Armadillo's Book Blog

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I commuted to NYC (Jersey City PATH train to WTC or Amtrak to WTC) daily for quite a while. And for a while I worked in a building with windows facing the WTC – watched the window washers swaying on the upper floors with fascination and dread.

WTC was really a very unpleasant building to be in. At the subway level, and the level of the shops just above, it stank of urine and the homeless who lived there were in terrible shape.

And yet that absence on the skyline tugs at my stomach every time.

On 9/11/2001 I woke up to NPR re-broadcasting the planes heading into the WTC; spent the whole day hoping our younger one hadn’t heard anything about it at school, but of course she had.

I didn’t even try to get hold of my many friends in NYC until Sept. 12 and when I did the phones were all down and emails were not returned, sometimes until weeks later.

One friend, Tom, FedEx-ed me, at my request, the black-covered New Yorker magazine that I for some reason desperately needed to read. My friend, Elizabeth, told me of the terrible filthy smoke and the smells that persisted for weeks.

Now I see that this terrible event has been used to justify all kinds of other really inexcusable incursions into our rights and the rights of others around the globe.

So far, I see very little good that has come out of this and that makes it all the sadder.

In the words of one of my Twitter pals, @pourmecoffee:

Let’s all remember to honor America [on 9/11] by dividing it into groups and being openly hostile to the ones we’re not in.

Or, commemorate @markos birthday and Sept. 11, 2001 in a meaningful way by buying @markos book: American Taliban

Some of my favorite reflections on 9/11:

• “It seems like at a certain point of density of flags you’re making more of a statement if you DON’T have one.” — David Foster Wallace
• David Bowie’s great rendition of Paul Simon’s “America” at Concert For New York City Tweeted by @hush6
• And @hush6’s blog post for today Blog post I hadn’t planned on writing
• Wondrous humor in adversity by The Onion:
  • Bush Sr. Apologizes To Son For Funding Bin Laden In ’80s
  • God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule
  • U.S. Vows To Defeat Whoever It Is We’re At War With
  • A cornucopia of Oniony 9/11 goodness: Throughout the day, we remember our historic 9/11 coverage.
  • We Must Retaliate With Blind Rage vs. We Must Retaliate With Measured, Focused Rage
• Tweeted by @pourmecoffee: Tomorrow is 50th anniversary of JFK’s “separation of church and state is absolute” speech.
• Tweeted by @TimothyS: 9/11 set off capitalist frenzy-making $$ from national security. Carlyle Group first.
• Re-tweeted to me by the brilliant @drmstream Angels leave pennies.
• Tweeted by @HarrisonSolow Just felt like posting this obscure and minute example of an innate American spirit, on this day
• Re-tweeted by @juanviejo, from @mozaffar The story of the Muslim Prayer Room on the 17th Floor, of Tower 2.
• @SarahPalinUSA How dare you & @glennbeck turn the death of 3,000 Americans of all faiths into a moneymaking event! VILE.
• Budweiser tribute to 9/11

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I sent the following out to my Freecycle group the other day, Day 7 of our latest Amish Friendship Bread adventure:

My daughter’s friend met her the other day, and, smiling, said, “I have something special for you.” and handed her a bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter. Which means that said well-intended friend is not very far along in her Amish Friendship Bread journey.

So we now have a starter at Day 7, and in about 4 or 5 days, it will split into four little babies, each of which will multiply like bunnies and pretty soon our home will be overrun with fattening cakes and the smell of cinnamon. Which is why we have resolved to terminate this particular branch on the Amish Friendship Bread family tree quite abruptly, after we’ve baked the first iteration. UNLESS some of you fine folks would like a packet of starter when it next becomes available, which will be soon.

Please let me know if you would like to at least experience this interesting flashback to 1950s America.

Also serves as a GREAT lesson in exponential growth.

You would need to take possession of the starter promptly when it becomes available. What you do with it once it’s yours, I do not need to know.

Freecyclers from near and far responded, mostly with condolences.

One helpful soul pointed out the obvious: We did not have to keep a starter for ourselves. We COULD just bake all the babies into tasty coffee cakes and freeze what we could not eat.

We would then have NO STARTER to foist upon an unwilling Universe, but we would have many yummy cakes to eat when we are hungry.

