Neopets Christmas Gallery

I have been collecting for many years, and if I do say so, I have one of the best Christmas collections in Neopia! I also take advantage of the season to send a message of peace to anyone who visits. My teenager says it's the "old hippy" in me. Guilty as charged.


(For residents of neopets.com, my username is lrn_jbk945. Use IE for the full effect with graphics and music)

An Artist Encounters Censorship

I have been working on improving my photography skills during this "creative sabbatical" year, and have been toying with the idea of exhibiting some of my photographs. The opportunity arose when I saw a call for entries for the annual Cornwall Photography Show, held annually at Town Hall. My daughter, Jules Kelly, is a also a good photographer, and we decided that it would be fun to enter the exhibit together. So on Monday morning I took four of my photographs and three of hers into town.

The organizer took one look at Julia's photograph entitled "Bush Poster," and declared that it could not be hung, as "this is a government building." I asked her to check with the Town Supervisor Richard Randazzo, since Freedom of Speech is a fundamental right in our consitution. She did, and he also refused.

Granted, Julia's photograph is quite edgy, and it does represent her political point of view. On the other hand, art has long had an important function in our national discourse. The earliest recorded American political cartoon ran in Ben Franklin's newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754, accompanying an editorial by Franklin urging the colonies to unite against the British.


I was with Julia in Amsterdam when she took the Bush photograph, and I know that one of the things that struck her was how surprising it is to see the deterioration of the United States' relationship with the Netherlands. They have always been a staunch U.S. ally, and from our many visits to Amsterdam, we know that the Dutch people typically embrace Americans. To Jules, this photograph represents not only her own feelings about Bush, but also how far we have fallen in our relationships with our European allies.

To me, the knee jerk conservative reaction of Randazzo's Town Hall is simply an extension of the national atmosphere created by the Bush administration, which is filled with political appointees who, qualified for their jobs or not, were hired because they are in lockstep with the administration's positions. We observed the consequences in New Orleans, with FEMA headed by people who didn't know how to coordinate an emergency response, and in post-war Iraq, with the reconstruction staffed with Bush loyalists who neither spoke Arabic nor had any experience with restoring a country's infrastructure. It's been well documented that people were asked about political loyalty as a condition for receiving those jobs. Somehow, in our post 9/11 world, the only way to show patriotism is to stifle dissent. This is a condition we accept at our peril, for in fact, this is contrary to how democracy is meant to work. A healthy democracy is populated by engaged citizens who have a point of view, who challenge authority when they don't agree, and who vote. If we are lucky, we will find our way back to that place, where people don't define themselves as Democrats or Republicans, but as American citizens, with all the privileges and responsibilities that it entails.

Despite this disappointment, the photography exhibit was a success. At opening reception on Friday Jules got very positive feedback from many people on her photograph entitled BREAK CONFORMITY BREAK STEEL.

Break Conformity Break Steel by Jules Kelly

She was one of two teens exhibiting there. The other, a SUNY New Paltz freshman and photography major named Emily Waterfield, also had a striking series of photographs of Adirondack chairs, photographed at the Mohonk Mountain House. The organizer is considering mounting a show next year featuring just the two of them, which was a very exciting development.

And, Jules' Bush photograph will soon be hung at the 2 Alices Coffee Lounge, so her voice has not been silenced after all.

Going Against History

One of the classes I visited at Parents' Night this week was AP American History, taught by family friend Nancy Larkin. She told us that her class was going to debate the Articles of the Constitution the following day. My daughter Jules loves history, and she really gets into these situations where history is dramatized, so I was curious, the following afternoon, to hear how it went. Here is a report, in her own words.

Everybody was lining up on the “FOR” side of the room, and all of a sudden I yelled “I AM OPPOSED!” And I ran across the room to the other side. People know I’m a good debator, so five kids followed me. When we got over there, they all said “Jules, what are we doing?!”

I asked Mrs. Larkin, since we were on the tough side, if she could find out who was doing the opening argument for the other team. So she casually went over, asked them, came back and told us it was Jack. I said “Michelle, do you still want to do our opening?” She said “No, if it’s Jack, you’d better open, Jules.” So I did. I raised my voice big and strong and dramatic, and did the opening argument. We had plenty of facts to support our position.

We went against history and we tied the debate, 5-5!

Mrs. Larkin (who married into a family of powerful NYS legislators) said, “Jules, you’re going to be a politician.”


It's no wonder I occasionally get a little discouraged with the teenage battles that go on in our house. I'm living with a naturally contrarian personality who never saw a debate she didn't believe she could win.

