crooked house

We're All Big Babies

 I first saw this photo, entitled "Big Baby," in Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species. She included it in the chapter devoted to parent-offspring conflict. The photo was taken by Grancel Fitz before the second World War and the caption in Hrdy's book says it was part of a series.  This is the only image I could find online and I couldn't find any information about Grancel Fitz him (or her?) self. I'd love to see the rest of the photos in the series.

We're all big babies in the crooked house this week -- we all, including Sylvie, came down with colds the minute Luke set foot over the threshold at nursery school. I'm debating whether or not to take the child out of school and all his activities, then lock David in the attic so he can't get out to work, and board over all the windows and doors until flu season is over.

To change the subject abruptly, doesn't Sylvie look sweet in her grey hat and jumper? My apologies for the blurry photo. All my photos are blurry lately. It's probably the cold medication.

How-To: Homemade Spider Hat Halloween Costume

All you need to make this spider hat are a costume bowler hat (like this one, although I found ours at a local dollar store for only two bucks), two large sheets of black construction paper, and a pair of self-adhesive googly eyes. Simply fold each sheet of construction paper lengthwise into four strips (for a total of eight legs). Cut the strips apart. Each strip should be folded twice -- once in the middle and once near the end -- and then unfolded again to make the legs appear segmented. Next, attach the strips to the hat. We didn't even have to use glue -- we simply tucked them into the hat band. Stick on the eyes et voilà! A spider hat.

A black sweatshirt and black pants, draped with spider webs like these or these, would complete the look. This was even easier to make than last year's homemade dragon costume. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about my second attempt at Sylvie's spider hat, made out of a dyed baby cap and stuffed toddler socks. 

Mother Nature and Our Halloween Costumes

Lately, while rocking Sylvie, I have been riveted by the excellent Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species. It is the most fascinating book I have read in a long, long time and that it is a non-fiction work of evolutionary biology and anthropology makes that fact even more surprising to me. The official Amazon review asserts that it "should be required reading for anyone who happens to be a human being." I couldn't agree more. And I have a lot to say about the book. But that will have to wait because the purpose of this post is to announce our Halloween costumes for this year. The idea came from this passage in Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's book:

The prize for "extreme maternal care" goes to one of the various matriphagous (yes, it means mother-eating) spiders. After laying her eggs, an Australian social spider (Diaea ergandros) continues to store nutrients in a new batch of eggs -- odd, oversize eggs, far too large to pass through her oviducts, and lacking genetic instructions. Since she breeds only once, what are they for?

These eggs are for eating, not for laying. But to be eaten by whom? As the spiderlings mature and begin to mill about, the mother becomes strangely subdued. She starts to turn mushy -- but in a liquefying rather than a sentimental way. As her tissue melts, her ravenous young literally suck her up, starting with her legs and eventually devouring the protein-rich eggs dissolving within her.

Yes, we are going as spiders. We're going to take a little artistic license, though. I'll go as a black widow, David as the poor black widower, and the kids will be Australian social spiders. I'm thinking we could perform a little interpretive dance on the front lawn for the trick-or-treaters. First, I imagine, David and I will simulate mating. Then I shall devour him and lay my eggs. Perhaps we'll have hidden the children under white sheets under a pile of leaves or something. The fact that Sylvie is not yet ambulatory will make it easier to hide her than Luke, who is not amenable to sitting still for long periods of time. Of course, Luke will do a better job of emerging and devouring my legs. 

I've already starting work on the costumes, with the help of our lovely babysitter, Holly. I sit there, rocking Sylvie and thinking up designs, and Holly gets to do all the work. The first hat we came up with, seen here on Sylvie, makes her look more like a Rastafarian than a spider, so I have devised a new design for her which I hope to put together later today. I am pleased with Luke's hat, which I will feature in the next post.

Lauren Child's (And Polly Borland's and Emily Jenkins's and R. John Wright's) Version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

In a post titled Separated at Birth? Betsy over at Fuse #8 noted the visual similarities between Lauren Child's version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Dare Wright's The Lonely Doll. I've never seen any of The Lonely Doll books -- Betsy says they're quite creepy, and feature teddy bears spanking the lonely doll and such -- but the picture of the Goldilocks cover in Betsy's post made me covet this particular version of the fairy tale. It came in the mail yesterday and both Luke and I love it. Child adds some nice details to the story and the photos are gorgeous, especially to a person as interested in little things as I am. And yes, I suppose the doll's blank face is kind of creepy but aren't all dolls a little bit creepy? And come to think of it, Goldilocks herself is a more than a bit creepy, what with her sociopathic breaking and entering tendencies. On the back flap of the book there's a smidgeon of information about how the photographs were made -- I was left wanting more. Like an entire documentary. And an animated television show.

Someone in the comments to Betsy's post noted that the project was really more photographer Polly Borland's baby than Lauren Child's and that Borland is a fan of Dare Wright's. Set designer Emily Jenkins deserves credit, too, I should think. The dolls themselves were made by R. John Wright and when I googled him, I discovered that you can buy a limited edition version of the Goldilocks and the Baby Bear used in the story -- for a mere $1225.oo. But get this, Betsy: he also offers a replica of Edith, the doll featured in The Lonely Doll. She's got "the finest" real human hair. And she's on sale for $1225.oo.