So here we are, on Day 10: Baking Day

• One bag of starter is going to an intrepid Freecycler who has promised she knows exactly what she's getting into.
• One bag is going to a friend who, I fear, is in denial about what she is getting into.
• One bag was used to make two yummy coffeecakes, one of which will soon be given away. I found a recipe that does not require me to use vanilla pudding mix. Vanilla pudding mix, in fact, pudding of any variety, is not an ingredient I would ever choose to have in my pantry.
• I will (!!!!) keep one bag of starter, since I now know I can and will kill it off and eat it at any time I care to.

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I understand that of late many mothers (and fathers) have stopped telling their children fairy tales. Often, I learn, this is because they consider fairy tales politically incorrect. In his book, The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim explores some fairy tales to discover why they persist in human memory. His conclusion is that different tales address different issues in the pychological and emotional development of children. Bettelheim emphasizes that, although moral development is also very important to children, that is not the purpose that fairy tales serve. Instead, fairy tales are life lessons that model problem-solving to young children.

So, for example, Bettelheim notes, in fairy tales the mother is often replaced by an evil stepmother.This is because, in most healthy relationships between child and mother, at some point the child begins to test the mother. When the mother starts having to deny some of the child’s requests, the child, in its mind, decides that its mother has been replaced by someone else — an evil person. In other words, the presence of stepmothers is not really a chauvinist plot to eliminate mothers from plotlines.

In 1988, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine interpreted Bettelheim’s book into a musical called Into the Woods. In the first act, the Grimm’s fairy tales Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Red Riding Hood are intermingled into a multi-layered musical tale that is appealing to children of all ages. There is more blood and gore than in the Disney versions, but, as Act I ends, the protagonists get their wishes and settle in to live “happily ever after”.

Act II is when reality intervenes. According to Bettelheim, the purpose of fairy tales is to help children get past certain emotional obstacles in their lives. In subsequent stages, they deal with the realities of their lives. Which is why, in Act II, it turns out that happily ever after does not last very long. Marital infidelity, death of parents and friends and other dangers that can’t be magicked away beset the heroes and heroines of the fairy tales. The lesson of Act II is that, although real life can be scary, it affords each child an opportunity to grow and contribute to society.

Into the Woods has been important to our family since our older daughter, then not-yet three, first heard the songs on CD and realized they were being sung by fairy tale characters. Since then, our family has attended at least one or two performances each year. Every time we attend a performance of Into the Woods or watch the video, we and our children have come away with new insights. Sometimes they have to do with stagecraft and the engineering of a musical, but topics that have come up have included: dealing with disappointment, catastrophe and death, the politics of marriages, the advantages and disadvantages of growing up, the nature of evil, well, I could go on and on.

We have chosen to encourage our children to watch BOTH acts, because we believe it is important for them to both hear the lessons of the tales themselves, and to learn that, in real life, not every adventure ends “happily ever after”. However, we do understand that for many children, it would be best to watch just Act I and to then leave the premises.

Disheartening news about Bruno Bettelheim’s personal conduct has recently come to light. These allegations should not discourage parents, or anyone interested in raising children, from reading The Uses of Enchantment or in taking their children to a live performance of Into the Woods.

There’s a DVD of Into the Woods. It stars Bernadette Peters as the witch. We recently bought the DVD, because we wore the tape out.

And here’s something very cool: Children Will Listen, a recording of a production of Into the Woods that about 200 schoolchildren pulled together in about 6 months and then presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It had been half a year since we’d seen a production of Into the Woods. After watching this DVD, which showed only glimpses of the final production, we wanted to see the show again, immediately.

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I’ve been keeping lists of what my kids have been reading at various ages, although lately the 11 year old is going through them so quickly that I can’t possibly keep up. I don’t (necessarily) feel it’s my job to \”nurture\” their progress, but I do enjoy sharing books with my kids and talking with them about what they are reading.

My already-existing lists of book reviews are accessible at:

• Search book reviews by title, author, or subject matter
• All books
• Books etc.
• For children 5 and under
• For children 5 and up
• For children 8 and up
• Learning to read
• For children 12 and up
• Sophisticated readers
• Fat books (Deep books for sophisticated but young readers)
• About educators educating
• Technical Books
• Gifted Education
• Books whose protagonists are gifted, intellectually

From now on, I will try to blog out each review…And, I would love to hear what you think of the books reviewed.