Well, you could always turn to the surveillance database in the sky...if the supercomputer at the North Pole doesn't suit your needs either, that is.
It is definitely gratifying when the computer notices things like that. This week, I called to close out my cable account in anticipation of a move, and while the representative had to wait for something and was just chatting with me on the line, he said, "I notice here that you have a perfect payment record. That does not go unnoticed."
I never would have gotten that little "attaboy" if I'd been stealing cable TV and leeching off my neighbor's wireless.
He's making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out whose Nautilus bites: Santa Claus is running your gym.
At my gym, they are WAY too lax about scanning the cards. There is usually no one at the desk at all. So people just glide right in. I am certain there are plenty of people who have found this out from a variety of sources and do not pay for a membership. I want to scream, "Hey! I'm paying for this shit! SOMEBODY NEEDS TO ENFORCE THE CARD SCANNING UP IN HERE!" and ruin the freeby joy. Incidentally I had my wallet and phone stolen from this gym and blame the lack of card enforcement.
Gyms should offer a weekly report, mailed to your house, documenting time spent on various machines and energy expended, and conclude with a grade and computer-generated face expressing the degree of approval commensurate with your accomplishments.
My senior year, they went to a strict card-enforcement model at my small Christian college where everyone knows everyone else. I found the policy annoying, because it was nice to come to the gym without having to carry my ID or anything at all. Eventually, the inconvenience of showing my ID convinced me to give up exercise altogether.
I finally quit my gym because, well, I quit my job and won't be going to that area anymore. (Hooray!) But had I stayed I'd have considered changing gyms because mine didn't offer membership cards: instead, they provide crappy plastic keyring barcode thingees that inevitably fall off and must be replaced to the tune of $3, which is just enough to be a terrible nuisance. Running is plenty nuisance enough, thanks.
Those who go the gym only twice a month are people, too, Becks.
My "membership card" is actually one of those crappy plastic keyring barcode thingees. I don't mind it or have trouble with it breaking and falling off but, then again, I have a special set of "gym keys" with only the barcode thing and the key to my front door so I don't have to carry my whole big set of keys with me.
Hey, I'm not judging the person paying for the membership and only using the gym twice a month. I've been that person. That's why I want credit for going.
To this I link because it made me laugh out loud at the time. Also, because I can.
Waitwait. No linking to individual comments?
Your link worked for me. It jumped to the right comment.
I haven't been to a gym in at least ten fucking years. And when I bought gym memberships--twice--I used the fucking thing precisely once.
Y'all are freaks.
I hate card entry systems. I recognize their necessity but they just bug me and seem like a little bit of dehumanization in our big faceless society and I wish I could get away from them. One time I got in a screaming [well on my side] argument with the security guard for my dorm because he would not let The Modesto Wife-to-be come up to my room -- she was not a student and had no photo id, which you had to either demonstrate your student-hood by showing the guard your University ID, or else show him a photo ID in order to be signed in, in order to enter the dormitory. But I lived there as demonstrated by my ID (if my word were not enough) and I was vouching for her, and she was coming to my room, not to roam around the dorm breaking and entering at random. Made me mad it did.
So if I were at Becks' gym or Stroll's I would be happy about the situation of not needing to show/scan in order to get in. At my job it is weird, you need to display the ID twice (front door and elevator) and scan it twice (gate in front of the elevators and entry to your floor) in order to get to your desk. Most of the security staff is pretty laid-back though about the front door and elevator thingy so I usually get by with two scannings. Sigh...
You need to find a gym that collects biometric data: only those who actually sweat while there get credit.
I sometimes feel this way about Amazon and I-Tunes on their whole "tell us what you own so we can sell you stuff based on patterns of other consumers, because you're not that unique are you?" I want credit for owning thngs that I don't even own anymore,but did once.
I also thing the AI on the Itunes thing is pretty funny in its suggestions.
Amazon kind of freaks me out. I did a couple web searches the other day that *weren't* on their site, and then the next time I went over there, they just happened to be featuring things related to the web searches I'd done....
b
That is freakish. On another note, related to phallic references in children's books (I'm having nut brown hare nightmares) we just got a new bedtime book which features all these people actually going to sleep at the place they work (fireman in firetruck etc ). Naturally the farmer is sleeping with a sheep. Best part is the American Gorthic portrait of farmer and sheep hanging on wall.
Oh wow.
