Almost as appealing as a nailclipper next to a plate of eggs
January 21, 2015 4:48 AM Subscribe
"Mount it on the wall, idiots" is a great line.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:59 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:59 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Which unlocked window do you think the bunny used to escape and runaway?
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:03 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:03 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
I also enjoyed her post on tattoos vs. babies.
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on January 21, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on January 21, 2015 [12 favorites]
Regarding the design of the room: someone doesn't get that tastes change. A lot.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clvrmnky at 5:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I had never noticed that the room contains a copy of the book Goodnight Moon right there on the side table: it's an infinitely recursive scene.
posted by chavenet at 5:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 5:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
In case anyone missed it, Goodnight Keith Moon.
posted by colie at 5:06 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by colie at 5:06 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
The author needs to be reminded that the book in question is fiction.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 5:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have always assumed the bunny is a wealthy Downton Abbey bunny, though. That's his nanny and his room IS enormous and obviously he has a day nursery full of toys elsewhere ... This is just the night nursery.
But I like this guy. I sympathize with people who over think children's media because of overexposure!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
But I like this guy. I sympathize with people who over think children's media because of overexposure!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
I had never noticed that the room contains a copy of the book Goodnight Moon right there on the side table
Huh, oddly, I'd never noticed that, but I did notice that the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs also includes a picture of [page turn] the cow jumping over the moon.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:14 AM on January 21, 2015
Huh, oddly, I'd never noticed that, but I did notice that the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs also includes a picture of [page turn] the cow jumping over the moon.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:14 AM on January 21, 2015
Wait, so "mush" is some kind of specific dish? I thought it just meant some kind of generic mushy thing, like "gloop".
posted by Bugbread at 5:23 AM on January 21, 2015
posted by Bugbread at 5:23 AM on January 21, 2015
It's a sort of corn pudding.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:25 AM on January 21, 2015
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:25 AM on January 21, 2015
The clothesline is to dry mittens and socks wet from being out in the snow or rain, right? It's not where you dry clothes after washing them.
Also, a lot of this person's issue seems to be that the bunnies don't live in New York.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:26 AM on January 21, 2015 [21 favorites]
Also, a lot of this person's issue seems to be that the bunnies don't live in New York.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:26 AM on January 21, 2015 [21 favorites]
Cornmeal mush is another name for polenta. (Who lets a young child eat a potentially messy food like polenta in bed?)
posted by Anne Neville at 5:36 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Anne Neville at 5:36 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
There are bigger problems with the Goodnight Moon bedroom. The moon is 10 times closer to Earth than in our world, and it's getting closer: Link
posted by Anne Neville at 5:41 AM on January 21, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by Anne Neville at 5:41 AM on January 21, 2015 [16 favorites]
1) In which modern city dwellers begin to learn the limits of being urban middle-class. (And to be honest, I had a cheap 3br on Providence's East Side that had a bedroom that big that we used for the kid's room.)
2) In which parents without grandparents who are woodworking aficionados begin to learn the limits of "Melissa and Doug."
3) Remember when people would paint everything white and gray and put huge black graphics on the walls? Man, that was tacky. That was five years ago. Remember 70's wallpaper? Google it. I'll wait. That is shit people actually bought with their own money and deliberately put on their walls.
4) Board books and story compilations. Also, book sets. They don't have them anymore, but when I was a kid, I had an eight volume set of illustrated children's folk stories that was handed down from my Dad, and each was easily as thick. My favorite was the one with Native American fables.
5) We have a humidifier, a jewelry box, a clock, a brush, a basket with a brush, detangler spray, moisturizer, lip-balm and nasal saline and a whale my kid made out of a paper bag and a blue marker on our table, and sometimes a cup of water or milk.
6) That's a clothes drying rack, used for drip-dry garments, and put into service here with some clothespins for drying mittens and gloves. Used to have a rickety wooden one just like it, until we upgraded to a fancy metal accordion model a couple years back.
7) Oh, I know, we'll turn down our hand-me-down bed because it doesn't go with the carpet.
8) Relax, it's electric.
9) There's no mouse, what's she talking about?
10) I actually had a toy telephone that looked a lot like this, it had a cable that went to another one just like it in another room.
11) Three little bears? Hello?
12) Almost all of our kid's toys are downstairs, as she doesn't like playing alone, and likes someone around.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:43 AM on January 21, 2015 [11 favorites]
2) In which parents without grandparents who are woodworking aficionados begin to learn the limits of "Melissa and Doug."
3) Remember when people would paint everything white and gray and put huge black graphics on the walls? Man, that was tacky. That was five years ago. Remember 70's wallpaper? Google it. I'll wait. That is shit people actually bought with their own money and deliberately put on their walls.
4) Board books and story compilations. Also, book sets. They don't have them anymore, but when I was a kid, I had an eight volume set of illustrated children's folk stories that was handed down from my Dad, and each was easily as thick. My favorite was the one with Native American fables.
5) We have a humidifier, a jewelry box, a clock, a brush, a basket with a brush, detangler spray, moisturizer, lip-balm and nasal saline and a whale my kid made out of a paper bag and a blue marker on our table, and sometimes a cup of water or milk.
6) That's a clothes drying rack, used for drip-dry garments, and put into service here with some clothespins for drying mittens and gloves. Used to have a rickety wooden one just like it, until we upgraded to a fancy metal accordion model a couple years back.
7) Oh, I know, we'll turn down our hand-me-down bed because it doesn't go with the carpet.
8) Relax, it's electric.
9) There's no mouse, what's she talking about?
10) I actually had a toy telephone that looked a lot like this, it had a cable that went to another one just like it in another room.
11) Three little bears? Hello?
12) Almost all of our kid's toys are downstairs, as she doesn't like playing alone, and likes someone around.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:43 AM on January 21, 2015 [11 favorites]
There's a lot of books my toddler really likes that I just can't stand. Goodnight Moon is one of them. There's really nothing good about it. I tried I Want My Hat Back, but she's mostly uninterested. Fortunately we can both agree on Dr Seuss.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 5:44 AM on January 21, 2015
posted by Ham Snadwich at 5:44 AM on January 21, 2015
No one tell this person about the mist of fecal particles coating more or less everything
posted by thelonius at 5:46 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:46 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
> 12) Almost all of our kid's toys are downstairs
where you can step on them in the dark.
posted by jfuller at 5:49 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
where you can step on them in the dark.
posted by jfuller at 5:49 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
I wonder what this writer would think of a book with an even more complicated and longer-ago setting and which follows even more distant literary conventions - maybe Moby Dick or Great Expectations or something. Gutting the floating corpse of a whale for the fat? Who does that? Why would anyone have a wooden leg instead of one of those cool prosthetics? This boat would rent for $10,000 a day in New York!
posted by Frowner at 5:54 AM on January 21, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 5:54 AM on January 21, 2015 [17 favorites]
I love this. When I initially looked at the room picture (never having read the book before) I felt a sense of mild irritation. I couldn't put a finger on it, so it didn't feel particularly nice or fair to the illustrator to feel that way. (I can hear my parents... "Someone put a lot of work into that, you know. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.")
