Afternoon in the Park

The weather was perfect on Saturday, and we spent a few hours lolling around McGolrick Park with scary stories from the 1970s and iced chai.

My Great American City

A few months ago, while hanging out with Maggie and Jamie, we got to talking about Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I was intrigued by their description, and ordered a copy from the library. Turns out they did such a good job of summarizing it, I didn't really need to read the whole thing myself. I ended up reading only the first couple of chapters, but they've stuck with me.

Jacobs, writing in the early 1960s, talks about the misguided goals of urban planning, particularly how high rise housing in low-income neighborhoods are detrimental to a city's "life." She argues for the importance of sidewalk culture, pointing to the protective power of "eyes on the street." Unofficial patrols--old ladies sitting on their stoop, shopkeepers, kids playing in the street-- do the best job of keeping a neighborhood safe. Alternately, outdoor spaces that have been built in between housing projects with the idea that green space equals good space, have become dangerous sites for crime and drug use.

Yesterday I witnessed my own example of sidewalk culture. Upon returning from an early evening stroll with Sprout, I was met at the door to my building by John the Handyman. He had just applied a new coat of finish to the stairs, and it was still too wet to walk on. While waiting for it to dry, I sat with Sprout on the stoop. There are several familiar characters in my neighborhood, and one of my favorites is a sassy young-ish mom of two wild sons. She can be spotted strutting through the neighborhood, cigarette in hand, dyed orange hair slicked back into a tight pony tail. She's got an extremely loud voice and a terrible potty mouth. I was surprised to see her banging on the door of my across-the-street neighbors-- a handful of hipsters living in a basement apartment. It seemed unlikely that she knew them, and I figured her kids' kickball must have gotten lost in their backyard or something. Then I realized what was going on-- they had left their keys in the door. "Do you know who lives here?" she called to me from across the street. "Yeah," I answered, "I just saw the guy leave to walk his dog. I'll keep an eye out until someone's back." Just then, one of the hipster residents poked her out and retrieved the keys, gratefully thanking me and the pony tail lady.

I think Jane Jacobs would have been proud.

Farm City

I just finished reading Novella Carpenter's memoir Farm City, which chronicles the start of her urban homestead in Oakland, CA. In an abandoned lot in a not-so-nice part of town, Carpenter grew fruits and vegetables, raised chickens, rabbits, and at one point, pigs. And yes, the animals were for eating. Her writing style is extremely laid back and accessible, and it makes me wish she would invite me to a dinner party at her farm where we could sip homemade wine. Here is a great video of her that summarizes her book quite well.
I love that Carpenter so successfully incorporated elements of country-life into an urban setting-- it doesn't have to be one or the other. It's clear that if more people followed her model, cities would slowly become a better place to eat, and live. While realistically, I know I'm not cut out for the hard work and gross factor vividly described in the book, I do wish the book had a little bit more of "how-to," I want to build a raised bed to grow vegetables, too! I could handle that. And maybe some chickens some day.

More Summer Reading

Earlier this week, I went to McNally Jackson to hear J. Courtney Sullivan discuss her best-selling novel, Commencement. The book follows four best friends who meet at Smith College (represent!) and meets up with them five years post-graduation. Understandably, there's a been a buzz among my Smith pals (three of whom came along to the reading) about Sullivan's book; I read it ASAP.While in many ways it reads like any other work of chick lit, there are few things I really enjoyed. For starters, it is really fun to read about Smith from someone who actually gets Smith. Charlotte from Sex and the City allegedly went to Smith, but the fact that she claims to have been in a soriety shows someone did not do their research. There's also an upcoming Hallmark TV movie called Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith, which I can already tell needs some fact-checking too. But Sullivan includes lots of great, quirky and 100% true details. The kinds of things that people who didn't go to Smith don't quite believe. Yes, we had tea served to us every Friday afternoon. Yes, we changed the constitution to be gender neutral even though it's a women's college. And without sounding too cheesy, I think that my friendships from Smith are like none other. I too had a tight knit posse of four BFF's, and in many ways Sullivan captures exactly how I feel about my Fab Four. I am curious to hear from some non-Smithies who have read the book, and find out if these traditions and eccentricities that are so close to my heart are interesting to them, or merely colorful details.

Secondly, Sullivan and her characters are not afraid to call themselves feminists. I think the book does an excellent job of showing the different and changing faces of feminism-- not something you'll find in Devil Wears Prada or The Nanny Diaries. Gloria Steinem thinks so too. She said, "Commencement makes clear that the feminist revolution is just beginning.” That's about the biggest compliment one newly-famous Smithie can get, from one of the most well-known and respected Smithies there is.