He also offers an absolutely gorgeous but still quite creepy Alice in Wonderland doll for $1475.oo. And a Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and more.

Back A Dictionary Story

 

 

I just pledged $20 through Kickstarter to support the production of artist Sam Winston's art book A Dictionary Story. If he manages to raise enough money for the project, I'll get a copy of the book, which was originally produced in a prohibitively expensive limited edition of 100. (Museums like MOMA own copies.) If Winston doesn't raise the money by October 13, I get my money back. I hope he raises enough in time. I love the idea for this book and I also love the idea of Kickstarter, which seems to me a great way for creative types to drum up interest in their projects -- and money. Via swissmiss. Go here to view the images enlarged.

Babies in Literature Series: Laurie Colwin's A Big Storm Knocked It Over

Laurie Colwin is as hilarious as Lorrie Moore (or as nerdy about word-play, depending on your point of view) but she's fundamentally more cheerful. Colwin's stuff reads mainly as the work of a mostly optimistic person with a few dark patches, say, like freckles. Moore's stuff is like the darkest dark chocolate, if dark chocolate were depressed and angry in addition to being bitter. Laurie Colwin is dead, however, and Lorrie Moore is not. For what that's worth.

I am tired. Am I making any sense at all?

Anyway. Here's a good bit about motherhood and the accompanying exhaustion from Laurie Colwin's lovely book A Big Storm Knocked It Over:

   That afternoon the babies were napping in Miranda's crib, an accomplishment their mothers felt was a kind of miracle. It was the first time they had managed to get both asleep at the same time. They sat on Jane Louise's couch, on opposite ends, drinking decaffeinated coffee. Edie yawned.

   "I'd love a cup of real coffee," she said. "But why should I feed him caffeine? He never sleeps as it is."

   "He sleeps a little," Jane Louise said.

   "I ought to hate you," Edie said. "Because Miranda sleeps through the night."

   "Yes, darling," said Jane Louise, "if you consider eleven o'clock at night till four in the morning sleeping through the night. Oh, sleep! Don't you remember how wonderful it used to feel?"

   "No," said Edie. "I'm too tired."

   "Someday," Jane Louise said, "they'll be fifteen years old. Just think of it."

   "You think of it," Edie said. "We'll be up all night wondering where they are. Then they'll be sixteen, and we'll lie in bed all night wondering if they cracked up the car. Then they'll be twenty, and we'll lie in bed terrified that they're taking drugs."

   "Well, most of the people we knew did, and look at them now," said Jane Louise. [...]

   "You look at them," Edie said glumly. "Oh, Christ. I'll never have a decent night's sleep for the rest of my life."

   "Oh well," Jane Louise said. "Anyone can sleep."

   "Perhaps we're so old that our cells are way past the regeneration point, so maybe it doesn't matter if we never sleep again, since we probably don't have any cells left to repair."

   "Hey," said Jane Louise, "why don't we just pass out quietly on the sofa while our little babies sleep?"

   "Because they'll only wake up," Edie said. "Besides, I'm too tired."

Babies in Literature Series: Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (with A Very Brief Appearance by Ernest Hemingway)

Completely gratuitous picture of Sylvie wearing a pink foam crown. She looks a bit apprenhensive about her responsiblities as a monarch, don't you think?

Yesterday Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs, which I'd preordered a few weeks ago, arrived. As soon as the kids were asleep I dove into it. It's written from the point of view of a college-aged babysitter (or perhaps more accurately, a middle-aged woman looking back on her experience as a college-aged babysitter) and so there are plenty of funny, insightful passages about pregnancy and babies. Like this one, about the protagonist Tassie's potential employers:

One forty-ish pregnant woman after another hung up my coat, sat me in her living room, then waddled out to the kitchen, got my tea, and waddled back in, clutching her back, slopping tea onto the saucer, and asking me questions. "What would you do if our little baby started crying and wouldn't stop?" "Are you available evenings?" "What do you think of as a useful educational activity for a small child?" I had no idea. I had never seen so many pregnant women in such a short time -- five in all. They alarmed me. They did not look radiant. They looked reddened with high blood pressure and frightened. "I would put him in his stroller and take him for a walk," I said.

It's true. Most forty-ish pregnant women look far from radiant. It's only the twenty-something pregnant women who look radiant. Mind you, most twenty-somethings tend to look radiant anyway.

Lorrie Moore is one of my favourites -- I absolutely adore her self-conscious jokiness and word-play. She's so zingy and yet heartrending at the same time. Take this little remark, apparently tossed off, from a description of Tassie's depressive mom:

...one year the holiday card my mother sent out was an October photo of my brother and me, with a caption that read The children. In some dead leaves.

Remove the "one year" (for the purposes of word count) and you've got an entire award-winning twitter-sized short short story right there. Ernest Hemingway and his "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" can eat his heart out.