Hot Cuppa, Wot?

STRIP JACK NAKED. This was the name of the card game our British neighbor in Dhaka taught my sister and me, aged six and eight. In the afternoon, Heather and I would run through the sweet smell of frangipani trees, squeeze through the hedge, and visit the old British granny-lady. She fed us biscuits and taught us how to cross-stitch, and if the first title of the card-game was too racy, we could always call it BEAT THE OLD LADY TO BED if we preferred.

Later in Kenya we had another lovely British neighbor who was soft and smelled wonderful and called us "Lovey."

So maybe it's these two exquisite ladies that put the anglophile in me, or maybe it's tea, or maybe it's the BBC.

Tea! Tea cozies! John Cleese! Spot of milk or slice of lemon! Wedgewood! Hyacinth Bucket! Marmite! Judi Dench! Egg cups! Wellies! Wot?

If any of these things make your heart beat faster, you might be a bit of an anglophile yourself.

One glance at my Netflix queue reveals a striking similarity in all the vicarious lives I indulge through TV or film. Hmmm. All set in U.K. For some intense weeks I lived with Judi Dench (or maybe I WAS Judi Dench?) as I took in the entire series, including the bonus, of As Time Goes By. The music for this sitcom is atrocious, but the script writing is clever. Also, I enjoyed looking at Dame J.D.'s tea mugs, her smart London townhouse, and the richly furnished country estate (complete with eccentric locals). As I sat comatose in front of the TV, I was actually touring London on foot; I suddenly loved runny poached eggs; everything I said was witty and well-pronounced as I poured from a tray with an endless supply of duty-free liquors from Heathrow airport.

If Henry James and T.S. Eliot could switch nationalities, why can't I? If they could, just on whim, began writing colour, centre, theatre, and wot-ho, why can't I?

Actually, I do not want to trade in passports. Though American tourists are generally embarrassing in foreign countries (super LOUD), the charm of living vicariously in a hay-topped cottage (with hollyhocks in the front yard) without any of the reality is too great a temptation.

I am ashamed at the sheer commercial nature of the following. Nonetheless, here are some of my favorite anglophile pleasures:


BISCUITS: Marie biscuits, for their crisp texture and perfect tea-dipping properties; digestive biscuits of any kind, especially if they're coated in chocolate.

CANDY: Smarties, rattling happily in a cardboard tube. Cadbury's bars in golden wrappers.

CLOTHES: Knee socks (with shorts); wildly clashing patterns worn together

*See all sources for pictures listed below.

TEA: A six cup teapot, warmed with a swirl of boiling water. Twinings English Breakfast is the tastiest tea (beyond actual East African tea) I can locate in America. Do not overbrew to a soup. Nor do you want a weak cuppa that pales hideously at the first drop of milk. And use a tea cozy so the pot lasts, and lasts, and lasts, through all the courses of your tea. Cozies are extremely hard to find; in fact, an import store, a trip overseas, or your own sewing machine may be your only affordable options. And of course, use a cup and saucer unless you're busy or on the run. And then a beaker is okay.

Scones, yes. Clotted cream, Devonshire, absolootely. A dollop of marmalade.

Best BBC TV SERIES:
Jeeves and Wooster, Monarch of the Glen (Scottish), Ballykissangel (Irish), As Time Goes By, Father Ted (Irish--in small doses), Waiting for God, Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, Yes Prime Minister

Best BBC DRAMAS:
Of course, Pride & Prejudice, North and South (rivals P & P), Wives and Daughters
*
Pretty-Good BBC DRAMAS: Daniel Deronda, The Way We Live Now (David Suchet goes nasty for this leading role)--these are both based on Anthony Trollope Novels

Not-so-hot BBC DRAMAS: He Knew He Was Right (acting is good but as title suggests, not worth three-four hours).

