't stand it, and their stay culminates in Basil taunting his guests (angered to the point of tears) and goose-stepping around the room.
Don't mention the war. I laughed to myself, then decided that such a thing was irrelevant. Because one day, maybe in ten years, maybe in fifty, they will say the same thing about us.
'You started it! You invaded Poland!'
The group was a bunch of Germans. According to this woman -- who spoke in hushed tones -- it had only been two of them, but their friends kept jumping the line. Even those now in the line drifted in and out, as though looking for more members of their group. No more came.
My parents were born in the 1940s, during or right after World War II. They grew up in a world where the Germans were treated with suspicion. Even as Germany reunited when I was in college, I was nervous. After all, then, as now, roughly one-third of people in that nation born after WWII didn't believe the Holocaust happened. Maybe that's why the woman in line with me was so tense.
But I didn't think of that at the time. Instead I thought of Fawlty Towers, John Cleese's classic 1970s comedy. With only a handful of episodes, it doesn't take much to recall (even in reruns) most of the gags. In one notorious episode, innkeeper Basil Fawlty hosts a group of Germans and advises his staff, 'Don't mention the war!' Of course, he can't stand it, and their stay culminates in Basil taunting his guests (angered to the point of tears) and goose-stepping around the room.
Don't mention the war. I laughed to myself, then decided that such a thing was irrelevant. Because one day, maybe in ten years, maybe in fifty, they will say the same thing about us.
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