Hello, A Ghost Story, and Another Top Tip

It's a quiet Saturday night here in the Last House and everyone else is in bed. Whusband built a fire in the remains of the pressed aluminum "fire pit" which has now lost all three of its shaky legs and its lid. The children spent a gratifyingly low-tech evening watching the sparks fly upward, telling ghost stories, making s'mores, and running after fire flies.

The Understudy told a chilling tale about a the daughter of a wealthy family who went with her mother to an expensive antique shop where the mother "paid retail" for a beautiful doll. The doll's hand was posed with two fingers raised. The daughter of the house decided right away that she did not like the doll and put it in the basement. That very night, however, the girl heard someone moving slowly around downstairs, then coming up the stairs, and then in her own room. It was the doll! And it was mad! It jumped on the girl and killed her! The next day, the doll was holding up three fingers. The mother immediately took the doll back to the antique store and asked for a refund.

I confess that my campfire experience was shortened by my desire to get back to the movie about Temple Grandin that I had recorded on the DVR. Temple G. the autistic cattle expert who has become so famous. I heard her interviewed on Fresh Air when this movie came out (on HBO) and was really fascinated to hear her talk about her life and her work. If you can find that interview as a Podcast it would be worth your while to listen.

The movie was genuinely compelling and a very nice piece of work. (What drove me to the computer just now was my feeling of gratitude and admiration for the creative people who brought it off and got it into my living room.) Claire Danes, as Temple Grandin, was brilliant. So, that's my top tip. I see from the movie's web site that it's out on DVD now. Have I ever steered you wrong?

Bon weekend tout le monde.

Jiggety Jog.

Home again. My own little Vermont family seems to have managed to avoid a complete collapse in my absence, which is a good thing of course. I missed them, but I'll admit I was very preoccupied down in Texas with the nephew/Niblet. I had a real pang when I had to walk away from him, sleeping peacefully in his bassinet. His anxious mother has told me she doesn't think they will be traveling with him for a long time (read "years") to come - germs on airplanes etc.

Sigh. I have been thinking of the new little family hourly since my return. The hackneyed phrase "24/7" gets thrown around a lot and usually is an exaggeration of the demands it is meant to describe. Not so with newborns.

Shackleton Speaks VIII

On my return I found a school paper, a spelling test, recently completed by Shackleton. It had a smiley face on it in red, rather incongruous considering it was marked with a grade of 4 percent. That's right. F O U R percent. Whusband largely blamed the messy handwriting which made it impossible for the teacher to really see which letters had been included.

Me: "Shack, neatness counts. You have really got to try harder or we're taking away privileges."

Shack: "Like what?"

Me: "Like something you really enjoy - like X-Box."

Shack (instantly): "I don't really enjoy X-Box. I really enjoy studying hard."

Other People's Books, Other People's Babies

My brother doesn't like to read for fun. (I know! But he's not embarrased by this). His "library" is thus a bit, shallow, and reflects his interests: cars and rifles and such. He has other books that serve as a kind of wallpaper. Since I am at his house now, and needed a book to read, I went with the wallpaper: volume 40 from the Britannica Great Books of the Western World series, volume 1 of Edward Gibbon's, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

All my reading life I have been seeing these nods and genuflections and references to Gibbon so, I thought, here's my chance. Three nights of reading have gotten me to page 7 (see above). You can probably guess why.

Well, if you are guessing it's because Gibbon is boring that's not right. But he demands concentration - that kind of concentration that you have to give to foreign language tapes if you're actually going to learn how to ask for a kilo of grapes and where is the emergency room - the kind that puts you to sleep. Focus! Focus! zzzzz.

I am actually in awe of the writing, though. No one writes like this anymore and while that may be a good thing for keeping the pages turning and film adaptations that can get Russell Crowe into a short tunic, I admire it. A lot.

I read this little sentence yesterday, about the political sequence in Rome at the time of the conquest of Britain:

After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke.

Not for everybody, I suppose, but I think it's great. I also like the way he encapsulates the reasons for the defeat of the native Britons:

The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them agains each other with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.

I'll stop now.

Baby News

Talk about burying your lead! The Niblet is home. He's lovely. My brother asked me to handle a 6 AM feeding (based on a schedule they worked out at the hospital). I agreed, of course but added that the Niblet was unlikely to stick to a schedule. "When he wakes up and cries, feed him." My brother said, "he's used to getting fed at 6 AM." He set an alarm for me and I got up at 6. It has been all silence in the room of the little family since then and I have been reading blogs. Oh wait! I hear crying. Bye!

Subversive Texas Nanny Speaks

If you've been following along you'll know that my brother and his wife found themselves parents - very suddenly - (think OMG! C-section, stat!) for the first time, about 11 days ago. The Wee Nutkin is, as I type, about to be sprung from the hospital where he has been so that he could bulk up to five pounds. He was a month or more ahead of schedule and all the female realtions, excepting your corresponent, were otherwise engaged and not able to assist with bringing home baby. I was summoned from our mountain home to these Dallas low flat lands to help.

