Sherry Chandler

Speaking of Fearless Reader, as Poppysmatus just was, some time back, Charlie Hughes drew my attention to this article from The Dragon Lode, The Myths of Reading Aloud (PDF), by Patrick Shannon of Penn State. It’s a fascinating article that takes as its theme the meta-message celebrities send when they choose books to read aloud to children in public fora.

When, for example, Bill Clinton chose “The Little Engine that Could” for two third grade students to read on the steps of the Wyandotte, Michigan, public library, he had a political purpose — to publicize his American Reads program, but he also had a message to send about, oh say, welfare reform. When Laura Bush reads Officer Buckle and Gloria in schools and libraries, she is sending a meta-message about terrorism.

And what of George W. Bush and his favorite childhood book, the one he reads when he isn’t reading The Pet Goat?

President Bush offers a different lesson when he reads The Very Hungry Caterpillar to school children and the press – one of acquisition or perhaps consumption is a better label. His reading suggests that uninterrupted accumulation of things without regard for others will be rewarded with great, even profound, personal gain. Gone are the illusions of Clinton’s little engine entrepreneur who meets the needs of community in order to get rich by doing good. Here we have an individual getting fat by taking what he needs from the environment. Each day the caterpillar acquires more, eating a hole in more and more fruit and leaving the rest to ruin. Over-indulgence requires only a tonic, and then, the overwhelming quantity of accumulations results in a qualitative change of being. That is, the accumulator becomes one of the beautiful, free to fly wherever without apparent need or care. Moreover this metamorphosis is completely natural as the accumulator is entitled to all that he takes and gets. Sounds like anyone you know?

A little Freudian, you say. Maybe so. But fun.

And no disrespect meant to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is a wonderful little book that my boys loved.

The whole article is a good read. I suggest you try it.

And for a good fiction, try George W. Bush’s reading list as reported by U.S. News & World Report:

• Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky
• American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb)
• Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero by David Maraniss (about the late all-star Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder)
• Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power by Richard Carwardine
• Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural by Ronald C. White Jr.
• Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
• Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks
• Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky (discussing how polio affected the United States in the mid-20th century)
• The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville
• The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
• Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
• The Stranger by Albert Camus

And, of course, three Shakespeares.

How disquieting to read Mr Carroll–his
Rimes so perplexing and perilous.

–apologies to Mr Eliot and Mr Lear

There is a new annotated edition of The Hunting of the Snark edited with notes by Martin Gardner. I recommend it . Intriguing just how widely pertinent and surd a piece of impertinent nonsense still can be. Mr. Kerry just discovered how easy it is to mistake a Boojum for a Snarky Comment and has been whirled into Outer Darkness. The Received Wisdom holds that the Republicans are about to discover that their Great Snark Hunt will soon offer them a sip from the Cup of Oblivion, or at least the mug of Minority Party. Of course our Fearless Reader has just demonstrated that whaever he says more than three times is Arrant Nonsense–Cant & Rant. But I can’t shake the uneasy feeling that the Roman master of the snarky comment found that his poetic impertinence precipitated his state of nonbeing.

Othonis caput oppido est pusillum,
Eri rustice semilauta crura
subtile et leve peditum Libonis,
si non omnia, displicere vellem
tibi et Sufficio seni recocto…
irascere iterum meis iambis
inmerentibus, unice imperator.

Rummy’s head is little bitty
Cunni’s shod toes are dirty & gritty
and lightly farteth Smirk.
So, big Dick and crapulent Baker–
Unmoved Mover and unshook Shaker–
Pardon this little iambic dirk.

— from Juan Cole’s Informed Comment:

War Support Among Evangelicals Collapses
Bush Incompetence Said to Delay Second Coming

I’m a day or two late putting this up, but I just had to share.