I just read PK James and the Giant Peach recently. Now, obviously the symbolism there is pretty clear, but I haven't read it since I was a kid myself. Reading it as an adult? I can't believe the thing ever got published. Dahl was so OBVIOUSLY writing about sex under the thinnest of veils. How did that book not get banned?
PK loved it, of course.
Because there's nothing explicitly sexual unless you start doing literary criticism on the symbolism? I am often a naive reader, and J&tGP never occurred to me as having a sexual subtext until you just said.
(Admittedly, once you say it -- tunneling through sweet, juicy flesh to arrive in a place of warmth and safety: I can see something going on there. And then impaling it on the Empire State Building probably isn't unconnected.)
Maybe we should just ban BitchPhd from talking about children's books. Will there be nothing that we can't fool ourselves into thinling is still innocent and pure? If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have seen that farmer sleeping with his sheep and thought about the mineshaft at all!
Why not just lean over the desk and scan the card yourself? This tactic seemed to cure my gym of the "wave-through" habit.
Additionally, it solves the ethical conundrum of what to do when the attendant has wandered away from the desk. Does one wait for two minutes (Time is Money, after all!) or sneak stealthily by and risk the sneers and admonishments of the gym-rule-literalists? Neither! Just climb all up on the front desk, swipe yourself (well, your card if you are not of a more adventurous inclination), and bask in your accomplishment of gaming the system.
Stop equivocating and get empowered, Becks! Climb on crap; swipe things; yell "Booyah!!!" at all your gym-enemies!
23: Exactly. Plus the dead parents, and the horrible, barren aunts, and then the fruit tree that hasn't borne in years being fertilized by the magic crocodile tongues that the old man gives James, secretly, in a paper bag at the bottom of the garden, and then the barren tree grows this ENORMOUS peach that's described in quite sensual and erotic language, really, and James tunnels inside, and when he tastes it it's *the* most delicious thing ever, and well, good lord.
In other news, the Black Stallion is totally racist. Which is too bad, because I really loved those books.
Please don't make me have to read teh Black Stallion again. Is it racist because of the way human characters are treated in the book, or in the language, or what? I don't even remember any human beings except the one kid.
Well, it is a black horse.
Seriously, I don't remember much except didn't the horse stop before the swept-away bridge, thereby saving everyone? (or was that another of the thousand horse-stories I read) And James and the Giant Peach is about sex? How do the sharks figure in?
And I like when the person recognizes me and waves me through, even though I realize that when the NSA wants to know my whereabouts and I plead that I was busy dominating the free weights, they will say LIAR, for I was not in the computer.
LOL. It's racist b/c you have the little white boy who masters the Big Arabian Wild Stallion (the horse's African origins are a made clear). Shit, the horse's name is The Black. They get shipwrecked on a desert island and he civilizes this beautiful huge beast, whose blackness, wildness, and studliness are emphasized over and over again.
Then in the next one, you have a little white boy who tames a Wild Red Stallion that he *finds* on an uninhabited island--i.e., the horse is Native to the island. This horse is named Big Red.
Later, the two horses have a match race. The Black wins.
Seriously, I don't remember much except didn't the horse stop before the swept-away bridge, thereby saving everyone?
I thought that was a dog hanging on to somebody's trousers, and a broken cliff path in the welsh mountains, and just one guy saved.
Maybe that was another story.
Oh. If there was symbolism in the Black Stallion, I missed it; but it might have been drowned out by the stories about Wild Ponies from Unpronounceable Islands (Chincoteagueawhatnow?) and the stories of Arabian boys riding the sulky to great acclaim while observing Ramadan (not one grape!)
29: The Island Stallion. And the Black wins by virtue of the superior jockey skills of his rider.
31: Yes, I missed it too, when I was a kid, for much the same reason. But I re-read it as an adult, and I'm telling you, I was shocked.
Goodness life was more fun when summers meant I could read pony stories.
"a made clear"? Oh well, you know what I meant.
34: B's wrong; she didn't read enough of the books. Cf. Boomerang on pool as a racist game.
Cala, did you ever read the Bonnie books? I sent all my old copies to my sister for my niece (they're out of print now). She told me the other day she'd never realized that Julie is the *only* girl in all five books. And I said yeah, she's kind of a token. But the books are really satisfying, nonetheless, because she's surrounded by all these supportive men, and when she runs into the occasional sexist, she stands up to him (and her male friends back her up).
'Scuse me, I read all of those books, and I know whereof I speak.