BRITISH THINGS I HATE: Marmite, Vegemite, poached eggs, kippers for breakfast

BEST MYSTERY SERIES: Poirot (charming voice and narcissistic but polite manner); Cadfield (a monk-detective in Middle Ages--top marks for writing); Midsomer Murders are at first promising but the sheer number of murders is ridiculous

BRITISH THINGS I NEVER USE BUT WISH I DID: A slotted toast tray; egg cups; heated radiator covers in the bathroom for damp towels

Here I listed Music, Plays, and Movies, but that was just a waste of space. The answers are obvious. U2, Oscar Wilde, and just about anything BBC.

BRITISH FIXTURES I WISH AMERICA WOULD ADOPT: Real pubs, warm beer, the BBC, red post boxes, the metro to everywhere, Heathrow Airport, teatime, British Airways, Margaret Thatcher

BOOKS: Too many to mention. My favorite still has to be Austen, and my biggest surprise would be when I actually fell asleep reading Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. I rather thought I was going to love it.


CHILDREN: If you have children and are just a teeny bit of an anglophile yourself, I would strongly recommend The Naughty Little Sister series; Shirley Hughes' Alfie books and charming illustrations (click on 'Hughes' above for website); Kipper the Dog DVDS. All of these celebrate story and character without imposing didactic morals on children. Thank goodness.

And for the very young: Helen Oxenbury's "Pippo" stories. Elspeth (1) loves the bold pictures, the simple story, and the charm of the characters. I love how English it all is.

Cheerio, and toodle-pip!

***Sources for pictures (in order): www.bbcamerica.com; www.englishteastore.com; www.amazon.com; www.egglamania.org; www.wikipedia.org; www.liverpoolmuseums.org; amazon.com; www.ratherjolly.com

Don't be Thrunch and Spuddle; Thrip and Squiddle

Translation:
Don't be angry and make a mountain out of a molehill; snap your fingers and waste time with an idle chat.

(or: Let down your hair, man.)

Fancy fadoodle? Me, too.

--Source of poplollies: Poplollies & Bellibones / A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Kelz Sperling, Konecky & Konecky 1981*

GUESS: What does FADOODLE mean? Guess below; answers in tomorrow's Poplolly.

*Click on S. Kelz, above, for source for picture and NPR interview.

Miss Vanderbilt--Ahem--There's a Dog Paw in My Pudding

**see photo source below I wonder how many wives could resist rising up in unholy protest if husbands suddenly took to wrapping their heads up in wire and head rags, greasing their faces, tying up their own chins, putting on oiled mittens for the night.--Vanderbilt 513

Amy Vanderbilt is a good read. If you've run out of Jane Austen, consider a nightcap--settle into a good chapter of New Complete Book of Etiquette / The Guide to Gracious Living.

Ms. Vanderbilt is side-splitting (not generally an acceptable mannerism) for several reasons:

1. She often writes tongue-in-cheek (but only in private; tongues should not reside in cheeks in the public domain).

2. This historical edition of Etiquette, this interminable commentary on correctness, all 706 pages (excluding the index), is an archaic catalog of the many graces our modern society blithely deposited in a waste can. And this is hilarious, because I am me and you are you. We only remember manners like Amy's in some past great aunt or in the blue flickers of a British sitcom.

3. The minutia is astounding and worth remark. Jane Austen, yes, but here the minutia is broken down in instructional chapters. My manners have slipped, yes, but just how many disappeared? For example, I can choose from a list of topics, from pages 212-220, read, and master The Social Pleasantries:

"Gifts of Love" * A Guide to Tactful Conversation *
When to Use a First Name * If You Cannot Remember Names *
Personal Questions--What Are They? * Dangerous Topics of Conversation * How to Parry Direct Questions * That Word "Lady" * How about "Miss!"?

And so on. I wish I could delight you with the entire list.

And egad! I certainly encourage good manners. Suddenly, as when you look at your dirty house in spring sunlight, I have viewed our table manners and shuddered. "When we come back from vacation," I warned at dinner tonight, "We are lodging a frontal attack!"