/mantecol issues dislodged by that bear therapy session
So to have her break it down and point out the details that probably never would have come into consciousness for me, it's "food for thought" in the best sense of the term.
She's got a lucky kid.
posted by mantecol at 5:59 AM on January 21, 2015
/mantecol issues dislodged by that bear therapy session
So to have her break it down and point out the details that probably never would have come into consciousness for me, it's "food for thought" in the best sense of the term.
She's got a lucky kid.
posted by mantecol at 5:59 AM on January 21, 2015
I never realized before I had a baby--Goodnight Moon is a.maz.ing. It is so freakin calming and soothing in both images and words. It is a metaphor for unconsciousness, mirroring the thought processes of going to sleep in a bedroom. The objects focused on are specific but timeless, primal and mundane, and are both real things that could be in a bedroom and mystical symbols of childhood that will last in the child reader's memory forever. There are no emotions but in things. It might be the greatest poem and/or comic of the 20th Century.
Especially the way the room gets progressively darker as the book goes on, interspersed with the white pages of the closeups and how perfectly that lulls you to sleep. My baby is obsessed with that progression. I read it to her every night and I can't imagine getting tired of it. So I get the remixes and the snarky takes that's all in fun, but let's not lose sight of what an amazing achievement of art the original is.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:02 AM on January 21, 2015 [32 favorites]
Especially the way the room gets progressively darker as the book goes on, interspersed with the white pages of the closeups and how perfectly that lulls you to sleep. My baby is obsessed with that progression. I read it to her every night and I can't imagine getting tired of it. So I get the remixes and the snarky takes that's all in fun, but let's not lose sight of what an amazing achievement of art the original is.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:02 AM on January 21, 2015 [32 favorites]
I think a lot of the size stuff in this has to do with the fact that it's a book for kids; yeah, even my bedroom, which is large, doesn't look as huge to me as that room, but when you're little everything else is enormous. Same with the dollhouse; when you're five, you can have a dollhouse that's almost as big as you are and it's awesome but not gargantuan, whereas a dollhouse almost as big as I am now would be massive. The perspective of the room is that of the little bunny, not the grown-up bunny.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:03 AM on January 21, 2015 [19 favorites]
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:03 AM on January 21, 2015 [19 favorites]
A very NSFW reading of Goodnight Moon. Also not safe for kids, or some parents...
posted by alfanut at 6:04 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by alfanut at 6:04 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
The only "problem" with the color scheme is the author's lack of understanding of the particular needs and limitations of the lagomorph visual spectrum. As a trained biologist of many years' standing, I can tell you that owing to their long evolution as herbivorous prey animals with a tendency to shelter in low-lying grass lands, copses, and the like, the various species have developed a sensitivity to the tomato red and mustard yellow end of the color spectrum, the better to detect and avoid potential predators lurking in the dark green portions of their environment. Couple this with their preference for low ambient-light settings, the better to duplicate their natural underground habitat, and one can see why the color choice of the room is the perfect protection for a young rabbit, or "kit", in need of comfort and succor. *
Perhaps the author should strive to move past her species-ist way of thinking before she criticizes areas of animal behavior she is clearly incapable of comprehending.
* - n.b.; may be complete bullshit.
posted by Curious Artificer at 6:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [25 favorites]
Perhaps the author should strive to move past her species-ist way of thinking before she criticizes areas of animal behavior she is clearly incapable of comprehending.
* - n.b.; may be complete bullshit.
posted by Curious Artificer at 6:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [25 favorites]
This comes across as nothing more than a racist screed. The Rabbits on Kepler-186f simply have different social conventions than us. Just because our first robotic FTL mission to their world was destroyed by a space squadron of airborne enhanced-bovine attack craft is no reason to promote this kind of inflammatory anti-Rabbit propaganda. Why can't we just enjoy the cultural exchange materials as they are?
posted by Poldo at 6:07 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Poldo at 6:07 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
but let's not lose sight of what an amazing achievement of art the original is.
You know what? You're right. Now that I've a few years worth of distance on nightly readings of the thing, "Goodnight Moon" does stand out as a pretty damn good book for very young kids. "Runaway Bunny" isn't chopped liver, either.
Somebody mentioned "Curious George". Here's the best pedantic takedown of THAT.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
You know what? You're right. Now that I've a few years worth of distance on nightly readings of the thing, "Goodnight Moon" does stand out as a pretty damn good book for very young kids. "Runaway Bunny" isn't chopped liver, either.
Somebody mentioned "Curious George". Here's the best pedantic takedown of THAT.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:11 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not as funny as it could have been.
I always think of it as being the grandmother's bedroom, but maybe that's because it reminds me of my grandparents' house. Everything seemed so big when I was a child.
posted by stowaway at 6:13 AM on January 21, 2015
I always think of it as being the grandmother's bedroom, but maybe that's because it reminds me of my grandparents' house. Everything seemed so big when I was a child.
posted by stowaway at 6:13 AM on January 21, 2015
My mother has some of our old books from childhood still, down in the basement. It's very strange to look at them. I once loved this book: here is the very same object, 40 years later. I had totally forgotten about some of them, but seeing "Caps For Sale", say, brought back quite a Proustian rush of memory.
posted by thelonius at 6:14 AM on January 21, 2015
posted by thelonius at 6:14 AM on January 21, 2015
uncleozzy: Huh, oddly, I'd never noticed that, but I did notice that the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs also includes a picture of [page turn] the cow jumping over the moon.
There's also the copy of Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf. What a strange world Bunny lives in where two of his books are about him, one of which is describing what he is doing at that exact moment.
On the topic of curious george, HA Rey threw in all kinds of details to reward the observant reader. For example, in Curious George Rides a Bike, the opening scene has the movie poster from the first book. In Curious George Gets a Medal, check out the book he's reading in the first scene.
Extra credit: pay attention to the license plates in the series, including the recent Vipa Interactive books.
posted by dr_dank at 6:20 AM on January 21, 2015
There's also the copy of Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf. What a strange world Bunny lives in where two of his books are about him, one of which is describing what he is doing at that exact moment.
On the topic of curious george, HA Rey threw in all kinds of details to reward the observant reader. For example, in Curious George Rides a Bike, the opening scene has the movie poster from the first book. In Curious George Gets a Medal, check out the book he's reading in the first scene.
