Ms. Charisma Poses and Cavorts! Also Remembering The Petershams and Children's Book House

Here's our Maisy disporting herself with her people. The black bits on her tongue are some ashes from a burned up Wall Street Journal. She still has a lot to learn but she has adjusted wonderfully well so far. We are now beginning Week 2 as her people. Dog ownership seemed a lot harder when I was kid. We had a dog like Santa's Little Helper on The Simpsons. (I.e., stupid and hyper). He kept escaping our suburban subdivision home to chase cars on the highway. When he bit neighbor kids, a brother and a sister in one family, he had to go. (Luckily he was adopted by an animal lover friend of my mother's and lived out his days on a farm). Having had to care for some human infants in the interim has made this puppy thing a breeze. OK, maybe the puppy's personality has something to do with that too.

Rescued from Obscurity Part II
Maud and Miska Petersham and My Travelship.

A couple of posts back, in a curatorial mood, I blogged about the nearly forgotten Joy Street Annuals (q.v.) These make up a big part of my smallish collection of pre-war (World War II, that is) children's books. While I had them down from the shelf I couldn't resist pulling down this volume:



Isn't that cover gorgeous? The illustrations are by Maud and Miska Petersham. A husband and wife team who have not really faded into obscurity - but they aren't exactly household names either. The illustrations are so bright and beautiful, it hardly matters that they accompany English-language versions of (now) nearly unreadable Dutch fables, stories and poems. Perhaps they were inspired by all those brilliant old Dutch Masters.



Tales Told in Holland is one of three books in the "My Travelship" collection. The set was published in Chicago by the Book House for Children beginning in the Mid 1920s. It was reprinted many times at least into the 1950s and maybe beyond.


The Petersham's also illustrated another volume in the set, Nursery Friends from France. It's also beautiful. The third volume is Little Pictures of Japan. That one is very elegant and illustrated by Katherine Sturges. The set was edited by someone called Olive Beaupre Miller. I believe that when they were first sold they were boxed with six other Book House volumes in a wooden box shaped like a house (someone is trying to sell such a set online for about $2,000). I bought these three in first editions, as cheaply as possible. The French one came smelling like it had spent generations on the desk of a smoker and the Japanese one had some ripped pages. Still they are all beautifully illustrated and an interesting effort to introduce American children to the stories and songs of children beyond the sea. The Petershams were extremely prolific and if you have any interest in children's book illustration you might want to have a look at their work. Your efforts in that direction will certainly be repaid.

That Ear is Gone and It Ain't Comin Back - Reflections of an Otosclerotic

(Ear image courtesy of Wikimedia)
I'm just in from a session on the Cub Cadet, grooming the Country Club-like acres of grass around the Last House that W-Husband as decided we need to cut. I was also listening to my iPod - or trying to listen. The lawn mower makes for a poor audio environment, naturally. Worse, I am just about completely deaf in my right ear. If you haven't tried listening to Eleanor Rigby or Peggy Lee singing You Gotta Have Heart on your headphones when only one of your ears works you have missed one of life's odder experiences. Not that I recommend hearing loss but, it does make a person think from time to time about, hmmm, failing and eventually dying - an ever present memento mori. It also makes a person say, "Eh?" and "What?" and "What did you say?"

This failure to hear annoys other people. Mostly they are too polite to admit annoyance, but not so with spouses. WHusband keeps saying in loud tones, and with false pity, (every time I don't answer some unheard question or respond to an unheard comment) that I am getting more deaf and ought to wear "my trumpet." By "trumpet" he means the $900 low-end hearing aid I bought three years ago and lost two years ago. (I haven't shared that last information with him because it would lead to a lecture on carelessness that I have heard and would just as soon skip).

Fortunately, he is wrong. I am not getting more deaf. By the time I had Otosclerosis diagnosed in '02, it was about as bad as it was going to get. From the NIH website: Otosclerosis is the abnormal growth of bone of the middle ear. This bone prevents structures within the ear from working properly and causes hearing loss. What causes otosclerosis? You ask.

