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I'm all for music in the schools, but maybe not so much for my kids. They've brought home a trumpet and a flute, and they are to practice for 20 minutes a day which, I can tell you right now, is about 19 minutes and 30 seconds too long.
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In theory, I have nothing against Harry Potter. Whatever. He's a wizard, and that's cool. I personally didn't find the writing compelling and have only read about half of the first book. The fantasy genre, in general, doesn't appeal to my kids (I've tried, I've tried...), so they haven't read them either. What drives me nuts is that some folks believe that the extraordinary length of the books makes them somehow more challenging or important than books that don't weigh in at 10 pounds. The owner of a children's (indie) bookstore, The Reading Reptile," reports on an experience with a customer who has fallen for the fallacy:
I’m standing [in front of this lady] trying to find a book thick enough for her brilliant six-year-old...It’s bizarre, and troubling. I think about Jenny and the Cat Club, My Father’s Dragon, Randall Jarrell’s Animal Family, and all the treasures this young genius may never read because they have too many pictures and they aren’t thick enough. Somewhere along the line Harry Potter has become an arbitrary benchmark, something much different than the literary cure-all it’s still touted to be. The fact is Harry Potter has stolen as many readers as it has inspired. Banished them to strange criteria of weight and size, and hype. “Big” books are now published in the hundreds of thousands, stacked up like buildings in stores where most of the employees have never even heard of Angela Johnson or Jack Gantos, Tor Seidler or Polly Horvath.
The whole post (scroll down to "TEN SECONDS: Running the Hurdles with Harry Potter") is super funny, sharp, and distinctly bittersweet.
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Sometimes I'm just infuriated.
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Lately, I am fascinated by business. By commerce, by globalization. I was just reading a riveting article about why, despite valiant marketing attempts, we do not eat chocolate from Venezuela, which is a country that boasts the best cacao beans in the world and which, in turn, sells this raw material to the famous chocolatiers of Europe. Well, it's because we've been conditioned to believe that fine chocolate comes from Switzerland and Belgium. It's the same for Chilean winemakers, airplanes from Brazil, or Turkish refrigerators. Corona beer (once described as "Mexican lemonade") used to have the identical problem, but their relentless branding now downplays its country of origin. Anyways, the term for this is the "provenance paradox."
It applies to a lot of things, as far as I can tell. Including writers.
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Some months ago, our microwave oven fritzed out. We have not spent the time required to ease it out of its cabinetry (I think the cabinets were built around it when we had the kitchen remodeled), so we've just been going without. And you know what I've discovered? You don't need a microwave FOR ANYTHING.
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Just noticed: I have very thin, old lady wrists. 'Tis the only thing "thin" about me. But never mind: I celebrate my medium-ness. Really. Oh, crap.
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