Farewell, Meg Murry

It is 6am, and I write this with tears streaming down my cheeks as I've learned of the death of the brilliant writer Madelaine L'Engle, author of my favorite book, "A Wrinkle in Time." It will not have escaped discerning readers that this blog, Tesseractive Pictures, derives its name from that book and the tesseract that allows Meg and her baby brother Charles Wallace to time travel as they try to save their father. I remember myself as a child, arguing vehemently with my own father, an eminently practical engineer who had no use for science fiction or fantasy. I insisted that the idea of time as the fourth dimension, accessed by "wrinkling" time, was certainly true. It had to be. The way L'Engle wrote about it in the book was so logical and compelling, I was certain that it could be proven to be true (as indeed it still may be). And besides, Mrs. Whatsit said so.

The last time I cried over Madeleine L'Engle was eight years ago, when I was reading "A Wrinkle in Time" aloud to my daughter Jules, then a second grader. We got to the part at the end when Meg is steeling herself to take on the all-powerful IT, who has captured the brain of her beloved little brother, Charles Wallace. Meg knows she has to go, but is terribly afraid, as she cannot imagine how she can overcome his power. She is a crusty underachiever who is struggling with self-esteem issues - hardly the person who is likely to be a hero, and she knows it. The stubbornness that often infuriates the people who know Meg is an asset at this moment - she simply refuses to give up.

As I was reading, I started to cry. My daughter looked at me curiously. "Mommy, why are you crying so hard?" she asked.
"I am crying because I am being Meg, and she is very afraid," I replied, and kept on reading aloud and crying.

Meg gets closer and closer to the moment of truth, still not able to think of anything that she could possibly have that would defeat IT. "WAIT! I know...I KNOW!" Jules said excitedly. "It's LOVE." Which of course, made me break down in sobs.

The climax of the final Harry Potter book turns on this same realization, as Harry defeats Voldmort through the power of love. J.K. Rowling has been widely praised for creating a mythology based on a rich and nuanced presentation of the battle between good and evil, even touching occasionally on theology. I like this very much about her writing. But, Madeleine L'Engle did it first, and she did it better.

I once attended a reading by L'Engle, in the old Brentanos Bookstore, on Fifth Avenue. I perched on the edge of a bookcase in the children's section, behind the kids sprawled all over the floor, listening to her read from her latest story. When she finished reading she talked to the children about the process of writing, and described an incident that is quoted in today's NY Times obituary. She was in the habit of reading aloud to her son whatever she had written while he was at school each day. On this particular day, she was reading the chapter from "The Arm of the Starfish" in which the character Joshua dies. Her son started to cry, and insisted that she needed to go back and re-write it so that Joshua wouldn't die. She told him that she couldn't - "that was simply what had happened, and there was nothing I could do to change it."

L'Engle's writing had a searing, enduring impact on my way of thinking about myself, first as a young girl who was often as complicated and prickly as Meg, then as a woman and mother (Meg's mother, a beautiful scientist absent-mindedly cooking dinner on a bunson burner, has long been my idealized role model!). She also inspired me to continue to be a dreamer, a woman of faith, and to eventually become a writer. As I learn of her death, I thank her, once again, for these gifts.
Madeleine L'Engle - New York Times Obit

Flowers in our Hair

I was so pleased that Jules, my 15-year-old, decided to give me a "breakfast hike" for Mother's Day. I used to do it often as a treat when she was little, but in recent years she has flat-out refused to consider an early morning hike to be a pleasant thing. Which is fair - she's a teenager, after all.

This year, she knew that a hike in the woods would please me more than anything she could buy me. We prepared breakfast together (lox & bagels, and a bowl of fresh strawberries), packed our knapsack, and headed up into Black Rock Forest for a wonderful morning - just like the old days!

On the Scene

Our girls (and their friend Matt) looking really "scene."
(photo taken shortly after one of Julia's Converse shoes fell off and a random guy picked it up and threw it away in the crowd. Yikes!)

Boys Like Girls

Jules posted this photo of Martin Johnson - Singer/Guitarist for Boys Like Girls. So much for my caution to stay out of the mosh pit!

Bamboozle Festival Day

This morning I'm psyching myself up for the 12-hour Bamboozle Festival, 5 stages in the parking lot of the Meadowlands Arena. I am chaperoning three 15-year-olds.....so funny, after all my years at MTV, to be the grownup, rather than the participant! It's actually a pretty great lineup - The Hush Sound, New Found Glory, My Chemical Romance, and a whole lot of alternative bands I've never heard before but will probably enjoy. And out of the blue, M.C. Hammer is on one of the small stages. So, at least there will be SOMEBODY else as old as I am in the house!


..// THE BAMBOOZLE \\..

Patti Smith :: Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Inductee

I never thought that punk poet/rebel Patti Smith would make it through the lingering misogyny of the music establishment to be honored by the Hall. Last night, at age 60, she accepted with grace and humility, performing with power and passion.