The cause of otosclerosis is not fully understood, although research has shown that otosclerosis tends to run in families and may be hereditary, or passed down from parent to child. People who have a family history of otosclerosis are more likely to develop the disorder. On average, a person who has one parent with otosclerosis has a 25 percent chance of developing the disorder. If both parents have otosclerosis, the risk goes up to 50 percent. Research shows that white, middle-aged women are most at risk.

Well, I guess at 36 I was "middle aged" when my ear started to go on me. Dad and one of his brothers have it. My uncle had surgery and it really worked well for him. The audiologist I consulted a couple of years ago wasn't sure it would help me and Dad is reluctant to try it. I got a hearing aid, uh, for a while.

It was not much help anyway. The audiologist said it might not be. Funny thing about that. I wear glasses too. Glasses, in my experience, just fix what's wrong. Put them on, you can see. The hearing aid was not like that. It helped, but it didn't give me back my ear. And wearing something jammed into your ear is just not for me. I have never been able to wear barettes or headbands; how could I manage a hearing aid for cripes sake? Everytime I got hot it worked loose; I had to fiddle with it like some nursing home gomer with that horrible feedback turning heads. A hearing aid doesn't work with headphones anyway; and its music that I would really love to get in stereo. A year or so I bought some wireless headphones from Sennheiser for the TV and DVD player. These headphones have individual volume controls so I can pump up the volume in my right ear. It still sounds a little like I am listening through cotton batting but stereo is still a treat. Unfortunately, they don't work with an iPod. I actually wrote an email to the Sennheiser last year and recommeded that they manufacture dual control earphones for MP3 players for us half-deaf folk. No response.

I read somewhere that Stephen Colbert is also half deaf. I wonder if otosclerosis is correalated with a good sense of humor? My father is a funny guy.

Periodically I plug my good ear and have my kids yell into the dead one, to see how much I hearing I have left. It isn't good. As noted, depending which way I flip my head phones, I can hear about "Father McKenzie preaching the words of a sermon that no one will hear" or just the bass line. Or, I get Peggy Lee: "Oh it's fine to be a genius of course, but don't put that old horse before the cart" or her back up singers intoning "Corazon, Corazon" but not both.

The silver lining is that it makes it a lot easier to sleep in noisy places (as in near a snorer) and to block out what I don't want to hear. It can be handy to have a dead ear. As I write now, this little advantage is asserting itself. PBS is doing its begathon, showing 60s pop-music-has beens - by the way, have you noticed that PBS always panders to the musical sweet tooth of the (late) middle aged and old when it comes time to raise funds? Three Tenors, Doo wop etc.? Bill Moyers, that pompous druid, and his ilk, are nowhere in sight. I know I could turn the TV down, but the remote is who knows where; someplace on the other end of the room. As I need to focus, I close the good ear and I can write without the distraction of Michelle Phillips nattering on about how great the 60s were (isn't she the mother of Mackenzie Phillips, the actress whose life was pretty much a druggy train wreck thanks to those 60s values?) Oh, but then comes the Fifth Dimension singing Marry Me Bill (aka Wedding Bell Blues). I love that song... Darn I wish I could hear it better.

Speaking of Julie Andrews

In other news, I just finished a new biography of Julie Andrews. Julie Andrews An Intimate Biography by Richard Stirling. She is irresistible, isn't she? I saw the book on the "new arrivals" shelf at the Stowe Library and just gave in. Funny about all those lawsuits she's filed down the years; that I hadn't much considered as characteristic of her, but that's why we read biographies. "Intimate" I don't know. That word has been so debased by women's products that I get a little queasy just typing it.

