Happy Halloween!

The skeletons are out tonight,


They march about the street


With bony bodies, bony heads


And bony hands and feet.





Bony, bony, bony bones


With nothing in between,


Up and down and all around


They march on Halloween.





- Jack Prelutsky

Tasty Tome Tuesday

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes
Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown

5 out of 5 Bacon Strips

Walk through any toy aisle, any girls' clothing section, or any children's book nook, and you'll see it: pink. Sometimes sparkled, sometimes hot, sometimes sweetly pastel, but you'll definitely notice the overwhelming overabundance of pink, America's symbol for all things feminine. But how much of pink culture is truly driven by girls' desires, and how much is pushed on them by marketing departments? And how harmful are these pre-packaged identities?

Almost all of it, and very, say authors Lamb and Brown. Packaging Girlhood is a fascinating examination of how marketers target children, and how they've shaped girl culture over the past couple of decades in the US. Backed up by scientific studies, opinion polls, and conversations with girls and their mothers, Lamb and Brown outline the titular "marketers' schemes" and then give parents the tools to combat them. Straightforward, conversational prose and a compelling premise made this a 5-strip book for me, the mother of a daughter, and is in my opinion a must-read for anyone raising or helping to raise a girl.

Lamb and Brown cover all of girl culture, from clothing to play, and include sample conversations to have with your daughter about what products say to them and to others. They include a list of online resources with more information and help, as well as alternative activities/communities for a girl who'd rather not be "Pretty in Pink".

I truly enjoyed this book as well as taking a great deal of advice from it. If you have any contact with young girls and women, I urge you to pick up Packaging Girlhood.

Dork Love 3: The Dorkening

Baconsdad: They found evidence of a star system close enough to Earth to be visible to the naked eye.
Me: Really?
BD: Yeah. Only eight stars are closer.
Me: That's cool.
BD: But the first sentence calls it "an alien solar system."
Me: AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
BD: Yeah. I had to tell you that just so I could hear that sound.

And then he laughed. Jerk.

Tasty Tome Tuesday!

Yeah, I know it's Wednesday on the east coast already, but hey. I had to actually work today. Onto the tome!

Twilight
Stephanie Meyer

4 out of 5 Bacon Strips

Oh, Twilight. So young. So angsty. So full of fangs. Is it any wonder I love you?

Twilight is very definitely a Young Adult book. It is not for adults, though it has a devoted fan-woman following (as well as a rabid fangirl one). The basic story: New-girl-in-town Bella meets gorgeous Edward and his gorgeous siblings. She begins to date Edward, only to discover his secret (and if you don't know it by now, well, get out from under your rock, because I'm not hiding spoilers): He's a vampire.

A less-than-a-century-old vampire. Who goes to high school. And all his "siblings" are vampires, as are his "parents".

Still with me? I admit, it's not for everyone. The level of suspension of disbelief asked of the reader is pretty high. And if you're not a vampire fan or a YA fan or a romance fan, you should probably skip it. (I'm actually all three, so this was rather a trifecta.)

Meyer's prose is competent and straightforward. Her use of the first-person narrative gives her the opportunity to indulge in the sort of adolescent purple prose we've all committed to paper somewhere, and it struck me as charmingly honest. High school is still horribly vivid for me, and Bella's doubts, fears, triumphs, and failures came across as real and true to her.

Much has been made of Edward's "abusive" behaviour, of his controlling nature and Bella's seeming abdication of her will to his desires. Other reviewers may have a point, but I didn't see it. My own taste in men may have something to do with that, but honestly, I don't think the whole book is a loving paean to teenage domestic violence, as some have painted it. I think it's a fairly good portrayal of the violent passion of a teenaged love-affair. Old as Edward might be, he's never had a relationship before, never been in love, and has no more experience with such a tempest of emotion than has Bella. There are people who never master the art of serene romance: they are not all abusers or abused, and I don't think Bella and Edward are any more dysfunctional than any other teenaged couple in the world.

I could have done without Bella's constant bellyaching about her looks, but such self-deprecation is pretty standard for teen girls, and it does read as genuine. Edward's noble vampire routine got old fast, as well, but I've never liked the noble ones. Meyer has some interesting ideas about the species, but her ideas are never as well-fleshed as I'd like them to be.

On the whole? B+. It was a fast, enjoyable read, and I'm sure I'll visit it again in the future. It definitely deserves a spot in the vampire canon for its innovative twists on the characteristics of the species and for its being one of a very few decent vampire romances in the world. If you're looking for something to read between trick-or-treaters or while you roast that Thanksgiving turkey and ignore your mother-in-law, Twilight will charmingly, effortlessly, and enjoyably fit the bill.

What A Tasty Tome!

I read. I read a lot. Probably more than is healthy - after all, I could be outside enjoying the fresh air or folding my laundry or vacuuming - but I'm hoping to put my bad habit to work for you.

That's right: Book reviews. I'll be starting with a few of the things I've read most recently, and I'm happy to take suggestions for what I should read next or to have guest blogger reviews in the future. I do fiction and non, very serious to very silly; my only requirement is that it keep me interested enough to get to the end.

So let's begin!

Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
Judith Levine, foreword by Joycelyn M. Elders

5 out of 5 Bacon Strips

In short: Being Puritanical is bad. Levine argues that hiding all things sexual from children and teens, and punishing (or "rehabilitiating") them when they're "caught" expressing age-appropriate sexuality is more harmful than almost any sex could ever be. She argues passionately and persuasively against abstinence-only sex-ed, age-of-consent laws, and ridiculous "predator" statutes that can send seven-year-olds into the juvenile justice system for playing doctor with their siblings.