I talk with my mouth full, keep my knife in my right hand at all times, and point with my silverware. I am up and down from the table like a wind-up toy. Martin leaves his napkin on the table for the duration, sprinkles crumbs like Hansel, and occasionally brings along reading material (not for group edification, mind you). Merry eats many no-no things with her fingers and groans about soup for the third time in a week. And Elspeth is our crowning glory. She kicks up her feet into her food, which resides temptingly on the bare tabletop. She casts all things to the ground while grunting and smiling. She stuffs vegetables into the unreachable crevices of her highchair.

Every woman should change for dinner, if only into a clean house dress. Dinner is the high point of the day, the forerunner--it is to be hoped--of a free evening. Every little girl should be clean and in fresh clothes, even if they are just clean pajamas and bathrobe for nursery supper, every night, so that the idea of changing for dinner is inculcated at the earliest possible time. . .[she goes on]. . .Fresh grooming for evening is one of the criteria of gentility. --Vanderbilt 183

Scene: Evening. Mother and children lying exhausted on couch. Husband Martin sets the table and cooks dinner. Wife requests a cup of tea but receives none. Dinner is ready. The lovely family enters grandly (no bagpipes) for this "forerunner of a free evening:" Elspeth is still in pajamas from the morning. Merry is stained by tomato soup (did we brush her hair this morning?) and her face is crusty. And I, that paragon of gentility, have already showered and am clad in my biggest, softest, smelliest red bathrobe. Hair freshly brushed? No. Make-up? Heck, no. Heels? Try slippers.

All right, we do all have head colds. But Amy Vanderbilt would point out that is no excuse.

And last night, I gave myself a sharp wake-up call when I tossed a cooked carrot across the table, head of to foot of, mind you.

My great aunt would have di-ed. Actually, it is probably a good thing she has, because our table manners have become worthy of a Berenstein Bear's Book, a TV reality show, a PBS special.

In fact, Fred Rogers surfaced earlier this week as Merry critiqued our table manners and then systematically listed new rules for a new, gentler family dinner.

One, one, one! One, we need to start putting bibs on Elspeth.

Two, we need to start putting napkins on the table.

[Merry goes on--skips four, and continues--]

and seven [two fingers thrust into air]--We need to start behaving at other people's houses,

and number eight, we need to start turning lights on,

and the last one, we need to start picking up Elspeth's food that she throws on the floor.

Then she paused to survey our shocked faces, since we had all suddenly grown pig snouts and were snuffling in main dishes like the parents in Spirited Away. Undisturbed (she had seen it before), she concluded, "The person who wrote Mr. Rogers is very talentive."

Gentle people are often acutely embarrassed by the table manners of those with whom they find themselves eating. A carefully bred wife may suffer much inner torture because her husband--always when manner seem very important--forgetfully leaves his spoon in his cup or absent-mindedly licks his fingers. --Vanderbilt 229

I think I can conduct myself with adequate propriety. My mother certainly pressed upon us all the importance of the placement of the knife, the proper usage of napkins, appropriate dinner time conversation (no bodily details, no fights, no descriptions of illnesses.) And so on. She even let me know what to do when a "foreign matter" entered my mouth, such as a disgusting piece of gristle or fat or bug (and we had those occasionally on our produce growing up in Kenya). But I forgot this one night on a date with Martin as I audibly expectorated a piece of sushi, back onto the artful arrangement of lettuce and beet shreds on my plate. I love sushi. But my taste buds told me something was amiss with this one. Martin, let me tell you, was utterly horrified. Really. In retrospect, I feel I should have brushed up on foreign matter, or foreign bodies as Miss Vanderbilt terms them:

Foreign bodies accidentally taken into the mouth with food--gravel, fish, stones, bird shot--are removed with thumb and forefinger. . .If a gnat gets into a beverage or some other unappetizing creature turns up in or on a diner's food, he fishes it out, unobserved. . .or leaves the drink or dish untouched, depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder. A gnat or a tiny inchworm on lettuce shouldn't bother anyone, but most fastidious people draw the line at a fly or worse. --Vanderbilt 232

This leaves me in pleasant reflection as I imagine what "or worse" could be. A rat. A human finger. A chicken head. Teeth.

But I am clearly missing the point. Besides, the list above does not constitute polite conversation, in any company.

Forgive me.

