Walking Spanish down the 649's

Pain au chocolat at Tartine, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

The other day at work, I escorted a nice but worried-looking woman in her '30's to the nonfiction stacks to find a parenting book. It was not How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. Neither was it The Happiest Toddler on the Block: The New Way to Stop the Daily Battle of Wills and Raise a Secure and Well-Behaved One- to Four-Year-Old. Nor Sneaky Veggies: How to Get Vegetables Under the Radar & Into Your Family and not Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child : Eliminating Conflict by Establishing Clear, Firm, and Respectful Boundaries, the first 3 chapters of which I actually found kind of helpful one time several years ago.

Thank god, she wasn't looking for Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems: New, Revised, and Expanded Edition, which fucking traumatized us when Mao was about one. It was some different book full of disheartening and shaming messages to parents. Possibly The Petit Appetit Cookbook: Easy, Organic Recipes to Nurture Your Baby and Toddler. Or Itsy Bitsy Yoga: Poses to Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, Digest Better, and Grow Stronger. Maybe The Toxic Sandbox: The Truth About Environmental Toxins and Our Children's Health. I hope it wasn't How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor.

I like to think of that aisle as the Bet You Didn't Know How Many Ways You Suck As A Parent Aisle.

Individually, many of these books have merit. If you're a yoga person, by all means you should get a book about doing yoga with your baby. But the way they're marketed, the alarming titles - an insecure person (and what parent isn't insecure sometimes?) could take away a whole pile of disgrace and self-loathing along with her copy of The Five Love Languages of Children.

According to those books, she should be putting her child to bed at 7pm, after a dinner of sprouted quinoa and brewer's yeast. When her child misbehaves, which is her fault, by the way, she should gently but firmly take away a privilege. Or give him one more chance, and then (gently but firmly) put him in time out him right away. Or gently but firmly snap him into her homemade bamboo pillory on the front lawn. She should have been doing yoga, massage, and reflexology since birth so that the child has a chance at avoiding obesity and can integrate his right and left brain. If she didn't teach that kid sign language as a baby, she has doomed him to suffering traumatic storms of frustration before learning to talk, which, by the way, will occur later.

There should not be too many toys. But we should honor the pleasures of childhood. Our job is to provide the safest, most nurturing environment possible, although we do them a disservice if we insulate our children from...

Well fuck it. Taking clothes out of the dryer last night, it occurred to me that if what people are looking for is a book to make them feel bad about how they run their house and raise their children, I could write that! (see, it's totally a trend with me).

• How often do you scrub out your laundry baskets? What do you use for that? Oh. God. You still have that stuff in your house? Yikes.
• At what age did you first assign your infant simple household chores?
• How many languages does he/she know?
• Do you sit and play with your child at least one hour a day? How do you know that? Were you watching the clock? Shame on you.
• When was the last time you washed your potholders? Do you know what micro-organisms those things can harbor?
• Do you still help your child manage his/her little bank account? It's never too early for a child to learn about fiscal responsibility. If you don't fuck up, you can Raise a Future Millionaire, you know.
• Let me just go through your kitchen:

• Plastic? Jesus.
• Glass? What happens when this falls off the counter and shatters? I know kids look cute with eyepatches, but is that a risk you're willing to take? Let me give you a source for bamboo food containers.
• This cereal has sugar in it.
  
• Ketchup has sugar in it.
• Juice? Well, they're "only" baby teeth I guess.
  
• And you know they make saltines without salt, you don't have to buy these. See if you can find whole-wheat, at least.
• Grapes? See this? Exactly the size of your child's trachea!
  
• Placemats. Hm. And how do you clean those? Wow. That's not exactly... sterile, is it?
• Do you really use these paper towels or are they just for show? Because dishtowels - you know, you can use those more than once, and that way you're not, like, tossing garbage straight at your son's future.

I am enjoying this. After 8 years of getting fucked with by every parent, physician, educator or therapist with an opinion and an editor, I am getting some back. You do it! It's fun!