Now I'm going to go read PK The Cricket in Times Square. I'll let you know what it's troublesome subtext is in the next couple of days, when we finish it.
38: I gather the Bay Stallion is, then, the result of the mixing of the black & red races?
Have you forgotten about the RFID chip you authorized us to implant when you signed your gym membership? You may not remember the implantation because you also authorized us to sedate you during the procedure with amnesia-causing drugs. Your copy of the membership agreement no longer reflects any of that because you further authorized us to erase those provisions from your copy after you signed it.
But rest assured that we know how often you visit and what you do.
By the way, you're running low on milk.
- TGGC
And the Island stallion is Flame. Big Red is Man O'War.
It's racist b/c you have the little white boy who masters the Big Arabian Wild Stallion (the horse's African origins are a made clear). Shit, the horse's name is The Black. They get shipwrecked on a desert island and he civilizes this beautiful huge beast, whose blackness, wildness, and studliness are emphasized over and over again.
That sounds like one possible reading out of many, but no child is going to take that message away from the story---nor most parents for that matter. Another possibility might be that the story is describing the exhilirating fulfillment that comes with dominance/submission male homosexual intercourse. Separated from civilization, reduced to primal elements, the two protagonists are at last able to achieve fulfillment unbound from the stupifying artificialities of society.
Yet, there are many more innocent readings that may seem much more plausible. Sometimes a black stallion is just a black stallion, imho.
Oh, so it is: Big Red *is* Man O'War. I stand corrected.
Oh, the books are totally homosocial. And kids aren't going to take the subtext away consciously, no, of course not. But it's a bit much to assume that literary subtext has no effect unless one is conscious of it.
You can, of course, refuse to admit that literature *has* subtext. In which case I will consider you very silly indeed.
Also, as I recall, the Black's sire is grey. And much, much wilder.
Yes, you guys are right. A book about a wild black african stud that's written in the mid-20th century is almost certainly entirely free of racial subtext.
47: That's allwe really wanted, B.
Oh, the books are totally homosocial. And kids aren't going to take the subtext away consciously, no, of course not. But it's a bit much to assume that literary subtext has no effect unless one is conscious of it.
They won't take away the particular subtext you have in mind at all, imho. I don't think our unconscious minds perform the kind of literary criticism you're practicing here. When someone provides an explanation or interpretation that brings something lurking within our minds to the surface, we tend to experience a burst of energy in the form of a sudden recognition. But all I'm seeing here from other readers of the same books is surprise and mild disagreement.
I would say that art which portrays human beings of a particular minority as somehow inferior to the majority is likely to have the effect of communicating bigotry, via the communication of negative stereotypes, to a child's mind. But the propagation of racism via equestrian symbolism?
Of course, if you happened to read a lot of critical theory all the time, as some academics are wont to do, children's literature might become an entirely different experience, much like, for new medical students inundated by lists of symptoms and diseases, their common colds suddenly morph into rare forms of pneumonia.
You don't think that your unconscious mind adds up "savage" and "Africa" and "wild" and "stud" and "untamed" and comes up with anything racial?
You're right. It's just that I read way too much critical theory. Me and my overdeveloped academic reading skills.
You should read the fantastic Moomin books by Tove Jansson, recently mentioned ATM by Matt Weiner. No weird sexual undertones there as far as I recall. OK, maybe the Hattifatteners are a bit phallic and I also remember a cartoon where the Moomins smoke weed.
Everybody should read the mumin books. This is true. Especially the story about the filifjonk who believed in disasters.
Unfogged is turning into a site where people who know about the Moomins post. This is just right by me.
Moominpappa at Sea
SPOILERS
is pretty explicitly about Moomintroll's sexual maturing, isn't it? And how he learns to appreciate the profound charms of the Groke, who really cares for him, over the superficially pretty seahorses. Oh, and it begins with Moominpappa frustrated about how the family is ignoring him and he can't do anything for them -- he tries to keep the fire smoldering under the moss, but it goes out -- and ends with the lighthouse beginning to work again. I'm sure a trained professional like Bphd could do this much better.
What makes it good isn't the absence of subtext, but that the subtext tells a good story.
Now that everyone hates me, 16 reminds me that at Tech I have passed by a door with the following sign: "This is a male hall. Females must be escorted." WTF? Can they do that at a public university?
Also, the other day I saw an ad for an HMO that said (approx.) "Horizon has its finger on the pulse of the member." Why can't they use the wrist like everyone else?
These comments may be more on topic than I realized when I started them.