GUESS BELOW IN 'COMMENTS': WHAT YEAR WAS THIS EDITION OF VANDERBILT'S NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF ETIQUETTE PUBLISHED? AND DON'T CHEAT. IT'S NOT GOOD MANNERS.

**For more on Amy Vanderbilt, and for the source of her photograph, go to: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9074800/Amy-Vanderbilt (photo: 1956, Brown Brothers).

Slow Down, Read a Book, Chew a Gnat, Post a Comment

Don't miss JL's new book review (see below) on Seth Vikram's book.

And don't forget to share a comment, above--
Guess the date on Miss Vanderbilt's advice on gnats.

AND below--
Slowing Down. . .In our busy world, what slows YOU down?

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: A SUITABLE BOY BY VIKRAM SETH

A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth
Harper Perennial Modern Classics, Reissued October 2005


Seth was, pre-Boy, perhaps best known for his novel Golden Gates, written entirely in sonnets. A Suitable Boy is quite different, though suffused with poetry, both in the rhymes one family spontaneously generates at the slightest provocation, and in the rhythm and elegance of Seth’s prose. However, this book is most like a Victorian novel in genre. It is HUGE. It has lots of pages. It has nearly as many characters and subplots, complications, major and minor life devastations, and an ending both as final and as inconclusive as anything George Eliot ever produced.

It is set in 1950’s India around the time of Partition. This is not a historical moment that I’m especially familiar with, and I think a bit of prior knowledge would have helped my comprehension of the larger story. The ostensible main plot, however, is fairly universal: Lata, the young heroine, has a devoted mother who is busily trying to marry her off to a suitable boy. Unfortunately, Lata meets and instantly falls in love with an extremely unsuitable boy—for starters, he’s Muslim and she’s Hindu. Enter a couple of other suitors AND everybody’s families AND dashes of religion and politics and other romances of the mostly unsuitable variety, and you’ve got a really long novel. Also a very good one.

Lata is a woman at the cusp of many things, the modern era being but one of them. So, for her, the choice of husband (inasmuch as it is her choice, which brings up another set of issues in the novel) carries a vast weight of symbolism. Will she choose the vulgar but traditional and up-and-coming shoe salesman her mother promotes? Or maintain a balance between tradition and individualism by marrying the witty and educated Hindu poet whom her mother doesn’t like but cannot forbid? Or will she go the truly modern route and marry her Muslim student for love? And by the end, which does the reader, seduced into the mindset(s) of the book’s world, want her to choose, and why?

If you do read this one, please do let me know your thoughts on it. Especially on the ending. You can email me at thelonglets@hotmail.com.


--Reviewed by Jordana who holds and juggles two MAs, two children (one unborn), one biohusband, and many good ideas. Jordana teaches English at a high school in coastal Virginia. See her blogsite carpematrem.wordpress.com.

Slowing Down Your Frantic Inner Chicken

**See photo source below

The old proverb, 'Laugh and grow fat,' is a saying with sound sense behind it. Good temper and merriment certainly aid digestion. Mealtimes should be among the pleasantest occasions of the day. There is no reason why we should not enjoy partaking of the food, as well as take pleasure in the companionship of those who share our table. --from my old 1913 copy of Elementary Physiology and Hygiene by H.W. Conn, PhD, published first in 1906
When I was a child growing up in rural Bangladesh, chicken slaughters were high entertainment. I was six, blond, in a light cotton dress. My sister was eight, brown with the sun and barefoot. At the cook's summons, we left our books and blocks and tore to the back door, where we sat down for the day's best event. THWACK went the axe, off came the head, and we burbled happily as the headless bleeding carcass staggered dizzily about our yard.