Smith's raw, angry style, seemingly in-your-face lyrics with their surprising subtlety of meaning, and refusal to doll herself up in the "girl group" tradition of were so inspiring to me when I was a young woman coming of age at the height of the Feminist Movement. I even went through one summer - thankfully only one - with unshaven armpits, inspired by her Easter album cover. I'm frankly glad that she lived to see the day that she was inducted into the Hall. I remember rushing from my secretarial job at CBS Records to the the Wollman Rink in NY in the summer of 1977, arriving breathless, just in time to see her carried out, unconscious, before the show ever began. She lived life her way, all the way, in those days.

And then she retired to be a mom, raising two children with MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith (their son played rhythm guitar with his mom onstage last night).

Fifteen years ago, in the weeks while we were waiting for our own daughter to be born, Chris and I made a complilation of the best, most accessible rock songs we could think of, titled "Songs to Sing with Julia." It was to be our baby's introduction to rock 'n' roll, and it was our way of declaring that we weren't going inflict insipid "kiddie music" on our child. Rather, we would respect her intelligence and introduce to her to quality music right from the outset. The playlist began with John Lennon's "Julia" (of course) and ended with Patti Smith's "People Have the Power."

It is not her best composition, but I have always loved "People Have the Power" as an anthem for how I aspire to live my own life. And, I was always intrigued that from this dark, often angry writer came lyrics which were inspired by The Beatitudes (....Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven....blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.....etc ). Thinking about it again today, I shouldn't have been surprised at the reference. The Beatitudes, which were the opening lines from Christ's powerful "Sermon on the Mount," were designed to shock. He got his audience's attention by going completely against the prevailing belief system, describing the "citizens of heaven" as the poor, the weak, and the helpless. That instinct, to push the envelope in pursuit of social commentary, is Patti Smith's MO. Who else could have come up with the title "Rock and Roll Nigger" as a way of expressing the isolation of the visionary?

Although it is nineteen years old, "People Have the Power" holds up both as a song and as a call to action. Its timeless relevance speaks to why this fierce yet fragile artist was inducted into the Hall of Fame last night.

PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER
I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognized
and my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
that the people / have the power
to redeem / the work of fools
upon the meek / the graces show
it's decreed / the people rule.

The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power

Vengeful aspects became suspect
and bending low as if to hear
and the armies ceased advancing
because the people had their ear
and the shepherds and the soldiers
lay beneath the stars
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste / in the dust
in the form of / shining valleys
where the pure air / recognized
and my senses / newly opened
I awakened to the cry

REFRAIN

Where there were deserts
I saw fountains
like cream the waters rise
and we strolled there together
with none to laugh or criticize
and the leopard
and the lamb
lay together truly bound
I was hoping in my hoping
to recall what I had found
I was dreaming in my dreaming
god knows / a purer view
as I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you

REFRAIN

The power to dream / to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it's decreed the people rule
it's decreed the people rule
LISTEN
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass thru our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth's revolution
we have the power
People have the power......

Lyrics © 1988 Druse Music/Stratium Music, Inc.

The Gospel according to Julia

Today in church the Gospel was Luke 9.28-37, the famous story in which Peter and the disciples go with Jesus up on the mountain to pray. They look up from their prayers and see Christ talking to the prophets Moses & Elijah. Peter, frightened but trying to be helpful, says "Lord, shall I prepare three tents, one for each of you?" Suddenly, the sky splits open and the voice of God speaks to them from a cloud.

I always smile to myself when I hear this dramatic story, because of what happened when I read it aloud with my daughter Jules when she was little. Trying to be as expressive as possible, I boomed in a voice that I hoped sounded like God coming from the heavens: "This is my Son. My Chosen One. Listen to Him." Without missing a beat, Jules quipped "Would you like me to make that FOUR tents?"

She makes me smile, every day.

Sweet Sixteen in Rural America

Last night, as I drove to rural Greenwood Lake, New York, I worried that Jules and her friends would be disappointed at their first Sweet Sixteen party. They were all wearing semi-formal dresses, impossibly high heels, and had awaited the night with great anticipation. As I dropped them off at the local American Legion Hall, I could see through the windows that the decor consisted of blue and white crepe paper, helium balloons, and an old-fashioned disco ball. Please, I implored silently, don't let them walk in and be dismayed.

My daughter and her friends are turning 16 this year, and of course, they are avid viewers of MTV's reality show "My Super Sweet Sixteen." The show is a celebration of crass materialism and stunningly spoiled teenagers (one girl's father hired a helicopter for her grand entrance to her party). Event costs often run into six figures, rap stars like Diddy and Kanye West are booked as surprise guest performers, and in more than one episode, girls have been given hundred thousand dollar luxury sports cars that they are still too young to drive! This is hardly what Jules and her friends are going to experience tonight.

