crooked house

The B Word on The L Word

On last night's episode of The L Word (my current favourite television escape -- I'm hoping this season doesn't end before Big Love comes back), internet journalist Alice is banned from a film set by her friend Tina, a producer, who is angry at her for outing the film's star on a television talk show.

"And you can't bloog about this, Alice!" says Tina.

I think the mispronunciation was  the result of the way the actress's mouth goes sometimes when she talks and not an intentional joke. But I enjoyed it enough to hit rewind three times.

H. R. Pufnstuf

Speaking of odd, trippy children's television shows, while looking for information about Yo Gabba Gabba, I happened upon this clip. For years I wasn't sure if I'd dreamed it -- and if I did, what that might mean about my mental health -- or if it was an actual show. It was an actual show. Thank you google for putting my mind at ease.

Luke's Names for Yo Gabba Gabba: Check Back for Updates

Treehouse, a Canadian children's cable television channel, started playing the show Yo Gabba Gabba earlier  today. So far Luke, who performed a little techno-jiggy-bounce dance pretty much the entire time it was on, has called it:

1) Go Ugga Ugga
2) Dubba Dubba Dubba
and
3) Abracadabra

Jennifer Niesslein on Self-Help

In an interesting article in Sunday's Washington Post Jennifer Niesslein takes aim on on the culture of self-help:

If you believe in luck, you're not alone, but I have to tell you: You're in the minority. If the billions of bucks the self-help industry makes is any indication, a substantial percentage of us believe that with the right manual and a can-do attitude, we can take charge and fix anything -- from our clutter problems to our marriages to our existential angst.

I'm utterly fascinated by this topic and, in fact, I'm working around the edges of a novel for children on the theme.*  I think the self-help/positive thinking "industry" (for lack of a better term) has almost come to take the place of religion in our society. I don't believe that positive thinking isn't important -- or in some cases absolutely vital. On the contrary. But I think that those who claim it is everything are sorely deluded and absolutely blind to those on this planet who are suffering due to circumstances beyond their control. If  you saw that recent episode of Oprah called "The Secret Behind the Secret" you know what I mean. Children living in war-torn countries always spring immediately to mind when some helmut-haired lady in a glossy pants suit starts talking about doing a little magical thinking in order to materialize high-end appliances in your kitchen or whatever.  And yet, there can be a surprising power in positive thought -- not to mention that sometimes it's all you've got to cling to.  In which case, I always think, you're better off clinging as tightly as you can. Although this notion is in direct opposition to another idea I'm attracted to. That one is: When you're falling, dive. As you can see, I'm not ready to go on Oprah with any answers. Or even half-formed questions, actually. In any case, the topic is complicated and compelling and deserves more critical -- or maybe I mean academic -- attention that it seems to get.

*On my bedside table, for research purposes: E. Nesbit's Five Children and It, a book about the sometimes unpleasant consequences of getting what you wish for.

Dancing With A British Guy At Three In the Morning

There's nothing like a good book when you're still awake at 3 am. There's nothing like a good series of them when you're awake at still awake at 3 am every night for... well, a whole bunch of nights.  So I am very much enjoying my current roman-fleuve. (I am using the term roman-fleuve, which I recently came across in this old review of Terry Teachout's, as much as possible in an effort to try to remember it for more than a couple of weeks. It might come in useful some day, say for Scrabble.)

Beyond how engaging and entertaining it is, what strikes me most about Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time is that much of the story is told in summary form -- Powell is constantly breaking that old writing workshop chestnut "show, don't tell." This is notable in such a long work  precisely because the work is so long. You'd think there'd be plenty of room for endlessly drawn-out, conscientiously detailed scenes. I don't mean to suggest there aren't any. There are and they are very well-written.  But there are many, many other cases where we get a brief summary of important events delivered quite often through conversation at some dinner party or other social gathering. I was puzzled by this at first, even a bit put off, but the more I read the more I see how brilliantly suitable this technique is for a series of novels that deal with a central character's interest in the lives of the other people around him. It very accurately mirrors the reality of the way we learn about those around us -- just as Powell's contemporary Viriginia Woolf's  stream-of-consciousness mirrors the reality of the way we experience our own stories. Interestingly, Powell disliked Woolf's work. This makes sense on one level, of course -- Woolf's work is so inward while Powell's is so outward. But both capture the reality of the way it feels to experience their very opposite kinds of stories. Woolf deals with the difficulty of trying to understand the self. Powell deals with the impossibility of ever being able to fully understand anyone else.  Both, I'm assuming, spent their fair share of time wide awake in the middle of the night.

