The Curved Path

"Sometimes [my children] don't seem able to operate in an imaginative world. ... If, like the four Pevensie children (two boys and two girls) of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they were sent off to the countryside to avoid the Blitz, my children might well have to be marched, under protest, to the room with the old wardrobe and shoved in among the coats; it would be hard for them to grasp how an entire old house, filled with unknown rooms and corridors, might become a world of unlimited play." - Michael Chabon

Of everything that overwhelms me about becoming a parent - which I will, officially, in just over three months, if all continues to go well - this reality is the most depressing. Is it even possible to raise kids capable and desirous of inhabiting imagined worlds for hours at a time anymore? I mean, if Michael Effing Chabon would have to bribe and/or force his kids to become princes and princesses of an entire kingdom populated by twee fauns and talking rodents, what hope is there for the rest of us?

These questions provide one of the central themes in Chabon's new-ish volume of essays, Manhood for Amateurs. I originally checked it out of the library for Nathan, something to add to his stash of suddenly fatherhood-heavy bedside reading. But I dipped into the first essay on my dinner break that night and got hooked. I always feel a little weird reading it in public, but tell myself that there is no more rank amateur at manhood than me.

My favorite essay plays off the theme of lost childhood adventure mentioned above. It's called "The Wilderness of Childhood," and you can read it here. I'm generally not a huge fan of romanticizing the past, but damn, it really is depressing to think that kids today are facing the abandonment of "sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands... in favor of a system of reservations--Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone." I valued the opportunity to run around like a feral animal, with a gang of other wild childs, in the woods of my suburban neighborhood growing up. I want my children to have that same chance. I will have to battle my natural tendency towards anxiety and urge for control - and, apparently, culture at large - to do it. Not sure how, just yet, but reading things like Chabon's essays at least help me feel less alone in wanting to make sure the wardrobe door still stands slightly ajar and invitingly mysterious.

From today's email to all branch librarians:

"Also as a reminder, we prefer Extensions agencies to use lemon-scented disinfectant, rather than pine oil disinfectant."

It would not surprise me if there was a good reason for this preference, but the phrasing struck me as amusing. Long live bureaucraZy!

I am no fan of willful pain and suffering, especially in the form of a billion tiny pinpricks. But I would certainly consider getting tattoos if they were as cool as this lady's:

(Click each photo for the large size, as these are best viewed up close.)

For the tragically uninformed, these images are taken from Madeleine L'Engle's magnificently weird and moving science fiction novel for children, A Wrinkle in Time. They demonstrate the titular wrinkling of time and space through a phenomenon called a tesseract, which incidentally is like an actual scientific reality.

I would totally get this inked into my skin. What children's book quote, image, or other literary symbol would you get written on your body (especially if it didn't hurt so much)?

Happy third anniversary, Nathan!

"Ultimately there comes a time when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created. To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling."

If you like poetry or adorable baby goats (I happen to like both), this clip is for you.

Nathan and I visited the Carl Sandburg Home in Flat Rock, NC, while we were in the Asheville area a few weeks ago. The home, now a national historic site, still looks lived in by design. The adjacent farm is still used to raise goats who are descendants of Lillian Sandburg's champions. These are a few of the highlights, set to a song that kept looping in my head as we walked around: "Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream" by Sufjan Stevens.

(Sorry for the crappy video resolution, though. iMovie is giving me trouble with the full quality upload option.)

> Carl Sandburg National Historic Site
> Who is Carl Sandburg?
> Listen to Sandburg read "The People, Yes"

This isn't the Newbery project (which I'll be doing with my sister, I think) - just an experiment with my iSight camera. Yup, I toted my laptop to the beach.

Let's say you have recently, as in three days ago, completed your masters degree in library science after one-point-five fast-paced yet laborious years.

And let's say you are about to become the children's librarian at a well-loved, well-funded urban neighborhood library.

