11D

Daring Book for Girls

I have a tooth ache. I think it's a cavity. I've never had a cavity before, so I'm rather surprised by how much it hurts. So, no post tonight, because it's very distracting.

But I want to plug a The Daring Book for Girls, for lots of reasons, but mostly because the authors are two mommybloggers. Go Miriam and Andrea.  It was the first book I saw, when I went into Barnes and Noble this weekend.

On the Road Again

About a month ago, the Times had several articles marking the 50th anniversary of On the Road. I had starting writing a post on it, but got distracted by something else bright and shiny. I'm glad that David Brooks reminded me about it.

I was a year or two out of college working for $18,000 a year as an editor at Simon & Schuster. I'm still surprised that someone was stupid enough to make a 23 year old a full editor. My friends and I would stay up until 5:00 am at blues clubs and then go into work the next day. But my boss prided himself on being unconventional, so he gave me a shot. I also think he had a thing for redheads.

I was in my little office going over a manuscript, when my buddy, Robin, called. She was driving her old Volvo to San Fransisco, where she had just found a job. Did I want to come with her for the week drive? Sure, I said.

My mom thought it was a lousy idea. I had just been accepted at the University of Chicago, and I would have to save my money for grad school. Mom is also not big on acts of utter randomness, so I had to listen to her gripes on the phone for a week. But I went anyway.

Robin had the car packed to the brim with all her crap. The trunk and the backseat we completely filled, except for a couple of inches for my bag. The first night, we stayed with my brother at the University of Virginia. The next night, we camped in Tennessee. And we bopped our way through the Southern states crashing on people's sofas or pitching a tent in the woods.

There were some mishaps. In Oklahoma, her tire lost an inch of tread. We stopped at some gas station by the side of the highway where they gave us a new tire. Apparently, the idea of a new tire in Oklahoma is to glue the tread back on the old tire. We discovered this in the middle of the Arizona dessert where I had urged Robin to take us on a two hour detour to check out an archeological site. We were in 110 degree heat, on the side of a dirt road, 50 miles from the highway with no tires. We had also lost muffler on that dirt road, because the car was hanging so low with all of Robin's crap. The muffler snapped off when we hit a ditch in the road. She reattached it with some duct tape. Yeah. After the tire and the muffler incident, we didn't talk until we got to San Francisco.

But before that car drama, Robin and I had a fabulous time. She had brought a tattered copy of On the Road. And we took turns reading from it out loud, while the other drove. David Brooks pulled out a fabulous quote from the book,

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn.

After On the Road, I read a bunch of Hunter Thompson and had some adventures that were mostly harmless, but terribly fun.

Brooks despairs that kids today don't have that wild period of life where they do the acts of utter randomness that make life so interesting. The things we tell stories about when we become saddled with responsibility later in life. He blames the "new gentility," which finds the Sal Paradise story sad and depressing.

They run afoul of the new gentility, the rules laid down by the health experts, childcare experts, guidance counselors, safety advisers, admissions officers, virtuecrats and employers to regulate the lives of the young. They seem dangerous, childish and embarrassing in the world of professionalized adolescence and professionalized intellect.

If Sal Paradise were alive today, he’d be a product of the new rules. He’d be a grad student with an interest in power yoga, on the road to the M.L.A. convention with a documentary about a politically engaged Manitoban dance troupe that he hopes will win a MacArthur grant. He’d be driving a Prius, going a conscientious 55, wearing a seat belt and calling Mom from the Comfort Inns.

My students aren't having random adventures, not because of the mommy state, but because they have more financial worries than we had. They have monumental student loan debts. They face the prospect of having to save for ten years before buying a home. (The average cost of an apartment in Manhattan just jumped to $1.3 million. Homes in my area start at $400,000.) Certain careers simply don't provide a living income anymore. Teachers, writers, artists are being pushed to more distant suburbs. So, everyone is a business major. They don't have health insurance.

Sal Paradise grew up, became an investment banker, voted Republican, and jacked up the cost of home prices. And now, when I take a break in a lecture and advise the kids to backpack through Europe or move to the city, they look at me like I'm out of my mind.

Book Review: But Excuse Me That's My Book

We picked But Excuse Me That is My Book (Charlie and Lola) up at the library last monthm and it was a huge hit. Whiney children with English accents are so much more cute than whiney American kids. If you've seen the show on playhouse Disney, you know exactly what Lola's voice is supposed to sound like and it's of utmost importance that this book is read in the correct voice. "But Chaaaaar-lie, Beetles, Bugs, and Butterflies is the best book in the whole wide world." She whines throughout the book until Charlie convinces her than "Cheetahs and Chimpanzees" is also a good book, because the cheetahs are very fast and the chimpanzees are quite cheeky. We read the book 53 times and now know all the words by heart.