Fast forward twenty plus years, and you'll find my family groaning in exstacy as we devour Martin's delectable Thai chicken and basil and sip his spinach-tofu soup. I wish I could say that I had nipped the Thai basil from my own garden, but as my indoor basil growing has proved sad, I bought it at the wonderful Asian Market in the next state over. So while we didn't know from which quarter our Thai basil originated, we did know where the chicken spent its few giddy years. Not in our backyard, but in our own county. The woman who sold us our organically grown, happy chicken lives in the green hills of our countryside, and she is serious about her chickens. Not only do they toddle around eating natural worms in a natural yard, they have a dignified death. Our chicken woman stretches out their necks with her own hands, and then she slices them and lets their blood pour into the soil of her farm. (Queue: Circle of Life). This is glorious, unless you are the chicken, but at least you haven't bitten off your neighbor's beak in desperation, which you might have if you had been "farmed" the industrial way.

But this is not a treatise for organic chickens, nor do I intend to go into industrial farming.

No, this is a happy reflection on SLOW FOOD.

For our chicken was plucked, frozen and much later stuffed with apples and onions and devoured in our dining room. Then we extended its memory by stewing it in a pot with fresh rosemary and oregano (grown indoors), basil (frozen from the summer garden), onions, carrots and celery. O, the smell as it flooded our house was delectable.

I grew up with "slow food." This is because, growing up in Bangladesh and Kenya, food was never fast. First of all, we didn't have one-stop shopping--no, my mother went to the greengrocers, the dryfoods store, the butcher (yes, pigs hanging and all), and bought roses and mangoes and whatever else from hawkers in the parking lot. Once home we had to soak all fresh food in a bleach solution; we 'made' our own drinking water in a chlorine machine, and there were no cans to crack open. We lived out of More with Less.


Believe me, now that I live in wintry Pennsylvania I take full advantage of cans and frozen food and already-soaked beans. But once and a while it does me good to slow down, to smell bread baking or the slow stewing of a chicken. Kids will slow you down, too--I deboned chicken with one hand and held Elspeth on my hip with the other. She was fascinated at the process, just as I once loved to watch chickens meet their doom. This slowing down is therapuetic, as is kneading bread, brewing wine (so I hear), and toasting your own granola. I absolutely despise fiddly tasks (Pastry chef? No!@#$!), but I love the rhythm of hearty, slow food.

Slow food is like a meditation of sorts. As its scent fills the crevices of my house, I am grateful for journey, the slow origins of the food itself and then for the process of preparing it. Of course one of the best things about slow food is the culmination of all that sensory anticipation, when you sit down with good people and eat that good food. And then the groans! The embarassing cacophony of utter joy!

So slow down. Take some time to thank your food for coming into your mouth. Feed some good people and drink some good wine. The most delicious things take the most time.
So now it's YOUR TURN: How do you slow down in a busy world? Post your comment below and edify us all!

Egg Photo Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Egg_in_straw_nest.jpg

New Book Review

Check out A.S. new book review, below: "What is the What" by Dave Eggers.

E-mail your book, film, or music review to me for publication on this page. We all benefit from the recommendations. My "Must Read" list is growing already. . .

Sesame Street Deserted, Gentrified and Bought by Private Company

This morning Merry has a cold and we are all at home. And so we sat sniffling around the kitchen table eating pancakes and listening to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. If you've not listened to this hilarious show, a favorite section of ours consists of three stories--one is true, the rest are false. Today's true story recounted Ariel's "Sweet Sixteen Birthday Party" (broadcasted on MTV). Ariel's daddy throws her an immorally lavish bash, exposing himself and his oil fields to publicity; now you can read about the scandal in The Arizona Republic: Ariel's generous papa is on the news for "fraudulently promoting oil and gas investments in Kentucky." Investors feel grumpy about their money being invested in a brand-new BMW for little princess Ariel. But Ariel seems like a typical sixteen year old girl; she believes in the inherent worth of her father and of oil both: "My dad owns his own oil company. He has oil wells all over the world. I love oil. Oil means shoes and cars and purses," Ariel said on the show, which aired Monday. "So it sets me apart from everybody else in this town. . . . It smells like money, Daddy!"

You can find all the endless horror on sweet sixteen birthday parties on the MTV site. Or you can just watch MTV. Or our kids can watch MTV and dream of big bashes of their own.