Extra credit: pay attention to the license plates in the series, including the recent Vipa Interactive books.
posted by dr_dank at 6:20 AM on January 21, 2015
Just read this take on it to properly prepare your kids to be weird. (And read his other stuff too--my daughter now fully understands that monkeys have tails and therefore, that is an ape.
posted by stevis23 at 6:22 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by stevis23 at 6:22 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Good night shai-halud, bursting out of the dune, goodnight sardaukar.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:31 AM on January 21, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Happy Dave at 6:31 AM on January 21, 2015 [15 favorites]
I've been reading Tumble Bumble nightly for months and I'm in a similar place. It's actually a great book and the sing-song quality of it means I can recite it regardless of whether I am allowed to hold the book or not, but there's something pretty goddamn sinister about a bug who wanders into a crocodile that picks up a cat, pig, bee, toad and mouse and breaks into a house because no one answers the knock. Then the croc (clearly faking it) feigns sleep to get them all in one place to double-cross and kill them so she can take the loot all for herself.
And don't even get me started on that goddamn caterpillar with the eating disorder.
posted by yerfatma at 6:31 AM on January 21, 2015
And don't even get me started on that goddamn caterpillar with the eating disorder.
posted by yerfatma at 6:31 AM on January 21, 2015
Cornmeal mush is another name for polenta. (Who lets a young child eat a potentially messy food like polenta in bed?)
The author of this piece clearly cannot recognize a mush comb and a mush brush. The former is used to comb the mush to make it easier to eat in bed, and the latter cleans up any spills that a young'un might make. You know you are a big kid when you no longer need the comb and brush to eat your mush. Which you will eat for the rest of your life because your parents blew all the moneyon mush accessories.
Strange but true.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
The author of this piece clearly cannot recognize a mush comb and a mush brush. The former is used to comb the mush to make it easier to eat in bed, and the latter cleans up any spills that a young'un might make. You know you are a big kid when you no longer need the comb and brush to eat your mush. Which you will eat for the rest of your life because your parents blew all the moneyon mush accessories.
Strange but true.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
Sounds like mush ado about nothing.
posted by taz at 6:36 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by taz at 6:36 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Your child's favorite book sucks.
posted by univac at 6:38 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by univac at 6:38 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
You know, I was always a bit curious about the baby bear in the photo. All the bears are the same size and sitting very formally in chairs that are the same size. Has baby bear gone off to bear college and returned home, having an awkward conversation about not wanting to go into the family business and instead pursue a degree in 13-century Mongolian yurt design? Is baby bear a leftover term of endearment that his mother still bestows upon him daily?
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:39 AM on January 21, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:39 AM on January 21, 2015 [10 favorites]
Googled 70s wallpaper. Found the orange and yellow starbursts/flowers from the breakfast nook when I was tiny.
A good morning.
posted by allthinky at 6:49 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
A good morning.
posted by allthinky at 6:49 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
I tried I Want My Hat Back, but she's mostly uninterested.
I LOVE those two books. Basically the takeaway from them is "Someone steal your shit? No worries. Eventually someone will snitch and you can murder the crap out of them to get your stuff back."
posted by Kitteh at 7:00 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
I LOVE those two books. Basically the takeaway from them is "Someone steal your shit? No worries. Eventually someone will snitch and you can murder the crap out of them to get your stuff back."
posted by Kitteh at 7:00 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
You can either live in a NYC apartment the size of the little toy house OR you can be all shocked to find a comb, brush, and bowl full of mush on the same table. FFS, I brined a Thanksgiving turkey in a bathtub once.
posted by apparently at 7:06 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by apparently at 7:06 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
Frowner: "I wonder what this writer would think of a book with an even more complicated and longer-ago setting and which follows even more distant literary conventions"
No, it's the part where you read it 500 times and your brain gets bored and starts trying to fill in the gaps in a way it wouldn't after only 50 readings. Like, I have spent an INORDINATE amount of time trying to figure out if Jim Dear and Darling in Lady and the Tramp have a servant, down to examining the baseboard moulding in their house and the peeling-away alley theater posters to try to fix the year and location more precisely. (They MUST have a servant and WHERE IS SHE during all of this?) I also have a LOT OF FEELINGS about the economics on the Island of Sodor (the Fat Controller is literally the worst railroad baron EVER, no wonder the British Empire fell) and also about the available technology in Dinosaur Train. And all the people in the Bob the Builder world -- do they not find it disturbing that talking, sentient construction vehicles with the mentality of 3-year-olds are constantly driving around their town breaking things, that Bob then has to fix? Is it a protection racket, but they all have to act really cheerful about it or the machines will eat them? These are the things I headcanon when I get bored from the 500th reading/viewing.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:09 AM on January 21, 2015 [52 favorites]
No, it's the part where you read it 500 times and your brain gets bored and starts trying to fill in the gaps in a way it wouldn't after only 50 readings. Like, I have spent an INORDINATE amount of time trying to figure out if Jim Dear and Darling in Lady and the Tramp have a servant, down to examining the baseboard moulding in their house and the peeling-away alley theater posters to try to fix the year and location more precisely. (They MUST have a servant and WHERE IS SHE during all of this?) I also have a LOT OF FEELINGS about the economics on the Island of Sodor (the Fat Controller is literally the worst railroad baron EVER, no wonder the British Empire fell) and also about the available technology in Dinosaur Train. And all the people in the Bob the Builder world -- do they not find it disturbing that talking, sentient construction vehicles with the mentality of 3-year-olds are constantly driving around their town breaking things, that Bob then has to fix? Is it a protection racket, but they all have to act really cheerful about it or the machines will eat them? These are the things I headcanon when I get bored from the 500th reading/viewing.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:09 AM on January 21, 2015 [52 favorites]
I brined a Thanksgiving turkey in a bathtub once
We cooked one in a microwave one year (the oven broke). It's a 1980's microwave that is probably illegal now, and it had turkey instructions in its booklet.
posted by thelonius at 7:14 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
We cooked one in a microwave one year (the oven broke). It's a 1980's microwave that is probably illegal now, and it had turkey instructions in its booklet.
posted by thelonius at 7:14 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
I also have a LOT OF FEELINGS about the economics on the Island of Sodor
The do-as-you're-told Protestant-work-ethic bullshit surrounding Thomas makes my blood boil. So hard.
I would rather watch Peg + Cat, though, than almost anything else on TV.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:20 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
The do-as-you're-told Protestant-work-ethic bullshit surrounding Thomas makes my blood boil. So hard.
I would rather watch Peg + Cat, though, than almost anything else on TV.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:20 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
Children's books tend to get made through cheaper processes, and that meant at the time this was printed, fewer colors. This is why so many older children's books (and others) have illustrations only in one or two colors, with maybe a few full-color pages inserted for special scenes. Dr. Seuss books are often only black + one or two other colors, if you notice.
So the illustrator may in fact have had a thing for garishness, but may also have had to stay within the confines of a limited palette.
