Isak

The Baby-Sitters Club Returns: Or, I Don't Know How I Feel About This ...

Let's get a few things out of the way first.

I was rabid for Baby-Sitters Club books in my preteen days. In fact, my best friend and I formed our own Baby-Sitters Club, though we were too young to baby-sit. What did we do in our club, which seemed to meet primarily during recess on the big wood toys in the back of Lincoln Elementary's playground? We talked about it instead. She was the "Stacey" and I was the "Claudia," which surely says a lot more about the kind of people we aspired to be than who we really were. Well, both Claudia and I were down for the Nancy Drew books. But that's about it. Fashionable, artistic dresser? Oh please.

At that same age--third and fourth and fifth grade--I was penning my first "novels." A mystery series, actually, that I ambitiously copied out into blank books, had my dad type up at work, and mailed off to publishers and agents I found listed in the Writer's Market at the public library. (I was not successful.) While "The Secret in the Satin Gown" and so on were inspired by said Nancy Drew books, my byline came straight from the Baby-Sitters Club. Ann M. Martin, you see, was a hero to me. So I identified myself (in my dutiful 'About the Author' page) as Anna L. Clark.

I rented the Baby-Sitters club movies. I collected as much as I could--regular books, Super Specials, the spin-off series about Kristy's little sister, even a calendar. So what I'm saying is: The Baby-Sitters Club books were a big part of my development as a reader and as a writer; I had such fun with them and I still feel sentimental about it.

Perhaps it's not surprising then that I have mixed feelings about the news that there's a Baby-Sitters Club prequel planned for publication starting in April with a book penned by Martin herself: "The Summer Before." Coming shortly after will be re-published, re-packaged and "slightly revised" versions of the early books in the original series.

From The New York Times report:

The Baby-Sitters Club,” which ran from 1986 through 2000, garnered an ardent following among preteenage girls throughout its run of 213 titles, with the publisher ultimately printing 176 million copies. The series, which followed the baby-sitting adventures and friendships of four 12-to-13-year-old girls — Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey (the cast expanded to eight main characters later in the series) — spawned several spinoffs, including a mystery series and a collection of books about Kristy’s little sister. All of the books are now out of print.

David Levithan, the editorial director at Scholastic and an editor of “The Baby-Sitters Club,” said the publisher decided to bring back the old series because of requests from fans who wanted a comeback.

“This whole generation of girls who had grown up reading ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ were now teachers, librarians or mothers,” Mr. Levithan said. “And at any opportunity they had, they let us know they wanted them back. We couldn’t go to a convention without having women come up to us and say, ‘You’ve got to bring these books back.’ ”

Martin, who created the series and wrote sixty of the books (fewer than I'd thought) proposed the prequel idea to Scholastic with the intention of covering the lives of the core characters in the summer before they start seventh grade, when the series opens. Curiously, the re-packaged series is being aimed at a slightly younger age group -- girls aged 7-10, rather than 8-12. Perhaps the publisher thinks young girls are too sophisticated too early nowadays to appreciate the glimmering innocence of Stonybrook, CT.

About those revisions:

Editors at Scholastic updated some of the references to technology and outdated fashions in the reissued books. So a “cassette player” has become “headphones” and a “perm” has become “an expensive hairstyle.”

Which is just hilarious. While it feels weird to see things I was attached to changed, I ultimately say cheers to the whole world of Kid Kits and boyfriends from Louisville and the Junk Bucket and rambunctious children and genius sisters. Maybe it will resonate so strongly with another kid.

Image Credit: The New York Times

RIP Ruth Lilly

Call her a magical poetry godmother. Ruth Lilly, who gave away about $800 million to of her inheritance, has died. She was 94, and she passed away at her home in Indianapolis.

From the Indianapolis Star on Lilly's legacy in the arts:

She gave to a wide variety of causes -- colleges, hospitals, the National Easter Seals Society. But it was her unexpected donation of $100-million in 2002 to an obscure, Chicago-based poetry association that revealed something deeply personal: Ms. Lilly was a poet at heart. Not only did she read it, she wrote it, though to little acclaim.

The unusual gift sustains Garrison Keillor's daily radio poetry readings on The Writer's Almanac, sponsors a poetry professorship at Indiana University and honors top poets with prestigious annual awards.

“Poetry has no greater friend than Ruth Lilly,” said John Barr, president of the Poetry Foundation, which received the whopping grant. (The gift was seen ironic because the foundation had more than once declined to publish Ms. Lilly’s poetry submissions in its magazine.)