What is happening to our culture? I know, I know, there are excesses in every culture, historically, all over the world. But the great excesses of our culture, and particularly our youth culture, deeply disturb me. There seems to be a growing sense of entitlement among American youth in general. And the problem goes much deeper than a mere feeling of deservedness. The problem is, our youth do not know what they truly deserve any more.

Children do not deserve cars, or cellphones, or a glittering social life among their peers. They do not deserve to feel comfortable all the time or to even be happy. They should not expect easy answers or facile outcomes. Youth should not feel they are the centre of their culture or the universe in general, nor should they expect an easy flow of material goods. They are not entitled to an easy education; they are not entitled to rewards.

What do our youth deserve? They deserve to be servants. They deserve to work hard and then to realize small but enduring benefits for their work. They deserve a love of learning, brought by discomforting, hard labor. What can we give our children? Not more things. We can give our children good conversation, the wisdom of the aged, knowledge of books. Our children deserve lives based on truth and realities that occasionally make them feel sad or disquieted.

I propose an alternative show to "Sweet Sixteen." Instead of taking in the frills and arsenic-laced whipped cream of excess, we could instead educate ourselves on the realities of an economically and socially torn world: a sixteen- year old orphaned by AIDS, caring for her siblings and grateful for what little education she can receive. A sixteen-year old sold into the sex trade by her desperately poor parents. A sixteen-year old conscripted into military work. A sixteen-year old who is the sole survivor of terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Oh, wait--are we at war? I had forgotten.

And God forbid we impress our youth with the reality of who they are in the world, and what work they must undertake to make our culture, and our world, a better place.

And education--what is that these days other than a product-line? Don't our youth deserve good jobs that will make them loads of money? Isn't success based on our professions, and our paychecks, and how much we are able to afford? What is learning but a means to an end?

Our society will collapse, piece by piece, if we do not give our children what they truly deserve.

I'm not waving the flag of socialism here. I'm not planning to strip my daughters of all their toys and give them sawdust pallets to sleep on. I'm not suggesting labor camps. I am certainly not advocating a loss of childhood. I believe in childhood, and I believe it is full of wonder--and chores, responsibilities, discipline, learning by experience, real conversation and silence and respect.

But I want to give, as much as I am able, a real life to my children. I want them to be unafraid to encounter and react to suffering. I want them to be compassionate and delight in all that is truly and deeply real. I want them to have wonderful imaginations, imaginations that give them faith to believe what is unseen and good.

_______________________________________________
What does this have to do with Sesame Street?

I love Sesame Street--it is clever, robust programming. I love the good services that CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) delivers to children all over the US, without advertising and meaningless fillers. To me, CPB is a sign of health in our media morass. NPR is a bright spot in my daily routine and offers true education and responsible perspective.

And in the midst of our wildly disproportionate defense spending, not to mention controversial programs such as "No Child Left Behind" and our immoral health care messes (just to name a few concerns), the House has once again targeted CPB: "On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending." (For a great illustration on government spending, see the Cookie Site).

And who loses? Our children. Again. And so society suffers: the cuts would force the network to "drastically reduce the programming and services public television and public radio can provide to local communities," as well as cutting funding and thus obliterating 'Ready to Learn,' a literacy TV program, and online teaching resource `Ready to Teach' (The Boston Globe 2006).

But don't worry. If our children want good programming, they can always find "Sweet Sixteen" on MTV. MTV doesn't depend on the government for its funding, and guess what? It's doing just fine. Big Bird may have to register for food stamps, but MTV will not suffer. Hey, maybe Big Bird could actually get a beak-job and have his own show.

My sense of unreality grows. As Marvin Gaye put it, WHAT'S GOING ON?

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: What is the What by Dave Eggers

What is the What
Dave Eggers
McSweeneys, 2006



Dave Eggers’s “What is the What” follows the first-person account of a “lost boy” from Sudan, who lives in Atlanta at present. The book is nearly nonfiction—based on a real person of the same name—but in building the narrative Eggers played with facts enough to call it a novel; this twist of truth makes the 400+ pages an especially compelling read. Eggers does away with his typically profane style of writing to present Achak raw and gentle, full of faith that eventually gives way to doubt.

