Five questions!

So, the lovely domestic goddess, bookworm and overall wit Genevieve, offered to ask people five questions on her livejournal and I signed up for the deal. She gave me five questions and now I'm going to answer them! What fun!

If you want the same, comment and I'll get something to you!

1. Candyland or Chutes&Ladders. DEFEND.

Look, I know that Chutes and Ladders is all about teaching manners to a bunch of knee-high sociopaths, but seriously, the game never made sense to me. The whole point of a ladder is to get to the chute and the fun of sliding down. Candyland is a problem because it basically creates the whole thing of candy/sugar=GOOD TIMES. But it also has the advantage of teaching color recognition and matching.

But in all honesty, I gotta give it to Candyland. Because THE CHUTES/SLIDES ARE THE WHOLE POINT OF GOING UP THE LADDER. One should not be penalized by doing something fun! If it was the other way around, that would make more sense to me. But that's not how the game works.

2. What is one look within fashion you wish you had the chutzpah to carry off?

I do wish I could pull off the vintage '60s fashion like on Mad Men. I like how fitted the dresses are to flatter the figure and how polished everyone looks. I love that people CARED about how they looked and put some thought into everything -- from the little hats down to the shoes and accessories.

However, I don't do discomfort well. Jeff has said he doesn't like how I look in girdles and corsets (which give you the figure) because of how uncomfortable I look. And whenever I've tried on dresses with that look, I look utterly silly -- the prints make me look like a couch coming at you and the skirts make it look like I'm smuggling midgets under there.

3. What was the most exhilarating moment you have experienced so far as a parent?

It's hard to say. I think the one that sticks in my head is seeing my daughter jump for the first time. I think it's because she jumped later than other kids around her age and I thought that would be something she'd get right away (she LOVES to run, climb and get into trouble). So when she jumped for the first time, it took my breath away. It was totally unexpected and the look on her face and the cry of, "LOOK! MOMMA! I JUMP!" made me so happy. The girl only jumped maybe half an inch, but I swear, it was like she touched the sky.

4. What is the best book you have read in the last two years?

Damn. That is a tough call because I have to remember all the books I've read these past two years. Especially when I was breastfeeding BD, I'd be reading two books at a time -- one in the room while she was nursed to sleep and then one in the bedroom.

Right now I will have to say that I loved Julia Child's book, "My Life in Paris." She had a certain wit to her writing and her description of post-war Paris and the food made me want to move there right now. That was also an amazing book to read about the drive she had to get a cookbook done RIGHT and published. I came out of it having more respect for how driven she was and how she achieved her goal later in life. I also loved her description of her and Paul's marriage. I think her marriage and Calvin and Alice Trillin's are the two marriages that I would like my marriage to be.

5. Who would you really want to interview? (All Proust's questionnaire style and stuff)

Living? Russ Feingold. I actually met him once for my job and I didn't have enough time to really do a long interview, but it was amazing meeting the man. He's got my undying devotion because he voted against the Patriot Act when everyone was like, "IF YOU DON'T VOTE FOR THIS, YOU SUPPORT TERRORISM!"

Dead? Teddy Roosevelt. I think he'd have a lot of fun things to talk about and be very well learned on a variety of subjects.

Yes, it's not our Sesame Street anymore

Happy Birthday Sesame Street! The pioneering children's show recently turned the big 4-0. I honestly don't remember watching a lot of the show -- my babysitters growing up were more into watching the soaps on CBS than Sesame Street -- but I do remember a lot of the old episodes.

I know I've talked about Sesame Street before and that I like it, but I thought a recent article by the New York Times was interesting:

The pedagogy hasn’t changed, but the look and tone of “Sesame Street” has evolved. Forty years on, this is your mother’s “Sesame Street,” only better dressed and gentrified: Sesame Street by way of Park Slope. The opening is no longer a realistic rendition of an urban skyline but an animated, candy-colored chalk drawing of a preschool Arcadia, with flowers and butterflies and stars. The famous set, brownstones and garbage bins, has lost the messy graffiti and gritty smudges of city life over the years. Now there are green spaces, tofu and yoga.

