Go Get Your Jacket

NIB

My hippie-dippy high school had an "art barn" and my friend Catherine (now a well-regarded painter, come to think of it) and I used to hide out in there taking our artworks more seriously than they warranted. Late one winter afternoon, trying to capture the opaque yet faintly luminous jade green of a bunch of grapes, I mixed up a color so alluring that Catherine, agreeing that she probably shouldn't eat it, dabbled a finger on my palette and touched it to her belt-loop. "I just want to keep it," she said.

So did I, although I stopped short of painting my pants with it. Some years later, though, I stumbled upon that green again in a Brooklyn junk shop. It was a Jadite plate from the 40s or 50s, a piece of cheap mass-produced mid-century glassware (often miscategorized as "depression glass") that would have been given away at a movie theater or with a box of some detergent your grandmother used to use. I just wanted to keep it, and for a good 10 years or so I hunted for pieces at flea markets and on the random glassware shelves of dusty Goodwill stores in the seedier parts of town(s). I wasn't alone in this, of course-- lots of people liked Jadite-- but t was still cheap and still showing up at flea markets and junk stores. And then one day it all  disappeared, to reappear in antique-shop windows and (once it existed) on eBay, with shocking price tags. What happened to humble Jadite to elevate its worth so suddenly and so steeply? Martha Stewart happened, and while there were no masses of women and gay men following my every aesthetic move, there certainly were for Martha. Jadite green became Martha green and my crappy yet lovely dinnerware became "collectible."

Oh well. I can live without the hunt for cheap glass plates, although it was fun. But I'm not sure I can live with the relentless collectible-ization of, not only everything I like, but pretty much everything, period. And if I can live with the toys of my own childhood becoming rare vintage collector's items commanding comically high prices at antique toy fairs, I am not sure I can handle toys from the 90s and early aughts doing the same. 

Some weeks before Chanukah this year, I sat down with Lilah and googled her suggestion, "princess doll" (with my refinement, "- disney - barbie") and scrolled through the surprisingly paltry  results. Too ugly, too sexy. too expensive, too, um, princessy... untill we landed on this:

 

Too cute, right? By which I mean, just cute enough. We liked her, and I liked her even better when I realized she wasn't even a proper princess,j ust Madeline, you know, of "twelve little girls in two straight lines" fame, dressed up as a princess. She was also used, but in EUC and what the hell, 20 bucks, and we were done.

Except no-one can be a princess ALL the time, so she'd need her school uniform, with its cunning little yellow hat, to change into. It was here that I discovered that these litttel dolls and their hundreds of tiny accessories aren't made anymore, and are, inevitably, "collectibles" now. I managed to kit her out with the uniform ad a little bed and a couple of other things but did you know that clothes for the 8" Eden brand Madeline doll, NIB, go for upwards of 95 bucks a set on eBay? 95 bucks! Who is buying this stuff?

Not little girls who want to play with them, obviously. And not their parents, either, I'm willing to bet. A $95.00, 3" high "recital" dress, still in the box, is going on some fussy older lady's high shelf, to be gloated over and dusted and, probably sold, eventually, at a  substantial mark-up, to some other fussy lady to complete her collection. And all of those fussy ladies are pissing me off. 

I get the appeal, I really do. I was pulled into searching and watching and poaching and pouncing to get my set too, and in the process I learned all kinds of arcane signifiers (Madeline dolls come with "flat hands" or not, "original faces" and new). The hunt is addictive, the good find triumphant. But it's still just a cute piece of vinyl junk. 

Why, as Marya put it, why oh why must everything be either disposable or collectible?

Poor little rich girl

 

First we had this:

   
 

And Suri is a darling little girl who could, at first glance, totally pass for my own darling daughter, who is similarly sylphlike and similarly flowingly-tressed and similarly lots of things except for similarly shod. Because, I'm sorry, but those are totally real heels on a 3-year-old. 

When those pictures first made the rounds last fall I took a cursory peek and shrugged and said, "Well, they could be p'incess dress-up shoes a stubborn little girl refused to change out of, not that I would know anything about that." I actually didn't think so, they are not plasticy-looking or bedazzled enough to be little-kid dress-up shoes, but I guess it is possible that the rich, being different and all, have access to toddler toys we mere mortals are not only not able to afford, but are literally not allowed to know about. Hey, it could happen.

And then after enough sniping on the gossp sites and in the pages of the Huffington Post, Suri's mother bothered to make a public statement on Access Hollywood:

"She, like every little girl - she loves my high heels" and wanted her own," said Holmes.