Both sides were against me since the day I was born

Nation:



Will my adoration for Sherman Alexie never end? I love him "tantalizing" Colbert with "skins."

By acclaim

And why not?

• I wouldn't have to move far
• I wouldn't spend my entire first term campaigning for the second, because I'm smart enough to know that this next one is a one-term presidency if ever there was one
• I would take a page from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's book and promote the American fashion industry while in office, because GOD knows I don't have the clothes for it, and I'll need Todd Oldham to step in and dress me up
  
• I would apply basic parenting rules when making governance decisions: i.e. clean it up yourself, tell a grownup when you've fucked up, no hitting, etc.
• Truly arbitrary decisions would be made via rock-paper-scissors. And the FIRST round would decide it - none of this best-two-out-of-three BS
• Any combat would be modelled on Jedi fighting - slow motion, with sound effects, winner to be determined via style points
  
• I would restore the country's reputation abroad, mainly by having bitchin' parties and inviting everyone
  

No, no, I'm kidding. Vote for Obama.

This is not for you

I'm reading House of Leaves. Whew. Experimental horror novel. I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything else til I'm done.

Lucky for you, W00t found these fun children's books for you to occupy yourself with.

William S. Burroughs’ The Little Engine That Shot Its Wife

Justine And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by the Marquis De Sade

How The Grinch Stole The Best Minds of My Generation by Allen Ginsberg

Read about these and others on the W00t blog.

Also, you can amuse yourself, as the Toddfather and I just did, thinking up things that Complete Idiots shouldn't attempt. We came up with:

souffles
homeschooling
brain surgery
and tantric sex

Can you not dig it?

pea tendrils, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

On the topic of books not read, here is a list of post-apocalyptic grownup fiction, compiled by Keir Graff at Booklist, some of which I've read (Canticle for Leibowitz, Oryx and Crake, Riddley Walker) and some I mean to.

Also, this guy is really funny describing what he's not been up to promoting his book.

Not in my head
Two things that have been bugging the shit out of me ever since I noticed them:

1. "Elmo's World" on Sesame Street is to the same tune as the Budweiser beer jingle.

Elmo loves his goldfish (One taste will tell you)
His crayon too (So loud and clear)
That's Elmo's (When you say Bud you've said it)
WORLD! (ALL!)

1. That Josh Ritter "Right Moves" song (which, I mean, we already have a Nick Lowe, and he's great, so does that mean that two Nick Lowe's are even better?) sounds just like "Thank you for being a friend," the Golden Girls theme song.

Not encouraging it
I was talking to my friend Christine yesterday, when we heard Zhou burst out crying. He had tripped and scraped his hand. Now, Zhou is very into quantifying things: "This dinner is two hundred and forty-four delicious!" "I like Max a lot, but Joseph only medium." "If a baby was a hundred and one smaller than a mouse baby, then you might step on it."

Consequently, he needed to explain just exactly the extent of his pain. Through his tears, he blubbered "My hand hurts almost as much as hell!"

I managed to stutter out, "Oh, baby, that's a lot of hurt isn't it? But that's a grownup word..." before the effort of not laughing made speech impossible. Christine had to walk away, doubled over, and I had to hold my nose.

I shall smoke all the civilized Pocky

News from the world of abusable substances.



First off, we have a children's book about weed. “What’s that, Mommy?” asked Jackie. “Are you and Daddy smoking a cigarette?”
Jaw-dropping - you gotta read it.



Next. Last night at work, Dances With Chickens, Token Boy Librarian and I spent a lot longer than you might reasonably expect trying to figure out if the above observation is correct.




