Zoë likes They Might Be Giants, "No!". Santa brought it. Amazing how many of the things Santa brought daddy likes, too. "The Edison Museum", for example:
The Edison Museum, not open to the public
Its haunted towers rise into the clouds above
Folks drive in from out of town
To gaze in amazement when they see it
Just outside the gate I look into the courtyard
Underneath the gathering thunderstorm
Through the iron bars, I see the Black Mariah
Revolving slowly in its platform
In the topmost tower, the lights burn dim
A coiling filament glowing within
The Edison Museum, once a bustling factory
Today is but a darkened cobweb covered hive of industry
The tallest, widest and most famous haunted mansion
in New Jersey!
Behind a wooden door, the voice of Thomas Alva
Recites a poem on a phonograph
Ghosts float up the stairs, like silent moving pictures
The loyal phantoms of his in house staff
A wondrous place it is, there can be no doubt
But no one ever goes in, and no one ever goes out
The Edison Museum, not open to the public
Its haunted towers rise into the clouds above it
The largest independently-owned and operated mausoleum.
As Henry James might have said, for actual implies possible (see p. 18): "It was an adventure, unmistakeably, … to be learning at last, in the maturity of one’s powers, what New Jersey might ‘connote’."
Not what ‘New Jersey’ might connote, mind you.
Consider this an open thread only for those in the maturity of their powers.
May I remind you, and this goes as well for those with lesser powers: there are disaster victims who need your help. Please consider donating generously. And – I am sorry to repeat myself – if you were going to buy something from Amazon anyway, please consider using the Search Box under the fold to do so. Costs you the same, and that way 5.75% goes to me and I give it to the Singapore Red Cross. Thank you, those of you who have helped already. (And, to our anonymous drunken monkey offerer of matching funds: they have been met. You may donate your 200 euros now. Thank you!)
{ 18 comments }
Scott Martens 01.05.05 at 3:57 pm
Okay, perhaps I am bereft of clue here, but is this true? Is the Edison Museum really closed? It was one of my few positive memories of childhood in New Jersey!
jon mandle 01.05.05 at 5:11 pm
Be sure to play “No!” on your computer for some kid-friendly flash games associated with the songs.
dsquared 01.05.05 at 5:34 pm
Just a note to UK readers that if you shop at amazon.com through the search box above, you can take advantage of the weak US dollar and stuff seems to work out cheaper even after allowing for the shipping. Purchasing power parity doesn’t appear to be holding for the (small) selection of items I checked. You also get the decent chance that your books will be printed on acid-free paper too, meaning that the hedonically adjusted saving is even greater.
Jeremy Osner 01.05.05 at 6:12 pm
The Edison Museum is only temporarily closed, while renovations are being done. (Or so I believe — I moved 2 years ago to a house about 3 miles from the museum and have not been there — I found out about it a year or so ago at which time it was closed; a friend says he was there a few years before that and it was open, and that they had been preparing to close for renovations; I haven’t checked up on it since last spring so maybe it has even reopened since then.)
Jeremy Osner 01.05.05 at 6:16 pm
Further to that — the National Park Service’s page (http://www.nps.gov/edis/) says that the site “Plans to reopen sometime in 2005.” I’m looking forward to visiting!
Angry Moderate 01.05.05 at 6:18 pm
Great cd – it sent me and my son scurrying to google black maria, as my only associations with it were as the term for the prison vans that picked up political prisoners under Stalin!
des von bladet 01.05.05 at 6:34 pm
DSquared: This works well for books (I just ordered some today) except for the disintanting of the gratification, but badly for many electronic goods: I was looking to buy a radio, but they only ship them within the US.
There is of course also a small but non-zero chance of Her Majesty’s Privateers (“Customs and Excise”) seizing your goodies and holding them to ransom.