Four hours later, when I returned to pick them up, I could see that everyone was still dancing madly, their movements frozen in time by flashing strobe lights. I slipped inside to watch, and stood near a table in the back. There was a huge card which all the kids had signed, flanked by two framed, 8 x 10 photographs of the birthday girl. One was her school portrait - a fresh-faced, hopeful teenager. The other was a sports photograph with her in full catcher's gear, crouching fiercely behind home plate. Now THAT, I thought to myself is a celebration message!

Gut check on the way home in the car. Not a hint of disappointment; a good time was had by all. There is still hope left for this culture!

A Christmas Story

The choir arrived early so that we could rehearse prior to the start of the Christmas pageant. While we were singing, I noticed a young mother with a little blonde girl at the altar rail. I had never seen them before, and guessed that they must be here visting grandparents for the holidays. The daughter looked to be about about four-years-old, and was wearing a red velvet Christmas dress. The mother was kneeling and they were talking, the little girl's eyes riveted to her mother's face. As we sang, I kept looking over to them, captivated by how intent and focused they were together.

An hour later, the pageant was in full swing, with various parishioners playing the parts of angels, Herod, Mary and Joseph. Suddenly, the little girl I had noticed earlier came walking up the aisle. Her mother never moved to scold or stop her, she just let her come.

The little one pushed through the angels, proceeded past the choir, and laboriously climbed the marble steps up onto the altar, where Fr. Tom was sitting in an ornate, carved chair. She marched straight up to him, and held her arms out to be picked up. He lifted her into his lap as if they had known each other all their lives. The grandfatherly priest spent the rest of the service with her nestled in his arms. Each time the ritual called for prayer, he took her hand and they climbed the steps to the altar to get the book. Then together, holding hands, they turned and faced the congregation to read.

Her little face was full of light – it was clear that she simply needed to be there. It was an emotional, unexpected manisfestation of the true spirit of Christmas. In religious terms, I would say that she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and it felt to me as though we were visited through her.

That (and the unmistakable resemblance to Cindy Lou Who) moved me to tears.

And a child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).

Assessment, as 2006 comes to a close......

Over the years, my husband and I bought and renovated two 19th century houses in Cornwall, a historic Hudson Highlands village 55 miles northwest of New York. He was the handy one; I was the primary breadwinner. When we divorced after sixteen years of marriage, I rented a tiny, 3-room carriage house up on Storm King Mountain, feeling sad, vulnerable and relieved not to have a big house to care for alone.

I gave myself a year to heal and then assessed my prospects. The picture was serious - splitting our assets in half had been devastating financially. It seemed foolish to rent in a market like Cornwall, which is rapidly transitioning from rural backwater to NYC bedroom community. With college tuition and retirement looming not too far in the future, I knew I needed a real estate investment, pronto. I started to look for a “fixer-upper” that would become a profitable asset in this rapidly appreciating market, though frankly, I was a little frightened by the prospect of renovating on my own, without a “handy” partner. Though technically I had experience from our previous homes, the truth of the matter was that we bought and he renovated.

I began by searching realtor.com for a 19th century house, hardwood floors, working fireplace, ample land. There were just five such properties listed in Cornwall. I called a realtor/friend, who hesitated and then said gently, “One of them is a lot like the house you used to live in.”

We walked in through the living room and opened a door onto an inviting back porch. As I took in the coppery sunset, filtered through a towering weeping willow, my teenage daughter whispered from behind me, “I call the tree!”

A fixer upper? Was I crazy? The place had been rented for years, and it was a mess. I could see that the roof was shot, the exterior paint was peeling, it still had its ancient, original windows, and the bathrooms? Well, let’s just say we gave it a ZERO rating in bathrooms. Decrepit, water damaged (“grotty,” Jules sniffed). I knew I could negotiate a low price and turn it into a jewel. But I didn’t have the skills to do the big work myself, nor the cash to hire a contractor.

Still, we loved this house. And after paying for an extensive inspection by a structural engineer, I was certain that the investment in this property, one of the last remaining “old” houses up on the mountain, would be a good one. I went back online, searching for a loan that would advance cash for the renovation.

“Have you ever applied for a HUD 203K loan?” my mortgage officer asked doubtfully. “There is a lot of paperwork.” I dug into the application, creating a work plan, getting estimates, selecting materials, hiring a contractor, creating a budget and timeline. I might not know how to install sheetrock, but this I could do!

Twenty months later, having spent virtually every weekend working our way through each room, sanding, refinishing, and painting, we are reclaiming the beauty and charm of this old house. Seven rooms down, two to go. And, now that I have proven to myself that I can do this, my next step toward financial security will be using the equity I have earned in this house to buy a fixer-upper investment property. This could become a habit!