And let us also imagine that you are realizing how little you actually know about children's literature, even though you like it in general. (Let us say, in fact, that you are far more well-versed in teenage vampire fiction than is healthy for any person, but especially for someone who needs to recommend books to people under four feet tall.)

Meanwhile, let's imagine that you have always wanted to read all the Newbery Medal-winning books for children, dating back to 1922, fully realizing that some of them might be dull.

And let's say you have recently been obsessed with Jezebel.com's trip down memory lane into juvenile fiction of the 1980s.

Also, you are addicted to serial YouTube collaborations by nerdy literate people.

Let's say you're considering joining their ranks and vlogging through the Newberys, two at a time, one from the recent past, one from the distant past. There would be field trips to your library's incredible Children's Literature collection, and possibly interviews with children you have wrangled into reading these books with you. Not to mention humor.

Would you be crazy?

Would you have collaborators, and who would they be?

And what would you call such an endeavor?

(FYI, Newbery Project is already taken. Newbery Experiment is a bit too clinical. Newbery Pie is too cutesy, although I am not averse to puns. I mean, YOU are not averse to puns. All hypothetical.)

Early morning, April four

Shot rings out in the Memphis sky

Free at last, they took your life

They could not take your pride

- U2, "In the Name of Love"

Dr. King gave this speech the night before he was assassinated forty years ago on April 4th, 1968. It is eerily prescient, and its message is still powerfully relevant today, when the luminous promises of the Civil Rights Movement still have not been delivered in full to black people in America. Legal integration has been a reality for decades, but systemic racism is still at large. The dream is not yet reality.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Bakari Kitwana, a standout figure in what has been called the hip-hop generation. He had some astounding insights into today's complex racial climate that, without discrediting the work of Civil Rights leaders, made it clear that it's not enough to rest on Dr. King's laurels. From my article:

...The hip-hop generation has grown up in a world that found a completely new way to marginalize young blacks. They are the first to enjoy the fruits of the civil rights movement, living in a society where rights aren’t explicitly denied based on race. But this also means, Kitwana says, young black people are living in "an American dream that doesn’t fit anymore." Because they grew up without legal constraints, this generation of black citizens were led to believe that they were full and equal partners in American society. But though legal restrictions have been abolished, institutionalized racism and de facto discrimination remain, producing a jarring mix of apathy and anger in those affected.

According to Kitwana, the hip-hop generation needs to be given the authority to address these challenges. "Although the ideas at the core of the civil rights era are still relevant to today’s political landscape (equality, inclusion, and the like)," he wrote in The Hip Hop Generation, "the manner in which they are now being articulated does not translate meaningfully into the ways these issues are manifest among the younger generation."

These statements don’t indicate disrespect or ingratitude toward civil rights leaders. Rather, Kitwana simply encourages them to pass the torch to the next generation. He cites There is a River, by civil rights historian Vincent Harding, as the inspiration for this idea. The "river" in the title is a metaphor for the forward march of African Americans, kept flowing by those willing to jump in. But the book only documents the river’s movement through the civil rights era. Kitwana says it can’t end there: It’s time for hip-hoppers to get wet. "It’s our generation’s turn to jump into the river of struggle to keep it moving."

Dr. King had been to the mountaintop, but the victories he foresaw didn't end with the abolition of segregation. The struggle today is as crucial as the one pioneered by our Civil Rights heroes. In some ways, it is also more difficult, simply because it is more complex. Why do many black people continue to live in a poverty bigger than their own choices? Why do the public schools in my city neighborhood, which are 99% black, continue to show devastatingly low test scores and bristle with violence? When I got mugged last year, why did the police detain a young kid, just minding his own business, even after I insisted that he was not the criminal? Why did the look on that kid's face tell me that he had been there before and knew he would be there again? These questions - and their answers - are deeply woven into our society's fabric, but they also seem inscrutable.