I was reminded of a the book just now by the Fifth Dimension. The woman in Marry Me Bill does all the singing and the guy just stands there smiling and rhytmically bobbing his microphone and doing a little back up ooooing. Stirling reports that when Rex Harrison and Julie were putting together My Fair Lady for Broadway, Harrison early on refused to stay on stage during Julie's final song, "Without You." He informed Moss Hart that he was not "going to stand up there and make a c___ of myself while this young girl sings at me." I had to laugh. One does get the picture... The solution devised by Lerner and Lowe was a revision of the song to allow Harrison to interject his number "You Did It." Stirlng writes, "With the focus diverted from Eliza back to Higgins, Harrison was happy once again." No smiling and ooing and microphone bobbing for Rex Harrison.

Do You Have 7 Minutes and Some Headphones?

If so, it's your lucky day. If you don't have headphones I hope you've got some decent speakers because, you guessed it, I have some music for you!

I was working away on a legal brief the other day in the office and wanting to hear some new music. The speakers on my office computer don't work and, since it's an office speakers are contra-indicated (as the MDs say) anyway. So, I plugged my headphones into the ol' CPU and searched Youtube for Gavin Bryars (about whom I recently blogged) and my old favorite Joe Hisaishi, who is a Japanese composer most famous for his symphonic movie music.

When one goes hippity-hopping through the blogosphere I know that one does not want to be tied down to a long video. But you don't actually have to look at this video (its a symphony orchestra, "you've seen one," etc.) Once the music starts you can look at something else; perhaps at the other pictures in this post? I took these this morning on my walk along one of my favorite haunts, the Stowe Rec Path.

As you can see, here in Vermont, everything has really gone GREEN.




Or perhaps you would care to divert yourself for a few moments in that Aladdin's Cave of pearls of wisdom, flashing insight, rapier wit - what have you, the archives, just to your right?


I hope for those who aren't familiar with JH, that this will be a happy discovery for you. For fellow fans, well, here's a treat.



I picked just one of several great Hisaishi pieces available on Youtube to share here. This is the theme from Castle in the Sky which is a very good Hayao Miyazaki movie. As for Mr. Bryars, I found more to love about his work as well, but I don't want to try your patience. More on him another day.

Sunday on My Holy Mountain

The old blog is back on my recurring subject of Jay Peak. It's been awhile since I made it up to the mountain for one of my early morning weekend walks and I have missed them. Today I took a proper hike and really wore my middle-aged self out. Here's a little of what I saw; a world known only to maintenance crew members and hikers.

Children's Books that Were - The Joy Street Annuals

There is a single shelf in my bedroom where I keep my favorite children's books -that is, the favorites that are also "collectibles;" those that I love as much for their quality as objects as for their content.

Gladys Peto, about whom I and others have blogged much in the last little while, was the writer and artist who got me interested in the children's books of the 1920s and '30s, especially English ones. Those books are too old now, and too fragile for general use by the kids (who aren't particularly interested in this vintage of book anyway). I have decided that now that Mme. Peto is getting her due in the Blogosphere (see in particular Jeanette Payne's website, link to your right) I should do my bit by swinging my Blogger spotlight over another nearly forgotten and obscure but very worthy bit of children's literature; the Joy Street annuals.

These are contemporary with Peto's heyday (the 20s and 30s). I have the first four, I think there are about 15. Since the "collectibles" shelf is full (and my wallet is empty) I am not trying to complete the set. It is enough for me to take down one or two from my little collection from time to time and admire them. I occasionally find a story that suits my 21st century kids. The writing is great, really clever and interesting, but most of it is not very accessible to kids today (I am impressed at what was expected of kids in the 20s and 30s!). Each time I get back into these volumes, as I did today, I am amazed at their quality. I think the editors must have taken a lot of pleasure in putting together these books; they feel as though they have been "crafted" rather than merely published. I also imagine that the editors would have had a lot of fun in working with the artists and writers who contributed; it was quite a group of luminaries - although I have not found that Mme Peto was among them. It may be well and truly said that they don't make 'em like this anymore.

