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!)
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!
Be sure to play “No!” on your computer for some kid-friendly flash games associated with the songs.
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.
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.)
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!
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!
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.
“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
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.
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!
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…”).
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.
“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….”
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!”)
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 www.wxpn.org.
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.
But that’s why they have the accordian solos, to make up for that.
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!
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review