Tube Talk: Kiddie TV

How to earn those square eyes early.

Baby G and I caught whatever bug was going around a couple of weeks ago, and so I took the opportunity to introduce him to the Magic Box. Passive entertainment isn't such a bad thing when everyone is cranky and congested. Not that baby G hasn't been exposed to what I like to think of as "second-hand TV." When we watch "The Daily Show" or "Nightly News with Brian Williams," baby G is in the playpen right beside us. But now that he's starting to do a Jon Stewart-inspired exaggerated shrug and chuckling with the studio audience, we might have to be more careful. Which is why we started watching programming made for kids—the following three programs in particular:

• Sesame Street. I loved, loved, loved "Sesame Street" as a child (and looooong after)—but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the neighborhood is still the same after all these years. Sure, there are new people and monsters on the street, but Oscar still lives in his trash can and Maria and Luis still repair toasters at the fix-it shop. And, of course, it still has an unabashed alphanumeric agenda, with fun songs and commercial parodies featuring the letters and numbers of the day.
  
  I had forgotten how clever Sesame Street is—the writers do a good job of keeping parents engaged, too, with parodies like "Law and Order: Missing Letters Unit," "The Adventures of Trash Gordon," "A's Anatomy," and "The Amazing Alphabet Race." Also, at least one celeb features prominently in each episode. This morning, I cracked up when James Blunt and Telly Monster sang "My Triangle", a parody of the singer's ubiquitous "You're Beautiful." I appreciate this because I now know who James Blunt is, which I'm pretty sure knocks 5 years off my age. I also love that Sesame Street isn't afraid to throw in $10 words, like when Cookie Monster's favorite snack broke in two and left him feeling "slightly lachrymose." How often does "lachrymose" appear in a laugh line? So great.
  
  Probably the biggest change is that the last 15 minutes or so are now a segment called "Elmo's World" starring the red-felted Muppet with the Jar-Jar-like voice. Luckily, this little monster is a lot less annoying than he was back in the day. "Elmo's World" is geared for the youngest viewers, and baby G does perk right up when "Cat"—his word for Elmo, and any Muppet, for that matter—appears on the screen. Elmo explores one theme every day—usually anatomy like feet and eyes, or activities like jumping and helping. Sure, I have some beef with the creepy mime bit and the annoying ending song where Elmo plinks out the tune to "Jingle Bells" and sings the word of the day over and over. ("Eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes"—yeesh.) But it does get the message across: After the segment on "teeth," baby G was pulling back our lips and shouting "chooch!"—a word that now serves for both "tooth" and "couch."
  
  Anyway, it's pretty great that baby G and I have something to watch that we both enjoy. After 40 plus years, "Sesame Street" is still the gold standard of children's programming. *****

• Yo Gabba Gabba. When my brother called to tell me about this show, he said he didn't know if it was the greatest thing ever or the worst acid trip for kids he'd ever seen. You get the indie/emo flavor from the intro of this Nick Jr. program, which you can check out here. The show opens with the host—a young guy called DJ Lance who sports Buddy Holly glasses, a fuzzy orange Cossack,  and a matching jumpsuit—grooving across a white screen with his boombox. ("What's that?" The kids are going to want to know.) He opens the box to reveal what looks like a set of five grodie Gumby figurines that magically come to life (as people in full-body suits) when he lifts them out.
  
  The characters have babytalk names—Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee, and Plex—and their neon color palette comes straight out of a highlighter set. The character voices aren't as shrill as the Chipmunks, but they have a similar timbre—maybe more like a higher-pitched version of the little green aliens from Toy Story. In other words, they hover close to annoying, but are fairly watchable. To frenetic beats, the characters sing about being polite, going to sleep, the seasons, the dangers of crossing the street, etc.—and the show is broken up with little segments of kids dancing or bizarre interludes such as Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh teaching kids how to draw or DJ Lance making funny faces.
  
  The problem with "Yo Gabba Gabba" is that the imperative prevails! Dance! Smile! Play! Every song is a command, and has maybe 10 words in it. After what seemed like the billionth chorus of "Don't give up, don't give up!" I wanted to rebel and quit everything. This is the kind of show I imagine kids have to watch in dystopias like the one in 1138. Dance! Like it! Or else.     ***



• Dora the Explorer. I was prepared to love Dora. After all, she's a smart, bilingual girl protagonist with cute gear that all the kids seem to love. Girl power! The 30-minute cartoon airs on Nickelodeon, and I set the DVR to record every episode.
  