WTF? Can they do that at a public university?
I think single-sex dormitories were the rule until fairly recently. Do you know if the sign is reflecting a fule that is currently in force, or just hanging out there for historical reasons? Does your school have co-educational dormitories?
I actually don't know the answer to any of those questions, though the sign is handwritten which makes me think it's not historical. And it's "females must be escorted" that weirds me out, as opposed to "non-residents, a fortiori including all females, must be escorted." Also the use of "females" as a noun.
What other part of speech could "females" be used as? An intransitive verb? "Bitch, Ph. D. asked me to watch TPK while she females."
...A transitive verb? "Everybody's waiting for the day when Bitch, Ph. D. females Apostropher."
An adjective, modifying the noun that names what species the female in question is (human? goldfish?). I really dislike the use of 'female' as a noun meaning 'woman' -- I'm not dead sure why, I just find it grating on the ear.
Now that everyone hates me, 16 reminds me that at Tech I have passed by a door with the following sign: "This is a male hall. Females must be escorted." WTF? Can they do that at a public university?
I could see the reverse being unexceptionable in a single-sex women's dormitory (that is, female non-residents may be on the floor unaccompanied, male non-residents may not), so I can't see it as objectionable for a single-sex men's dorm, although I'd expect the constituency for such a rule to be greater in a women's than a men's dorm.
Of course, if it's anything other than a dorm, then WTF.
I assume it's a dorm. Never been inside. (60: Then it wouldn't have an 's', unless you're French. Are you French?)
The savate class I go to is in a posh gym of which I am not a member.
They just wave me in though when I say I am going to the class. Presumably if I was a nefarious free-rider I could use this to my advantage.
Kickboxing. Sport of the future.
62: No, I meant that female would generally be used as an adjective, not that it wasn't acting as a noun in the quoted sentence. (Although this is the sort of grammar question that I am incapable of answering -- isn't 'females' in the quoted sentence still an adjective, standing for the implied noun phrase 'female persons'?)
I'm under the impression female, which has always grated on my ear also, was a common usage in Victorian times. Given their otherwise-hypertrophied sense of delicacy toward same, it must not have had the clinical, watching-monkeys-mate echoes it has always had for me. We're not so strong in 19th C around here as some other periods, at least nobody habitually refers to its literature, but am I alone in my impression (again, thinks Mr. TMI, probably an even better handle than the one I have)?
64: But TMK's point was that I was complaining about the use of "females" as a noun, and that that word in particularly can't be used as anything but. It was grammar-picking! And I think it is a noun rather than an adjective there, for instance it gets pluralized as a noun, though I am making this up more than usually.
IDP, I think that "woman" was considered impolite in Victorian days.
I think the Victorian usage is an avoidance of a class marker -- looking for a word that covers both 'ladies' and 'women'. I'm not sure that I understand the sources of the current usage.
And thinking that about woman, they thought female better? It really must have mutated, at least in connotations.
55: Why would it be any better if they had their wrist on their member's member?
I think the real question is what Weiner was doing hanging out around outside the boys' dormitory.
It would be better if I were hanging around outside the female persons' dormitory?
I really dislike the use of 'female' as a noun meaning 'woman' -- I'm not dead sure why, I just find it grating on the ear.
It grates on my ear, too, mostly because I've encountered it by ev-psych types arguing that the 'female' is naturally the weaker/etc/etc, and those ev-psych types never use 'woman', just 'female', because they're talking about biology, not people.
Smasher, why did you quit your job? I assume taht you have others. Are you now a pure freelancer?
I am female, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend...
maybe they want to keep out little girls, as well as women. You know how pushy and intrusive they are.
This thread is asymptotically approaching a "women"/"female persons" joke that it would probably be wise to refrain from making.
wise to refrain from making
Too late, Mr. Perlocution.
That's "Mr. Praeteriteo" to you, buster.
re: 64
Took me a while to get the reference, then I remembered an ex-girlfriend with a John Cusack obsession.
(Actually, come to think of it, just about every girlfriend I've ever had has had a thing for John Cusack.... )
Hey, the joke hasn't really been made until I point out that women are only allowed on the hall if they're nicely bouncy.
HA! See who outscores Unfogged for "nicely bouncy".
You mean nicely bouncy custard balls?
54: Never read those books, so I can't tell if I'm being teased or not. But it being Matt, I suspect not. Therefore, Matt is right.