I learned about the Joy Street Annuals from the Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English by Victor Watson, which I bought some years ago thinking it would help with Peto research. There was no Gladys Peto article (maybe in the second edition...?) I did learn the following, however:

Joy Street British miscellany for children published by Basil Blackwell (Oxford) [and by Appleton of New York in the U.S.] in the 20s and 30s, unusual for it editors' commitment to high standards for design printing and bookbinding, and for its policy of publishing stories and poems by the best-known children's authors. Number One Joy Street (1923) contained original work by Walter de la Mare, Eleanor Farjeon, Hilaire Belloc, Laurence Housman, Edith Sitwell and Rose Fyleman. Contributors to subsequent volumes included G.K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne and Compton Mackenzie. There were few adventure stories, few school stories and no non-fiction articles; the emphasis was on fantasy, magic, humor and poetry. What helped make Joy Street distinctive was the unusually high standard of artwork; in the early issues the colour plates were tipped in on special paper and the black and white drawings were of a very high quality, providing your readers of the day with an alternative to the poorly designed but less expensive annuals such as Chatterbox. Although the 13th issue was superstitiously entitled 12a Joy Street, publication unluckily came to an end in the early 1940s [Article by Victor Watson].

The Joy Street books are not hard to find (I recommend the AddAll Used Book search engine - link to your right - if you have any interest in picking up a few of your own). They are also not terribly expensive; they usually go for just a few dollars on ebay when they turn up. Frankly, I don't believe the demand is what it should be, but that makes it nice for those who do want to do a little collecting. I managed to get a few scans done this afternoon and so, I am sharing. All of the above come from Numbers 1 and 4 Joy Street. I could have spent hours at the scanner and still not have copied out half of the things that are worthy of another look and some admiration in just these two volumes.

Each book is cloth bound (some, at least, originally had dust jackets but I haven't seen one complete). They are chunky and the paper is heavy. The tipped-in illustrations are full color. Some of those are a little ho hum but others are very frameworthy (not that I would cut one up for the pictures unless the book was a complete loss). The black and white drawings are often brilliant.

So, here for your viewing pleasure are a few of the treasures of a couple of the volumes of Joy Street from the 1920s. (My copies are the English versions; I believe the American printings were just about identical, however).




Note the proto tele-tubby that appears to the far right here.

"The Rules of the Game" at the Last House

Two weeks ago, I borrowed the DVD of the famous Jean Renoir film, "La Regle du Jeu." I got it from the beautiful Goodrich Memorial Library in Newport, Vermont (the pinnacle of high culture here in the back of beyond). The photo above was taken in one of the library's rooms and the link is below. I think I saw the film (we must not call it a "movie") as a 20-something student. I managed to watch most of it again this morning (on my son's twin bed on the excuse I was cleaning his room). I had to try to see it today because it was a week overdue and in my experience libraries typically charge a dollar a day for overdue DVDs. It had to get the thing back to the Goodrich but also get my money's worth out of it!

I am happy to report my total fine was 60 cents. I felt bad enough about it that I bought a couple of pictures of the library (a fundraiser) and, last of the Big Spenders, I also let them keep the change from my dollar. In any case, the film is a critic's darling and, even with my kids bursting in and demanding to be tickled or otherwise attended to, it is obvious why. I am a better age now to appreciate the farce and the genius of the photography than I was at 21. Here's a link to the cool trailer for the good Criterion Collection DVD, which is the version I was able to borrow for so long:


Puppy Update
In other news, our Maisy has settled in so well it's spooky. (Look back a couple of posts for a picture). She's as sweet as she looks. Only one pee in the house so far! And no crying at night either. I am touching wood...

More Consumer News and Reviews - NPR Music- Gavin Bryars

I am trying to write a complicated legal argument. I like doing this sort of thing and it takes me back to law school (which I actually enjoyed, unlike most of the lawyers I know). Being in that law school frame of mind, I need some wordless music in the background to keep me in my chair and working. I did a little looking around and found a concert at the National Public Radio website. It was recorded in January 2008 by WNYC for its "Wordless Music Performance." The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars (1969) is the first of three pieces that have been made available there. I have just gotten through that and I think it's great. I did a little quick checking on Mr. Bryars and can see I have a lot more to hear. If you want to check it out, here's the link: href="http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=89127096&m=89127121">