Update on the Crumbling Teeth in the Crooked House

Thank you all so much for the kind words and the good thoughts and the stories about your experiences. They help, they really do.

We still haven't heard a peep from the dental unit at the hospital despite my repeated attempts to get in, so our family dentist (who said he believes the rapid deterioration must be due to the reflux) is going to try to treat Luke's tooth on Saturday. Without any form of anesthetic.* If it hurts even a tiny bit, obviously it's not going to happen because Luke will have a fit. And try as you might, you're not going to be able to dig around in the mouth of a screaming, flailing toddler. Unless you restrain him by wrapping him up in a sheet, which is apparently what dentists used to do.  No wonder so many older adults have a phobia of dentists. I'm surprised they don't have their own sub-genre in the horror movie category.

I've been talking about my anxieties about Luke's teeth for days now -- here at home to whoever else is present, on the phone, out in public, to random strangers on the internet -- and although Luke has seemed preoccupied with his own concerns (lately they include running around the empty front room upstairs screaming, "Echo!"; playing  a kind of combination of basketball and bowling game in the downstairs hallway; chasing the cats around the house in order to "kiss" them) clearly on some level he's been paying attention. Yesterday when Melissa came over he greeted her with a worried look and the announcement, "I have a big problem! With two of my teeth!" Obviously it's time for me to shut up.

He was very good at the dentist's office yesterday.  When it was time, he hopped right up on the giant reclining chair and looked up at the TV on the ceiling where Barney and his friends were dancing and singing. He was patient and cooperative when the dentist looked at his mouth and continued to watch TV while we all debated what to do. Then we came home. Although, come to think of it, I later overheard Luke saying something to Melissa about the dentist "fixing" his teeth.

This morning, when I hung up the phone after a quick conversation with the dentist's secretary, Luke said, "Who was that?"

I said, "That was the dentist's office. You're going to see him on Saturday!"

"Again?!" he said.

Oh dear. Yes, again. And again and again and again and again and again.

*The dentist could try to numb Luke's mouth with a needle, the way they do for older children and adults, but once you stick a needle in a toddler's mouth forget about ever going back in there with the toddler's consent. Our local hospital used to give privileges to dentists who wanted to do surgery under general anesthesia but that's stopped, due to cutbacks. Maybe we could numb the pain with a bottle of whiskey. My pain, that is, not poor Luke's. Our dentist told us the state of pediatric dentistry here is deplorable -- there are only three pediatric dentists working at the IWK in Halifax. And the IWK serves the entire Maritime region, as far as I know.  I'm glad we're trying to do something -- apparently their waiting list is at least a year long and Luke's only been on it for six or seven weeks. But I don't know how much, if anything, the dentist will be able to  do under these circumstances.

Days Like Today

So in addition to all the ailments Luke's had lately, one of his front teeth crumbled on Saturday. His teeth have never been very good. I haven't mentioned it before on this blog but Luke was a preemie who turned out to have the most severe case of GERD his pediatrician had ever seen -- milk coming back up into his throat and nose caused him to stop breathing three times in the first six weeks after we'd brought him home. And when he was breathing and he wasn't attached to the breast or a bottle, he was basically screaming in agony. Around the clock. The worst of it lasted for about five or six months and it didn't really feel under control until he was over a year old. At the beginning, after he'd stopped breathing a couple of times and before we had the right diagnosis, the right medications and a series of night nurses to help us get a little sleep, I was a basket case. I could not hold Luke in my arms without visualizing his funeral. (My mental health probably wasn't helped by the fact I'd had four miscarriages before I was able to carry Luke to term -- and that David's mom died suddenly and unexpectedly in her sleep a month before his birth.)

I'm not sure if Luke's problems with his teeth are a result of GERD, his prematurity, the fact that he was intubated, the fact that he's had pneumonia two times, the fact that he had to be fed small amounts pretty much constantly and continues to have some feeding issues, the medications he's been on, the extra acid in his mouth, genetics, or some combination of any or all of these factors. Whatever it is, I feel guilty about it. And anxious. And frustrated -- I mentioned my concerns about his teeth to the pediatrician a year ago. She passed the buck to our family dentist, who saw him six months ago but did nothing until January when I pushed to have Luke referred to the pediatric dental unit at the IWK Children's Hospital (where he was born). I've been calling the dental unit every week or so, since. (And of course,  I called them about six or seven times today before I finally got to speak to a human who told me a dental assistant would call me back, possibly over the next day or two.) When a dentist does get a look at his teeth, he or she will probably want to do some form of surgery which, at Luke's age, would mean general anesthesia. Unless, of course, they don't consider Luke's case to be as high priority as some of their other cases. That would be bad, too -- how much more damage will occur if his teeth continue to go untreated? I lay awake last night catastrophizing about all of this until I finally fell asleep at 2 am. At 5:30 am I woke up and started worrying again. By far the most difficult and frustrating part of dealing with Luke's illness and its various complications has been trying to get him the proper care.