Book Review: Dream Big Starring Olivia

Usually, I'm four square against books of inspirational quotes. But if you're one of those people who likes such things, may I suggest that you put down those mini-books in the Hallmark aisle and take a look at Dream Big. The quotes must go completely over the head of the kids. It includes too many Dr. Suess and Oprah quotes for my taste. And the artwork is recycled from previous books. However, it makes an excellent gift book for an adult who hasn't read Olivia a million times to her kids. I did love this page...

Where’s the Colt 45 and the Jack Daniels?

Walter Benn Michaels writes that our devotion to diversity has enabled liberals and conservatives alike to ignore our country's larger problem of class. He points to the American university which now brags about its multi-cultural student body – this part white, that part black, that part Asian, with a dash of some other groups. We pat ourselves on the back for mixing this cocktail perfectly and then walk away from the bar. The problem with the martini is that the liquor is all top shelf. Where’s the Colt 45 and the Jack Daniels?

According to Michaels, we’ve brought in the different races, as if there really is such a thing as race, renamed it as culture, and not touched the economic imbalance that exists in our country.

Our devotion to diversity, especially at the university level, has its absurdities, and Michael deserves credit for pointing out its hollowness. For me, its silliness came home last spring, when an op-ed writer in Times wrote that universities were excluding women in order to keep a proper ratio of men and women at campuses. Now men were the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action.

Sure, it’s nice that colleges want a 50/50 gender split on campuses. After all, part of the purpose of college is to find an economically compatible spouse, along with all the learnin’ stuff. It’s also nice to have different groups in class. The rich black kids add a lot to the mix, as do the other rich ethnicities and sexual identities. Wouldn’t it also be nice if there was a diversity of ages, IQ, and political ideology in the classroom? The diversity principle can be quickly taken to the absurd.

The diversity principle doesn’t even achieve what it was intended to achieve, since poor students don’t have the SAT scores to get into Swanky School. Diversity doesn’t lead to the social revolution that Michael desires and in fact, may be a distraction from dealing with the real problems.

Well, Affirmative-Action wasn’t really aimed at bringing about a full scale social revolution. It was aimed at overcoming discrimination. It tried to bring in the black guy with the same or slightly lesser scores into the university and do an end-run around the racist on the admission board. Michael seems to think we’re in a post-racist, post-sexist, post-anti-Semitic society. I don’t know for sure if overt discrimination is a thing of the past or not, but I do know that race and gender are not independent of class. After all, the face of poverty is highly likely to be a single black, poorly educated woman with a couple of children in tow.

Event Alert

I'm participating in a multi-blog event sponsored by the good folks at the Valve. We'll be reviewing Walter Benn Michaels book, The Trouble With Diversity. Scott has thoughtfully posted other reviews of the book, none of which I've read. I don't like to peep at other people's reviews until I've written my own. Probably some vestigial, good Catholic girl thing. Anyhow, I think you'll all like the week-long discussion. It should hit on some of our favorite topics -- feminism, class, culture, race, equality, and higher education.

Cookbooks

I've hit a culinary block. I am sick of everything I cook and need new inspiration.

The Feminist Mormon Housewives were talking about the Moosewood Cookbook, the vegetarian bible, the other day. I love the The New Moosewood Cookbook, though I’ve found that all their recipes are made just a bit better with a little ham. Bacon works, too. Their lentil soup recipe — excellent with an old ham bone. Their formula for quiche is perfect — just needs some crumbled bacon.

But I've gone through the Moosewood and need something new. I picked up Rachel Ray's magazine today. On the whole, I find her extremely annoying. Someone whapped her with the happy stick. And then there's the unfortunate recipes for "stoup." But I was desperate, so I grabbed the magazine.

I haven't seen a cookbook that really excites me lately. I've been picking up most of my recipes off the internet, but it just isn't the same thing. I like the whole vibe you get from a cookbook. The personality of the author, the food styling, the personal notes in the margin.

Anybody have a cookbook to recommend?

Crunchy Cons

Lovely day in LI. Just enough time to check e-mail and dash out a quick post before I have to nuke some Trader Joe's fish sticks and briani for dinner.

I'm a big fan of Trader Joe's. I like their burritos and organic stuff. I can spend five minutes nuking some frozen cod and still feel warm inside for giving my kids the good stuff.

