SOUNDTRACK: RALPH’S WORLD-Peggy’s Pie Parlor (2003).
When my son Clark was born, Sarah and I made a conscious effort to find music for him (really for us) that wasn’t, well, Raffi. Not that there’s anything wrong with Raffi per se, but well, he’s kind of annoying.
In the 4 years since he was born, there’s been an awful lot of cool bands making kids records. And I’m all for that (sometimes it’s nice being in tune with zeitgeist). Although it is nice to hear one of the guys who started the whole movement. Ralph himself was a member of Bad Examples a fairly forgettable band, nowhere near as fun/clever as Ralph’s World.
This was the first Ralph’s World disc we bought. And it’s still in pretty heavy rotation (although, now, really, the kids just listen to what we listen to…maybe when they’re a little older and actually understand Decemberists lyrics, we’ll be playing more Ralph).
Ralph’s songs rock, they’re amped up and excitable, like a toddler. They’re simple, easy rock songs in a multitude of genres. He also mixes his own originals with covers and even a public domain track (“Yon Yonson”).
And so overall you get a disc that sounds like a children’s disc from They Might Be Giants, before They actually made children’s discs. (TMBG’s children’s discs aim a little younger). Ralph’s songs are whimsical and catchy, in the way of TMBG’s adult songs, although the lyrics skew more towards about 6 or 7.
If you don’t have kids you probably won’t enjoy these discs, although really all is takes is a silly streak to enjoy them when the kids aren’t around.
[READ: July 24, 2009] Clarice Bean, Don’t Look Now
My son has just started watching Charlie and Lola, a delightful show based on the books by Lauren Child. [And it has one of the single coolest theme songs of any show ever. Seriously. It’s fantastic. Here, listen.] When I mentioned that Clark was watching this, my friend Eugenie said, Oh, Lauren Child, of Clarice Bean!
I wasn’t familiar with Clarice Bean. And then, as coincidence will have it, I was showing a patron some books in the Ch section, and there was a Clarice Bean book. I grabbed it and only found out later that it is the last (or at least that latest) book in the Clarice series. Well, it’s a kids book, I thought, I’m sure I can join the series late and not miss anything. And I was right.
I was also surprised by how into this book I got.
Oh, and also how eerily appropriate it was that I selected this particular book while I’m in the midst of Infinite Summer. I figured Clarice Bean would be a nice relaxing thing to read in my Infinite Jest Downtime. But Clarice Bean starts out: Part One: Where does infinity end?
Seriously. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 