My daughter, Rosie, started summer camp today. Her preschool class ended two and a half weeks ago. During the in-between time, we spent all of the days together, going to the beach, the grocery store, the newly renovated library, local parks, and biking along the Mississippi River. We made up stories and had great talks about everything from soylent green (she brought it up) to our fifth favorite color to the possibility of life on other planets (prompted after a viewing of A Wrinkle in Time). I was able to bear witness to her (mostly) wonderful troublemaking spirit and was reminded of how she (and her brother FWA) helped to inspire my creation of this blog back in May of 2009.
Being beside Rosie is always very helpful for my own thinking about troublemaking. Much like me, her troublemaking usually comes in the form of an insatiable curiosity and a refusal to merely accept what she is told. Because she asks so many questions and always demands explanations for why she must do this or believe that, she reminds me that engaging in troublemaking (or being around someone who is making trouble) can be exciting, exhilarating and exhausting. Indeed, troublemaking has its limits and shouldn’t be uncritically embraced as that which we should do all of the time. And when it is practiced, we need to remember how it can drain us or those around us. Throughout the past two and a half weeks, Rosie has prompted me to exclaim with joy, “Really Rosie!,” one minute, and then utter in annoyed disbelief, “Really, Rosie?,” the next.
When I was a kid, I loved the show, Really Rosie. My daughter Rosie was (at least partly) named after it. For some time, ever since I saw Spike Jonez’s film of Maurice Sendak’s other kids’ classic, Where the Wild Things Are, I have wanted to write a blog entry, contrasting the gendered representations of the troublemaking girl in Really Rosie and the troublemaking/troubled boy in Where the Wild Things Are. Hopefully I will get to that entry sometime this summer. For now, I want to mark the occasion of the beginning of my summer writing (now that the kids are in their summer camps!), by paying tribute to one of my favorite troublemakers: my five year old daughter, Rosie. In honor of her, I’m including the video for Really Rosie below:
Absentee Landlord, a special exhibit curated by John Waters, opened at the Walker Art Center on Saturday, June 12th. I just heard about it from a former student (and awesome queer blogger!), Anna Nowak. Knowing how much I love troublemakers and making trouble, she posted a link to it on my facebook wall. While I haven’t devoted a lot of attention to Waters’ work, I love his movie, Female Trouble (I wrote about it on this blog a few years ago). I look forward to seeing what he has put together, especially after reading his description in a blog post about the exhibit, A Troublemaker Invades the Walker Art Center!!!
Here’s an excerpt (bold emphasis is mine):
Okay, look out you current tenant artworks, there’s a new absentee landlord in town, me. And I’m not going for rent control. Sure, the trustees left a security deposit of the permanent collection but I want to clean house, reward troublemakers, and invite crashers. Aren’t all curators landlords who allow fine art to live together in a sublet for a while and be uneasy roommates? Or is it closer to a dictatorship where I can order eviction by deaccession if they talk back, balk at my orders or fail to entice enough public comment?…
Who should room together in the world of contemporary art? Can a Russ Meyer photograph go to sleep in the same gallery as an Yves Klein blue chip masterpiece? Certainly, Sturtevant is secure enough to be hated, but is Anne Truitt? Video art has “street cred” these days but can it ever catch up with a John Currin painting in art-history references, even if they’re embraced and mocked? Who’d copy from Richard Prince? Who’d be sloppier to live with than Mike Kelley? And better yet, who’d ruin decoration more than Christopher Wool? Suppose an “art-terrorist” like Gregory Green was hiding amongst us? Do we snitch or shiver in welcome artistic fear? Would Fred Sandback approve of the damage his fellow roommates have caused or would he think they were trying too hard?