My gripes with the illustrations have to do with a complete inability to deal with perspective (everything is more than a little bit off) and the rabbits aren't that well-done either. It made reading the book irritating to me, because I kept getting distracted by it. Also I've been spoiled by reading people like Sendak, whose work was fantastical and dreamlike while still being technically proficient.
But the book works, because of the words, mostly, and also the darkening images was very effective, and it's soothing to a lot of kids, so, there you go.
I sometimes wonder if a better illustrator might be able to do an even more effective version, but the publisher doesn't really have an incentive to do so as long as this one keeps making money.
"Bears couples therapy session" was good, though. I'll always think that when I see it now.
posted by emjaybee at 7:23 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
So the illustrator may in fact have had a thing for garishness, but may also have had to stay within the confines of a limited palette.
My gripes with the illustrations have to do with a complete inability to deal with perspective (everything is more than a little bit off) and the rabbits aren't that well-done either. It made reading the book irritating to me, because I kept getting distracted by it. Also I've been spoiled by reading people like Sendak, whose work was fantastical and dreamlike while still being technically proficient.
But the book works, because of the words, mostly, and also the darkening images was very effective, and it's soothing to a lot of kids, so, there you go.
I sometimes wonder if a better illustrator might be able to do an even more effective version, but the publisher doesn't really have an incentive to do so as long as this one keeps making money.
"Bears couples therapy session" was good, though. I'll always think that when I see it now.
posted by emjaybee at 7:23 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've been over analyzing Frozen for the same reasons- my toddler likes to watch it over and over, and likes to listen to Let It Go.
posted by Anne Neville at 7:23 AM on January 21, 2015
posted by Anne Neville at 7:23 AM on January 21, 2015
So true about the fireplace and telephone!
In our nightly reads, my daughter quickly noticed that that mouse appears in a different spot on every spread and always made a point to look for it.
Regarding the room's color scheme, I learned in a children's lit class in library school that green ink had been rationed during the war (see Lucky Strike Green Goes To War, for instance). Published in 1947, the same year as Dior's New Look and with the same spirit, Goodnight Moon went over-the-top in its use of the newly available green ink.
posted by kittydelsol at 7:30 AM on January 21, 2015 [10 favorites]
In our nightly reads, my daughter quickly noticed that that mouse appears in a different spot on every spread and always made a point to look for it.
Regarding the room's color scheme, I learned in a children's lit class in library school that green ink had been rationed during the war (see Lucky Strike Green Goes To War, for instance). Published in 1947, the same year as Dior's New Look and with the same spirit, Goodnight Moon went over-the-top in its use of the newly available green ink.
posted by kittydelsol at 7:30 AM on January 21, 2015 [10 favorites]
I've been over analyzing Frozen for the same reasons- my toddler likes to watch it over and over, and likes to listen to Let It Go.One striking dissonance in that movie is the absurdly tiny and weirdly angled noses on the sisters, compared with the enormous operatic voices they have. When my 7yo saw it after much begging, she actually gasped "What is wrong with their FACES?!!" We later watched some video of Idina Menzel singing Let It Go, and she was relieved to see that voice comes through an appropriately proportioned nose. Once you see it, it is hard to watch the cartoon version and not feel physical pain during some of those sustained notes. In real life, that pair would be snuffling around like a couple of pugs.
posted by apparently at 7:44 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
unwashed hairbrushIs this where I learn that there are people who wash their hairbrushes on a regular basis?
posted by zamboni at 7:53 AM on January 21, 2015 [11 favorites]
The do-as-you're-told Protestant-work-ethic bullshit surrounding Thomas makes my blood boil. So hard.
"Every wise engine knows they have to treat the trucks harshly to keep them in line."
posted by Happy Dave at 7:56 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Every wise engine knows they have to treat the trucks harshly to keep them in line."
posted by Happy Dave at 7:56 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
She's worried about the mouse being there with two cats? What about the rabbit child with the cats? Has no one thought of the rabbit child?
posted by orme at 8:16 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by orme at 8:16 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
Is anyone else creeped out by the Goonight Nobody page? Just me? Okay.
posted by MOWOG at 8:17 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by MOWOG at 8:17 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
Goodnight Moon is one of the few classic children's books I can stand after years of mothering and librarianship. People always expect me to wax rhapsodic about whatever old book and I'm like, "Blech, Berenstain Bears!"
These are the same people who get upset that Betsy-Tacy has been weeded from the library. They didn't like it (or Tom Swift) enough to take it out and boost statistics, but they like it enough to complain. No one has read the Boxcar Children in 10 years? Out it goes! I need to make room for The Night Gardener!
posted by Biblio at 8:17 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
These are the same people who get upset that Betsy-Tacy has been weeded from the library. They didn't like it (or Tom Swift) enough to take it out and boost statistics, but they like it enough to complain. No one has read the Boxcar Children in 10 years? Out it goes! I need to make room for The Night Gardener!
posted by Biblio at 8:17 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
One of the reasons behind the primary color pallet is that this book is for VERY young children. That is also one of the reasons for the simplicity of the art. The sparseness and lyrical lilt of the words. These things are not bugs, they are features. It is a charming book that does what it's supposed to do very well. More than 60 years now people have read this book to their kids.
Their was a bit of a dust-up when they recently (i.e. within the last ten years or so) published an edition where the picture of the illustrator inside the cover was manipulated so as to remove the cigarette from his hand.
posted by Mister_A at 8:18 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Their was a bit of a dust-up when they recently (i.e. within the last ten years or so) published an edition where the picture of the illustrator inside the cover was manipulated so as to remove the cigarette from his hand.
posted by Mister_A at 8:18 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Goodnight Moon is one of Baby Metroid Baby's nighttime books, which I doggedly read to him whenever I'm doing his bedtime thing, because I have heard that ritual and repetition will eventually make babies figure out that it's time to sleep, oh god I hope he figures it out. And I find the illustrations so jarring, with the bright color scheme and the weirdly blocky little house and the ratty-looking kittens (why and how does a bunny have pet kittens? Kittens who are smaller than the bunny?) At least the room gets a little darker as the book progresses, so by the end it's not quite as eye-gratingly bright. And it's over quickly.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:24 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:24 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
(why and how does a bunny have pet kittens? Kittens who are smaller than the bunny?)
They are normal-sized kittens. They just look small because of the perspective.
Their natural bunny-hunting tendencies are kept in line by severe conditioning.
Also, stop complaining about the perspective. The rabbits live in the suburbs of the corpse-city of R'lyeh, and you are lucky that a cute bunny isn't behaving obtuse.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:28 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
They are normal-sized kittens. They just look small because of the perspective.
Their natural bunny-hunting tendencies are kept in line by severe conditioning.
Also, stop complaining about the perspective. The rabbits live in the suburbs of the corpse-city of R'lyeh, and you are lucky that a cute bunny isn't behaving obtuse.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:28 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
I also have a LOT OF FEELINGS about the economics on the Island of Sodor (the Fat Controller is literally the worst railroad baron EVER, no wonder the British Empire fell)
I hate Sodor and I'm convinced that show is pushing facism on our children.