Iron Chef Bake Off!

Jules, my teenage daughter, loves the Food Network, and she decided we should have an Iron Chef-style cook off this weekend. The core ingredient was apple, we were not allowed to look up any recipes, all ingredients in the kitchen were fair game, and we had 1.5 hour start to finish.

We had such a good time (though it took longer to clean up the mess than it did to do the cooking!). We were laughing and laughing as she made a very tasty apple pie from scratch, without a recipe. I tried a complicated custard that didn't work out very well....too runny. Tasted good, looked awful. We invited her grandmother over to do the judging (she scored us on both presentation and taste), and Jules won by a mile, fair and square.

I love having a teenager.

I'm back....and working on Sesame!

Well, it must have been a busy three years since I've posted regularly!

Life is settling down, so many things have changed....I feel like I want to start blogging again. I think I'll start with a link to the cover story from the Arts & Leisure section in last Sunday's NY Times. That is one way of catching up with whereI am these days.


NY Times
August 6, 2006
A Girly-Girl Joins the ‘Sesame’ Boys
By SUSAN DOMINUS



LIZ NEALON, executive vice president and creative director of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind “Sesame Street,” wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted in a new Muppet for the show’s 37th season, which starts on Aug. 14. But she did have one major goal: She wanted the creative team, at
long last, to come up with a female Muppet star. The show did already have a number of female characters, including Zoe, a rambunctious, orange, furry friend of Elmo’s, and Rosita, an emerald-blue, bilingual Muppet with a sweet, friendly soul.
“We have our wacky, and we have our gentle,” Ms. Nealon said in a recent interview. “But we wanted a lead female character. If you think about ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ some girls relate to Rhoda, who’s our Zoe, and some girls really relate to Mary, who’s a girly girl. And we didn’t have that girl. We made a definite decision to sit down with the writers to figure out what this character might be.”

The feminist-minded parent might not only applaud the decision to make a more high-profile female character, but wonder why on earth it took so long. “Sesame Street,” created to help underprivileged kids prepare for kindergarten, has over the years gone out of its way to include images of children of every creed and color, and every level of physical ability and disability. Yet its producers acknowledge it has never come up with a single female character with anything close to the name recognition of Big Bird or Cookie Monster or Ernie and Bert. (The closest that the Jim Henson Company, which designs Muppets for “Sesame Street,” has come is Miss Piggy. But she starred on “The Muppet Show,” not “Sesame Street,” and probably for good reason. You have to go back to “Dynasty” reruns to find a more jealous, vain and domineering female role model on television.)

Even bastions of liberal creativity like “Sesame Street” are apparently vulnerable to the realities of show business, including a disproportionately high ratio of male to female puppeteers, said Rosemary Truglio, executive vice president for education and research at Sesame Workshop. (Miss Piggy has always been played by male puppeteers, starting with Frank Oz.) And a show as politically sensitive as this one has an added challenge: finding female characters that make kids laugh, but not laugh at them as female stereotypes. “If Cookie Monster was a female character,” said Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer of the show, “she’d be accused of being anorexic or bulimic. There are a lot of things that come attached to female
characters.” For example, said Deborah Aubert, associate director of national programs and training services at Girls, Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group. “It would be hard to have a female character with Elmo’s whimsy who didn’t also seem ditzy.”
But it’s not just a high-minded interest in gender equality that drove the search for a strong female character. The success of “Dora the Explorer,” a show built around a strong female lead, has not gone unnoticed by its competitors at “Sesame Street.” “ ‘Sesame Street’ is living in an increasingly competitive market,” Ms. Nealon said. “We used to be the only game in town, and now we’re having more conversations about where are all the points of appeal of our cast. We’re trying to be as absolutely broadbased as we can be.”

The feminist parent might also wonder whether “broad-based” will boil down to characters with predictable girly-girl looks and interests. But Ms. Nealon said she wasn’t worried. “I came of age during that 70’s generation when you just had to do everything you could do to be taken seriously,” she said. “But the world has changed since then. My daughter is comfortable with clothes and hair and makeup and totally embraces her femininity, but can still be strong and completely competitive in a world populated by men and women.”