Although I want to and mean to, I haven't really been able to write properly about any of this yet. And I didn't -- and still don't --  ever intend to do it on this blog in any detail.  It was such an intense and overwhelming experience it would probably be best told through fiction. So much happened. It was all so huge and frightening and terrible and only a few people failed to be helpful and most people were amazingly good to us. But right now, again, I'm feeling just a little of the anxiety I used to feel when Luke was so tiny and new and so sick and I held him in my arms and couldn't see his future. I personally know of three women who carried babies to term -- and then suddenly, for whatever reason, those babies died. Through google, I've learned about many more.  So when I'm feeling sane, I know that we've only had enough trouble to begin to understand just how lucky we are.

And then there are days like today. Posting may be a bit light this week.

 

Wild Things In Jeopardy

Oh, this is a shame: the rumour is that Warner Brothers is freaked out  by Spike Jonze's version of Where the Wild Things Are and that the film might be reshot by some other director. You can see an early, unpolished clip from the movie here. Scroll down and read the comments for reaction from someone who went to a test screening. (Via educating alice.)  Fingers crossed that things work out and we get to see Jonze's version.

Literary Parents: The Waugh Fathers

For some time I've been meaning to link to this excellent and informative post called The Waugh Family Guide to Fatherhood on Levi Stahl's blog. I keep thinking Paul Nyhan might enjoy it, since  his  beat is all things father-ish. (I'm going to cheat a bit and consider this the third in my ill-fated series of posts on literary parents.)

Champagne Marmite. Or: Please Feel Free to Send Me Other Things I Am Bound to Dislike.

Back in September I linked to a British television ad featuring Paddington Bear and marmite. In that post I mentioned that I thought marmite was absolutely disgusting. Now marmite doesn't get a lot of play over here in Canada (and no wonder) so I was unaware at the time that there's a whole elaborate "Love It or Hate It" marketing campaign around the sickening yeast spread.

I discovered it through google when, on Valentine's Day, I received an email informing me -- in very bad poetry, no less -- that I would shortly be receiving a bottle of a special limited edition marmite: Champagne Marmite for Lovers. It arrived on Monday. This is what it looks like:

Apparently the awful stuff got a lot of attention in the British media just before Valentine's Day. To go along with its release, a 7 ft tall replica of Rodin's The Kiss was sculpted out of the wretched substance and erected in London's Greenwich Park. Here is what that looks like:

It looks a bit like chocolate, don't you think? But I'm sure if you were anywhere near it, you'd know at once that it is not, in fact, chocolate -- due to its stench. Marmite reeks. On Monday, my cousin Melissa happened to be here when I opened up the package.  Initially, she was keen to try it. And I have to admit I was very close to giving the stuff another go -- until, that is, I opened the bottle and smelled it. It's the kind of smell that makes your head rear back involuntarily.  I waved the stuff in Melissa's general direction and she too reared back her head. But, in the interest of research, she took the spoon I offered her and tasted. A second later she was spitting the stuff out into the bathroom sink.

I'm not sure how my hatred for marmite is supposed to contribute to its continued  (and, in my opinion, inconceivable) success as a food product -- I suspect they'd be better off marketing it as a kind of  furniture polish or as fish bait perhaps -- but I guess it has something to do with the oft-repeated notion that "no publicity is bad publicity."  Generate a controversy about a product and people might begin to feel the urge to try it, to see for themselves. The only other similar marketing campaign I  can think of is a local one for a kind of cough syrup called Buckley's. Its tag line is "It tastes awful. And it works." I've always been surprised that the stuff sells at all, considering how delicious most modern cough syrups taste. And how they all tend to work exactly the same way. Oh yes, actually I can think of a similar marketing campaign --those court-ordered anti-smoking ads put out by cigarette companies. Some of those are so bad they seem deliberately bad, as if they were secretly designed to convince teenagers to begin smoking using the principle of reverse psychology.  As this article notes, "...smoking is an act of rebellion, and that kids are more inclined to start not in spite of anti-tobacco propaganda but because of it."

Anyway. Having devoted an entire post to blogvertising a product I don't like -- and for no monetary compensation -- I suppose I am now officially a freebie whore. Please feel free to send me other things I am bound to dislike and I will do my best to publicly disparage them.