60: Because "female" is usually used (properly used) when describing things in a biological sense, or, as with electrical plugs, in a sense that's specifically about tabs and slots. It's insulting to refer to human beings as if they were things. It is an adjective: so in the sign Matt noticed, "male" is modifying hallway--the hall itself apprently has a sex, somehow--so that parallelism suggests, to me, that female constructions (doorways? windows?) must be accompanied. Perhaps it's calling for symmetrical architecture.
People still use "female" because they think it's more polite than "woman" or "girl" (also because they're uncomfortable calling young women "women"). I suspect the sense that it's more polite comes from the fact that it is an adjective: you're not pointing to the noun, which would be unseemly, you're just describing the thing discussed with a kind of vague gesture. It functions as a euphemism. Which is another reason, of course, why it's insulting. Using the word "man" is perfectly acceptable; using the word "woman," a lot of times, isn't. Because being a woman is bad, yo.
E.g., when speaking to children, people will refer to "that man" but almost never "that woman"--instead, they'll use "that lady."
82 -- are there custard balls on the pudding trolley?
You are now being teased for not having read those books.
Matt is right.
Sorta goes without saying, no?
Never read those books
Get right on that -- you'd love them, and TPK is just the right age. Start off with the early, less-weird ones and they will prepare him for the later, bizarre ones
85: Yeah, I knew that not reading them--in fact, I've never even heard of them; are they some geeky fantasy thing?--would pretty much get me banned.
And if not, referring to them as "some geeky fantasy thing" surely will.
And re. 54: I think there is also a sexual thing going on in Moominland Midwinter, with Moomintroll discovering new, unfamiliar urges as he explores the unfamiliar snow-covered landscape. He is hot for Too-ticky but she is gay. Friendly though, and she lets him down easy.
Is the Moomintroll thing all about male protagonists? I'm desperately trying to find some kind of fantasy/adventure books that have actual girls doing stuff in them.
are they some geeky fantasy thing?
Not at all. Very popular children's series in Europe, written between the mid-century and 1970 by . Really I think they'd be right up your alley.
Huh, I shall check those out. Thanks.
83: E.g., when speaking to children, people will refer to "that man" but almost never "that woman"--instead, they'll use "that lady."
I think that there's almost a reverse class thing going on here. "Lady" used to refer to genteel people. In an effort to be polite,people extended it to a whole bunch of people. So, mothers talking to their children will say, "do you want to thank the nice lady who packed our groceries?"
Only now, I never hear people refer to professional women or otther middle class people unless they are beyond a certain age, i.e. "old ladies." So, in a weird way lady hasalmost become a class marker. "Lady" is the word that people use when they think of the person as somehow inferior or weak. When people talk about old ladies, they're usually thinking about the relatively weak. More formidable characters are usually described as women, e.g., "She was a wonderful, warm and witty woman."
e actual girls doing stuff in them
Moomin books feature The Snork Maiden, Little My, and Moominmamma as central characters. Moominmamma is an adult but Snork Maiden and Little My would fit the bill I think. They are both stereotyped in certain ways but they break through their respective types often enough. Moomintroll (a boy) is the main protagonist but his adventures involve ongoing close interaction with the other characters. Other female characters: Too-tickey, Fillyjonk, and assorted minor characters. (And of course The Groke.)
As opposed to my colleague who refers to all women, regardless of age or class, as "gals."
Oh and Little My's sister, the Mymble's Daughter. She plays an important role in at least Moominsummer Madness.
Note that they were written by a Finn!
Speaking of nomenclature, I used to get into huge fights with my father who once referred to a 28-year-old woman as a "girl," and when I was like "WTF?" explained to me that "she's not married." For the next year I would harass him every time he called anyone a "girl" who was, like, over the age of 18. I was such a pain in the ass kid, but seriously.
Urk, poorly formatted link in 90. The page the second sentence is linking to is a Wikipaedia entry on Tove Jansson, whose name ought to have been the link text.
re: 89
There is the Philip Pullman stuff, the His Dark Materials trilogy which has a charismatic female protagonist.
Not sure if PK is old enough for them yet, though. They are fairly dark.
I'm desperately trying to find some kind of fantasy/adventure books that have actual girls doing stuff in them.
You want His Dark Materials by Pullman, especially the 1st book, The Golden Compass.
