I love New York in June, how 'bout you?

Central Park, how we do love thee! You could spend every weekend of the summer checking out a different part of the Park but we do have favorites, including . . . Alice.




The playground nearby continues the theme with a fountain encrusted with Wonderland silhouettes. Plus, they've got kick-ass sprinklers. Then, off to the fountain to end all fountains --



I've got no pictures of the Boathouse, but do I really need any? I highly recommend heading there after a reading of Stuart Little. And, if nothing else, the kids could wile away an entire afternoon trying to catch the ducks.

So yeah, I'm a Brooklyn girl at heart, but it doesn't mean I don't appreciate what Manhattan has to offer.

Inspired!

As I mentioned, my kids are deeply entrenched in an Alice in Wonderland monomania. So when my sister and her boyfriend came over this weekend, Primo sat them down and put them to work, directing them each to illustrate a page of his own edition of Alice, which he put together in about 30 minutes. I had recently showed him the Axe Cop site and he decided HIS work should be up on the internet, too. So he made this book, had me transcribe his narration and forced me - not exaggerating - to scan it into the computer so I could share his work with the world. I would TOTALLY buy this book, incidentally, and not just because I'm his mother. Ok, maybe just because I'm his mother. But I love the hookah smoke being blown into vowel letters by his caterpillar and I am completely smitten with his Cheshire Cat.

All About Alice

My family is in the throes of an Alice fever. Its all Wonderland, all the time at our place. Seconda has been on a jag where she's watched the Disney movie on my old VHS cassette, every single day for the past few weeks. Consider the picture of her in her Alice apparel (a hand-me-down dress from the Canary Islands which she hasn't taken off in two months, despite the fact that it has been bitter winter). And after reading the full text by Lewis Carroll, Primo is prone to quote "How doth the little crocodile" or "You are old Father William" at any given moment.

So I was totally psyched to write this piece for Time Out NY Kids about where to find Alice in NYC:

Curiouser and Curiouser

And in case you're in the market for an edition of Alice, allow me to give you a tour of our Wonderland library:

Here's the edition of the full text we read, with great, updated watercolor illustrations by Helen Oxenbury.

Then you've got the Alice Pop-up by Robert Sabuda, King of the Pop-up. We have Sabuda's Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz which rest on our "treasured, not to be touched by a two year-old" shelf. His stuff is spectacular, and although its not the full text, the pages include a really ample portion of the text, which is well edited. The best part is the page which she falls down the hole and you can actually stretch out an accordion-like section and look through a tiny hole to find Alice at the bottom.

Just got this Alice in Wonderland, retold by Jon Scieszka, who I absolutely adore, with pictures by Mary Blair, who did the original art for the Disney movie back in the 50s. Opening line: "Have you ever tried to listen to a long, boring schoolbook on a warm, lazy day?" I should qualify by saying I am now obsessed with this series of re-tellings of classic Disney, with the Mary Blair illustrations: check out Peter Pan and Cinderella.

We were in BJs wholesale club and stumbled upon this gem: Alice, a wacky lift-the-flap guide with excerpts from Carroll. Pull the tab to see Alice's neck get really really looooong.

Primo unearthed an edition I read in college (and took notes in!) of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, with the original illustrations by John Tenniel, which are, rather unbeatable.

But my daughter's most treasured copy, tattered and torn, brought to school every morning for the past few months . . .

Disney's Alice, from the dollar bin at Target

The dollar bin never lets us down.

Anyone see the Tim Burton movie? Primo is dying to go but considering the Shadow Man in The Princess and the Frog caused him to have nightmares for a week, I think we'll have to say No, although David and I are thinking about seeing it, just the two of us. Opinions? Reviews?

The Song Surprise Mix

This weekend Primo made his first mix tape for a girl. He woke up Saturday inspired, went right over to his father, music fanatic, and proclaimed "Daddy, I want to make a mix." Then the two of them sat down and David pulled song after song as per Primo's instructions, onto one whopper of a mix CD. Primo named it "The Song Surprise Mic" and is giving it to his best friend who just so happens to be a girl. That's how he sees her at least; on her end, there's been some talk of formalizing the relationship with terms like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" and she did tell me one time that when they grew up they are going to go on a date.

"Oh, really?" I replied, "What are you going to do on your date?"

"Well it has to be at night, " she explained, "And we're going to take a taxi and go to the MALL."

Clearly, she's wedded to the suburban date destination of the "mall" but clearly also understands that Primo and she are a New York romance, so she added in the taxi part as a compromise. Perfect.