Of course I am happy to try to make myself useful and the baby is a lovely little perfect nugget of a person. But I just had to stop in here, to share a bit of, what? levity? and to assume the know-it-all posture I have been dying to take since I got here two days ago. I can't do it while my brother and sister in law are around. Levity and parenting superiority would be as welcome here at the moment as a septic system back up. My sister-in-law, a career woman in her late 30s, is. naturally, especially fraught. The other day at the hospital she didn't want to let my brother fill an empty bottle that had fallen on the hospital floor. I made a quip about how "sterlizing" is what you do to your baby's first bottle by boiling it and to his last bottle by blowing on it. She managed a polite smile but was clearly not amused. I have been biting my tongue so hard it has teeth marks, but I am safe with you, aren't I? (My kids are the only one in the family that ever stop in here and if by chance some other relation came by they would probably forgive me).

Exhibit 1: See the photo above of baby goods that have fallen in an avalanche on the household. This is only a partial display of the baby merchandise. It's enough to send the CEOs of Evenflo and Toy-R-US and Costco into a swoon. I am trying to do something with the bags and boxes and to put the three things this little family will actually need in the days and weeks ahead in a place where they will be handy - but I am overwhelmed. A lot of this stuff is six months or a year away of being any use but, as I say, I am not saying.

Feeding new babies can be a nightmare of anxiety and we are in that just now. I have been saying (and really meaning) how well sis in law is doing with the breast feeding but I can tell she is not persuaded. (Nephew seems a bit loathe to do the work and he is very little and needs to put on some weight). Yesterday at the hospital the baby started yowling at the breast and, silent type that she is, she almost yelled "Get the Formula!" (Believe me, all you nbreast feeding advocates I am with you and I am pushing as hard as I dare). I am dismayed that these new parents haven't checked in with the doctor who's going to be the regular pediatrician to say "baby's coming home, doctor. Perhaps you'd like to meet him now" They're not so sure they still want that pediatrician.

Oy.

I haven't yet given then my "nights of barf" speech, the one that I am fond of sharing with other parents. (Those of us with children will never forget those nights, and the calls to the pediatrician). Fortunately, I am sure the first long night of barf is at least a month or three away. I am going to give that speech before I get back on the plane for Vermont at the end of the week.

Really, I am so thrilled for my brother. And I am sure that they will both figure out in the weeks and months ahead that this little boy is the best thing that ever happened to either of them. I hope they will also discover that he isn't made of glass. Just at the moment I can tell, even if they would never say it out loud, that they are both thinking, as new parents (almost always) do, that maybe this whole baby thing wasn't such a great idea?

OK - gotta go fold laundry and vacuum and build up a little stamina for what's next.

Shackleton Speaks VII: Constellations

I wandered outside after dark last night and found a starry night fit to make Van Gogh weep. After a bit, Shackleton came out looking for me and I pointed out what a beautiful view of the stars was on offer and asked him to find the Big Dipper.

"There it is! He said, pointing in the general direction of the horizon. "And there's the girl with the cell phone in her pocket!"

I think the Greeks missed that one.

Bon weekend tout le monde!

Welcome Heir to the Sch___ Throne and Lands!

No time lately for a proper post. Maybe this weekend. Just had to stop in and say welcome to my new nephew, though! This is my first nephew and I have my brother and his sister in law, who have just joined the rest of us in the parenting arena, to thank. This little fellow is a native Texan, God help us!

He showed up a month early and tipping the scales at just under five pounds. His genetic destiny having been shaped by a thousand generations of milk maids, hewers of wood and drawers of water, he is likely to top out with another 200 pounds or so by the time he reaches middle age.

My brother and his wife haven't decided quite on a name. Something Ameri-Russo-Anglo-German, reflecting his little melting pot self, seems likely.

How I Learned to Stop Watching American Idol

(Put on your culture critic hat and matching scarf! We're off!)

So, for the first time ever this year, the kids and I have been watching American Idol. We stumbled in by accident back when the judges were traveling around the country auditioning wannabe Idols, which was interesting in a voyeuristic way. (There is nothing like open-call for the nation's top TV show to bring out not only a trace amount of talent, but a sea of naive dreamers, the delusional, and the bizarre). We came briefly under its spell. But that's over. Shack and I have reached our limit. Only the Understudy (who is 12 and an occupant of the ideal demographic and mental age for the show) still has any interest in the results. Shack is bored. I, predictably, am appalled.

As everyone knows by now, and in "everyone" I am including inhabitants of remote desert islands and space aliens, American Idol is a talent contest. The talent in question is, ostensibly, singing.

As I write, the 2010 contestants have been whittled from the 50, who were plucked from the hordes to go to Hollywood, to seven. In the end, one will win.