The Poetry Foundation also offers the annual $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to the writer whose lifetime accomplishments are extraordinary, and five Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships of $15,000 to younger poets. Fanny Howe was the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winner. The most recent fellowships went to Malachi Black, Eric Ekstrand, Chloë Honum, Jeffrey Schultz, and Joseph Spece.

All is not well with Lilly's gift to poetry, however. The Chicago Tribune reports that the Poetry Foundation is all asunder about how to spend much of it. (Since the original donation, the value of Lilly's gift has grown to $200 million.)

More than half the 12 trustees of a foundation set up to administer the gift either resigned or say they were forced out after criticizing the new leadership.

Among their concerns are plans for a $25 million mansion-like "Home for Poetry," which one trustee characterized as the foundation's "monument" to itself; the granting of a job to foundation president John Barr's wife; and the spending of more than $1 million on a Web site and a brow-raising $706,000 on a survey to determine poetry's place in American life today.

"We are not a private club, and the Foundation's resources are not for our personal gratification," Peter Minarik, one ex-trustee, scolded the foundation's leadership in one of a flurry of letters documenting the disagreements.

Ultimately, the conflict landed on the desk of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose office has oversight of nonprofits. Her staff is now looking into the ex-trustees' concerns, which include questions about fiscal practices, conflict of interest, nepotism and playing fast and loose with the rules charitable organizations are supposed to follow.

In an interview, Donald Marshall, chairman of The Poetry Foundation, said he "categorically denied" the dissident trustees' allegations of mismanagement. While expressing admiration for the trustees' skills and experience, he said he was "mystified" by their complaints to Madigan, which he sees as based upon "rather stale claims."

Robyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for Madigan, said the investigation is ongoing and that officials received a new batch of information this month from Poetry.

"We have not found any violations at this juncture," Ziegler said, while noting that Lilly delivered the millions to Poetry with a very broad mandate for how it was to be spent.

You know that old saying about how nobody can beat the Democrats like the Democrats? Or as Jon Stewart put it regarding the 2000 presidential election, Democrats can't even win when they win. I feel like there is an analogy to be made here about poets ...

Image Credit: The Indianapolis Star

"This Is My Church."

In an energetic and thoughtful short film made by Detroit MC Invincible, "The Revival" tells a story of groundbreaking women in hip-hop. She particularly features a personal conversation between pioneers of the art, Roxanne Shante and Bahamadia, during the "We-B Girlz" independent tour through Europe. Spliced with footage of thrilling performances, the film also features new artists DJ Shortee, Eternia, and Stacy Epps. Invincible proves, as usual, to be a creative force to be reckoned with -- on and off the stage. Follow her at Emergence Music.

Is It Time for a Slow-Word Movement?

You've heard of the Slow Food movement. Now, in a new manifesto (published in Forbes, of all places), Trevor Butterworth is calling you to participate in a Slow-Word movement.

The idea of consuming less, but better, media--of a "slow word" or "slow media" movement--is a strategy journalism should adopt. It will be painful, as it involves thinking about media as something sustainable, local and (hardest of all for hard-bitten hacks) pleasurable. But as the historian Michael Schudson has argued, it's simply unrealistic to expect the public to read newspapers as a daily personal moral commitment to democracy. Instead, look to what Dave Eggers has brilliantly shown with the San Francisco Panorama, namely that the physical quality of a newspaper and the aesthetic pleasure of reading can make people so excited about journalism that they'll buy it--not just conceptually, but in terms of parting with cash.

Eggers could well be the Alice Waters (queen of American slow foodies) of the news media, McSweeny's its Chez Panisse. But even more explicit in advocating principles of slow media is Monocle, a luxuriously bound and produced monthly by Tyler Brule, a journalist turned creative guru and, crossing Jane Jacobs with John Ruskin, an apostle of a 21st-century, globally aware aestheticism in everything from a cup of espresso to urban planning and airline uniforms.

Speaking of Spiritual and Communal Evolution

In the most recent edition of "Speaking of Faith," Krista Tippett speaks with Jean Vanier, a Canadian philosopher and Catholic social innovator who founded the L'Arche movement, or what is now a worldwide set of intentional communities of people centered around those with mental disabilities. Their conversation sweeps from deep readings of Aristotle to Mother Teresa's struggle with despair to the "ethics of desire" to inter-religious transformation to the vulnerability of God.

As usual, the show puts together an impressive collection of multimedia resources to go along with this show, which is titled, "The Wisdom of Tenderness."

See:

• Unedited Interview with Jean Vanier
• In the Room with Jean Vanier (video)
• Books and Music
• Krista's Journal
• Program Particulars
• Online Resource

Thanks to Amy H. (your resident copyeditor) for the tip on the show, which struck a personal nerve with me after living in this particular intentional community.