I totally understand what they're talking about, and I think that for a lot of us who grew up with the old version of Sesame Street (not "your mother's Sesame Street" but MY Sesame Street -- cripes. Am I that old?) it is a bit like when Times Square in NYC changed to something...more wholesome.

But to me, this version of Sesame Street reflects some of the changes that we see in our society. Gentrification of what was previously considered the "bad part of town" is more and more common. When people become parents, they aren't fleeing to the suburbs -- they're staying in the city. As a result of these things, the city changes and becomes something different. It's not he home we remembered as a child.

I find it funny that the New York Times -- which to me sometimes screams of upper middle class white privilege -- is so critical of the change. I wonder if it's because a lot of us are looking at this and not finding the same things we had growing up on Sesame Street. Perhaps nostalgia is tinting our world viewpoint with a "Things aren't as cool as when we were kids," view.

I know the article's charting the change of the show, but there's something kind of sneering in the way the writer describes the characters. Like Abby Cadabby: "(A) pink and sparkly fairy with a button nose and long eyelashes was taken as yet another sign of the ascent of third wave feminism — or a concession to the commercial appeal of Disney-style princess."

I like Abby Cadabby. And I know most girls go through a very girly phase where it's all about pink and lavender, fairy wings and other such things. Looking back, when I think about how all the monsters on Sesame Street were mostly guys when I was growing up (I just remember Prairie Dawn being a regular, but not anyone else), I'm glad to see Zoe, Abby Cadabby and Rosita. There are girl monsters and Muppets too!

But you know something? I don't mind the change. As a show that's been going strong for 40 years, Sesame Street has to evolve and change to reflect our history and our times. Otherwise kids won't find it relevant to their world viewpoint. While nostalgia is nice and all, we (as adults) have to remember, we're not the target demographic anymore. Kids are. And to keep an effective show going, you have to reflect the changes in the audience.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if 30 years from now, my kid is complaining about how Sesame Street isn't as good as when she was a kid. "WE HAD ABBY CADABBY! SHE WAS AWESOME! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHIT? KIDS TODAY!"

NaBloPoMo: Sleepy

Back from our friend's Mike's father's funeral. It was a nice funeral and seeing Mike's mom dance to The Lion Sleeps Tonight during the luncheon was a great moment, since that was his father's favorite song.

It's funny. The older I get, the more crisis of faith I have. I did not grow up in a religious house. My dad was Catholic, but we never went to church. But if you know me, this doesn't mean that I don't have a spiritual side. But well, I'm rather muddled up in my thoughts about religion, faith and the whole shebang. It's been something that I've been wrestling with for awhile, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I don't think it's something that I can write about coherently, because it's something still stewing about in my head.

But I was amused to take the Belief-O-Matic quiz and find out that apparently, I am a Unitarian Universalist. So what are you?

TROGDORA LIVES!

Yeah. No real blog post today. Tonight was spent getting a new hard drive into Trogdora and also getting her back up to speed. It's not perfect, but it will work for now.

So instead, here's a favorite Youtube video:



I think it says something when my kid loves this video and says that I look like Felicia Day. Which is funny. Because I look like a cross between Clara and Tinkerballa in my head.

But yes, The Guild is funny. Watch it. Trust me.

Why didn't I think of this earlier?

And by this, I mean THIS:



and THIS:



I mean, it's something that both K. and I have talked about doing for awhile. Making our own movie with puppets and random stuffed animals, but we never did. AND THEN CRAIG FERGUSON GOES AND DOES IT. AND MAKES IT LOOK WAY COOLER THAN I THINK I COULD DO WITH OUR SHITTY HOUSE LIGHTS AND MY HIGH STANDARDS OF PRODUCTION ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET.

But I have to say that I love how he does it. It's made me Tivo his TV show now to watch when I have a spare moment. His interviews are hysterical and he's just funny as hell. I like his ripping into Twilight and how the vampires in Twilight aren't sexy -- they're gay men. His interviews with fellow Scotsmen Ewan McGregor and James McAvoy are a hoot. He even makes Gerard Butler appealing to me (Now I'll have the damn Tarts gunning for me). Also, his monologue, which is a dazzling, brave and insane thing by going without a script is fun to watch. It's amazing how he can riff and not flop flat on his ass.