She said despite the uproar, they are safe for her young feet

"They are actually ballroom dancing shoes for kids," Katie said. "I found them for her and she loves them."

Uh-huh. That would explain one pair of speshul shoes. It doesn't reall yexplain the first (obviously not ballroom dancing)  ones,above,  nor does it  answer for these:

Or any of this:

 

I do know exactly what a priss I am about this kind of thing, but that is not a child, it is a well-turned-out, somehwat flirtatious midget, or rather, Little Person. Or possibly a large and disconcertingly lifelike doll, and we know they make those. Even ignoring the rest of the outfit, we've now seen the poor mite out and about in heels often enough to feel safe in assuming that she wears them a great deal. Perhaps a pediatric podiatrist of some sort might be able to convince me with scientfic evidence that habitually balancing a preschooler on two-inch heels causes no harm to her feet, ankles, or lower back (although I doubt it). Nothing is going to convince me that it isn't harmful to her sense of herself as a child. Run free, Suri! Climb a tree! Ride a scooter! Don't just stand there waving to your admirers! You can get admirers later, preferably when you're old enough to actually do something that might earn you some. And you'll have plenty of time later to stand around looking self-conscious with one foot slightly turned out, wondering if you've got the position right.

No sir, I don't like it.

For Pity's Sake

 We've talked about the apparently booming market for cheerfully crass slogan onesies ("iPood,"  "Boob Man," et cetera),  and the "celebrate the brat" cultural current that produces sparkly pink "It's All About Me"  tees. There's obviously an audience for baby products that celebrate a sort of pseudo-unsentimental air-quotey approach to early parenthood, albeit an audience that does not include me or anybody I know on purpose. I can understand crudely jokey kid stuff, though, even if I don't care for it. I cannot, however, quite manage to wrap my head around another current trend, crude cutesiness. But I am fascinated by it. 

Crude cutesiness does show up on the clothes themselves sometimes, but is best exemplified by the names of product lines and companies. The names of cloth-diapering accessories are always cutesy-crude, for instance: "FuzzyBunz," "Happy Heinies" (and  while we're on the subject, who could forgive the truly nauseating, purely cutesy-cutesy "Kissaluvs?"). Who would name a (fairly expensive) children's clothing line "Pukies?" And why? Is every expulsion of effluent from our children so darling that it must be celebrated in the marketplace?

I really thought that we had, with "Pukies" reached the logical furthest extent of the nauseatingly cute references to body fluids trend, but I was, of course, wrong. Meet "Pitty Shants."

Pitty Shants. For pity's sake.

 I may shudder at the over-the-top sugariness of product lines like "Angel Dear" and "Twinkle Toes." But I'd rather be angel-dear'd to death than pat ushon by Pitty Shants. 

Post creepy animals

I hope to pull together a Halloween round-up but in the meantime, a question:

What the hell is this?

It's called "Horse Rita" which is helpful, since I'm not sure I'd ever have guessed. I thought it was a Bactrian camel. Anyway, it looks abashed and a bit abject. It hopes you won't beat it. 

The company, which is called Esthex (i'd expect to see this name attached to something like a blackhead extractor, but what do I know, maybe it's the founder's actually name: Oleg Esthex, of the Central Transdanubian Esthexes) makes many products  seemingly born for a life of exile on The Island of Misfit toys, iincluding the puzzlingly named "Cat Door":

 

That's what it says: "Cat Door." If that thing above is Rita the horse, then this is, I suppose, Door the cat, but why? Is their dog called "Leash?" Why is Rita there not called Stall, or Shit,  or some other random noun occasionally associated with the word "horse?" There's just something about calling a cat "Door"  that seems directly translated from the Toddler (2-year-olds are forever naming their loveys things like "Sponge" or "Balloon" or "Velcro") or possibly, via Babel Fish, from the Betelguesian. That thing just does not have any of the markers that constitute "cute" on this planet. Nor does it have any but the most rudimentary vestigial ears or tail, so its chances of reading as "cat" are pretty slim. I think it vaguely resembles a four-legged arachnid, or possibly one of the probably miss-reconstructed beasts from the Burgess Shale. 

Perhaps the indie-born trend toward "quirky" stuffed animals, which began at places like Etsy (which means the worst examples should be showing up at Regretsy) before taking off for the big time in the jolie-laide persons of the Ugly Dolls, should be running its course by now. Critters meant for kids have gone from quirky to just plain ugly to frankly alarming. I'm all for nontraditional standards of beauty, but that thing isn't nontraditional, it's just wrong.