Other suggestions of a satirical/fantastical/adventurous sort, by Terry Pratchett:
Monstrous Regiment
Witches Abroad
Wyrd Sisters
Lords & Ladies
Maskerade
Carpe Jugulum
Soul Music
Hogfather
It's entirely possible you'll hate Pratchett (I have one friend who does, and consider her an aberration, but taste is always subjective), but I like all of these books and I think you'll find they all fit those criteria.
Man, I love pushing Pratchett or Pullman onto people. :)
re: 100
The Golden Compass not actually being called The Golden Compass here in the UK, though.
Note that they were written by a Finn!
Or at least by a Swede living in Finland.
I haven't reread the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books since I was a kid, but Eilonwy (sp?), while she's not the protagonist, has what I remember as a decent role. The Pratchett books, while I think they're great, are I think going to be over a five-year-old's head -- not inappropriate, just too complicated.
103: Northern Lights, isn't it?
And there's always Pippi Longstocking, the Narnia books, most things by E. Nesbit... let me think of some more.
The early Moomin books aren't great from the female-progatonist point of view, though; Snork Maiden is a bit helpless little girly, in the early books Fillyjonk is just plain hapless; not till the later weird (and awesome) books do you get female characters that would really meet the bill. (Though now that I think about it, the part in Moominpappa at Sea with Moominmamma disappearing into the wall painting could be seriously feminist.)
Bah, Pullman. The anti-clerical preachiness got on my nerves, and while the first book was very good the second was so-so and the third was one of those conclusions that is so awful it retrospectively ruins the earlier books.
re: 107
I found the 3rd one a let down I must admit. I didn't mind the anti-clerical preachiness though, being a 'hanging the last king by the guts of the last priest' kind of a guy.
Snork Maiden is a bit helpless little girly
But I think she is a real-person character in addition to the stereotype -- I got the impression many times in Comet and Finn Family that that was an act she was putting on to flirt with Moomintroll. A-and what about Little My? She kicks ass.
And re 106 -- I was going to suggest Narnia but was afraid B would jump down my throat.
Yeah, they're certainly got issues, but they don't suffer from the 'all the girls died somewhere offscreen' syndrome that a lot of adventurous books suffer from.
A fantasy trilogy with actual female protagonists, although maybe for 8-12 year-olds, might be that one written by Garth Nix. Lirael might be one of the titles? It's good, not earth-shattering, but good.
(Oy, could that first sentence be phrased any more awkwardly? Oh well.)
Little My does kick ass. Actually Moominsummer Madness is pre-weird (or maybe transitional) and has a bunch of real female characters; Misabel is a real character if not exactly admirable. Is Little My in any of the earlier books?
When we're talking about the weird stuff, btw, we mean: There is a part of Moominland Midwinter which will totally make PK cry. And possibly you. There's even a footnote about it.
Oh, we're talking for a five-year-old? Yeah - none of what I listed would work for that age range. HDM is ~10+, and Pratchett is (I would think) for significantly older than that (15, at least, to get all the snark).
PK would actually love anti-clerical preachiness; sadly, he's really pretty hostile to religion. I'm hoping he'll grow into a less bigoted mindset as he gets older. He did like the Narnia move, though, so even though I despise those books I'll probably read them to him at some point. LLoyd Alexander *is* fabulous. And of course there's also Madeline L'Engle. But he tends to like his adventure to have a healthy dose of humor in it, at least for now, and L'Engle isn't really terribly funny.
The Little House books are on the list, though. Maybe Pippi Longstocking. I remember being bored by it when I was a kid, but then again, my reading tastes were way different than PKs are turning out to be.
Again, E. Nesbit? I loved those books immoderately as a kid - they're a hair old for him (I haven't tried them on my six year old yet) but not hugely so.
These aren't adventures, so much, but all of the other Louisa May Alcott books? They're interestingly alien, and very girl-focused.
Is Little My in any of the earlier books?
Hm. I was thinking she was in Finn Family but now I think that's wrong.
As much as I love Alice now, there were a lot of aspects to it that I found just weird when I was a kid.
Not like that stopped me from reading it over and over.
Alice is pretty fun and he'll like it, but you have to admit that Alice herself is remarkably passive. Same problem with Oz, I think. Not that I won't read them, but I'd like a little more balance (and let's not even get into the problem of ethnicity--although luckily he adores trickster tales).
Nesbit, right. Again, something I didn't read as a kid, so don't tend to remember. I shall make a note of it right this second.
I'd argue about Oz as passive; that is, there is a 'one weird thing after another happens' tone which is, I guess, generally passive, but I don't think there's a passivity=female equation going on. And the sex change at the end of the second book has always struck me as a wonderful moment of gender weirdness.