It's also worth the trip just to see white people in dreadlocks. There is absolutely no counterculture out in here in the heartlands of New Jersey, and I'm craving it having lived on a Pottery Barn and Gap diet for far too long.

Actually, there doesn't seem to be a counterculture anywhere. A couple of days ago, we drove down the Bowery on our way to Chinatown and found that they put a Whole Foods there. Now, there isn't wrong with a Whole Foods. It just doesn't belong there. I used to step over junkies on the way to poetry slams there back in the mid-80s. Of course, I was scared out of my mind that I was going to get jumped at the next corner, but that's not the point.

Amidst my e-mail are two notes from my dad. He points to a new book, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, ... America (or at least the Republican Party)

I haven't read it, but it appears that the main argument is that there are a group of conservatives who, like liberals, reject consumerism and embrace environmentalism, while retaining certain core conservative values. Has anybody else looked at it?

Dad then forwarded a comment by Jon Podhoretz about this book. It also provides a big-tent excuse for "sanctimommy" parenting, which is not so much about raising your own kids as you see fit but more about finding other mothers and fathers wanting because they're not as austere and controlling as you are. There's a lot of sanctimommying over at the Crunchy Con blog.

Two points for JPod for giving me the term "sanctimommying." Snort.

UPDATE: I'm looking forward to reading what Russell has to say about the book.

UPDATE2: OK, so I've been getting up to speed on the conservative blogs about this book. I'm enjoying the debate about crunchiness sans politics avec class. Read Ross Douthat:

Sure, the three dollars extra for the free-range chicken isn't a lot, but over time the cost of a Whole Foods (or "Whole Paycheck," as a friend calls it) lifestyle tends to add up, especially when you're talking about the kind of working-class families that are most likely to have the kind of traditional instincts we're interested in cultivating. There's a reason that birkenstocks and free-range chickens and rambling old Victorian houses and energy-efficient cars tend to be associated with the lifestyle of upper-middle-class liberals, and it's that somewhere in the last half-century, the "crunchy" lifestyle got really expensive. And I think this is one of the dangers hidden in the whole "crunchy" meme (if I'm allowed to use a Richard Dawkins-coined word on a "crunchy" website), which is that it runs the risk of being assimilated too easily into the culture of consumer capitalism, as just another "lifestyle choice" for upper-middle-class people who like that sort of thing, and can afford to choose it.

Boys Books, Girls Books

The consensus among the commenters on this blog is that there are some differences in the way boys and girls learn.  Joe (o) defended the idea of single sex education. 

As much as we think that boys should read books that have girls like, they really have their own tastes.  You can't really force them to read Caddy Woodlawn or Laura Ingalls.  (For more ideas on great books for boys and for girls, see Kathleen Odean's Great Books for Boys and Great Books for Girls

With the kids all feverish, I've been breaking up extended TV viewing with boy book time. In heavy rotation in our home:

I Stink! -- A stinky, city garbage truck tells his story.  "Who am I? I've got lights.  Ten Wide tires. No A.C., not me.  I've got doubles: steering wheels, gas pedals, break.  I am totally DUAL Op.  Know what I do at night while you're asleep? ... East your TRASH, that's what."  We know all the words to this.

Green Eggs and Ham -- Good for little boys who think that yucky things are really funny.

No, David! -- Bad boys are funny.  (Older girls will like this book, as well.)

Nate The Great -- Nate likes pancakes and doesn't like girls and finds things.

The Truth About Redheads

Over the weekend, a reader e-mailed me to let me know about a new book, Roots of Desire, which discusses the common stereotypes of redheads.  The review was in Sunday's Times.

But beware: though red hair is alluring, it also carries a hint of devilry.

That dichotomy is explored engagingly by Roach, the NPR commentator, in ''The Roots of Desire,'' a book mixing history, science and self-discovery, though it's pegged to a somewhat exaggerated premise. ''That redheads are untrustworthy, fiery, unstable, hot-tempered, highly sexed, rare creatures is what passes for common knowledge today,'' writes Roach, a redhead herself. ''While we no longer burn them at the stake, we still carry potent, inflammatory beliefs about their power.''

After my water broke a week early with my second son, I waited for my doctor to show up at the hospital to do my c-section.  As I paced around to ease the contractions and to calm my nerves, another doctor  came over to talk.  I had thrown a my hissy fit a month or two before when I had to wait too long for my RH- shot, and I guess this impressed him that I was a typical redhead.  So, while I was in labor, he proceeded to tell me about every crazy thing that his former redheaded girl friend had done.  Um, sorry, I'm a little busy now.

So what's truth, dear redheaded blogger?  Do you fit the redhead myth? 

There's really only one response to such a question...