I don't think my parents read Goodnight Moon to me as a child which may be why I was surprised to discover when my first kid was born that it was a beloved classic. I've just never understood the appeal.
posted by Area Man at 8:29 AM on January 21, 2015
I hate Sodor and I'm convinced that show is pushing facism on our children.
I don't think my parents read Goodnight Moon to me as a child which may be why I was surprised to discover when my first kid was born that it was a beloved classic. I've just never understood the appeal.
posted by Area Man at 8:29 AM on January 21, 2015
I guess the brush is labeled "bunny" so they don't think it's a hare brush.
"There's also the copy of Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf. What a strange world Bunny lives in where two of his books are about him, one of which is describing what he is doing at that exact moment. "
Little known fact, Jorge Luis Borges illustrated children's books under the pseudonym Clement Hurd.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 8:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
"There's also the copy of Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf. What a strange world Bunny lives in where two of his books are about him, one of which is describing what he is doing at that exact moment. "
Little known fact, Jorge Luis Borges illustrated children's books under the pseudonym Clement Hurd.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 8:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
I guess the brush is labeled "bunny" so they don't think it's a hare brush.
I cannot believe you went there.
posted by TedW at 8:34 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
I cannot believe you went there.
posted by TedW at 8:34 AM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
Is anyone else creeped out by the Goonight Nobody page? Just me? Okay.
This is where the author Brown shows the bottomless abyss that awaits every child after she crosses the threshold into sleep - the abyss that awaits us all at the end of life. In the end, we are revealed to be nobody, as the timeless Moon bids us an eternal goodnight.
Also, the three bears eat the bunny.</herzog>
posted by rory at 8:42 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
This is where the author Brown shows the bottomless abyss that awaits every child after she crosses the threshold into sleep - the abyss that awaits us all at the end of life. In the end, we are revealed to be nobody, as the timeless Moon bids us an eternal goodnight.
Also, the three bears eat the bunny.</herzog>
posted by rory at 8:42 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
I cannot believe you went there.
Just wait until you hear about the rabbit transit system that the Mother uses to get to work.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
Just wait until you hear about the rabbit transit system that the Mother uses to get to work.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
Also, a lot of this person's issue seems to be that the bunnies don't live in New York.
I eyerolled and then ignored the New York references, since the observations aren't substantially different from the ones I would make based on a comparison to my childhood home in the suburbs of Baltimore.
posted by desuetude at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2015
I eyerolled and then ignored the New York references, since the observations aren't substantially different from the ones I would make based on a comparison to my childhood home in the suburbs of Baltimore.
posted by desuetude at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2015
Needs "plateofbeans" tag.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:57 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:57 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Overthinking a page of bunnies?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:07 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:07 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Talking trains and faceless engine drivers aside, I just don't get how Sodor exists except as either a quaint tourist destination or an insane experiment of a megalomaniac billionaire. What is the industry that justifies a deep water port, mills, quarries, and a rail network more extensive than the NYC subway for a place whose population seems to number about 1000? There doesn't appear to be any large scale agriculture, manufacturing, logging, or mining. The only way this could happen is massive inherited wealth, or basically slave labor. And really, even for a captain of industry in the early 1900s a top hat and tuxedo is too much. What in the fuck was he knighted for anyway?
/it's basically impossible to bring up Thomas without reflexively going off.
Listen, Goodnight Moon is unimpeachable, and yes reading the same story 700 times in the average childhood makes you a little crazy. And those of us whose kids are on the other side of toddler hood owe it to new parents to steer their kids away from things like Thomas and Dora. Curious George is ok because it is anachronistic and the TV show is like the best thing for three year olds *ever*.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
/it's basically impossible to bring up Thomas without reflexively going off.
Listen, Goodnight Moon is unimpeachable, and yes reading the same story 700 times in the average childhood makes you a little crazy. And those of us whose kids are on the other side of toddler hood owe it to new parents to steer their kids away from things like Thomas and Dora. Curious George is ok because it is anachronistic and the TV show is like the best thing for three year olds *ever*.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
This kind of reminded me of the response to this Far Side cartoon, wherein Gary Larson got criticized for showing the male mosquito as the blood drinker, but apparently the fact that they were walking, wearing clothes, living in houses, and talking was OK.
posted by TedW at 9:25 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by TedW at 9:25 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
When I had my first child, I discovered to my delight and dread that I still had Goodnight Moon memorized from when I myself was a child.
As for filling in the gaps: can we talk about Paw Patrol, even briefly? Mayor Goodway is the least competent mayor since Rob Ford. She can fuck ANYTHING up. And apparently she has no staff, no assistants; the only person she can call for help are a 12 year old boy and his hyperverbal puppies. They have the technological capability to violate the laws of the conservation of matter and energy (seriously, where does the water in Marshall's fire hose come from?!) but they think that an old battered surfboard is an acceptable replacement for a highly engineered wind turbine blade.
Adventure Bay is either a failed state, or is close to it.
posted by KathrynT at 9:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
As for filling in the gaps: can we talk about Paw Patrol, even briefly? Mayor Goodway is the least competent mayor since Rob Ford. She can fuck ANYTHING up. And apparently she has no staff, no assistants; the only person she can call for help are a 12 year old boy and his hyperverbal puppies. They have the technological capability to violate the laws of the conservation of matter and energy (seriously, where does the water in Marshall's fire hose come from?!) but they think that an old battered surfboard is an acceptable replacement for a highly engineered wind turbine blade.
Adventure Bay is either a failed state, or is close to it.
posted by KathrynT at 9:32 AM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
This is where the author Brown shows the bottomless abyss that awaits every child after she crosses the threshold into sleep - the abyss that awaits us all at the end of life. In the end, we are revealed to be nobody, as the timeless Moon bids us an eternal goodnight.
Yet the Nobody page is pure white, almost glowing in the spaces between the darkening room pages. Opposite is the mush, the embodiment of Something, prosaic and tangible, but also set white on white against the gloom. The eternal and the boring, chiming together for all eternity. As Lao Tsu said, "Non-being is the greatest joy."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
Yet the Nobody page is pure white, almost glowing in the spaces between the darkening room pages. Opposite is the mush, the embodiment of Something, prosaic and tangible, but also set white on white against the gloom. The eternal and the boring, chiming together for all eternity. As Lao Tsu said, "Non-being is the greatest joy."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on January 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
If you read Goodnight Moon in a creepy voice, it's basically a horror movie. The old lady whispering hush, goodnight nobody....WHO'S NOBODY?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:39 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:39 AM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Talking trains and faceless engine drivers aside, I just don't get how Sodor exists except as either a quaint tourist destination or an insane experiment of a megalomaniac billionaire. What is the industry that justifies a deep water port, mills, quarries, and a rail network more extensive than the NYC subway for a place whose population seems to number about 1000? There doesn't appear to be any large scale agriculture, manufacturing, logging, or mining. The only way this could happen is massive inherited wealth, or basically slave labor.