  Boy, was that a mistake! It is absolutely unwatchable. Dora and her friends—a monkey and a map—have such obnoxious, shrill voices (or is it the same voice?), that I'm pretty sure they can pierce small ear drums. The show format is a lot like an activity book maze. In each episode, Dora and friends must solve a problem by getting from point A to point B through a variety of obstacles. To stay on the right path, the characters break the fourth wall and ask the viewers to shout out answers to questions, such as "Should we go LEFT or RIGHT?" While Dora and pals re-shriek the question over and over, an arrow icon hovers on the screen for a very long time before clicking on the right answer. How lame! And this happens over and over again. It is interminable. Even baby G turned his back to the TV.
  
  I was most disappointed by the bilingual element—there seemed to be very few Spanish vocabulary words, and the ones they used weren't reinforced well. One segment of "Sesame Street's" "Murray Has a Little Lamb" introduces more Spanish vocab than three episodes of Dora combined. So, I bid adios! to the tot icon and turned on Magnum P.I. Hey, there's only so much kid stuff a person can watch in a day!     **
 

Growing Pains: Aging Alert!

Five ways to tell this spring chicken is now a summer fowl.

1. I watch "Nightly News with Brian Williams."


2. I hyperventilate over $9 tickets to a matinee.


3. I get all wistful when I hear that song from The Breakfast Club.


4. I give my neighbor the hairy eyeball when her boyfriend roars up the street on his hog.


5. I call a motorcycle a "hog."

Reel Time: Required Viewing

In which the Schoolmarm of America goes all multimedia.

No curriculum is complete without the multimedia element. And by multimedia, I mean the old-school '90s definition: the VHS tape. (This was before every student was hooked up to a series of tubes called the intarweb.) Sure, I guess the principals of the era counted the overhead projectors and blackboards as "media"—but it was really the portable TV cart with the attached VCR that made their hearts swell with pride.

We students also thrilled at the sight of the TV cart. Not only did this mean an hour with no lecture, but it was also guaranteed that the teacher would spend a good 15 minutes treating the VCR like an exotic animal he had never seen before. After gingerly attempting to jiggle the wires, press every button, and cue up the tape, he would throw up his hands and threaten to lecture—at which point, the one techie kid per class would leap to his aid and have the video playing in no time.

The substitute teachers, however, had it down. They understood that their sanity depended on dulling our senses with whatever magic light show the teacher had provided, which meant it was up and running the minute the bell rang. In high school, our health teacher was the most regular sub, and she was no nonsense about the VCR. After pressing Play, she would plant herself at the teacher's desk (where she could not see the video) and periodically glare at us over her book. I'll never forget her livid face when our European history class erupted at the orgy scene during Caligula, the PBS series we were watching as a supplement to our lessons on the Roman emperors. She had her back to the TV when she threatened us to settle down or else—so she didn't see the guys in togas playing the Roman equivalent of spin-the-bottle behind her. For us Catholic school girls, whose in-class videos were usually about martyrs in South America, this was funniest thing we'd ever seen! And you can bet that we remembered this scene from Caligula long after we forgot the succession of emperors.

All this is the long way of saying that if I were magically to become Leader of the World (as posited in the last post), I would supplement my subjects' required reading with some required viewing for extra indoctrination. Here is what would play on the VCRs across my domain:

• A State of Mind. This eye-popping British documentary follows two young girl gymnasts who are preparing for the Mass Games, a massive-scale pageant in honor of North Korea's Kim Jong-il. They train for hours every day for months to prepare for this one event. The film, released in 2004, provides an intimate look at family life in one of the world's most enigmatic dictatorships, and the disturbing devotion the people of North Korea have to their Dear Leader, despite the terrible conditions (especially food shortages) that plague the people. In one telling scene, family members pause to curse the United States when the electricity goes out during a routine blackout. North Korea isn't known for open access to journalists, so this might be the closest any of us gets to the viewpoints of its citizens.