Third: proving that comic books are abusable too, there is Paul Karasik's resurrection of the work of Fletcher Hanks, I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets.
Karasik's brother was in the library last week and in the course of trying to hunt down some Love & Rockets anthologies, he clued me in to this deeply, deeply, deeply weird collection. It's psychotic 1930's misanthropy in the guise of superhero stories - the superheroes are unrelievedly "mysterious" and "remarkable," and tend to thwart the plans of criminals (sort of like Dick Tracy with fewer clothes) only after a significant number of innocent people have been gunned down/gassed/sent into space/killed by giant spiders.
Karasik's web site has a ton of insane images of Hanks' work.



Lastly, if you're going to abuse Pocky, why not make it Thomas the Tank Engine Pocky? I love the little squad of schoolchildren massed behind their giant pig overlords. I never know what's going on in Thomas.

Jeez, that's funny, because most people seem to think I'm an ass

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

You're the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy

Seen at the CNBC Newsstand at Reagan National Airport, originally uploaded by curiouslee.

I am not sure whether this is meant to be critical of the Senator from New York, or complimentary. It's certainly a flattering depiction, with her trim figure and open smile... but the crude, antifeminist humor - not to mention the doody-like "nuts" positioned below her open legs - kind of mark it as the work of conservatives.

I'm guessing it's meant to be taken either way, by some quick-buck marketer looking to amuse voters on all three sides of this eternal election cycle.

Mike Lee took this picture at National Airport. See the whole package on the product's website.

Fug the READ poster - Christina Ricci

Everything about this poster scares me. First and foremost, there's the book. That's The Fountainhead, in case you left your magnifying glass in your other bag. I checked, and there's no professional reason why Christina Ricci should be holding onto this punishing screed of a novel, which has persuaded generations of callow, overprivileged undergraduates that their self-centeredness is justified. It's pretty close to an evil book. I think it's interesting that ALA responded to her choice by airbrushing up a gritty, airless-looking canyon of commerce as a backdrop.

Then you have that outfit. The skirt screams "hooker" and the sweater protests, "student." The shoes are the tie-breaker. Either tuition is expensive enough to make a girl compromise her morals, or the book is a prop to catch the eye of the fetish-y businessman looking to kill time before he catches the Metro North.

As if little Christina isn't attractive enough on her own. A talented, versatile actress with perfect skin, a beautiful face, and terrifying eyes, the girl has nonetheless experimented with every moderately-to-excessively slutty look under the sun. It's mystifying. At her best, she looks like a Blythe doll, wee, coy, and adorable. At her worst... well, it gets pretty bad.

This poster is no longer available, says the ALA website. Luckily, the same can be said for this version of Christina Ricci. Nobody outside of Japan, where it has become so integral to the culture that it has lost its meaning - should attempt this look.

I suggest an alternate city scene for our grown-up Wednesday Addams - sitting on a bench in Bryant Park on a sunny afternoon, smoking, surreptitiously drinking vodka and cranberry out of a thermos, and making mean comments about the fratty media kids eating their lunches and discussing their handbags - the kind of people who read The Fountainhead in college and bought Ayn Rand's bullshit.

Unfug the READ poster - go, Iowa!

Stopped at the needlepoint store today for some crewel yarn and spotted this beauty hanging on their wall. I was struck by how superior it is to ALA's products: graphically, textually, subtextually, grammatically, ecumenically...

(I was also struck by the disdain with which the preppy needlepoint ladies treated me, with my pink hair and ratty thrift-store coat, and I seriously considered pulling up my sleeve and pointing at the wall: "Look! tattoos! Just like that guy!" They'd probably pass a stone if a guy who looked like that showed up at Needles 'n' Threads.)

Anyway - in this poster, the challenging gaze of the tattooed man grabs your attention, and then you are rewarded with the unexpected text, "He's really into needlepoint." Look a little more closely and you see the hipster chick who needs to know how to rebuild a carb and the kindergartner who needs more bandwidth: this is how to get someone's attention and then not squander it.

Further, may I add, this model is well-groomed (COLIN), dressed appropriately, and not afraid to show a little skin (I'm talking to you, Stiles).