In Achak’s bare English, at once formal and poetic, the story of Sudan’s civil war and one man’s life will shatter you.

--Reviewed by Amy Scheer

Besides her day jobs as freelance writer and mother, Amy Scheer is a prolific editorial letter writer. Most recently, her letters have appeared in Newsweek and Time. Amy lives with her composer-husband and two jolly sons in Grand Rapids, MI. Favorite past-times include sipping East African tea.

Feminist Reading of Boneheads, Stegosaurs

As we flipped through Usborne's "First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life," Merry took in the pictures of fast-running, sharp-clawed, dagger-toothed dinosaurs. Meat eaters, made to rip and shred and ingest one another. Merry's mouth gaped. Suddenly she asked,

"Are WE meat?"


I have to admit, I am not a dino-fan. But Merry was rivited as we turned page after page of endless saurases. And then the text began to tickle my funny-bone.

Read the following exerpts with a feminist lens and see if they're not funny:

"Stegosaurs were big and heavy, and could only move slowly. . .Their bodies were almost as big as a bus, but their brains were the size of table-tennis ball." Here you can see the size of a stegosaur's brain compared with its body. (insert picture here of huge animal with teenytiny brain).

And my all-time favorite. Boneheads: "Pachycephalosaurs [had] bony domes on top of their heads. These dinosaurs are sometimes known as boneheads."

(And my favorite line:) "Male boneheads sometimes fought each other."

So the world evolved. But some things never changed.

New Book Review by Rice Eater Below

A new book review has arrived! Check it out below--Rice Eater from CT reviewed "Zoom."

Daughters, Body Parts, Facts of Life

Gender issues--they start early. Elspeth is still utterly unaware that she is female. At one year old, people are big or small, but they are all to be played with and smiled at, though Elspeth more readily trusts smaller people and has a distinct aversion to people with beards, male or female.

But at five, Merry is already very aware of gender and many of the things that go with it. Though we try hard never to ascribe roles to gender or typify boys or girls, Merry has figured a few things on her own.

Boys do not generally wear dresses. Despite the history I gave her on women's rights and how women had to fight to wear pants, Merry steadfastly refuses to wear anything but dresses. Boys and girls have different physical characteristics. Boys are often more physically rough than girls--Merry believes this beyond a doubt, since she has personal experience to back up this belief: she has been bitten, pushed, her hair pulled, jostled, etc.--almost entirely by boys. When she was just four, this history of violence made Merry immediately wary of boys, and if there were any on the playground, she hung back in terror and clung to me for dear life. We explained to her that many boys were gentle and fun to play with. She did not believe us.

Since then she's had a few key male friends, and she has started to trust the male race a little more. So much so that today when Martin picked her up from preschool, she announced she had made friends with Richard and Devin. Two boys, in point of fact.

Martin was pleased, and mentioned in the course of conversation, "Boys and girls sometimes play differently, don't they?"

"Yes," said Merry, "Because they have different bottoms." She was of course referring to the undeniable fact that boys have penises and girls have vaginas.

She has known this for a long, long time, way back when she was two. And then, when she was three, she started to make use of her knowledge. The following scene took place a year and a half ago in Iowa.

_____________________________
My friend Amy and I sat at the table near the window, chatting over a book we had read, as her son Theo ate chalk and bobbed his head happily. Her four year old Simon and my three year old Merry sat on high stools at the breakfast bar, rolling play dough. Their voices suddenly raised to a high pitch:

“No, you don’t!” Merry yelled, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

At intervals, Simon was grinning and then frowning in a perplexed way. “Yes, I do, Merry,” he murmured, studying a green piece of play dough plastered to his fingernail.

Merry put her chin in the air, smiling slyly. “No, you don’t,” she proclaimed again. She banged down a cookie cutter on the counter to emphasize her superior knowledge.

This exchange went on for some time. Amy and I paused our conversation, trying to understand what our two kids were ragging on about. Finally, Amy leaned toward me.

“I think Merry is telling him that he does not have a penis,” she said.