Too rich

If I hadn't hated the online children's boutique Chasing Fireflies for its unbearably twee name alone, the fact that it is the source of the infamous two-hundred-buck sterling silver bubble wand would certainly have done it. They spell "fairy" as "faerie," too, which, while "correct"  just comes off as unnecessarily fawncy. And anyway, the denizens of the "real" Faerie are not one bit nice, what with all the baby-stealing, mean tricks, and creepy eternal dance parties. You want to stay away from those folks. Call your sparkly-tutu-and-gossamer-wings ensemble a "fairy" costume. 

I will certainly grant that they carry some spectacular Halloween costumes. I'm particularly partial to this Good Queen Bess:

and Marie Antoinette's milkmaid dress is nicely done:

...if a little ill-fated. I wish they'd done Mary Queen of Scots while they were at it, and why not Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Gray? They could all go out together, and carry trick-or-treat buckets in the form of their own severed heads. How would that not rule? 

On the boys' side, they make a handsome knight:

And this amusing "monster boy":

Although like most of them he will run you some money, what with the not-included bootcovers ($16.00) and the headpiece ($20.00 ). Alas, the breakaway chain (dunno) is no longer available. Oh well! Guess you'll have to use the non-breakaway kind, and hope nobody reports you to CPS.

As attractive (and expensive) as the costumes are, though, I just cannot warm to Chasing Firelfies. I realize they are aimed at not-my-demographic, and that somebody must really want a sterling silver bubble wand, but I can't help feeling like Chasing Fireflies, if personified, would try to keep the likes of me out of its country club. And you know what they say about any club that won't have you as a member. 

I suck, you suck

Oh, Nina and Tom, as the Fug Girls would say, I just don't know.

Is this an attempt to reclaim suckiness, on the model of "queer," "cripple," and "fat?" Because I just don't think that's going to work. Suckiness is not a civil rights issue.

 Some people really just do suck beyond redemption, and the class of suckers has not suffered discrimination except, I suppose, that which they have brought upon themselves because they suck. There will be no sucky people rights movement, no International I Suck Day, no Gay, Lesbian. Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and People Who Suck Parade. 

If, on the other hand, you just forgot what the phrase "I suck" means to most people, well, you... I mean, I can't help you. 

Or you could buy an iPhone

I've joined a couple of these, I don't know what you'd call them, shopping clubs? They are free, members-only outfits that send you announcements of exclusive(ish) sales, mostly on things you could never afford at full price and realize you still can't afford at 30% off, once you do the math. I mostly visit them  as a spectator sport, although I did buy a couple of  literally too-cool-for-school  Dwell Studio kids' backpacks from one of them this spring. 

The Mini Social does children's products, mostly very tasteful, often laughably overpriced, occasionally totally great, like the above-mentioned backpacks. Hautelook is mostly for grown-ups, grown-ups with flashy taste in jewelry and designer bags, with the occasional children's sale thrown in. And then there's Seeking Designers, which I just checked out yesterday-- a different, if similar thing. No sales, just pointers to  luxury items from odd boutiquey people and places you might not have heard about otherwise, like an Etsy minus the indie cred. They feature children's lines, too, but I couldn't see any of  them past the first link I clicked on, as I had been struck entirely blind:

The  whole line looks like that, I think (blind).

 It costs 315 bucks. Or you could wait for it to show up on one of the sale sites for 275.00.

Please don't monogram the baby

This item may win some sort of special achievement award for simultaneous aspirationality and creepiness, two attributes rarely encountered cheek-by-jowl. It's from an unlikely outfit called Preppy Monogrammed Gifts, and I have unwelcome news for the proprietors from someone who grew up in South Central Connecticut: 

I'm under the impression that true preps do not think of themselves as "preps." Like every indigenous hunter-gatherer band ever studied by cultural anthropologists, they think of themselves as "people." Everyone else is something other than. And they don't shop here. 

I'm not sure who does shop at Preppy Monogrammed Gifts.Com, but I'm sure they're very nice. I'm also not sure why they'd want to have their newborn's vital stats stitched onto a machine-washable homunculus which vaguely resembles a newborn baby, or, more alarmingly, their own newborn baby, though:

- - - - - A Personalized Baby Doll A Treasure forever!

