A Smattering of Quotes

"When I was a student, I had two ideas about history, and one of them was that history was about dead men who had done dull things. History was dates and governments and laws and war and money - and dead men. Always dead men.

But I also read historical novels. And I adored them. People in historical novels loved, fought, and struggled to survive. They died violently; they were beset with invaders and famine and plague. They wore splendid clothes or picturesque rags. They performed miracles of courage and strength just to get something to eat. It was from novels that I learned that history was the story of survival: even something that sounded boring, like crop rotation or inheritance law, might be a matter of life and death to a hungry peasant. Novels taught me that history is dramatic. I wanted my students to know that, too."

--Laura Amy Schlitz, from the foreword to her 2008 Newberry Award-winning book Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

----------

"... And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is composed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities and incident occasions, all their hours should be disposed of; for, said Gargantua, the greatest loss of time that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment and discretion."

--Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel

----------

"There’s no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special 'reading class,' much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the 19th century. They warn that it probably won’t regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become 'an increasingly arcane hobby.' Such a shift would change the texture of society. If one person decides to watch 'The Sopranos' rather than to read Leonardo Sciascia’s novella To Each His Own, the culture goes on largely as before — both viewer and reader are entertaining themselves while learning something about the Mafia in the bargain. But if, over time, many people choose television over books, then a nation’s conversation with itself is likely to change. A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren’t foreseeable."

--From "Twilight of the Books," New Yorker, December 24, 2007

----------

"It has often been said there's so much to be read,
you never can cram all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs
is making a chore for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is."

--Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Seuss Geisel

(Don't) Send In the Clowns

Scientists have finally confirmed a suspicion I've had for a long time -- kids don't really like clowns. In fact. I'm not sure who really, truly, enjoys clowns.

Researchers from the University of Sheffield, who were simply trying to figure out ways to improve the decor of hospital children's wards, did a study of 250 hospital patients between the ages of four and 16. What did they find? They discovered that every one of the kids they surveyed -- without exception --- disliked clowns because they were downright scary.

"As adults we make assumptions about what works for children," said Penny Curtis, a senior lecturer in research at the university. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."

I have never been a big fan of clowns. I can't remember how I felt about them as a kid, but I know that as an adult, whenever I went to a circus and the clowns came out to do their "comedy" acts, I was bored, just waiting for the next act when the little dogs jump through the hoops wearing tutus.

I got a different view of clowns when we took my oldest daughter to a circus when she was probably four or five. Whenever a brighly-colored and wild-haired clown came near, she began wailing in fright, as if the clown was carrying a bloody knife and was going to start carving on her stomach. I wasn't used to this reaction then, but when I looked around, I noticed other kids were reacting the very same way. Not all of them, but a good number.

My guess is that all of that clown persona -- the technicolor drag queen makeup, the towering orange and red Afros, the wild, ill-fitting clothing, the honking bicycle horns and the squirting carnations -- simply overloads a kid's circuits. I mean, weren't were supposed to be somewhat afraid of or repulsed by the Joker in the Batman cartoons and movies? And what was he if not just another made-up clown?

Of course, maybe my kids are just overly sensitive. Neither one of them would ever let us put them on Santa's lap to get a Christmas photo made -- they were scared of Santa, too. But come to think of it, a guy in a Santa suit is kind of like a clown, just with fewer colors and props to work with. I think many kids perceive a real, live St. Nick as they do a clown -- not as a friendly adult, but as a big, loud, weird-looking stranger. Maybe there's just too much chaos and uncertainty in a concentrated dose coming at a kid to have him react positively to clowns of any stripe.

Now I know that there will probably be reaction from lots of clown-loving adults and kids out there, and if that's how you feel, it's no skin off my big, round, red nose. And in fairness I must include a disclaimer -- I do like the way clowns tie those long balloons into the shapes of animals. That's a valuable skill, I guess, but I'm not sure you need to look like the survivor of an explosion in a paint and wig factory to put it to use.

Nursery Rhymes I Don't Understand

Yankee Doodle

Picture, if you will, a five-year-old child who knows little or nothing about the American Revolution. Conjuring up this mental image should not prove difficult, given the colonial conflict’s failure to drive the plots of many Scooby Doo or SpongeBob cartoons. In fact, our imaginary child may not even know what the word “revolution” means, and his parents may be determined to keep this information from him as long as possible lest it give birth to plans for armed insurrection in the home.

Go further, and imagine that you are the parent of this child, and that he has just heard for the first time an unbowdlerized version of the American Revolution’s unofficial theme song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Your child approaches you with a confused countenance and asks you to explain what in the world this apparent bastardization of the Barney theme song is all about. Daddy, what is a yankee doodle? (Sounds to me like some sort of forbidden Chinese wrestling hold). Why did the man call a feather macaroni? And what does it mean to be handy with the girls? Daddy? Daddy?

