Pop Culture

I never thought I'd find myself admitting to this, but I think I'm finally sick and tired of Dr. Seuss. Our four-year-old has developed an obsession with the late Doctor's works and we've been indulging it in keeping with the theory of "Anything That Encourages Literacy Has to Be Good." As an adult, I think Dr. Seuss books are one of the pleasures of reading to your children. With so many dull children's books out there, especially those derived from TV shows (Elmo, or, even worse, Dora the Explorer) or derivatives of past-their-prime book series (Clifford, anyone?), Dr. Seuss books are a joy to read, with even the simpler ones like the seemingly basic Hop On Pop being at least fun to read, and seminal works like The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas coming off as high art.

read more »

No, it's not what you're thinking... And I don't want to hear any cracks about Bert and Ernie!

Apparently, the newly-released volumes 1 and 2 of classic Sesame Street episodes on DVD, "Sesame Street: Old School," come with warnings declaring them suitable only for adults! This according to the New York Times' blog "The Medium."  You can read the whole post here.

read more »

At 16 months Alexandra, AKA "The Baby", has been cutting some pretty serious teeth lately, and, likewise, we've all been up later into the night than normal. One recent night when I was Designated Cranky Baby Minder (actually, most of the time she's not cranky, but just won't go to sleep... I think she gets distracted from the teething discomfort by playing) I amused myself by watching Star Trek reruns on cable TV. I'm talking classic Trek: James Tiberius Kirk, Spock, that creepy looking little kid in that one episode who was played by creepy looking Clint Howard. Interestingly, these have recently been re-released with CGI-enhanced special effects on some episodes. I was iffy about the idea when I first heard about it, but after seeing what's been done I think it's pretty nifty. Anyhow, I'm watching Trek, the baby's playing, when suddenly she sees something on the TV, drops what she's doing, and slowly wanders over. She's transfixed with Star Trek. This is not normal for a child her age, is it?

I wondered exactly what the attraction was, until one day the situation was made clear to me by my 4-year-old, who, upon finding an old pop-up birthday card featuring the Enterprise's crew, showed it to me and said "Daddy, are these the Wiggles?"
read more »