As everyone also knows, although the judges remain on the stage to critique every performance, once the 50 were dropped to 12, the decisions about who stays and who goes, have been made (so we are told) by the voters. The voters = anyone with a cell phone and an opinion who is willing to pay regular texting rates.

Ryan Seacrest (whose name I have been hearing around for years without having any idea who he was), is the host/ringmaster. He looks like a friendly Apollo-era NASA engineer in a close-fitting suit, short hair and thin tie. He holds hands with the contestants after they get the judges reviews, he interviews the contestants briefly before their numbers (seated cosily with them on cube-like couches with Coke ads swimming in background). He plays middleman between the judges and the contestants. He urges America at the end of the show (lines stay open for two hours) not to let their favorites go.

The talent under scrutiny, as noted, is singing. Of course, it is now and has been since America started doing the judging, a popularity contest.

This is the show's true self and what a big part of what makes it, at bottom, ghastly. There are other horrors in its DNA but the popularity aspect is what really puts it into the category of soul destroying.

What is that will make a young singer (28 is the cut-off age) popular with that unspeakably vast middle/mob audience?

Despite judge Simon Cowell's repeated admonitions to the contestants that to win they must find and express who they are, "as an ahtist," being an "ahtist" will not save them here. (As he very well knows). In fact, real "ahtists" need not apply. This is a competition for the Liberaces of pop music - not the Glenn Goulds.

Mostly, as Simon and the other judges also know, the real artists wouldn't apply in the first place. Anyone with sufficient integrity to be merit the label would not assume the posture necessary for winning.

The one contestant this season with a trace of rough edge, and potential disdain for this kind of thing, a former busker called Crystal Bowersox, has been sanded down before our eyes. The lip piercing is still there, but the dreadlocks have been deemphasized. The jeans and T-shirt have given way to high heels and black dresses. Early on, before the stakes got so high, Crystal revealed she auditioned partly as a goof and because she needed money for her kid. She had a real light in contrast to the glossy lips and vaselined teeth that surrounded her. But she has been changed. When Simon pointed out after one of her recent performances that she didn't have "the competition in the bag," she started wolfing down the humble pie. "I never thought I had it in the bag. This is a competition, anyone could win. I never thought of myself as a favorite. Last thing on my mind." Translation: "Love me America. Please."

Hubris = death.

Equally fatal, however, is too obvious sucking up. Another contestant, a particularly cloying high school girl from Connecticut, actually said in a recent post-performance interview with Ryan that she was "begging" for America's votes. Big mistake. I see she was voted off last week. Truckling is required, but America doesn't want you to say that you're truckling.

It's a fine line these poor sods have to walk. Walking it deftly is what will determine who wins.

Of course all this has put me in mind of The Simpson's episode, "A Star is Torn". (Is there a moment in American public life without a better, funnier Simpsons corollary now?). There, Lisa competes on "L'il Starmaker." ("Not affiliated with American Idol," says host Krusty the Klown. "We've never even heard of American Idol"). Lisa makes it to the final two and wins with her sweeter-than-an-Easter-basket song, "My Dad." Her competition, a twinkling little boy called Cameron, has been sabotaged by Homer who chooses a song for him called "Privileged Boy".

The other thing that makes American Idol a kind of horror show is its focus on the slow and lingering death. I have heard professional performers talk about how brutal regular, real-life auditions are. Hopefuls appear, get their few minutes, and the judges say, "OK, you, you, you and you. Come back tomorrow at noon. The rest of you, thank you for coming, don't let the stage door hit you on the way out."

Not kind, but business-like at least, and quick.

The point of American Idol, a marketing juggernaut from which every available dollar is clearly being eked, is to prolong the agony. The slow lopping of one, then another, from the show whips elements of the audience into camps. Shots of the audience, which makes the audience at the Price is Right look sophisticated by contrast, routinely show sign wavers and T-shirt wearers who have become tribal affiliates of one or the other contestants. (William Golding was, it appears, right about humanity).

At this point in the competition the contestants sing on one night, the votes are tallied, then an hour-long elimination show follows on the next night. Needless to say, the survivors are all placed on tenter hooks for the duration. Ryan brings them forward by twos and threes. "Do you think it's you? Here's what the judges said last night. One of you will not be going on. Here's what America said... Blah blah."

It's like watching a car crash. I really can't stand it anymore. I worry that those space aliens looking on at American Idol might decide we aren't worth observing anymore and dust off their planet destroying death rays. Let's hope they instead think to tune into Discovery Channel, or PBS or Showtime and watch coral reefs or snow leopards or Edie Falco or something else that redeems life on earth - or at least all of us who have played along with AI.

I can report that we never texted in a vote. I might keep watching, though, here and there, just to see if Crystal works up the guts to tell the producers that they can stick their contract where the sun doesn't shine.

Phew. I'm done now.


Oh, and I must add that today's banner comes courtesy of the Understudy who has been exploring the paintbrush on her new Mac. Thanks dear.