Though excoriated by conservative politicians and the religious right for an imagined pro-pedophilia stance when the book was first published, Levine's argument is cogent and common-sensical - and not in the least sympathetic to true abusers. In an age of hysteria about teen sex and an obvious backlash against the free expression of women's sexuality, Harmful to Minors is a welcome relief to read, especially for people who think sex is not the worst thing to ever happen to an eighteen-year-old.

Levine's prose is easy to understand without being simplistic; she walks the delicate line between scholarly tome and "non-fiction for dummies" nicely, weaving scientific studies and personal stories together deftly to form an eminently readable book. I recommend this for anyone who wonders why America is as puritanical as it is, and why the idea that minors - even those who have reached partial majority - should be protected from sex is such a powerful one in this society.

At Least They Didn't Mention Donuts?

I'm not sure what to make of this article from the New York Times. On the one hand, it's nice to see intuitive eating get some good press. On the other, it feels like one step forward, two back when I read quotes like this:

“'If you’re going to indulge in something, just try and walk it off or limit it to once a week.'”

Or this:

"Last year, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported on a study of 97 obese women, all of whom were avoiding high-fat foods. Half the women were instructed to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables. By the end of a year, the women who were focused on adding vegetables lost an average of 17 pounds, 20 percent more than the women who were just paying attention to fat consumption.

Also, the more time people spend on tasks like food shopping, cooking and kitchen cleanup, the more likely they are to be of average weight. The Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture found that people of normal weight spend more time on meal-related tasks than people who are overweight or underweight."

I mean, is that really any better than counting calories and limiting carbs? Doesn't seem so to me, but I suppose baby steps are better than no steps at all, right?

And while they pulled out the classic "Others worry that people will wrongly interpret positive eating as over-indulging, rather than adding moderate amounts of healthful foods into the diet.", at least they didn't make the point to tell us it's not a donut-eating license, for once.

Politics - of the Church Choir Variety

I've been in a lot of church choirs. Some good, some great, some sucktastic. But I've only been in one that didn't waste time with politics - and it isn't this one.

I hate church choir politics. It's ridiculous. We're all there to sing, to pray, to lead the congregation. We're a ministry, even if we're compensated, and we're there to add to the richness and the majesty of the Mass. In other words, we're not there to perform, and we're not there for personal accolades.

My current choir has just undergone a regime change. I admired the last director, and felt priveleged to work with him. But I didn't exactly like it. I'm not a professional singer, I'm not trained, and it was incredibly hard work to be part of Horst Buchholz's choir. Not only because of the choral pieces we did, but because he chose strange hymns and never rehearsed them, chose strange Mass parts and never rehearsed them, and expected us all to be concert-ready for every Sunday Mass. The congregation never sang along - I was going to Mass there before I was part of the choir, and the few people in the pews always looked bewildered when the organ started. It was a wonderful choir for hardcore musicians, and I'm sure Rome would have been pleased with the amount of Latin we sang, but I honestly don't feel we provided the service to the congregation that we were supposed to.

But Dr. Buchholz left, and the pastor appointed a new director. In the whopping two weeks since choir started back up after a summer hiatus, we've been without a regular organist and a grand total of 16 people (out of 40-something) have decided to show up to sing. We've been doing pretty standard English hymns, and Mass parts that everyone knows backwards. The congregation sings. We have short rehearsals. Our director is younger and less musically educated, but frankly? That lets me relax a little. I know I won't be reprimanded repeatedly for making mistakes while sight-reading Mozart.

And I'll admit: I'm totally biased. John Miller, our new director, worked with me at Ss. Simon and Jude in Phoenix - my one apolitical choir, where we all showed up, did our jobs (it was a fully professional choir), and didn't let our egos get in the way. We're used to a different style of sacred music and a different cathedral-level music program. I like leading the parishioners instead of performing every Sunday. And while I miss the Latin, I know that John has experience with the traditional forms of the Mass and the motets, and I know that once he gets into the swing of things, he'll be able to bring them back.

This, of course, is a tragedy of epic proportions for the old hands in the choir. Last night's rehearsal, which was led by a section leader since John was out of town for a funeral, culminated in people asking if we were only going to be doing this kind of music (English hymns), and wasn't there already a contemporary choir? (Despite the fact that we're singing nothing remotely "contemporary". I've been in contemp. choirs. "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" is not contemporary.) One bass was all up-in-arms and said he was writing to the Archbishop about how we've stopped doing the traditional music and it's a travesty and blah blah blah.

Did I mention it's been two weeks that we've been in session? Two weeks. Two weeks without some ninety-page Mass to sight-read every week and all of a sudden we're having Mass in a field with tambourines? Please.

Like I said, I'm biased. I'm pretty pissed that no one seems to want to give John a chance. I know it's not the choir they started in, but most of them are volunteers (just like me), and if it's really that terrible, go find some other sparsely-attended church with a performance choir to join. I can't understand why we can't do both the traditional stuff and the stuff everyone knows - what's so terrible about a few "contemporary" hymns? (And I'm expecting some serious head explosions when we collaborate with the actual contemporary choir - if Beethoven gives these people hives, what will they do when faced with "Open The Eyes of My Heart" or "Shout To The Lord"?)

Maybe I'm political, too, bitching about it like this. But it's so frustrating to me that we're wasting time complaining to each other when we could just be enjoying singing for once. There's no shame in singing classic hymns well - especially when it forces us to be the ministry we're supposed to have been all along. I don't volunteer to perform: I volunteer to be part of a ministry, to be part of the Mass, to use the gift God gave me to His greater glory, not mine.

I just wish we could all focus on that and get on with it.