So I guess, my point right now is more that people should watch the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Even though he took an idea that I know I had years beforehand. If you're reading this Craig: I am waiting for my royalties check. But a signed copy of your book and tickets to your show will suffice.

Everyone -- including kids -- can be a little bit racist.

I was picking up some take-out last night when I saw the cover of a Newsweek magazine from September: "IS YOUR BABY RACIST?" the headline blared. I started laughing hysterically, because I remember the article that the cover is referring to.

Written by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, the article discusses how we as a society deal with racism and prejudice and our attempts to teach the children. Turns out, it's not as simple as, "Show them a lot of variety and *poof* no more racism!"

It was no surprise that in a liberal city like Austin, every parent was a welcoming multiculturalist, embracing diversity. But according to Vittrup's entry surveys, hardly any of these white parents had ever talked to their children directly about race. They might have asserted vague principles—like "Everybody's equal" or "God made all of us" or "Under the skin, we're all the same"—but they'd almost never called attention to racial differences.

They wanted their children to grow up colorblind. But Vittrup's first test of the kids revealed they weren't colorblind at all. Asked how many white people are mean, these children commonly answered, "Almost none." Asked how many blacks are mean, many answered, "Some," or "A lot." Even kids who attended diverse schools answered the questions this way.

I could've told you that one. But I'm a minority. And also, I'm a parent. I don't have the idea that children are basically open molds who can become accepting by not addressing differences or using bullshit phrases like, "Everyone's equal."

First off, people who assume that kids will be open and learning and accepting have not really spent time around kids. They can be assholes and psychotics. Remember the book Lord of the Flies? Kids are little insane sociopaths who stick with their tribe and seek any excuse to make some other kid the outsider. It doesn't matter if you've got a bunch of clones. I'm willing to bet that with the Jango Fett clones, they still picked on each other for tiny, stupid differences, like the way that they brushed their teeth or how they parted their hair.

So to assume that a kid will hear, "Everyone's equal" and follow that credo is INSANE. No adult does that. We question, we probe. Kids do that too. They may not say it to your face, but they're thinking it. And if an adult freaks out when kids question differences, odds are, kids will interpret that as, "Well that difference is scary. And it's not good. SO I MUST FEAR IT." Or something like that.

I think that what makes it hard for us as parents is not just that a lot of people are afraid to talk about race and diversity, but also how to do it in a thoughtful manner. A blunt question from a child gets a different response than that same question from an adult. Maybe it's that we should allow kids to ask these questions and treat them seriously. What sounds harsh to adult ears is a very simple question from a child's viewpoint.

I remember watching Ni Hao Kai Lan with my nieces and one of them said Chinese sounded like "baby talk." I get that she meant it sounded different and foreign to her, and I just pointed out that sometimes English sounds funny to someone who doesn't understand it. If you don't understand the language, it all sounds like gibberish, I said.

I don't know if I made an impact, but I'm just glad that no one told her to quiet down and pretend her viewpoint didn't exist. I was happy to address it and I'm willing to teach her more about my background in the future.

Keep in mind, the viewpoint I have right now only really works up to a certain age, say maybe 10. I just don't like the idea that fear of a bad reaction from a person (especially an adult, who should know how to adjust their reactions to blunt questions from adults versus children) prevent them from learning something new or different.

I think we all can agree that the idea of a melting pot in America doesn't quite work out. We all are different people, with different backgrounds and cultures. Unless we let people ask questions, show curiosity and interest in something different and learn something, we're never going to truly address racism. We're just going to be, well, whitewashing over it.

NoBloPoMo! Still breathing, but on life support.

I am about to do 30 days of YouTube. Because this month looks bad. I have a feeling I have bitten off more than I can chew. Today's subject, Christopher Walken reading Lady Gaga's Poker Face:



This teaches us three things:

1. Christopher Walken's line readings are always funny as hell. They have an odd rhythm to them that highlights the unexpected.

2. Pop songs really are silly.

3. "OH! EEE! AH! OH!" really isn't that sexy, when read aloud.