I'll admit when the book came out I was a bit skeptical. Once upon a time Aria and I had grand plans of writing a collection of short stories about Smith. We only got as far as coming up with pseudonyms for the professors (for example, president of the college Lucille Lourde), so I was curious to see the woman who had actually succeeded in exposing the unique Smith world to the masses. As I learned at the reading, it turns out that J. Courtney Sullivan is a delight. She is down-to-earth, well-spoken, warm, friendly and super smart. But then again, she did go to Smith.

Summer Reading

It's been an incredibly rainy and gloomy June so far here in the City of Dreams. The New York Times ran a story about the "rain rage" developing in New Yorkers, so watch out. And while I'll be extremely happy when real, sunshiny summer finally arrives, I'm trying to enjoy the June Gloom and remember that this is much preferable to the 90-degree, humid, unbearable weather we had this time last year.

So, I've been attempting to enjoy rainy day activities such as more movie-watching, more napping and more reading. Luckily I live just a few blocks away from a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, which provides me with a steady supply of reading material. After reading Progressive Pioneer's account of the book These is My Words, I ordered it from the library right away.
I guess I misread her post, because I thought it was a fictionalized version of a real pioneer's woman's actual diary, but it's actually just loosely inspired by the author's grandmother. I was about 100 pages in before I started to suspect that the steamy romance with an "ornery soldier" was too good to be true. But oh well, I'm still totally captivated by this book. The main character, Sarah, is awesome and knows how to ride horses bareback and tend gardens and birth babies and raise cattle and fight off attacks from hostile Indians and horse thieves.

When it rains in the book, flooding the entire homestead, Sarah has to fend off a swarm of poisonous frogs, deal with a corral of panicked horses, shoot a rattlesnake and then has to ride through dangerous flood waters to help her sister-in-law who is deathly ill, with her toddler, while pregnant. So, yeah. This rain isn't so bad.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Looks Like This!

I finally got around to seeing Up yesterday and, not surprisingly, loved it. I did not, however, love the horrendous trailer for the film adaptation of the children's book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I love this book, which is told as a frame tale (a grandfather telling a tall tale to his grand kids over a pancake breakfast) about the town of Chewandswallow, where it inexplicably rains (and snows and hails) food. The simple illustrations are creepy and beautiful. The movie version has changed the plot to involve some sort of obnoxious mad scientist character, and features flashy-- and ultimately pointless-- 3D effects.

Now I understand that a successful adaptation is a tricky task, but I'm saddened that so many wonderful children's books are being reduced to superficial, simplistic blockbuster hits. Case in point, the upcoming Ramona movie. If the success of Up proves anything, it's that kids can handle a complex and nuanced story, and there's no need to overstimulate them with things like talking guinea pigs. For this reason, I really appreciate and respect Spike Jonze's work on his adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, and while I'm sure there will be aspects of the film that I'm not 100% crazy about (we all have our own imagined ideas surrounding that book, so it can be tough to see someone else's), there is real thoughtfulness and tenderness in his approach. I've especially enjoyed following his blog, "We Love You So."

So the moral of this mini-rant is the following: if you have children, will someday have children, or even just know some children, go and buy them this book immediately, before their imagination is co-opted by Sony Pictures. The movie ticket will cost you $15, you can get the book for $2.10.

The Waiting Place

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Leonard, read us Dr. Seuss's Oh The Place You'll Go! on the first and last day of the school year. I still think about it often, like yesterday, when I spent about ten hours just... waiting.

The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

Jon & Kate: Update

Not to dwell on this, but... I was hanging out with my friend Jenni last night, discussing current events. Not swine flu, but Jon Gosselin's alleged cheating (which honestly, I'm sure is being blown totally out of proportion). Jenni (like me) was a pretty big fan of the reality show, and (like me) is intrigued by the growing popularity of freakishly large families. I offered to lend her my copy of Kate's best-selling book, Multiple Blessings, and Jenni made a notable discovery. Among the many, many bible verses that Kate has sprinkled throughout the book, the one embossed on the cover of the book is the following:

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them
Psalm 127:3-5

And guess who else loves that verse? The crazy, irresponsible Quiverfulls! Leave it to the two PK's to spend their evening investigating misuse of biblical interpretations...