I don't know what Dr. King would think about those questions and their answers. Sometimes I feel he must be very disappointed. But good work is being done by anti-racist groups like Crossroads, whose immersion seminars could rock the world of anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. And Dr. King would surely be proud of Barack Obama and the shift in society that allows him to be electable.

Even so, we must do more. It is not enough to point to triumphs like Obama and say, "See? We're not racist." The media flap over Obama's "inflammatory" former pastor demonstrates that quite clearly. In this day and age, Dr. King's legacy is that our work is never done. We will always have more to struggle for, more to do, because the poor will always be with us, as King himself preached:

"It's all right to talk about long white robes over yonder, in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It's all right to talk about streets flowing with milk and honey, but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do."

More on a certain kind of fire:
> Barack Obama's speech on race
> Dr. King's son takes up the cause against poverty
> A closer look at black liberation theology from NPR
> Adam Taylor on reclaiming MLK's radical vision

In honor of National Poetry Month, and in honor of spring planting and spring meals, and in honor of friends scattered to the winds:

welcome

my generosity is not steaming
on the table and waiting
for you before you
even know you want it

come to my house friend you
will find my offering still simmering
i have not yet figured out what
you need and your tastes are mystery
still to me

i will wait for you to enter
my kitchen and once here
you can let me know what you like
sweet and slow
pepper and stirred

then we can share in this gift together
both of us giving
both of us receiving
open handed
open hearted

- Suheir Hammad (lifted from Organic Soul, where you can also get an amazing sangria recipe in quantities "enough to get you tore up")

1436 Harvard St

Friends
There are days
Office days and photocopy days
Collapsing into night time

And together we slump
With sighs and whispers leaning
Heavy elbows
Against a wobbly table

Tipping it this way
And then the other way
Back again sipping water
And passing

Forever passing potatoes
From my hand
To your hand
I will hold in prayer

In passing your hands are important
To me and as mismatched
As chairs and napkins
And your dreams

I will hold close
As if delicate
As if breakable
As if my own

- Joshua MacIvor-Andersen (my former Sojo housemate whose musings on living in Mexico can be read at National Geographic's Glimpse blog)

More thoughts on urban food and tables:
> Weavers Way Co-op Farm, cultivated by my neighbor, affectionately known as Farmer Dave
> Straight from the Farm recipe index, maintained by one of the Weavers Way farmhands
> Recipes from Greensgrow, another city farm and CSA in Philadelphia

More favorite poems:
> "Litany" - Billy Collins
> "The Burning of Paper Instead of Children" - Adrienne Rich
> "The Only Animal" - Franz Wright
> "Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front" - Wendell Berry (and many more)
> Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 17. All you have to do is put a poem in your pocket.

Today I am inventorying, weeding, and re-purchasing books in our juvenile series collection. Some observations:

The Kitten Friends series kind of makes me want to puke rainbows anyway, but I can't get over the cover tagline on Felix the Fluffy Kitten: "Is Felix just too fluffy?" Seriously? This is a question? I am compelled to read the back of the book to determine why, exactly, the cat is "too fluffy." Turns out Jodie's mom is pissed about the fur matting her furniture and clogging the drains. Sixty pages of this, folks.

My husband totally has the exact same white-collared red and blue striped polo shirt Encyclopedia is wearing on the cover of Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man. Also, on the new covers issued circa 2002, Bugs Meany isn't wearing his Jughead hat. A tragic loss to children's literature.

It really annoys me when kid whodunits have titles like The Case of the Mummy Mystery or The Case of the Cheerleading Camp Mystery. It's redundant. Either you have The Case of the Something Something, or you have The Something Mystery. Maybe The Mystery of the Something Something. But not all of the above in one statement. Mary-Kate and Ashley are repeat offenders in this department.

If I were nine years old again, I'd definitely read a book called Tell a Lie and Your Butt Will Grow. Wouldn't you? No wonder the binding is falling apart. Great-Grandpa's in the Litter Box is also popular.