I like the question: Who should room together in the world of contemporary art? I also like the idea of works of art being put together as uneasy roommates and then imagining how they might negotiate living with (and next to) each other. It reminds me of my current interest in the idea of beside/s and the value of allowing different theories/theorists/ideas/experiences/identities to exist next to each other without reconciling or reducing them. How will Waters pose this question of who should room together visually? How does he plan to use his exhibit to reward troublemakers and crashers? I can’t wait to see…
For some time now, I have been interested in thinking through the potential ethical and political value of asking “why.” Cultivating selves/communities who persistently ask “why” (along with “at whose expense”) is a central part of my own feminist ethico-political project. Recently I came across a children’s story, “Why?” from Fairy Tales for Workers’ Children (1925). I found the story in the recent (and totally awesome) edited collection of Radical Children’s Literature from Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel: tales for little rebels. When I first wrote this paragraph, I incorrectly identified the book as tales from little rebels.Wouldn’t that be a cool book? Tales of resistance from little kids? Hmm…what would that look like? I’m sure that kids could have a lot to say about rebellion and resistance…and a lot that they could teach us (well, at least me).
Since the inception of this research/writing/thinking/engaging blog back in May 2009, I have positioned my vision/version of troublemaking beside (in relation to) kids; much of my work is inspired by my desire to make sense of my own experiences as a troublemaking kid (and the experiences of my daughter whose image serves as the mascot for this blog). It is also inspired by a desire to develop methods for promoting feminst curiosity and wonder in children. I think that this edited collection for little rebels might be an excellent resource as I continue to think through my project/s.
Before moving into a discussion of the story, “Why?,” here are a few passages from the introduction of the collection that I would like to spend more time reflecting on in some future post:
On the difference between politics and morality: Children’s literature is necessarily involved in both morality (making distinctions between right and wrong) and politics (which are about the power to effect change). Teaching children to obey a higher authority may be understood as a moral lesson, but it can also be understood as a political lesson (1).
On the presence of politics in children’s literature: For those who would argue that politics have no place in children’s literature, we maintain that there is no way to keep politics out. Stories that uphold the status quo (arguably the majority of works published for children) may not seem political, but they represent efforts to teach children that the current social, political, economic, and environmental orders are as they should be (2).
What sort of literature is appropriate for children? What responsibility do adults have to children to keep them informed about critical issues of the day, such as global warming, terrorism, political corruption, and corporate greed? At what point must an ideal of “protection” end and one of preparation necessarily begin (5)?
So much that I want to discuss here in terms of how to distinguish between ethics and politics (and whether or not we even should); how to create/bear witness to stories for kids that don’t perpetuate the status quo; and how to think about the roles of protection and preparation in children’s literature (are these the only roles)?
Now, onto the story: “Why” from Fairy Tales for Worker’s Children (1925). This story is the first one in Mickenberg and Nel’s section on Imagination.
Once upon a time there lived a little boy named Paul who had no mother or father. He was very curious and liked to ask “why” all of the time. He was also very poor and never had enough food to eat. All of the people in the town were very old and very unhappy; they really didn’t like Paul always asking “why” and trying to figure out the cause of everything. The Matron would say: “You mustn’t always ask why. Everything is as it is, and therefore is right” (141).
Here’s a passage that I particularly liked: “Keep quiet, you good-for-nothing! Leave me alone with your eternal questions.” The fat woman was quite red with anger, because she knew no answer to Paul’s questions, and nothing angers ignorant persons more than to be forced to say, “I don’t know” (141).
…back to the story. One day, after asking too many questions and being slapped for it, Paul runs away.
First he runs to the chicken yard and happens upon the chickens just as they were laying eggs. Paul asks a hen, “where do all of your eggs go to?” After being told that all of the eggs go to the rich people in the city, Paul asks: “Why don’t I ever have an egg?” When the hen replies that he is a “poor Have-nothing” Paul asks, “Why am I a poor Have-nothing?” Angered by his bothersome questions, the hen shoos him away.