• Hell House. Lest anyone believes that scary brainwashing only happens on the other side of the world, welcome to Hell House, a chilling look at one iteration of fundamental Christianity on our own soil. This 2001 documentary follows the young members of a Baptist church outside of Dallas who put on a graphic, haunted-house-style pageant depicting what happens to those who don't live their version of a Christian life. Visitors to Hell House go from room to room to witness horrifying skits featuring "un-Christian" choices and subsequent damnation—at the end of which, each attendee is offered a conversion opportunity. It's jaw-dropping. Make sure you have a light comedy on hand for a chaser. You're going to need it.


• Koppel: Iran, The Most Dangerous Nation. Ted Koppel is basically the man. In this 2006 documentary for the Discovery Channel, Koppel plumbed the source of tensions between the United States and Iran by (gasp!) actually speaking to people in Iran. The range of interviews and perspectives he gets from people of all walks of life there is truly enlightening. We need more journalists like Koppel, who delves into the complexity of the problem rather than just regurgitating the propaganda from both sides.


• Koppel: The People's Republic of Capitalism. Koppel's four-part series on modern China, which aired on the Discovery Channel right before the Beijing Olympics, focuses on the economic boom in that nation and how it affects our own economy. With the same balance he brings to his series on Iran, Koppel talks to everyone from farmers and industrial laborers to business moguls and American factory workers. He also spends a fair amount of time on the rising middle class. Did you know that a black Buick is the ultimate status symbol over there? I didn't. This series captures China at a pivotal point in global history—and it serves as an invaluable primer for those of us who don't know much about today's Chinese culture.


• The Hobart Shakespeareans. Some titles on this list left me whimpering in the fetal position; others just made me anxious—but this 2004 documentary warmed the frigid cockles of my heart. Under the guidance of Rafe Esquith—author of the excellent book about his unorthodox teaching methods, Teach Like Your Hair Is on Fire—the fifth graders of Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Central Los Angeles put on a full-length Shakespearean play once a year. For most of these students, English is not the primary language spoken at home—so their perfect, passionate delivery of the Bard's dialogue is truly moving. The film also highlights the many ways Esquith goes above and beyond in the classroom: extra math lessons before school begins, guitar classes at recess, and even a field trip to Washington, D.C. Esquith puts all of his energy into helping his students become hard-working, courteous, independent thinkers who refuse to be held back by the sometimes harsh economic realities of their childhood. It's a continuing story of hope and a must-see.

Anything else I should add to the list before I put on my world-domination tiara?

Book Beat: Required Reading

If I were Schoolmarm of America, this would be your homework.

This might sound high-falutin' coming from someone who spent the first half of the year bingeing on a trashy mystery series and even trashier vampire novels (which I devoured with the enthusiasm of a little girl savoring her first Halloween stash, by the way). But, I feel like we as Americans have a serious lack of interest--or possibly access?--to the perspectives of other peoples in other countries. And we remain ignorant at our peril. Globalization is here, folks. In this interdependent world, we can't afford not to know our neighbors, even the ones that are millions of miles away.

This is especially true of the Middle East. I, for one, knew next to nothing about Iran or Afghanistan until these proper nouns started making the daily headlines. But the news blurbs I was reading and watching never gave me a sense of the peoples, cultures, and personal challenges that make up these dots on a map. And so I was profoundly grateful when friends, family, and chance brought me books that help put a human face on some of the world's greatest challenges.

I'm also not convinced that we Americans know our own story that well. That's why if I ever take over the world (and the chances of that are slim, dear reader!), I would not only raise taxes to fund my palatial pool, but I would also require essays from every man, woman, and child on the following books:

• Three Cups of Tea. After a failed attempt to climb K2 in 1993, an American nurse named Greg Mortenson found himself being nursed back to health by the villagers of Korphe, Pakistan. In gratitude, he pledged to build the village's first school. Since then, the Central Asia Institute he founded has built more than 50 schools in some of the most needy villages in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, it was no easy accomplishment--and Mortenson and co-author David Oliver Relin describe the fierce obstacles he overcame, including a chilling encounter with the Taliban. The book argues that the way to defeat Islamic extremism in this area is through building access to education--particularly for girls. Three Cups of Tea provides a rare glimpse into village life, and the overall message is surprisingly hopeful.