A giant PDF of this poster (and others, also good) is available from the State Library of Iowa.

As Esri Rose just commented: "every one of these [ALA] posters shouts, 'Readers are sad, shy people who can't dress themselves.'" THIS poster insinuates, "Readers are interesting people - and interesting is sexy."

Fug the READ poster - Julia Stiles

It's March! I'm mad!

No, wait, that's not how it goes exactly I don't think. I don't know. I have never understood the whole brackets thing in the college basketball, and I'm not a gambler, although I do understand "Win or Go Home" - although it had to be explained to me more than once that not all sporting contests work that way.

But now. Now I get it. I have filled out my brackets, I have considered the potential matchups that might result from each victory or defeat, and I have hedged my bets. Because GoFugYourself is holding their own March Madness tourney, complete with AW-THENTICK sportswriter verbage. I LOVE IT. Not only that, but I GET IT.

And so, in the spirit of the fuggy madness, I give you... Miss Julia Stiles.



Not a seeded competitor in the tournament due to her excessive studiousness and unwillingness to wear shoes strapped to the outside of her pants, she still has made intermittent showings in the fug pages. A bad cover, a bad dress, a sheerness incident.

Enough embarrassment, apparently, to show up to her READ poster photo shoot dressed like... well... let's just say my colleague Dances With Chickens wore exactly this outfit to work today, prompting me to say, "Hey! Way to look like a librarian!" prompting her to complain that boyfriend had slacked on the laundry and that's why she was dressed like that. Me and my girls in the museum library in NYC used to dress like this Every Day in 1998. Long black skirts or knit pants, long black sweaters, black Dansko clogs... we looked like a murder of crows.

Listen, Stiles: when the librarians wear your outfit and think it's frumpy... it's frumpy.

Dances With Chickens? You looked perfectly fine today.

And me? I tried to compensate for my unshoweredness with a hairclip and a scarf and a cashmere sweater from Old Navely Maternity (I am not pregnant).

Sevigny FTW!

Fug the READ poster - Keira Knightley

JANE: Hello, Keira.

KEIRA: JANE.

JANE: How nice to see you again, dear.

KEIRA: Mmm-hmm.

JANE: Dear, your thumb is over my title.

KEIRA: [SIGH]

JANE: You look well.

KEIRA: Right. Napoleonic is such a great look for me. I look like something out of Kate Greenaway!

JANE: Well, an Empire waistline does favor a more... feminine figure, I would say.

KEIRA: [snort]

JANE: Poor thing. It's really too bad that you've been imposed upon in this way. When I can think of so many of our lovely young British women that have been associated with my work... other lovely young women, I should say. You're lovely too, of course - everyone says so.

KEIRA: Yes. I'm a bloody flower.

JANE: Let's see... they could have asked dear Emma, of course, or Rosamund Pike. Either Kate would have done: Beckinsale or Winslet...

KEIRA: Yes, well it's the two of us here so let's just take the picture.

JANE: ... Samantha Morton, I'm sure she's an avid reader... Embeth Davidtz...

KEIRA: RIGHT. Is someone out there? SNAP THE PHOTO, will you?

JANE: ... Gwyneth Paltrow...

KEIRA: Ok, look, I didn't say anything about Embeth because she's South African at least, but Paltrow isn't even remotely English.

JANE: Oh but she tries so hard. So well educated, and what breeding! You know she's actually read my books.

KEIRA: Hey!

JANE: ...Aishwarya Rai...

KEIRA: That's it, I'm out of here.

JANE: And get your hair out of your eyes! Really, one meets the most appalling people...


As always, my hat is off to gofugyourself.com. Buy their book!

Or, the entire kindergarten class

22

That's less than I would have thought, but in reality, a concerted effort by Kai and Jeremiah would probably take me out. Those kids are fierce.

Thanks to Tracey for the tip-off.