“Merry,” I yelled over my shoulder, “Simon does have a penis.”

Merry stopped mid-shout. “Oh,” she said, and shrugged. “Okay.”

Simon lowered his head to look at her. “I—I told you I had one,” he stuttered, relieved.
_____________________________
When I was about eight, it occurred to me that babies had to come from somewhere, just as a cake emerged from mixing a certain set of ingredients. So I asked my father. I expected a facile answer.

My father was standing over the sink, cleaning his razor. He told me: “The daddy gives something special to the mommy.”

“How?” I pursued.

My father stopped talking, and a pregnant silence followed. Finally he said, “We’ll tell you soon.”

For a day, I imagined the most awful things I thought possible: does the mother eat something gross from the father? Do they exchange saliva? Nasty! I never guessed--I could never have guessed--the horrifying truth.

My mother broke sex wide open for me the next evening. I was in the bath with my two-year old brother. She explained, concisely and graphically, what baby-making was. I looked at her, a washcloth hanging limply in my hands, my face and insides contorted with disgust. Why would God make such a thing necessary in order for the creation of babies? The splashing of my naked brother suddenly sounded very loud in the quiet of our bathroom.
______________________________________
Later in the car, Simon reviewed his conversation with Merry. First he reaffirmed the fact that he did indeed have a penis. And then Simon asked Amy: “So what does Merry have?”

His mother told him, and Simon asked what a vagina looked like. His mother struggled to explain, and after she had finished Simon was quiet for a moment. “Will Merry grow a penis?” he finally asked.

And on our end, Merry also continued the discussion. “Mommy,” she said casually, “Simon has a penis.”

“Yes, he does,” I said. “And what do you have?”

“A vagina,” she answered.

I am glad Merry knows the proper names for body parts, and it is natural she should notice differences between the bearers of those two body parts. All the same, I am glad to wait for a few years before Merry asks me for more specifics. The gender issues have started already, and it's early enough.

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: ZOOM BY ISTVAN BANYAI

Zoom
by Istvan Banyai
Puffin Books, 1995

A wordless meditation on perspective, Istvan Banyai's 31 page picture-poetry
provokes this what-if: you and I are the farm hands on the plastic toy set
of a magazine cover shoot held in the hand of a boy sitting by the pool-side
of a advertisement of a cruise line on the side of the bus in a giant city
being viewed through the television screen in the middle of a desert on the
postage stamp of a letter sent to Mr. Taumata Tafia, Tribal Chief of the
Solomon Islands?

Whimsical fancy or existential angst? It's worth the look, either way.

--Reviewed by Rice Eater who lives for the moment in New Haven, CT. Rice Eater is finishing a PhD from Yale in Political Science and will be teaching at The New School in New York City next year. Rice Eater has two lovely little girls and a wonderful spouse. Rice Eater occasionally, but not often, eats noodles.

Free Loving Dogs*

They Could be Yours to a Good Home: Free Loving Dogs

Names: Marmaduke and Chloe
Licensed Alsatian Wolfhounds

Both beautiful dogs come with stamped papers and engraved collars that bear their names and the slogan Make Love, Not War.

Both Marmaduke and Chloe can howl along to Pete Seeger's If I Had a Hammer.

Both dogs can stand on their hind legs and gyrate in time to Blowing in the Wind. Chloe prefers Dylan's rendition, while Marmaduke is a Peter, Paul and Mary fan.

Marmaduke is accustomed to ground beef while Chloe appreciates a little marijuana mixed into her Puppy Chow, “to take off the edge.” She is just a tad high-strung.

Free Loving Dogs Marmaduke and Chloe come with their own puppy beds as well as their own PEACE insignias. Marmaduke drives a VW Van. Chloe has made the curtains for the VW Van. Both dogs are talented and well behaved, though they do tend to wander into neighbor’s yards to visit other dogs if not chained.



*The title of this blog appeared as an e-mail from our town's FREECYCLE service. Martin begged me to write a blog in response. Less tempting for us was the "Free Loving Hamsters" that someone was trying to fob off. How many rodents does one family need, after all?