Maybe the oppressed Sodorians are being forced to work and live in underground mines all over the island?
posted by Area Man at 9:45 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Maybe the oppressed Sodorians are being forced to work and live in underground mines all over the island?
posted by Area Man at 9:45 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
See this is all weird to me because I never took this as a "bedroom" per se. I took it as a little 1-room rural bunny house. Grandma bunny's house. And that's the bed where grandma bunny sleeps, and they will share it. The fireplace is the source of heat for the whole place. The books are mostly not kids books and the house for the most part is not for kids, just a few weird grandma's house toys and a weird old grandma's house dollhouse and weird old grandma's house decor. And the mush is weird grandma's house food.
Anyone else? Just me?
Also this book taught me that my daughter has been programmed to scream at the sight of mice by someone, I don't know who. Every time we get to the mouse part, she lets out a little fake scream. It's cute.
This one, Corduroy, and Hand Hand Fingers Thumb are in heavy rotation at the Hoopo household. Lately One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, too, which is delightfully crazy and has amazing illustrations.
posted by Hoopo at 10:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Anyone else? Just me?
Also this book taught me that my daughter has been programmed to scream at the sight of mice by someone, I don't know who. Every time we get to the mouse part, she lets out a little fake scream. It's cute.
This one, Corduroy, and Hand Hand Fingers Thumb are in heavy rotation at the Hoopo household. Lately One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, too, which is delightfully crazy and has amazing illustrations.
posted by Hoopo at 10:05 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's also the copy of Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf.
And the Runaway Bunny painting on the wall above the little toy house.
We have two cats whose coloring is very similar to the cats in the book, so sometimes we say goodnight to our cats. Bonus!
posted by kirkaracha at 10:09 AM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also in Runaway Bunny the baby bunny imagines being a bunny running into a house that looks exactly like GNM house. So it's a recursive metauniverse.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:35 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:35 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I hated goodnight moon until I read it pretending to be a hipsteresque poet at an open mic night. Dressed in black with sunglasses and possibly a black knit hat. Reading in a sing song jazzy way with a hint of Shatner. I found it tolerable and my son found it soothing.
Thankfully he's moved on to Llama Llama and Dragons Love Tacos.
posted by HMSSM at 10:40 AM on January 21, 2015
Thankfully he's moved on to Llama Llama and Dragons Love Tacos.
posted by HMSSM at 10:40 AM on January 21, 2015
Because of the proximity to the comb and the brush I had always thought the mush was some sort of hair-care product, like Brylcreem or something.
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Curious George is ok because it is anachronistic and the TV show is like the best thing for three year olds *ever*.
I assume by "anachronistic" you mean "harkens back to a time before health inspectors". How in the world is Pisghetti's still open? There are cats and dogs regularly walking through raw food ingredients and a monkey uses the kitchen as a play area. Even if the health department is willing to turn a blind eye, what kind of town is populated by lots of people who don't immediately walk back out the door when they see their reserved booth is next to a goddamn monkey?
posted by yerfatma at 11:21 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
I assume by "anachronistic" you mean "harkens back to a time before health inspectors". How in the world is Pisghetti's still open? There are cats and dogs regularly walking through raw food ingredients and a monkey uses the kitchen as a play area. Even if the health department is willing to turn a blind eye, what kind of town is populated by lots of people who don't immediately walk back out the door when they see their reserved booth is next to a goddamn monkey?
posted by yerfatma at 11:21 AM on January 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
I watched an episode of the PBS Kids Curious George cartoon over the weekend in which George and The Man with the Yellow Hat have a box at the symphony. The conductor is evidently also conducting a raffle to choose a guest conductor for their upcoming kids' concert which, of course, George wins. When the conductor calls to, "The young man in the balcony," The Man with the Yellow Hat shouts, "He's a monkey!"
Is he trying to thwart George's prize, or is he just correcting the conductor?
posted by uncleozzy at 11:27 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Is he trying to thwart George's prize, or is he just correcting the conductor?
posted by uncleozzy at 11:27 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Is he trying to thwart George's prize, or is he just correcting the conductor?
It's all identity politics. A sophont should be addressed using the labels of ir's choice.
posted by GuyZero at 11:29 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's all identity politics. A sophont should be addressed using the labels of ir's choice.
posted by GuyZero at 11:29 AM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
what kind of town is populated by lots of people who don't immediately walk back out the door when they see their reserved booth is next to a goddamn monkey?
It's supposed to be Manhattan. The Man in the Yellow Hat is loaded. I assume he just pays off people to put up with his monkey companion.
posted by emjaybee at 12:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's supposed to be Manhattan. The Man in the Yellow Hat is loaded. I assume he just pays off people to put up with his monkey companion.
posted by emjaybee at 12:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
60/70s wallpaper
When I was smaller (both chronologically and literally) my sister and I had those photo-realistic wallpapers on our bedroom walls (thinking back, they were just blown up photos). Mine was of an autumnal road in a forest, and my sister's was of a shadowy spring glade. They were awesome!
Also, the three bears eat the bunny.
"Don't listen to the tape. You must destroy it."
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:32 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
When I was smaller (both chronologically and literally) my sister and I had those photo-realistic wallpapers on our bedroom walls (thinking back, they were just blown up photos). Mine was of an autumnal road in a forest, and my sister's was of a shadowy spring glade. They were awesome!
Also, the three bears eat the bunny.
"Don't listen to the tape. You must destroy it."
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:32 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
To me a feature, others a bug
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:20 PM on January 21, 2015
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:20 PM on January 21, 2015
Babar was a post-colonial stooge. There- I said it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:43 PM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:43 PM on January 21, 2015 [6 favorites]
The important thing about Goodnight Moon is that it is blessedly short.
I mean, I like it, actually, and I like reading it, but if you've ever found yourself horrified by the length of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' when reading it to an overtired four-year-old before you get to say goodnight and sit in the living room and have one perfect glass of wine as you surf the internet for fifteen minutes before passing out from exhaustion, you know that 'short' is a really compelling property in a children's book.
See also the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:20 PM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
I mean, I like it, actually, and I like reading it, but if you've ever found yourself horrified by the length of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' when reading it to an overtired four-year-old before you get to say goodnight and sit in the living room and have one perfect glass of wine as you surf the internet for fifteen minutes before passing out from exhaustion, you know that 'short' is a really compelling property in a children's book.