Steve 01.05.05 at 6:39 pm
“No” should also be purchased for the biting social commentary song
“I’m Not Your Broom”:
Now Broom, you must now sweep for me
The dust it fills my room
No, John, I will not sweep for you
For I am not your broom
What nonsense are you speaking, Broom
My words you must obey
Another life awaits me and
I’m leaving you today
I am not your broom
I am not your broom
I’ve had enough, I’m throwing off
My chains of servitude
I am not your broom
I am not your broom
No longer must I sweep for you
For I am not your broom
paul 01.05.05 at 7:14 pm
and while we’re thumbing our nose at the Garden State, don’t forget:
“New York has tall buildings
New Jersey has its malls”
from “Where do they make balloons?” on the same disc.
David Salmanson 01.05.05 at 9:38 pm
I got No for Christmas but haven’t had the chance to listen yet (and yes, I have a 2 year old to share it with). But the real question is: are all TMBG discs children’s records? They wrote an ode to a nightlight and another to Triangles and put them on the same album!
Ereshkigal 01.05.05 at 10:04 pm
TMBG writes a number of songs that are far out of the range of chiildren (see, for example, “Youth Culture Killed My Dog”,or “Alienation’s for the Rich”). My favorites include “Kiss Me, Son of God” (the lyrics begin, “I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the expoited working class”), and “It’s Not My Birthday”.
One of their best, most child-accessible songs is a cover of a 1950s science-promotion song, “Why Does the Sun Shine?” (“The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace…”).
Lee Scoresby 01.05.05 at 10:29 pm
My wife and I had the same discussion – are all TMBG albums Children’s albums – after “No” proved to be an enormous hit with Lyra. The answer is also “No!” because there are a lot of mature themes even in those songs with kid appeal. I guess this means they leave the CD player when the kid is old enough to understand the content but not quite old enough to be exposed to it. An increasingly short timeframe, I understand.
SloLernr 01.05.05 at 11:56 pm
“Where do they make balloons?” is one the best pop songs ever. Just saying.
Also, children do like other TMBG songs tho’ you need to take care. But, “Particle Man” is a big hit with the junior set around here, who are going to owe their understanding of subatomic physics to “When he’s underwater does he get wet, or does the water get him instead? Nobody knows….”
Mrs. Coulter 01.06.05 at 2:48 am
It’s educational too:
Don’t cross the street in the middle, in the middle, the middle, in the middle of the block!
Use your eyes to look up!
Use your ears to hear!
Walk up to the corner when the coast is clear,
and wait
and wait
until you see the light turn green!
(A deadly earworm that can only be erased by “Violin-lin-lin violin-lin-lin violin-lin-lin violin!”)
David Salmanson 01.06.05 at 12:45 pm
If you were raised on union songs and Pete Seeger albums, songs like Alienation’s for the Rich are pretty mild. Compare to Deportees, for example. They indoctrinate us young.
And all those folk songs? They are grim indeed. Clementine and You are My Sunshine are dark, dark, tales yet they are staples of children’s music. Incdientally, for more kids music check out the kids korner web pages at http://www.wxpn.org.
Ereshkigal 01.06.05 at 11:56 pm
I never was too concerned about “dark” material for chilidren in most contexts (e.g., music or literature). My kids all loved Roald Dahl [I truly believe that the beginning of James and the Giant Peach is a comedy classic] as well as Hans Christian Anderson, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, mythology, and so forth. Childhood itself is a subversive condition to adult society, so it’s not the thematic content of some of TMBG’s songs that makes me think that they are not ideal for children. Rather, I think that some of the lyrics are so contextual, so remote from most children’s experience, or so obscure, that the songs are not as interesting for younger children as they are for their older siblings.
David Salmanson 01.07.05 at 2:59 am
But that’s why they have the accordian solos, to make up for that.
Ereshkigal 01.08.05 at 12:25 am
Ahhh…. right you are,Mr. Salmanson, but there is a dark side (for many parents, anyway) to those “innocuous” accordion solos. They are subversive! For example, one of my sons (now almost 23 years old!), reared on TMBG music, is now a circus performer–currently in Europe– and he plays the accordion!
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