The Muppet that after nine months of research was selected to embody those characteristics is not technically a girl: she is a 3-year-old fairy named Abby Cadabby. Neither monster like Zoe nor humanoid like Prairie Dawn, the calico-wearing blonde who first showed up in 1970, Abby is a purely magical creature, complete with tiny wings, a magic wand and sparkles in her hair. There’s something suspiciously marketable, of course, about a new character who happens to be a fairy, just now in the midst of a girlish craze for tutus, tiaras and all things princessy, and as Disney prepares a big marketing push for its 2007 movie starring Tinker Bell. But the idea came not from some Mattel consultant but from a 30-year veteran of “Sesame Street,” Tony Geiss, whose most significant previous creations were the Honkers, monsters who communicate by honking their noses. One day the writers were tossing around the idea of a girl who was new in town, perhaps trying to fit into a new classroom. After the meeting broke up, Mr. Geiss approached the show’s head writer, Lou Berger, with the idea of making her the daughter of the fairy godmother, a character who is invoked but never seen. Her origins in fairyland would provide plenty of story lines about difference, without the show “having consciously to introduce somebody from Indonesia or India,” Mr. Geiss said. Mr. Berger and the team liked the idea and told Mr. Geiss to develop it further. A few days later he presented the full picture: a fairy in training, capable of hovering only when very happy, able to turn any object into a pumpkin but unable to change it back with any reliability. Her family had recently moved to Sesame Street for the schools, leaving behind Fairyside Gardens, an elves’ and fairies’ housing community in Queens (a bit of back story that’s mostly been dropped). “When I did a little presentation, I was calling her Daisy,” Mr. Geiss said. “Everyone said, no, that’s not it, and then we sat around as if we were coming up with names for a new baby. Patsy, Dixie, Leonora. ... ” Finally someone threw out Abby, and Mr. Berger followed that up with Abby Cadabby. “It had a vaguely magical sound to it,” Mr. Geiss said. The combination of “correctness and exhaustion” kicked in, he added, and Abby Cadabby she’s been ever since.

As a newcomer eager to learn, the writers knew, she would provide the perfect opportunity for explanatory lessons. She would also provide a way to talk about female friendships (including “What does it mean to bring a girl into the group?,” Ms. Truglio said, and to show healthy models by which girls could resolve conflict). The show had tried to introduce a character for just that purpose in 2000, the short-lived Lulu, a shy monster who “had a kind of quirky personality,” Ms. Truglio said. “She wasn’t that attractive.” With the approval of Ms. Nealon and Ms. Parente, and the product and publishing divisions of “Sesame Street,” the production team decided to take the idea of Abby Cadabby to the Jim Henson Workshop. Various sketches and fabric swatches of the Muppet-to-be were circulated for input from the writers and executives on the show. There was some retreading of what Mr. Geiss calls the big-nose versus small-nose debate. “Some people think the big nose is funnier,” he explained, but Abby’s is small, a nod toward the more feminine aesthetic for which the producers were hoping. Careful attention was paid too to how much eyelid would be visible; the more eyelid, the more vulnerable-looking the character. “Her eyes look up,” Mr. Geiss said. “They can look beseeching, and they can be sad as well as happy.”

Sherrie Rollins Westin, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Sesame Workshop, recalled seeing an early version that was a little too “bug-eyed” for her taste. One version had too much of a snout, rendering her worrisomely insectlike, given the wings in back, Ms. Truglio said. All versions featured various shades of pink- or lavender-toned skin, colors that would “work well next to Elmo,” who is red, Ms. Truglio said. “That was not up for discussion.” Once they narrowed the sketches down to two images that they thought worked, they showed them to 77children aged 2 to 5 and in one-on-one interviews asked them what they liked and didn’t like about Abby’s looks. The kids were particularly enamored of her turquoise dress; they also preferred a button nose to a flatter, more truncated version, and her hair in two pompoms, rather than in one big bunch atop her head.

Armed with that information, the team began to design the actual Muppet, a budget commitment of “tens of thousands of dollars,” said Ms. Parente, the show’s executive producer. They also began creating a 10-minute segment that they further tested on 53 3-year-olds. The resulting confection is a Muppet with the pretty pastel aesthetic of an Easter egg, complete with pink skin (compared with Zoe’s orange), purple and pink sparkly pompoms (Zoe’s hair juts out from the sides of her face ) and a Thumbelina-style petal-layered turquoise dress. (Zoe wears a tutu that’s charmingly incongruous on her bouncy little body.) Abby Cadabby’s lashes are long and feminine, her voice pitched somewhere between Elmo’s dog-range high notes and Zoe’s scratchy old-womanish tones. In the first segment created, Abby played hide-and-seek, making ample, if not totally proficient use of her magic wand. “The kids were pretty glued to the show,” Ms. Truglio said. “They loved that she could do magic,” she added. “But if you asked them how they imagined playing with Abby Cadabby, they mentioned regular kid stuff like playing catch. So we knew they liked her as a personality.”

For all the educational consultants and child psychologists the show could have enlisted, the success of the character seems to rely largely on the one simple quality no other Muppet can claim: she’s very, very pretty. As played by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, a new Muppeteer, she’s enthusiastic, eager, occasionally bashful but never coy (and certainly never divalike along the lines of Tinker Bell). “I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready!” she answers Baby Bear emphatically in one segment when he asks if she’s prepared for her first day of school.