"Sounds cool, " I said, "The Manhattan Mall has a lot of good stores,"

Primo, unversed in the ways of Hannah Montana, doesn't really get the "date" idea, which I confess is a relief. But maybe he understands more than he lets on, because he did make this heartfelt mix tape to slip in her locker -- I mean, cubby -- at school.

Since you all lent such sage advice about children's music when I blogged about it a few months ago, I thought I'd share the setlist with you. Be advised: there is more than a recommended amount of music from the Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland soundtrack on there, but the kid has a soft spot for Disney classics.

-'Twas Brillig from Alice In Wonderland (Original Soundtrack)

-Following The Leader from Peter Pan

-Philadelphia Chickens by The Bacon Brothers from Philadelphia Chickens

-Down by The Riverside by Dan Zanes, from Night Time!

-Istanbul by They Might Be Giants, from Flood

-Ah Bos Cee Dah by Johnny Cash from The Johnny Cash Children's Album

-Jenny Jenkins by Jerry Garcia & David Grisman from Not For Kids Only

-A Pirate's Life from Peter Pan

-A-E-I-O-U (The Caterpillar Song)from Alice In Wonderland (Original Soundtrack)

-Let Me Roll It by Drive-By Truckers from Uncle Dave's Killer Covers Mix

-Say It (Over And Over Again) by John Coltrane from Ballads

-Back In The USSR by The Beatles from the White Album

-Little Boxes by Pete Seeger from We Shall Overcome: Complete Carnegie Hall Concert

-Loquat Rooftop by Randy Kaplan from Loquat Rooftop

-The Caucus Race from Alice In Wonderland (Original Soundtrack)

-Mermaid Lagoon from Peter Pan

-Old Father William from Alice In Wonderland (Original Soundtrack)

-A-Punk by Vampire Weekend from Vampire Weekend

-Pay Me My Money Down by Bruce Springsteen from We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

-The Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice In Wonderland (Original Soundtrack)

-All I Have To Do Is Dream by The Everly Brothers from The Everly Brothers' Best

Tricks or Treats

A few days ago, my husband sent me an email whose subject line read, “What we have to look forward to.” It read, simply:

“When Seconda comes to us wanting to wear one of these for Halloween--I'm letting you do the talking.”

Click on this link and you will read, as I did, about the dismaying trend of little girls dressing up in harlot-type Halloween costumes. The pictures feature young girls and tweens in miniature versions of the stripper-witch costume that has become de rigueur for women. And it’s awful on some many levels.

The knee-high boots and lace-up hot pink corsets are bad enough but the kid models are even doing sexy poses and I have to wonder, where’d they learn that? I mean, did the photographer direct them to bend one knee and put both hands on their hips or did they just intuit that this is what was expected of them? The worst is the “Alice in Wonderland Child/ Teen Costume.” Go ahead, click on it for a closer look.

Would you have ever guessed that was Alice in Wonderland? Are the black and white striped stockings supposed to be my clue? The floppy eared bunny she dangles from her fingers, ostensibly just the way she’d dangle a man along? As far as I know, Lewis Carroll’s formidably funny adventurer didn’t hook her way through wonderland. It’s a slap in the face to Alice and to girls and to literature. But the most egregious part is that this model, with her feet turned inward and knees together, is doing her best sexy school-girl impersonation and the fact of the matter is, she’s just a schoolgirl herself – a teen maybe, but still. I blame Britney, which is what I always do when I don’t know who to blame.

Look, I’m no Victorian. If I posted pictures of the Halloween costumes I wore in my college years and early 20’s, you’d be embarrassed to have the screen open at work. I remember that on Halloween of ’99 I had a big party at my apartment and dressed at a “post-millennial cyborg.” That’s a fancy word for super-skank in a duct –tape costume. It’s true, the only thing I was wearing was a bikini top and boy panties, both fashioned from duct-tape, with a pair of wings I made out of wire hangers attached. My good friend came n a pair of pasties. I’m no Victorian.

Nonetheless, I was an adult. Hey, if you’re a grown woman and want to sex it up on Halloween, I’m not gonna stand in your way. But for the love of all that is sacred, keep little girls little as long as you can. There’s plenty of time to wear knee-high boots and wield a pitchfork later. I’m all for free expression but sometimes you have to be the bad guy and say, “No way, Jose. Because it’s not appropriate. Because I love you. And because I said so.”

I just thought since David was going to let me do the talking, I’d get started a little early.