See also the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:20 PM on January 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
We have two cats whose coloring is very similar to the cats in the book
Hey us too! Also, when we built out our house to accommodate our second bunny, we chose green.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:43 PM on January 21, 2015
Hey us too! Also, when we built out our house to accommodate our second bunny, we chose green.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:43 PM on January 21, 2015
This is the best headcanoning of Goodnight Moon I have ever encountered, no question.
Once the Great Green Room was full of siblings. Bunnies beget bunnies. It is what they do. But then there was a virus, or too much radiation, a cancer, a plague, a zombie outbreak. All the others have gone, and the Great Green Room is a clean zone. The bunny doesn't remember the others going. He was too busy rascaling about. She was too absorbed in tidying the toy house with the miniature bunnies inside. Sie was too busy being emotionless and white.
posted by ActionPopulated at 2:44 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Once the Great Green Room was full of siblings. Bunnies beget bunnies. It is what they do. But then there was a virus, or too much radiation, a cancer, a plague, a zombie outbreak. All the others have gone, and the Great Green Room is a clean zone. The bunny doesn't remember the others going. He was too busy rascaling about. She was too absorbed in tidying the toy house with the miniature bunnies inside. Sie was too busy being emotionless and white.
posted by ActionPopulated at 2:44 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's supposed to be Manhattan.
Shut your fucking face if you're just making shit up. When they go to their country house, which is like 20 minutes away, everyone has a thick New England accent. The city they live in has parks, water, and bridges, apartment buildings with doormen, a sort-of incompetent shifty mayor, and crusty Italian restaurants. Curious George therefore lives in Providence, R.I.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:47 PM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
Shut your fucking face if you're just making shit up. When they go to their country house, which is like 20 minutes away, everyone has a thick New England accent. The city they live in has parks, water, and bridges, apartment buildings with doormen, a sort-of incompetent shifty mayor, and crusty Italian restaurants. Curious George therefore lives in Providence, R.I.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 2:47 PM on January 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
Curious George therefore lives in Providence, R.I.
Plus it's easy to get around the laws about harboring wild animals here.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Plus it's easy to get around the laws about harboring wild animals here.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
As popular as Goodnight Moon is, I kind of liked Brown's Big Red Barn better. Its pretty much the same motif with a great "anyway" in the middle of its meyanderings. Both are kind of sing-songy runons that have an appealing cadence.
Oldschool printing colors, man they sucked. Some peole don't get it though: its not about looking any particular way for this age, its about being timeless.
Brown had a pretty short life with a rather abrupt end:
Oldschool printing colors, man they sucked. Some peole don't get it though: its not about looking any particular way for this age, its about being timeless.
Brown had a pretty short life with a rather abrupt end:
Later that year, while on a book tour in Nice, France, she unexpectedly died at 42 of an embolism, shortly after suffering from appendicitis. (Kicking up her leg to show the doctor how well she was feeling ironically caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge and travel to her heart.)[w]posted by Ogre Lawless at 4:03 PM on January 21, 2015
We used to play, "where's the Mouse?", as well.
posted by Windopaene at 5:35 PM on January 21, 2015
posted by Windopaene at 5:35 PM on January 21, 2015
Is he trying to thwart George's prize, or is he just correcting the conductor?
You need to watch more episodes. I've only seen about 10 and it's pretty clear the Man in the Yellow Hat could fuck up a 0 car funeral. The whole town could. It's a goddamn town populated by complete morons where a monkey is a legitimate competitive species. In fact, George is the only likable primate on the show. Everyone else is on enough Zoloft to sink a ship verrrry slowly.
The city they live in has parks, water, and bridges, apartment buildings with doormen, a sort-of incompetent shifty mayor, and crusty Italian restaurants. Curious George therefore lives in Providence, R.I.
Nice try. Someone from Central Falls would have eaten the poor bastard a long time ago.
posted by yerfatma at 5:36 PM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
You need to watch more episodes. I've only seen about 10 and it's pretty clear the Man in the Yellow Hat could fuck up a 0 car funeral. The whole town could. It's a goddamn town populated by complete morons where a monkey is a legitimate competitive species. In fact, George is the only likable primate on the show. Everyone else is on enough Zoloft to sink a ship verrrry slowly.
The city they live in has parks, water, and bridges, apartment buildings with doormen, a sort-of incompetent shifty mayor, and crusty Italian restaurants. Curious George therefore lives in Providence, R.I.
Nice try. Someone from Central Falls would have eaten the poor bastard a long time ago.
posted by yerfatma at 5:36 PM on January 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
It is funny to consider some of those little things, and make up little jokes about them, but Jesus Christ, am I sick to death of reading smug pieces about this shit every five minutes. One of my kids, the 15 year old, does this exact same thing, and no matter how many times I say "It is a CARTOON. Never mind about the physics, the DOGS can TALK" (or whatever the case may be) he can't seem to stop himeself. Yes, yes, I get it: your brain is so large and you are so bored reading stories to your kid that you have all these clever thoughts about it, and really, probably everyone does this to one degree or another; but just like those endless videos of rich kids whose parents or aunties or whatever write for food magazines, eating sea anemones and pulling "ew" faces, I am 100% done. The joke is done! It is old!
It's like when I was in early high school, and went to a dinosaur thing for school, and ahead of time I read up about the exhibit and found that some charming whippersnapper had asked, "how long does it take for this long necked dinosaur thing to swallow?" to much amusement. "Well!" young, keen for attention me decided, "I too can ask this question, for laughs and acclaim", which I did, and the look of polite disappointment on the Dinosaur Expert's face when I launched this already done little nugget of pert questioning, is the EXACT SAME expression my face wears every time someone trots out yet another of these pieces.
posted by mythical anthropomorphic amphibian at 6:29 PM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's like when I was in early high school, and went to a dinosaur thing for school, and ahead of time I read up about the exhibit and found that some charming whippersnapper had asked, "how long does it take for this long necked dinosaur thing to swallow?" to much amusement. "Well!" young, keen for attention me decided, "I too can ask this question, for laughs and acclaim", which I did, and the look of polite disappointment on the Dinosaur Expert's face when I launched this already done little nugget of pert questioning, is the EXACT SAME expression my face wears every time someone trots out yet another of these pieces.
posted by mythical anthropomorphic amphibian at 6:29 PM on January 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Nice try. Someone from Central Falls would have eaten the poor bastard a long time ago.
Nah, Central Falls got a rep, but it ain't got nuthin' on The Bucket. Besides, we're talking PVD, and we're talking apartment buildings with beefy, big-shouldered doormen - The East Side, man, it's just different there.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:56 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nah, Central Falls got a rep, but it ain't got nuthin' on The Bucket. Besides, we're talking PVD, and we're talking apartment buildings with beefy, big-shouldered doormen - The East Side, man, it's just different there.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:56 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Slarty Bartfast: "Talking trains and faceless engine drivers aside, I just don't get how Sodor exists except as either a quaint tourist destination or an insane experiment of a megalomaniac billionaire. What is the industry that justifies a deep water port, mills, quarries, and a rail network more extensive than the NYC subway for a place whose population seems to number about 1000?"