In the past the show has bent over backward to counteract stereotypes, with the tomboyish Zoe or the highly opinionated Elizabeth. “But political correctness hampers creativity,” Ms. Nealon said. “Abby Cadabby owns her own point of view, but she’s also comfortable with the fact that she likes wearing a dress, and as we’d tried to model strong female models, we neglected that piece of being a girl.”

On the set the joke was about the new toy on the block, as opposed to the new Muppet character, a dig at the obvious marketability of the new pretty-in-pink creature. Some of the writers, Ms. Parente said, worried about moving away from the show’s merely surreal characters to one with a full-blown dependence on actual magic. Others were concerned about the character tipping over into a saccharine sweetness. “What’s always been great about ‘Sesame Street,’ ” said Noel MacNeal, a longtime “Sesame Street” Muppeteer, “is that there was always a softness and gentleness to its characters, while still having enough edge. It wasn’t too cute. I just hope with Abby Cadabby, they’re not going to make a mistake they’ve made before when they tried to compete directly with ‘Barney,’ which was so cutesy.” (He was referring to his
take on why the show added a new set in the early 90’s to give the street a clean new look. A few years later Ms. Parente reverted the set back to its old chipped-paint aesthetic.) But for the most part the traditional “Sesame Street” team of performers and writers has rallied behind the character.

The producers’ hopes of course are pinned on the possibility that Abby Cadabby could be the female equivalent of Elmo, a huge money-maker for the nonprofit organization behind the show. First to roll out will be storybooks featuring Abby Cadabby; if they succeed, videos and toys will follow. Maura Regan, vice president and general manager of global consumer products for Sesame Workshop, said she was confident about Abby Cadabby’s market readiness. She’ll be strong in spring, Ms. Regan theorized, because she has a “wood nymph quality,” and added that her pink coloring made her great for
merchandising around Valentine’s Day and Christmas, when she will pair well with red Elmo. Then of course there’s the fall back-to-school theme of a new girl getting to know her classmates. Ms. Regan’s team has already started working with the toy company Fisher-Price on a rough mockup of a doll. Most important, she said, is getting a cuddle-ready expression on the toy’s face; then there’s the challenge of capturing her feathery, fluffy, sparkly hair without creating a safety hazard. “There are so many cute things out there,” she added, “but in order to make them want one doll over another, I think the real deciding factor is how much they’ve connected with the Muppet from the show. And you’ve got to be able to capture that.”
Could Abby’s sales rival those of the show’s marketing juggernaut, Elmo? Ms. Regan obviously hopes they can. But in an aside, as she demurred from making predictions, she gave a hint on just how much rides on the outcome. “I don’t want to jinx myself,” she whispered. “That would be terrible, terrible, terrible.”

Whoever would think that I'd be the one credited with creating a "girly girl"? Curiouser and curiouser, this life!
liz

Photograph © 2006 Sesame Workshop. All Rights Reserved.

Making Music with my Daughter

Last night was Duet Night at the Ann Farber Studio, where my daughter Julia studies piano. She has just gotten back into lessons again, after eight months off (no piano) while we lived in Australia. We played two short pieces by Kohler, and although we knew the pieces very well, we both felt quite nervous. I was so pleased to see Julia muster her concentration and play with great confidence and musicality. Fortunately Mom mastered her stage fright as well, so she didn't mess it up! The magical thing was the intuitive communication between us --- essential in performing a duet successfully. Numerous people commented on how they enjoyed seeing the tight, nonverbal synchronicity of us playing together. She felt great about it, and sat through the whole evening holding my hand - something she doesn't do much in public anymore. We felt so close to each other. A wonderful evening.

War Protesting

Before leaving New York, Chris, Jules and I went to the Peace demonstration in New York City. It was a great day - sunny, spring-like weather...drums beating, chants raised, by a large, enthusiastic crowd. Jules is only eleven, and after we'd gotten ourselves situated among the hundres of thousands of demonstrators, she asked "So, what do we do?" I responded "This is it. You are protesting by standing here and being counted." And I was glad to be able to show her that it is indeed possible to support and pray for the safety of our soldiers while still objecting to waging the war itself.

I went straight from the march to the airport, and was having lunch with my friend Rolf from Munich what felt like just a few hours later. His big question is "what next?" Seeing the U.S. so comfortable in the role of an aggressor...people are shocked, and wondering where it stops...whom do we move against next?

We`ve done so much damage to our reputation as a model democracy based on hard won and inviolate principles of democracy and human rights. Once we`ve thrown that out the window, what next, indeed?

