The movie offering to our little one this week—the one that was supposed to entertain and delight while she was recovering from a deep sick spell—was Peter Pan.

Peter Pan started as a play, I know. And it was afterwards novelized. Of course, the essence of Peter Pan is that he resists growing up.

What is so great about being a child that Peter Pan wants to keep it?

Another movie has that glorifies childhood. Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin have a bond that they know will only last through childhood; the ache of that moment is so strong through A.A.Milne’s prose:

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you.”

Which…like a flipping minnow, makes me remember…A.A. Milne and JM Barrie wrote these two characters of childhood in the same time and place in history: England, within 20 years of each other. Peter Pan was a play in 1904, and Winnie was 1920s.

One hundred years earlier, in a different place, the Brothers Grimm published the children’s stories they had been collecting. Unlike Barrie, and totally different from Christopher Robin, the brothers had no interest in children

They collected these stories for philological purposes. Philology is a word we don’t really use anymore, we now call it linguistics.  At that time in history, Europe especially was interested in how human races developed. The brothers Grimm wanted to find a trace of how language had developed and look part the limitations of written words. The oral tradition preserved in the stories that had been handed down since before people could remember, were the clues they were following.

Who first said “Once upon a time…”?  The Grimm’s tracked that as best they could, and used that linguistic record to see where the races had settled. At that time, their languages defined the races: Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic, and more.

At that time, Germany didn’t even exist. It was a geographic area of many different factions. The Grimm’s wanted to unite it.

A lot of people wanted to use racial arguments for territorial rule. This was also the time of colonial expansion. Germany was too factioned at the time to colonize much, but England had almost the opposite problem. Their race—superior in their eyes—had the burden to rule in their widening empire.

Over time, these racial definitions redrew the maps for most of Europe. Deep into the 20^th century, during the Cold War, soviet expansion over ‘Slavic’ territory continued.

That was one offshoot of the study of fairy tales, one that was closer to the original intent of Jacob Grimm’s motivation.

Another offshoot was that people were once again exposed to the stories they loved as children. These were an illiterate tradition of story telling, but they were now transcribed. Just like Chaucer saved the English language from the Norman conquerors, the brothers Grimm brought these stories back to light.

They were not the first.  Charles Perrault, a Frenchman, brought us Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Red Riding Hood. And even earlier D’Aulnoy had invented the phrase “Fairy Tales.”

After the Grimm’s, though, something happened.  Hans Christian Anderson in Denmark wrote original fairy tales. He was also trying to promote the united Scandinavian identity. His stories were written not long after the Grimm’s published theirs.

Then back to England. Oscar Wilde, who died in 1900, wrote fairy tales too.  These were very English, satirical Victorian pieces. The very structure of the story is childish, even if the topics are not.

The idea of children’s’ literature is firmly in place by the 20^th century. And JM Barrie, with Peter Pan, gives us the idea that growing up is to be resisted.

The idea of a boy having the adventures—as also occurs in Doctor Doolittle (also from that time)—how exciting!

And then after WW2, the beloved Wardrobe opened, and the four siblings discovered Narnia. Battle fought, good conquers, and a kingdom won, but then the children return home as children.

In my homeland, America, another man became tangled with the idea of childhood. Walt Disney founded his creative empire on the imagination of children. Which coincided so well with the population growth of America—the baby boomers and their newly affluent parents.

Those same parents who had lived through the depressed as children, and the rationing of the world at war.

If they could be adored by the stuffed creatures in the hundred acre wood…

Or be able to fly through adventures in a Neverland island of constant adventure and no responsibility…

It might not have been for them in their girdles and suit-and-tie days. But their children could watch Davy Crocket and by gum, they would HAVE that raccoon tail hat.

And Disneyland still is freshly painted and pretty and more popular than ever.

What I don’t know, and hope to find out, is whether any other non-English-speaking culture has this same cult of childhood. I haven’t read enough translated literature to be sure.

I’m sure Peter Pan has been translated for others. But does France have a correllary character? Did the brothers Grimm have a hero boy that descended from their original hausmarchen?

I would love to read those stories too.

and I feel like I am doused in eau de vomit

ugh

She kept saying “Mommy! I have to get out of here.” I told her that it takes to me get better when you are sick. Time and sleep. “No mommy, sleep is not going to help.” So I told her that I know it does because I’ve been sick before. “Really?” she said.
poor thing.

I used to think that everything I needed to know, someone else had already figured out and I just needed to go ask them and MAKE them explain it to me.

Then I would know too.

I don’t think that anymore.

Nice man punched my floor button this morning. In the sensory deprivation chamber of this elevator I looked him over. Gray hair, gray suit, and tie. “That’s a very peaceful tie.”

He smiles, so my mouth keeps going. “It’s blue…not scary red. Red says ‘I’m going to cut you.’”

The other woman with us looks at me with horror. But he is laughing. I keep talking “Tie culture is like war paint.”

It’s his floor now so he exits laughing and mutters,  “It’s true.”

Madam Horrified leaves too, but now I am ready to ponder this correlation.

Ties really can be as obvious as a flag, if you want them to be.  The “Power Tie” is a red tie…but what if power is treated with greater subtlety? What if the true power move was to strike like a ninja?

Would that be no tie at all?

Or maybe like jiu jitsu, which is supposed to use the opponent’s strength and arrogance against him, a nebbishy brown tie would lull the person being audited or interrogated into letting something slip.

One might think, “Look at this fool! He has a boring tie…and look, is that a gravy stain? HA! I am so superior to him I have nothing to fear. AHAHA!”

And then he is slapped with a policy violation and a month of working weekends.

HAI YA!

Fear the stealth tie

However, where does that leave us ladies? I was done on my floor, and then took the stairs down one flight. I heard a woman coming up.

Oh. This one. Very central casting—young, beautiful, long blond hair with waves on the end, and always in a pencil skirt. With her two-dimensional figure, I can understand it but I don’t have to like it. She talking on her cell, so I continue to be invisible as we pass.

I notice she is wearing stilettos. More weaponry in business attire.

Except. With women, there is always the sexual side of it. The male gonna-cut-you tie doesn’t have that thrill, it’s pure threat.

This video of Dustin Hoffman talking about how he chose to make the movie Tootsie has bee circulating; he tears up that women are frequently ignored because they do not look beautiful enough. He confesses to ignoring women for that reason, and how hard it must be for women to be so powerless to their appearance.

Oh Dustin. You are a shallow man in a shallow business. You only play deep on TV.

Women are only trapped in their looks if they decide to be. We have so many options to express ourselves, for our own purposes and also to appeal to others If We So Choose.

It is discouraging though, to have such an unsophisticated and unobservant audience that only think about our sexual availability.

Maybe that is why most women dress to impress our girlfriends.

I wonder what my friends would think of a new red tie?

I took v to target and was going to teach the value of money by letting her spend her dimes on something in the dollar bin. But the dollar bin was half off..if there was a blue dot…and one color of glitter glue had the blue dot but the other had a black dot. We went to a price scanner and it turns out they were both 30 cents. I was going to have her go through the checkout and pay with her dimes but then I remembered tax. It is harder than I expected to teach the value of a dollar

The president in the movie gives the speech before the battle. All the world is poised and united to conquer the aliens. He says it: ” today is our Independence Day!”

The words resonate and I don’t care if it IS the sound track that moves me so.

But the battle hadn’t been fought yet, much less won.

My hobbies are letting the whining dog out of the house and then calling the barking dog back in…also loading and unloading the dishwasher…in BETWEEN those major hobbies I blog and write books