Multiplied

I'll fess up, I'm a fan of the TLC show Jon & Kate Plus 8, and I even read Kate's book, Multiple Blessings. For those living in the dark ages, the show is about Jon and Kate Gosselin, a young couple raising twins and sextuplets (and I know all their names). I've got an insatiable appetite for certain types of reality tv, and over the past four seasons, have watched every episode of J&K+8 that I could get my hands on. I think it's kind of fascinating to watch 6 sibling of the same age interact, and I even began to enjoy the quirks of Kate's overbearing personality and extreme type-A parenting style.
But something has happened over the course of the latest forty episode (!) season, and J&K+8 now just seem, well, obnoxious (and apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so). For starters, I've always been turned off by the extreme amount this family accumulates, consumes and wastes. You'll notice they always use paper plates and plastic cups. I had sort of ignored their huge carbon footprint and figured that watching Kate do dishes wouldn't have made for very exciting television. But their excessive materialism was highlighted in one of the latest episodes that was entirely about packing up their old house to move to a bigger one, and the sheer amount of stuff they had was pretty disgusting. And listening to an overly fake tanned Kate talk about her new found love for shopping was the final straw. I'm not really interested in seeing how the family prepares for their second appearance on Oprah (though I do heart Oprah), I was more intrigued when we got to peek into how they survived the day-to-day challenges of raising their family.

The book actually takes a look back at those good old days before all the sponsored trips and free merchandise took over the lives of the Gosselins, but also highlights one important aspect that is largely glossed over on the show: religion. Turns out J&K are mega-church members, and the frequency with which Kate references and credits God is a bit too much for me to stomach. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that conservative religious beliefs were behind their decision against selective termination, but in a post Octo-Mom world, such a stance now appears to border on irresponsible.

I don't mean to get all judgy-wudgy, and I don't find the Gosselins nearly as disturbing as TLC's other famous large family, The Duggars (of the show 18 Kids and Counting). Actually, I think the uber-conservative beliefs of The Duggars-- who don't permit their teenagers to date, forbid music and dancing in their house, and are members of the bizarre Quiverfull movement-- are backwards and dangerous, and should not be propagated through a mainstream television series.

It just seems that J&K+8 has lost it's charm, and now remains a point of interest only as a record of some sort of social experiment demonstrating the effects of instant celebrity status on otherwise normal folks. All the conservative religious and materialistic muck that's become so central to the show distracts from the cute things the little kids say, and isn't that why we all tuned in in the first place?

Calm Assertive

In my family, there has long been a tradition of getting presents from the dogs. Sprout (Meredith) recently caught on to this practice, and for my birthday last week, I was delighted to find one present with a card that read: "To Mama, Love Treat Sprout."

Sprout's pick for me was a great little book called The Daily Coyote. It is based on a blog of the same name, and is about a woman who raised an orphaned coyote pup. Sometimes I think Sprout looks like a coyote, but as I learned, it's a lot easier to raise Sprout. The book is a really easy and enjoyable read with lots of color photographs, and if you're the kind of person who likes the idea of getting presents from your dog, chances are you'll like the book.

Dawn-Zer Lee Light

My first journal was a Ramona Quimby journal. It had questions for you to fill out about yourself, and about yourself in relation to Ramona. If you don't know who Ramona is, it's probably because you're not a twenty-something girl. This was proven this past Halloween when I dressed up as Ramona, and was greeted with warm, welcome smiles from the ladies present, and looks of bewilderment from the gents. Any way, the entries in my Ramona journal went something like this:
Who is your favorite character? Ramona
Which character are you most like? Ramona
Which character would you like to be? Ramona

Needless to say, she is very near and dear to my heart, and naturally I was devastated when Maggie alerted me to this news. Devastated.

Seven Swans A-Swimmin'

Here's an image from the illustrated version of The Ugly Duckling I had growing up. I was delighted to find that Emma also enjoyed this story, and she (per usual) had an especially astute observation, "the baby swan is really not that ugly. What's the big deal?"

Halloween-Themed Post #5

And now for my favorite bit of Halloween trivia, which may also be my favorite bit of any sort trivia. I learned this fact from Aisling, who learned it from Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, a great book which chronicles the history of the potato, the tulip, the apple, and cannabis. It should be no surprise that, historically, women who were deemed "witches" were more precisely wise women, healers, diviners, etc., which also made them skilled botanists. Here, in a NPR interview, Pollan explains one of the mixtures these botanists brewed...

Gardens—you know, it's a little old lady pastime now, but in the old days it was powerful. I mean, people had an appreciation of the power of plants to change consciousness... you had the witches' gardens where they were making up these— they call them flying ointments. And when you talk about witches flying on broomsticks, they're really talking about tripping and applying drugs with— broomsticks was a euphemism for dildos.

Really brings a whole new meaning to "flying on a broomstick". Just keep that in mind tonight when you see all those cute little girls dressed as witches wielding their broomsticks. Way to reappropriate that one, Hallmark.