QUOTED FOR BEING THE TRUEST THING EVERY SAID ON METAFILTER.
I could suspend my disbelief if they weren't on about being "very useful engines" every 30 seconds. NO YOU'RE NOT YOU'RE ON THE MOST OVERBUILT FUCKING ISLAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD DELIVERING NOTHING TO NOWHERE WITH A FLEET OF APPROXIMATELY TWO BILLION TRAINS TO DELIVER THE THREE SHEAVES OF WHEAT! YOU ARE USEFUL TO NOBODY! NOBODY! SO SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACES, YOU BRAINWASHING COLONIALIST STOOGES!
A Terrible Llama: "I mean, I like it, actually, and I like reading it, but if you've ever found yourself horrified by the length of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' when reading it to an overtired four-year-old before you get to say goodnight and sit in the living room and have one perfect glass of wine as you surf the internet for fifteen minutes before passing out from exhaustion, you know that 'short' is a really compelling property in a children's book. "
In our house, those are called "daddy books." Oh, you want to read every word of Grouchy Ladybug? Sorry, that's a daddy book, go find him.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:36 PM on January 21, 2015
QUOTED FOR BEING THE TRUEST THING EVERY SAID ON METAFILTER.
I could suspend my disbelief if they weren't on about being "very useful engines" every 30 seconds. NO YOU'RE NOT YOU'RE ON THE MOST OVERBUILT FUCKING ISLAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD DELIVERING NOTHING TO NOWHERE WITH A FLEET OF APPROXIMATELY TWO BILLION TRAINS TO DELIVER THE THREE SHEAVES OF WHEAT! YOU ARE USEFUL TO NOBODY! NOBODY! SO SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACES, YOU BRAINWASHING COLONIALIST STOOGES!
A Terrible Llama: "I mean, I like it, actually, and I like reading it, but if you've ever found yourself horrified by the length of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' when reading it to an overtired four-year-old before you get to say goodnight and sit in the living room and have one perfect glass of wine as you surf the internet for fifteen minutes before passing out from exhaustion, you know that 'short' is a really compelling property in a children's book. "
In our house, those are called "daddy books." Oh, you want to read every word of Grouchy Ladybug? Sorry, that's a daddy book, go find him.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:36 PM on January 21, 2015
The paintings are pretty weird, but what always irks me are the following lines:
Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon
Wait, what? No, you can't do that! "Moon" following "moon" in two lines? They don't count as a rhyme--it's the same damn word! I have no idea what stress to put on this last line, it's so damn awkward. And believe me, I've read this book at least a hundred times, out loud, so if there's a proper way to say it, I would've found it. There ain't.
I hate that line.
posted by zardoz at 10:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon
Wait, what? No, you can't do that! "Moon" following "moon" in two lines? They don't count as a rhyme--it's the same damn word! I have no idea what stress to put on this last line, it's so damn awkward. And believe me, I've read this book at least a hundred times, out loud, so if there's a proper way to say it, I would've found it. There ain't.
I hate that line.
posted by zardoz at 10:14 PM on January 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Jesus Christ, am I sick to death of reading smug pieces about this shit every five minutes. ... The joke is done! It is old!
It is old to those who have been paying attention long enough to hear it come around again and again.
People only pay attention to this particular phenomenon when they become parents of young children. As there is an endless supply of new parents, there will be an endless supply of people to whom this joke is new and worth retelling.
See also: every joke ever invented.
In other words, you are now old.
posted by rory at 2:09 AM on January 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
It is old to those who have been paying attention long enough to hear it come around again and again.
People only pay attention to this particular phenomenon when they become parents of young children. As there is an endless supply of new parents, there will be an endless supply of people to whom this joke is new and worth retelling.
See also: every joke ever invented.
In other words, you are now old.
posted by rory at 2:09 AM on January 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I still feel really bad when we get to the part in Mike Mulligan where Mary Anne has to be a boiler. How is this a happy ending?
posted by Mchelly at 4:49 AM on January 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 4:49 AM on January 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have no idea what stress to put on this last line
I usually Walken it up a little bit. Goodnight cow ... jumping over ... the moon.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:30 AM on January 22, 2015
I usually Walken it up a little bit. Goodnight cow ... jumping over ... the moon.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:30 AM on January 22, 2015
It's supposed to be Manhattan. The Man in the Yellow Hat is loaded. I assume he just pays off people to put up with his monkey companion.
I've only seen about 10 and it's pretty clear the Man in the Yellow Hat could fuck up a 0 car funeral.
The Man in the Yellow Hat as an updated version of Bertie Wooster?
posted by Anne Neville at 6:45 AM on January 22, 2015
I've only seen about 10 and it's pretty clear the Man in the Yellow Hat could fuck up a 0 car funeral.
The Man in the Yellow Hat as an updated version of Bertie Wooster?
posted by Anne Neville at 6:45 AM on January 22, 2015
True fact: Sir Topham Hatt was originally known as The Fat Controller.
posted by Mister_A at 7:29 AM on January 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mister_A at 7:29 AM on January 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
And I believe he was mentioned in Will Self's My Idea of Fun. Also, apparently Sir Topham Hatt is the US name for the Fat Controller, who was ever The Fat Controller in the UK.
posted by Mister_A at 7:32 AM on January 22, 2015
posted by Mister_A at 7:32 AM on January 22, 2015
the part in Mike Mulligan where Mary Anne has to be a boiler. How is this a happy ending?
When I work myself to death, someone sue the author's estate. That was my favorite book as a kid and I feel like that was not a good thing.
posted by yerfatma at 9:12 AM on January 22, 2015
When I work myself to death, someone sue the author's estate. That was my favorite book as a kid and I feel like that was not a good thing.
posted by yerfatma at 9:12 AM on January 22, 2015
Just came across this, Tom Taylor on Richard Scarry’s ‘What Do People Do All Day?’.
posted by yerfatma at 1:17 PM on January 22, 2015
posted by yerfatma at 1:17 PM on January 22, 2015
I still feel really bad when we get to the part in Mike Mulligan where Mary Anne has to be a boiler. How is this a happy ending?
Because the alternative was to be cut up and sold for scrap?
posted by Ham Snadwich at 6:36 AM on January 26, 2015
Because the alternative was to be cut up and sold for scrap?
posted by Ham Snadwich at 6:36 AM on January 26, 2015
Yeah, all the other old steam shovels were thrown into the junkyard. Mary Anne gets to keep doing a useful job. Maybe she's not moving around, but she's also out of the weather, so that seems a push.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:49 PM on January 28, 2015
posted by Chrysostom at 2:49 PM on January 28, 2015
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posted by blue_beetle at 4:56 AM on January 21, 2015