Same problem with Oz
I haven't read it in over twenty years, but I recall liking The Land of Oz much more because the main character had much more to do than get carted around from authority to authority. Funny, I can't remember a thing about it now except for the furniture-beast. So, that may be a false impression.
I might also have a hangup about Oz because one of my best elementary-school friends was positively obsessed with those books, and yet I always found her (and her obsession) a little precious. It's funny that the tone I often hated in kids' books--that Englishy "and then a very strange thing happened!" tone (so condescending!) seems to really appeal to PK.
Oh well. Kids are weird.
if he likes that "then a very strange thing happened" sort of thing, you might try Mary Poppins on him.
True. He loves the movie. He also loves Cinderella.
I'm telling you, I've somehow given birth to a son whose tolerance for tweeness is way, way higher than my own.
An insight I had the other day and feel like sharing:
Belle and Sebastian (the group):twee::Audrey Tautou:gamine
That is, not only is the second a concept exemplified by the first, the first is practically the only thing to which it is applied anymore.
I'm not sure about that with regard to twee. Not only are more things than just B&S called twee, B&S themselves aren't even twee anymore!
See, e.g., "The Blues are Still Blue".
Is it not twee to sing "I'm crying now for my mum" in an alleged blues song? And that toy piano?
Compared to "Fox in the Snow"? And that song, despite its title, isn't bluesy at all. I would never allege it to be a blues song, anyway.
Anyway, some viewers of The Da Vinci Code allege that Tautou is not gamine any more. This doesn't change the fundamental point.
Did you see Anthony Lane's splendidly bitchy review of the Da Vinci Code in the New Yorker? He calls her "almost the only young French actress who emits not a hint of sexual radiation." At least a hint of sexual radiation is part of qualifying for "gamine" status, non?
The whole review illustrates that notion that panning a movie is an exercise in style for the critic. You get the sense that Lane is really enjoying hating on the DVC.
I kind of like B&S, so therefore they cannot be twee.
I was just having a conversation with a co-worker and was talking all fast and excited and got so worked up I accidentally swallowed my gum.
I am five years old.
You know it's gonna stay inside your tummy for, like, at least ten years, right?
Belle and Sebastian are real good live.
Know what else stays in your tummy that long? Satan.
Swallows and Amazons -- sailing books for PK. (Why are all the children's books I liked British?)
I am five years old.
Yeah. We know.
I have some insider knowledge vis a vis B & S having shared a flat with one of 'em.
With one or two possible exceptions, they're not really twee at all, in real life. And a couple of them could drink/party most 'rawk' bands under the table.
The music has definitely gotten less twee though.
Well, when you're out of yak's blood, you need something in your tummy.
trying to find some kind of fantasy/adventure books that have actual girls doing stuff in them
Terry Pratchett has written books for kids. See The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, which feature a sensible nine-year-old girl protagonist, a female mentor, and female bad guys. Also A Wrinkle in Time, The Wind in the Door, et al. The Artemis Fowl stories. Harry Potter?
Signs at my dorm proclaim the building to be "a women's dormitory," and warn that "male guests must be escorted."
Does it bear a striking similarity to your pseud?
Little House on the Prairie and the two more books there's a baby there's a mom and there's a sisters and there's a dad. And they have a pet dog named Jack.
Me: Butler, Sharp (RA), Butler (RA), where you are.
150: Woah, youngest commenter ever?
141: Matt, give it up with the googleproofing. You do it on about one comment out of every five.
152 -- yeah, she got some help with the transcription.
I mentioned to her that my friend had asked about books for her 5-year-old and I had recommended the Moomins and Narnia [not sure why I said this -- I didn't really recommend Narnia, just mentioned that I had considered recommending it], and she said "What about Little House on the Prairie?" (which we are taking a break from midway through right now to read The Last Battle) -- so I thought she ought to recommend it herself.
re: 153
I don't want to consistently google proof. I just don't want particular comments to come up as the main summary text in the result page of a search. If someone wants to troll through every comment thread I've ever posted on, they're welcome to do so if they turn out to be that interested.
I am so going to start listening regularly to the "twee as fuck" station on last.fm. That's a great list of bands.
Wait, if The Modesto Youngster is commenting, I should probably stop saying "fuck."
Don' worry 'bout it, we're a permissive household over here...