I was sitting in my room last night with a choice of either French or Italian news, struggling to follow the fine details of two very complex stories...the Muslim American Marine who ambushed his fellow soldiers as they slept, and the Al Jazeerah footage of our American POWs. The latter was particularly frustrating because (of course) the French announcer was translating over their voices, when I wanted so much to hear what they were saying in their own words. The translation paused for a moment, and I heard a soldier say "I`m sorry, I can`t understand you." I also heard "New Jersey." I cannot even imagine what it must be like for their families to see this footage.

I can understand why Al Jazeerah is broadcasting this footage. After the unending hours of CNN coverage of the triumphant American "March to Baghdad," American and British officers talking matter-of-factly about Iraqi troops showing no resistance, and "superior" American technology that has blanketed the airwaves (in the Gulf War, too) it has to feel unbelievably powerful to be able to broadcast the other side of the story to the Arab world....indeed, to all of us. The war of images is very sobering. I can only hope that seeing the reality of war will dampen everyone`s enthusiasm for combat as a solution of choice, rather than necessity.

I'VE BEEN READING.....

Amazon.com: Editorial Reviews: If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State
Could it be that there is something so subtle, so magical, so intoxicating-and so dangerous-about this land that it leads parents to willingly sacrifice their children?

In 1998 Rabbi Gordis accepted a one-year sabbatical in Jerusalem, moving his wife and three children from Los Angeles. When they arrived, there was great hope in Israel that a lasting peace was finally being achieved. Things quickly deteriorated, however, and they found themselves (and their children) living in the middle of escalating violence. Amazingly, they decided to stay - they realized that they had never felt such a sense of "home" anywhere. And, despite the danger, they were captivated by the experience of living in the Jewish homeland. Gordis is a moderate - uncomfortable with the Zionist views his children are learning at school, and volunteering in Palestinian refugee camps. His voice is clear and honest, and presents a fresh point of view. I came away with a much clearer understanding of how complex the situation in Israel really is. We hear so many voices dictating "what the Israelis must do" or "what Arafat must do" to achieve peace. Seeing life through Gordis's eyes, it will never seem quite so cut and dry again. This book is a very readable way to dig for a deeper understanding of the current situation without being subjected to the rigid rhetoric that's so often present from both sides of the conflict.

My daughter Julia gave me this book for Christmas. She did the research on amazon.com and decided this was something I would be interested in. She was right. I was captivated.

MATISSE-PICASSO at MOMA

Friendship and Rivalry


Julia and I saw the Matisse-Picasso exhibit on Saturday. Despite the crowds, it was possible to spend thoughtful time in each section. People, for the most part, were considerate and patient. As usual, I paid five dollars for a headset to listen to commentary from the art historians, and then wondered why I had done so. The talking keeps me from being able to see and feel. I know this - I should quit worrying about not having the "technical" background to appreciate what I am seeing (the insecurity that makes me succumb each time) and trust my eyes and instincts to take it in. Anything I need to know I can read in the book later. You'd think I would know by now.

It is a stunning exhibit. Full of masterpieces that you know well and can't believe you're seeing with your own eyes...but also sprinkled with delicacies from private collections that I've never seen before.

It was so interesting to see Matisse's masterpiece "Nasturiums with 'Dance" II" (the blue painting with four dancers linked in a circle) juxtaposed with Picasso's "The Three Dancers." Of course, the Matisse is stunning - brilliant composition, and a sense of floating airiness that draws the viewer in. The Picasso, while not strictly a cubist work, is dominated by cubist/surrealist qualities. As such, it felt heavy and encumbered next to the effervescence of the Matisse - Picasso's big feet have never looked so clunky! Yet for me, the sense of joy in Picasso's three dancers leaps out of the frame. While the Matisse's dancers are classically beautiful, the raw energy of the Three Dancers is literally bursting out of the canvas. At least, for me.

I saw a painting that I'd never seen before - Picasso's "Nude in a Black Armchair" - from a private collection (unnamed). So few lines, and so bold - and she is so beautiful. And, for the record, I am in love with Picasso's "The Studio at 'La Californie'" - I wish I could live with this painting.

Julia was drawn to a Matisse called "Portrait of Mlle Yvonne Landsberg." It is in no way a typical Matisse - it is done in shades of black, grey and straw - and quite abstract. Of course, it's not a commercially appealing Matisse - no way there would be a poster. Too bad - Jules would have loved to have had it to hang in her room. Her takeaway from the exhibit? She prefers Matisse - problem with Picasso's cubist work - but thinks that in general Picasso's eyes are "much warmer." Even though she is only 11, her artist's eye reveals new information to me.

The exhibition ends with an affecting Matisse quote, painted on the wall. (I'm paraphrasing) We must talk to one another often. For after one of us dies, there will be many things the other can talk to no one else about.