If you’re like me, these are difficult –– if not impossible –– questions to answer.

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

This vicious little tune demonstrates how a sociopath would respond when asked to write a children’s nursery rhyme.

As is the case with many of these rhymes, the bare story line itself is simple. As a storm rages outside, an elderly man falls, hits his head, and is injured to the extent that he can’t get out of bed the next morning. The implication is that he was knocked unconscious by the fall, suffering a concussion which possibly resulted in a coma. Remember, it says not that the man was a lazy doofus who didn’t choose to get up the next day, but that he couldn’t get up. We are left to speculate –– will he ever get up again? Is he paralyzed? Or is this the swan song of a corpse?

Now, this simply might be a musical variation of the theme of elderly peril that gave us those daffy commercials with the old lady who complained “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” But of course, that old woman was at least conscious and able to call out for help. In this adaptation, Paw-Paw is out cold.

How strange it is that this scenario –– an accident to a senior citizen causing undetermined but possibly fatal injuries –– ever ended up being distributed to little children in preschool via a nursery rhyme. If there had been, say, a man diving into a shallow pool, hitting his head on a rock and sinking to the bottom, unconcious and slowly drowning, his air slowly seeping away, his lips turning blue, would the average onlooker with a musical bent follow their call to 9-1-1 by rushing to a piano and hunting for a cheery accompaniment? Would they then send the hastily scribbled sheet music for “He’s Diving, He’s Drowning” to Sesame Street for consideration?

A related offshoot of this is the “Jack and Jill” nursery rhyme, which tells the familiar story of Jack falling down and “breaking his crown,” with Jill repeating the same moves seconds later. The same themes are played out in the opening scene of “Chicken Little” and in every Roadrunner cartoon ever made.

I must ask –– what is this morbid, gleeful fascination with serious head injuries?

Rock-a-bye Baby

It’s highly likely that Rock-a-bye Baby is the only nursery rhyme created by, for and about squirrels.

Think about it. The only way this catchy little ditty makes any sort of sense is as a cautionary tale for young bushy-tailed rodents undergoing the challenges of high altitude parenthood.

You know the story. Mr. and Mrs. Nutsy, shut out of the highly competitive inside-hollow-tree housing market and unwilling or unable to move to a new forest, give into temptation and take the quick and easy solution to locate Nutsy Junior’s nursery.

As a temporary measure (so they rationalize) they place the little squirrel’s acorn-filled crib high atop the branches of their favorite old oak, and all is well until that big wind comes along, cracking the rotten wood and blowing the crib –– and Nutsy Junior –– over the edge and into a free fall to the ground far below. Our imaginations complete the screenplay: frantic leaping from branch to branch; the inevitable pounce of a snarling canine; excited, high-pitched chattering; a final view of the bloody, broken crib; slow fade to black.

I’m telling you, the squirrel scenario is the only way this sucker makes sense. So, I must ask –– which ambitious Hollywood script editor first got the crazy idea of substituting a human child in the role of victim? Not that all men and women are model nurturers, but in the history of the world has there been even one recorded instance of a human parent hauling their child’s crib up a tree and then climbing back down to watch what happens? Tarzan and Jane didn’t do it. The Swiss Family Robinson didn’t do it. The Three Stooges –– even Curley –– rejected knucklebrained stunts this perilously wacky.

And why do we continue to sing this musically soothing yet narratively disturbing song to our young babes at bedtime? My guess is we do it because it works –– it gets the little ones tired very efficiently. And we tell ourselves, for the most part correctly, that they can’t understand the words, so what’s the harm?

But what about a home in which there are older children present? How do they feel when each night they witness mommy or daddy lovingly rocking little brother or sister to sleep while giving melodic voice to their parents’ yet unrealized ambition to place the little tyke high atop the front yard pecan tree and wait for a good north wind? Hearing this, are these older children able to sleep at night? Do they harbor fears that their parents might maroon them on the roof in an orange crate during a tornado?

I say if we must continue to sing lullabies about babies placed in harm’s way, let’s invent some new ones and add them to the repertoire for variety’s sake. Let’s hear the following scenes played out to the gentle strains of Bach or Brahms:

––a baby is trussed up with ropes and then hoisted to the top of a tall flagpole during a lightning storm.
––a baby in its bassinet is left up in the crow’s nest of a ship during a typhoon.
––a baby in an infant seat placed temporarily on the car roof is then forgotten just before the car pulls out of a parking lot onto a busy expressway.
––a baby taken for a ride in a wagon by older siblings is left on the train tracks just before the 5:13 express blows into town.
––a young child left unattended in an airplane fiddles with the emergency door and is sucked out into the ether after it opens accidently.

These and other new tunes could be written, recorded and collected on a CD called Lullabies to Lose Sleep Over. At the very least, it would make a great Oprah show.