Second he runs to a cowshed where he happens upon the cows. He asks one of the cows for some milk. When the cow declines, explaining that the milk belongs to the farmer and that it will be sent to the city for rich people to drink, Paul ask, “Do the poor children there get any of the milk?” The cow chastises him, describing how the milk will be used for making delicious whipped cream for cakes and puddings for the rich. When Paul wonders if the poor children will get these treats too, the cow tells him to stop asking so many questions and to go away before the farmer comes and beats him.
Third he runs to a wheat field. Paul pesters the wheat about who will get to eat the bread that is made from them. When he is again told that the food is for rich people he exclaims, “Ah, again the rich people! Does everything in this world belong to the rich people?” When the ears of wheat softly buzz, “everything, everything,” Paul cries, “WHY?” They laugh at him for asking such a stupid question.
By this time Paul, who is near tears, angrily demands an answer to his questions. He is told to seek out the Owl for answers. The Owl happens to be a mean and imperious She–are Owls usually gendered as “she”? This Owl seems to represent tradition and knowledge here. Reminds me of an earlier entry I wrote about the Sour Kangaroo in Horton Hears a Who as the bearer of tradition and that which gets in the way of innovation, change and critical thinking. The only other wise Owls I can think of are the male Owls in Winnie the Pooh and the “how many licks?” commercial.
Anyway, the Owl, who doesn’t want to “waste her precious time on such a stupid child as Paul,” is too busy focusing all of her attention on a more important question, “Why are people so stupid?” She is particularly interested in examining why poor people, who work very hard, yet never seem to get anywhere, are so stupid. She is not interested in talking with Paul about his questions, and sends him away.
Totally depressed, Paul sinks down in the ground. Suddenly a fairy asks him, “why are you crying my child?” When Paul laments how lonely and sad he is because he seems to be the only person who ever wonders why, the fairy comforts him and tells him that if he listens really closely, he will hear poor people all over the world repeatedly asking why. Here are a few of her comments from page 145:
With her final statements I think the fairy is offering one answer to the question I pose in the title of this entry: Can asking “why?” lead to resistance and social transformation? Yes, potentially, with the help of consciousness-raising and collective awareness. I have a few issues with this story (singular focus on class, reliance on older woman as perpetuators of status quo–the old lady who laughs at Paul, the hen, the wise Owl), but I do appreciate the connections that it draws between curiosity, education and justice. I think I want to read this story to my kids to see what they think. Hmmm….
While listening to This American Life yesterday I had my mind blown by the revelation that Van Halen’s request for “no brown m&ms” as part of their contract rider was not intended to assert their rockstar diva status, but to ensure their safety. Check out a discussion between Ira Glass and his guest, John Flansburgh (from the awesome, They Might Be Giants), on how brown m&ms signaled trouble for Van Halen in the first 6 minutes of this podcast:
At one point, Glass reads from David Lee Roth’s autobiography about the brown m&ms. You can read the transcript, and get even more background, here.
This entry is partly inspired by my feminist debates class and our upcoming focus, after spring break, on labor, domestic work and undocumented workers. But it is mainly inspired by a brief aside from a comment that I came across this morning. Responding to another commenter who is challenging the claim, in the original post, that Andrea Smith was being unjustly denied tenure, Dan writes:
Ms. Smith is the smartest person I ever met. That, of course, doesn’t automatically qualify someone for tenure. If it did, then janitorial staff would have total job security.
After reading this comment, I was reminded of a documentary that I started, but have yet to finish, on instant Netflix a few months ago: The Philosopher Kings. Here’s the synopsis:
In search of wisdom found in unlikely places, The Philosopher Kings takes us on a journey through the halls of the most prestigious colleges and universities in America to learn from the staff members who see it all and have been through it all: the custodians. This thought-provoking, feature-length documentary interweaves the untold stories of triumph and tragedy from the members of society who are often disregarded and ignored, and seeks out the kind of wisdom that gets you through the day and the lessons one learns from surviving hard times, lost loves, and shattered dreams.