A Changed Mind

Among those who write for the desk drawer—students burning midnight oil on novels, poets trapped in salesmen's bodies, lawyers tinkering with screenplays—Zadie Smith is both an envy object and a kind of hero, plucked out of the world's slush pile to churn out three hefty, precocious books. But it turns out she has some desk-drawer accumulations of her own. "When I was growing up, I really admired academics," Smith has said. "I really wanted to be a critic. Critics think of themselves as secondary to artists. They needn't be." In fact, Smith's longest-standing project this decade—a thing she calls "a solemn, theoretical book about writing"—has yet to see the light of day. This fall instead brought her first collection of essays, culled mostly from newspapers and magazines. The collection is titled Changing My Mind, and Smith describes it in a foreword as being rife with "ideological inconsistency." What's striking, though, is how consistent the book actually is.

Nathan Heller's review of Zadie Smith's new book (a book that I covet) provokes the question "how should fiction be read?" in Slate.

Kids Campaign to Keep Local Bookstore Open

B. Dalton is the only bookstore in Laredo, Texas (pop. 230,000)... and it's scheduled to close in a couple weeks as part of owner Barnes & Noble's plan to shut down the entire chain. Kids in town are having none of it. They have joined with other residents and community leaders to persuade Barnes & Noble to save the store ... or at least to persuade another bookstore to open up shop in this passionate city.

From The Wall Street Journal:

More than a hundred school children have written letters to Barnes & Noble executives.

"I have been going since I was in kindergarten. My mom always took me there, every single day," wrote Esmaralda.

From David: "I am on my knees begging."

The city council is expected to pass a resolution Monday proclaiming that Laredo needs a bookstore. State lawmakers have promised to write letters. A "Save Laredo's Bookstore" page on Facebook has 530 members and a city committee is circulating petitions.

The theme of their campaign: Laredo Reads.

It rings true, because despite the poverty and illiteracy and low levels of education, many in Laredo are passionate about books -- and for that, they often credit their lone bookstore.

Ms. Benavides watches for titles that might interest reluctant readers, calls local teachers with recommendations and orders audio books for adults who struggle to read English.

Victoria Ortega, an art teacher, said her three children ask for B. Dalton gift cards for their birthdays. Browsing the store, she said, is an outing, an adventure -- and one that shopping online can't replicate. "We hang out there," she said.

See image of the kids, their letters, and the bookstore here.

Thanks to @JHammons for the tip.

Rest in Peace, Dennis Brutus (1924 - 2009):

Poet Dennis Brutus passed away two days ago at age 85. The South African writer, once a political prisoner jailed at Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela, dedicated his life and words to battling apartheid in his native country.

Writer Olu Oguibe doesn't mince words about Brutus' legacy:

"Brutus was arguably Africa's greatest and most influential modern poet after Leopold Sedar Senghor and Christopher Okigbo, certainly the most widely-read, and no doubt among the world's finest poets of all time. More than that, he was a fearless campaigner for justice, a relentless organizer, an incorrigible romantic, and a great humanist and teacher."

In 1964, Brutus was part of the team that persuaded Olympic officials to ban South Africa from competition until apartheid ended nearly three decades later. He also formed the South African Sports Association, a group that offered an alternative to the official (white) athletics group.

Two of Brutus' book were published while he was in jail.

He emigrated to the U.S. in 1971, becoming a college professor and continuing his activism, though throughout his time here he had to fight deportation. He wrote many more books, primarily published by Haymarket Books and most of which were banned in South Africa, though, as the New York Times reports, one slipped through: Thoughts Abroad, published under the pseudonym John Bruin. 

Since then, Brutus has been honored by scads of prizes and awards. Post-apartheid South Africa gave him a lifetime achievement award in arts and culture; it also offered to induct him into the nation's sports hall of fame, but Brutus rejected it on the grounds of it being "incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its genuine victims."

Much of Brutus' latter-day activism focused on climate change. In what may be his last published piece of writing, he wrote an open letter this month about the UN's conference in Copenhagen.

Prayer
By Dennis Brutus

O let me soar on steadfast wing
that those who know me for a pitiable thing
may see me inerasably clear:

grant that their faith that I might hood
some potent thrust to freedom, humanhood
under drab fluff may still be justified.

Protect me from the slightest deviant swoop
to pretty bush or hedgerow lest I droop
ruffled or trifled, snared or power misspent.

Uphold—frustrate me if need be
so that I mould my energy
for that one swift inenarrable soar

hurling myself swordbeaked to lunge
for lodgement in my life’s sun-targe—
a land and people just and free.