• Persepolis. The first half of Marjane Satrapi's memoir in comic book form tells the story of the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic from her perspective as a little girl growing up in Tehran in 1979. The fear, cruelty, and extremist restrictions of the time are all the more horrifying from a child's point of view--especially one so inquisitive, passionate, and funny. The second half of Satrapi's tale recounts her experiences as an expatriate in Europe, and how the experience of displacement nearly killed her. Satrapi is as candid about her own flaws as she is about her country's--which is why I prefer her story to Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, who fills too many pages celebrating her own intelligence. Both Satrapi's memoir and the 2008 film adaptation provide an enlightening look at how drastically Iran has changed since 1979--and how it has changed the people who live there.



• Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. In this short story collection, Ben Fountain describes such vivid characters, places, and situations that it is easy to forget these tales are fiction. Almost every story takes place in a third-world country--the descriptions of which are informed by Fountain's extensive research and travels to Haiti--and centers on the impossible choices the characters living there have to make every day. Will the American relief worker in Sierra Leone steal blood diamonds to keep her women's shelter going? Should the Haitian fisherman turn over the guns and drugs he finds on the beach to the police? Can the American golf pro in Myanmar turn a blind eye to the shady business dealings he sees on the course? Fountain's smooth, polished writing style is funny, poignant, and intelligent. His American characters are often at odds with their own privileged backgrounds and the destitution they see as expatriates, and how they deal with this displacement makes for intense reading. Fountain's collection is fiction at its best.



• Ake: The Years of Childhood. This 1989 memoir from Wole Soyinka recounts his early years--ages 4 through 11--growing up in his hometown of Ake, Nigeria. Soyinka, who became the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, parallels his own coming of age with his country's search for identity, as both seek to reconcile the African, Western, tribal, and Christian influences that continually contradict one another. The book ends with an amazing account of the rebellion launched by the village women, including Soyinka's mother, against the dictator in power. It's an eye-popping account of a part of the world we so rarely hear about here. I first encountered Soyinka's writing in a college class--his novel The Interpreters is a haunting portrayal of intellectuals wasting away under the corrupt Nigerian government--and I had the pleasure of hearing him read from the sequel to this memoir (You Must Set Forth at Dawn) a couple of years ago at my alma mater. I highly recommend that one, too--although it is much more dense and even abstract at times. Still, it is a gripping read about the succession of corrupt and violent dictators in Nigeria, Soyinka's acts of rebellion and self-imposed exile, and his ever-present longing to return to his native soil.



• Dreams From My Father. Long before our Commander in Chief hit the national political scene, he wrote a memoir about his search for identity as a biracial American. The book, which was written in 1995 after Barack Obama headed the Harvard Law Review, focuses mainly on his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, his years as a community organizer in Chicago, and his first encounter with his brothers, sister, and extended family in Kenya. Obama, well-known for his beautiful oratory, is also a gifted writer, with the literary sensibilities of a novelist. He writes with objective candor about his struggle to define himself as an African American man (especially because he had no African-American male role models as a child) and come to terms with the enigma of a father he met only once. The Kenyan section is especially moving--where Obama is at once at home and at sea in the bosom of the family he never knew. It's a fascinating glimpse into the events that shaped this president--and a much more intimate experience than his political expositions in The Audacity of Hope.



• Assassination Vacation. This treat from radio commentator (and voice of Violet in "The Incredibles") Sarah Vowell describes her obsession with presidential assassination trivia. This book is chock full of info about the assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, and Garfield infused with Vowell's own funny anecdotes about her road trips to all of the locations, museums, and libraries involved in her research (often with her twin sister and young nephew in tow). Vowell's flare for weird details, her quirky personality, and her passion for American history and civics makes this an entertaining read from start to finish. It's so much fun that I promise you'll soon forget it's homework.

OK, class dismissed! Homework question: What books in this vein do you recommend?

Destination: Procrastination

Postpone almost anything with these five evasive actions!

1. Get another glass of water. C'mon, you know it's good for you.


2. Check Google News. How will you know when the sky is falling if you don't refresh the page every five seconds?


3. Throw on a load of laundry. If you don't make your socks a priority, no one will.


4. Catch up on your correspondence. Let the friend who e-mailed you six months ago know you're still kicking.


5. Update your blog. At least you won't be putting that off anymore.