Easy Non-fiction

Easy Non-fiction, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

Somebody left this on my desk at work. Don't worry, this isn't a book review - just a penis joke. Those Rookie Readers are amazingly unselfconscious.

Now that the kidlit stuff has moved over to Pink Me, I feel so free! Pretty soon I'll tell the story about the guy in our neighborhood who calls himself Cocksucker Douchebag in public. Hee hee! And yesterday I put up a picture of a lady in her bra! Wooo!

A few things I haven't had to deal with

My friend Aimee was sitting on the floor one day putting on her boots. As she picked one up, she felt something shift inside it. As all boot-wearing mamas know, kids love to put Hot Wheels cars, sidewalk chalk, and walkie-talkies in boots, so she sighed and upended the boot, expecting a piece of train track or a handful of crayons to fall out. Not expecting a live mouse, anyway. She and the mouse looked at each other for a second, then the mouse ran away. She turned to the two cats watching from the bed and gestured futilely toward the fleeing mouse. "What do I PAY you two for?!" she yelled in disgust.

My friend Juliet was at the SuperFresh the other day, picking up the peanut butter and the contraceptives, when she passed a dad with a full cart and three kids. He had a 6-year-old with him, a baby in the baby part of the cart, and a toddler in with the groceries. All of a sudden the toddler threw up. All over the groceries and out the bottom of the cart. Juliet had her own kids with her, so she made a "Yikes" face at the dad and got the hell out of there.

My friend [name redacted 'cause would YOU want the whole world to know you have IBS?] has IBS because she refuses to eat anything with a square cell structure.

I haven't had to deal with a supernatural Japanese hair-cutting monster.

More doody jokes

Juliet, this one's for you:



Don't tell the nice women at the gymnastics class that we did this to their song.

You put the jitterbug into my brain

Of course there's going to be a George W. Bush Presidential Library. I mean, lots and lots of people voted for him - twice - so he's president, and presidents get presidential libraries, no matter how ridiculous it might sound. It would help, I think, if they called them archives, since after all they are mostly repositories for unique documents, and thus centers for scholarship (as distinct from education).

Anyway, The Chronicle of Higher Education is holding a Back-of-the-Envelope Bush Library Design Contest for the GWB POTUS Library. I believe they may be expecting a great deal of sarcasm in the entries they receive.

Oh, the irony.

By way of Maughta at Judge a Book by its Cover... one day this September, Steph at Natural/Artificial got into a fit of giggles with a co-worker about Just. How. Terrible. the new James Patterson book, You've Been Warned is. One Amazon review reads:

"All the paragraphs.
Are written.
Like THIS!
BOO!"

and she compiled all the last lines from each chapter. It is some damn funny reading.

All this was prompted by the discovery that, at the time, this stinker was at the top of the NY Times Best Seller list. As Mr. Patterson himself might comment:

"Utter. Freakin’. Amazement."

But the nanny will run you six bucks

Hurry on over to Target - they got slave kids on sale for $1.75!

What's round and semitransparent and really really satisfying?

If you answered "fish eggs," I smell ya, sis! Sushi for everybody this weekend!

If you said "bubbles," you're three years old. Get off my site, you're too young for all this.

But if you answered, "bubblewrap," then THIS is for you! Thank you Ava for the link!

And if you answered, "a gearshift knob with the Virgin Mary inside," well, I sort of wish I could say I couldn't help you... but I can. For $18.95 plus shipping and handling, the Virgin of Guadelupe can reside in your car like Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration. While you're there, at my old friend www.latinworksco.com, pick yourself up a dozen cascarones, blown eggs filled with confetti and covered with colored tissue paper.

Two tips about the cascarones, by the way:

1. Hold onto them for a few months until the shells really dry out. They're shipped pretty fresh, so at first they don't splinter when you crack 'em, they just kind of crush.
2. Don't use them at a friend's apartment, even when she's having a party. It will take her a while to get all the confetti vacuumed up, and she'll be kind of cranky about it.