July 3, 1966-1968

Round-Up: Indulgences (Literary and Otherwise)

"Fifty of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World" - Poets & Writers puts together a damn good list. A few others I'd add who inspire me: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Fariba Vafi; Sherman Alexie; Edwidge Danticat; Gabrielle Calvocoressi; Farai Chideya; and David Small.

"Wanting to Be Something Else" - A thoughtful look at the writing of Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk in the London Review of Books. At the same time, there's a great new two-part interview between Pamuk and Michael Silverblatt of KCRW's "Bookworm." You can read an excerpt of Pamuk's new book, The Museum of Innocence, here.

Jezebel maps out the shady mainstream media payday of Flight 253's hero (hero?), Jasper Schuringa.

Rest in Peace, Percy E. Sutton. The titanic man who was Malcolm X's lawyer, Manhattan borough president, a civil rights activist, reviver of The Apollo in Harlem, and a media mogul.

"I never wore jeans in public again in Mississippi." Gail Collins' book, When Everything Changed, is reviewed in the New York Review of Books.

"#1 Party School" - "This American Life" looks in at Penn State, which was recently voted the top party school in the nation, in an especially good episode of an especially good radio show.

Three Percent breaks down the numbers of translated titles in the U.S., noting that the overall total was down in 2009 compared to last year. Spanish is the most commonly translated language. Via The Millions.

Lori Ostlund (a writer who I emoted about in a video book review for The Collagist) talks with the Emerging Writers Network about her experience with editors.

Open Letter, which publishes top-notch writing and is one of my new favorite publishers, is featured in The New York Times: "The publishing industry is in a tailspin; translated works account for, at best, 3 percent of the American book market; and budgets for higher education are shrinking. But none of this seems to deter Open Letter Books, a small, year-old press here affiliated with the University of Rochester that publishes nothing but literature in translation."

Ellen Goodman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and all-around badass, announced her retirement this weekend. She started as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press in 1965 and made her way to the Boston Globe, where she became a columnist in 1974. She has been syndicated in more than 300 papers beginning in 1976, writing primarily about social change and politics with sense and nerve. I'm really going to miss her voice in the public conversation.

J.K. Rowling owned the literary world throughout the aughts, selling more than twice as many books as the author in second place.

Ursula Le Guin has resigned from the Authors Guild after more than forty years of membership, accusing them of making a 'deal with the devil' and selling authors 'down the river.'

Tim Adams of The Observer believes that Cormac McCarthy is "America's greatest poetic visionary."

The Times of London reviews the new--and much anticipated--translation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.

Louisa May Alcott "was not the little woman you thought she was."

NPR's Maureen Corrigan picks out the best books of 2009.

"If New Media is a Giant Killer, Will Independent Publishing Get the Golden Eggs?"

Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is not only finding new readers ... it's finding young'uns.

Speaking: Mary McCarthy

I never have. I never have, I’ve never even thought of it. That is, I’ve never thought of writing a developmental novel in which a self of some kind is discovered or is made, is forged, as they say. No. I suppose in a sense I don’t know any more today than I did in 1941 about what my identity is. But I’ve stopped looking for it. I must say, I believe much more in truth now than I did. I do believe in the solidity of truth much more. Yes. I believe there is a truth, and that it’s knowable.

    -- Mary McCarthy, from The Paris Review's 1962 'Art of Fiction' interview

POEM: A Vision of Now

A Vision of Now
By Hayden Carruth

Here we are, my dears, the autumn of twenty-o-five.
And it’s very strange. The sultry summer lingers
Into October; the foliage that by now was always
Bright is drab and withered; and we are far
Too dry, except where hurricanes rage and floods
Carry off our houses. Is this then our last
Autumn? The radio is insisting, “Log on, log on.”
And then the television is pleading, “Log on now.”
And signs and portents are everywhere, although
They are bewildering, because no one knows how
To interpret them. Persons of faith are tremulous
And unsure, while those of science apparently
Cannot read nature’s peculiar new vocabulary.
Each of us is proceeding at a different pace,
Stumbling or running, aimless or headed straight
To a distant remembered door. The spendthrifts
Sing Auld Lang Syne and tip up goblets of fine
European brandy. Others are creeping and
Wandering, weeping and wondering. For we are
The new refugees, going nowhere. We are this
Old and horrifying pitiful dream come true.

From the January 2010 issue of Harper's. This poem is an excerpt of Carruth's “The Beginning of the End,” a sequence of poems published posthumously in the Fall 2009 issue of The Sewanee Review.