Matt -- here is the site I was trying to remember earlier, The Unofficial Moomin Characters Guide, which lists all characters with the books they were featured in. Little My's first major role was, as you indicated, in Moominsummer Madness.
Some other nice stuff I found while looking around: Oy Moomin Characters Ltd has some very nice animation. And you can place your pre-order now for Moomin: The Complete Comic Strip, Vol. I, which will be published later this year. Tove Jansson published the comic in the London Evening News from 1954 to 60. Four more volumes will be published over the next four years. Here's the press release.
re 50: You don't think that your unconscious mind adds up "savage" and "Africa" and "wild" and "stud" and "untamed" and comes up with anything racial?
You're right. It's just that I read way too much critical theory. Me and my overdeveloped academic reading skills.
Except that you're extracting a few words from their much larger context, thereby actually giving those words a new context and changing their meaning relative to the original context. I can do the same thing with the words "riding" "thrusting" "gripped with his legs" "muscular black flanks" "urged him on" "whispered encouragement into his ears" and so on. How clearly sexual. But in the original context, these are all perfectly appropriate words to describe the act of riding a powerful horse who happens to be black---which is simply an unusual color in horses, and thereby makes the creature all the more mysterious and unique.
And no, I don't think a child's unconscious mind deciphers a hidden racist message in a book about a black horse and a white kid, any more than a child's unconscious mind "deciphers" the hidden endorsement of homosexuality in SpongeBob Squarepants (or whatever) per Jerry Falwell.
There is also a Moomin animated series produced in Japan and a Disneyesque theme park. Tove Jansson was (she died in 2001) not a Swede but part of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, a Swedish-Finnish bilingual country.
There is also a Moomin animated series produced in Japan
And a separate Moomin animated series produced in the UK. Check out the excellent screen saver available there.
I have never watched the UK series. I got a DVD with 5 episodes of the Japanese one and found it pretty lame in comparison with the books, but pretty good in comparison with children's television. TMY is quite fond of it.
I don't know how illustrative it is of either B's or Andrew's point, but for some reason my sisters and I started referring to just about any creature with four legs that we wanted to aggrandize as "Wild Arabian Stallions." Everything from racoons in the backyard to plastic horses to snow-white miniature poodles.
Actually, I had totally forgotten where we'd gotten the phrase; it must've been from reading The Black Stallion, but clearly the phrase went feral in our vocabulary. Original context = demolished.
Thanks, didn't even know about the UK series. Maybe it has never been shown in Finland though that seems strange. I agree about the Japanese series.
89- Some good girl protagonist adventure books:
A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Engdahl
And there's a new series by Libba Bray, the first is called A Great and Terrible Beauty, the second Rebel Angels.
162: per Dobson, I believe. Let's try to keep our whackjobs straight, so to speak.
I really don't remember all of the pony story books, and I think I had The Black Stallion mixed up with Black Beauty, but I don't remember even subtle racism. If I recall, all of the stories of that sort lavishly described the horse's color (Sea Star lived near the Sea, and had a star on his nose), bloodline ('cause the Arabian pwned, you see), power, and had a general Mary-Sue sort of quality (it was only this special boy who could tame this horse.) There was a fair amount of exoticism (not one grape!), which can be harmful, but not so much the white-man's burden nonsense.
In other words, if PK reads a lot of horsie stories, then he'll think that his destiny is to tame lots of horses, preferably during lonely summers on the seashore, sorrels and dappled grays and black stallions. I suspect whatever racism resulting from the description is probably over his head.
I second the Pratchett stories.
165: We've established, I think, that horses are Definitely Not In Any Way vectors for the sexual sublimation of little girls, JM.
I would like to say, tucked away here where few will see it, that it is annoying when you are reading an article about the word "might" and the author starts going on about subalgebras and probability spaces.
Ttam -- are you kidding?!1!! I live for that kind of thing.
My late grandmother was a friend of Tove Jansson when they were young. They went to art school together.
The comic strip is great, but quite different from the book. She was, among other things an amazing illustrator and cartoonist.
Hero and the Crown for PK when he gets a bit older.
Ronia the Robber's Daughter's by Astrid Lindgren fits all your criteria, I think. Lindgren's wrote tons of good stuff besides Pippi Longstocking, most of it without fantastical elements. In Sweden, like thirty of her books are perennial classics that everyone's read as a child. Karlsson-on-the-Roof was my favorite, I think. I haven't read any of them as an adult, mind.
Jansson's way better, though.