We have taken measurements from actual newborn babies and converted them into a cuddly fleece doll shaped like a newborn available in 13 half sizes (17" to 23").  Order your baby's length and then provide your baby's birth information for embroidering in soft pink or blue threading on the gown.  The personalized Dolls are machine washable and becomes softer and cuddlier with each wash too. Order your personalized baby doll today and embrace the memory of your newborn forever. I do!  I have pictures.  I did keep a boxful of their first wee cunning little outfits and some microscopic socks and stuff, but the actual babies grew. So much less creepy that way.  Even Jennifer, our resident seersucker-and-monograms fiend, can't fathom why anyone would want one of these: "Why on Earth would you want a newborn baby doll that's just like a newborn when you actually have a newborn? " she asks.  "Because you can't monogram the baby, duh." say Marya.  (Thanks to Elsie for finding these, although now I can't help wondering what she could have been searching for when she turned up a personalized, machine washable baby analogue meant for people who already have a baby.)

And always very curious

Having kids does weird things to your sense of perspective. Not only have I become more risk-averse and less able to enjoy the kinds of books or movies usually described as "harrowing" (because they so often rely on child-in-peril plots to engage the audience's emotions and those are no longer fun), I've also discovered a hearty dislike for kid things I used to think were dandy. We'll get to Babar later, but right now I'm looking at you, Curious George. 

I'm not a huge fan of monkeys, to be honest, but one tries not to prejudge. As monkeys go, George is OK, I guess. It's the books I don't like.

I honestly had no idea how dull they are, so dreadfully dull I can't imagine how I ever thought they were interesting.  I guess what you remember, looking back fondly on read-aloud sessions with a parent and a sibling or two and the monkey books, are the illustrations, which really are that good. I especially loved the one where George has transformed the horrid Margaret Dumontlike lady's living room into a jungle, complete with slipper-chair cheetahs and a broom-and-ladder giraffe. Reading that scene now, though, I'm less enchanted than irritated: if the lady wanted a normal paint job, why did she supply the painters with dozens of very small pots of varicolored paint?? Why not a gallon of eggshell? And why was George looking for work, anyway? Don't they feed him at the zoo?

OK, it's a kid's book. It doesn't have to make sense. but must it bore on multiple levels at once? Sentence to sentence, the Reys bring the dull by constantly de-emphasizing the interesting details in favor of the tedious ones. Do 3-year-olds care that the stuff you drink before an X-Ray is called barium? No, but if you said it tastes yucky you might at least get a laugh out of them. 

On the macro level the authors bore by writing the same book, already on the dull side, over and over and then dying and leaving it to their successors to keep writing it again. I can't do a better summation of the sameness than Alice at Finslippy, so why try?

I had a thing or too to say about how much worse the new ones are than the already-pretty-bad originals but I got scooped there too, by my invisible friend Mimi Smartypants, years back. Mimi sorta liked the original George  because he was a fuck-up, but "In these books CG's fuckups are presented quite differently":

In almost every case, the fuckup actually turns out to be a good thing. If CG hadn't wandered away during a camping trip, he never would have seen and been able to put out the forest fire. If CG hadn't let all the puppies out of their cages, the missing one would never have been found. The minor characters in these newer books always end up elaborately thanking CG and his yellow-hatted handler for obliquely saving the day through the magic of simian curiosity. I think this signifies some weird, Hollywood-ized narrative shift, where every thread has to have an overtly feel-good ending, and where child (or monkey) behaviors cannot be undesirable or even morally neutral. 

What she said. 

Remember Lisa Simpson trying to get Maggie to spell "gnu?"

These people (don't click, It only encourages them) have been flooding my inbox with come-ons for their "babies can read" program persistently enough to make me miss  "is your equipage capacious enough for the lassies?" (What happened to those? I don't think I've seen one in months.)  They are filling me with mini-rage.

I think it's actually entirely possible that babies can read- I haven't asked them-- but why the hell should they? Don't they have enough stuff, baby stuff, to accomplish during the dizzyingly short baby years already? 

What really pisses me off about these people, though, is that they commit the sin of pseudo-science while attempting to shake $199.99 out of parents worried that they are not doing enough to ensure their children's college and workplace success while the little slackers are still in diapers. "The most natural time to learn any aspect of language is during the infant and toddler years" is vaguely truthy, but I'd be surprised if there turned out to be any research proving that forcing them to take on an age-inappropriate skill set at that natural time does anything to promote "enhanced learning ability," let alone "future success, " as the ad goes on to claim. "If that's a hat," a very funny local-to-me writer once memorably wrote, "I'll eat my head."

Don't believe the hype! Free the babies!