Song of the Week: Sidewalks of New York

Every time I hear or sing Sidewalks of New York, I wish Seattle had its own song that was just as good. I've created my own lyrics for the Seattle version of Woody Guthrie's So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh, but satire isn't the same thing as homage. I only spent two and a half years in New York, but I still miss it.

Here are my chords for the song:

Click on the image to enlarge it

As a bonus, I have filmed Lucia and me singing and playing "Sidewalks of New York." Lucia was in a particularly silly mood during the filming. She's thrilled with her new bob cut and has been swishing her hair around her face all afternoon . Ever since the visit to Santa Paula, California, she's wanted her hair short like two of her cousins.

I'm posting this clip with Blogger's relatively new video feature instead of with YouTube:


P.S. I told Bede that I've filmed myself playing some songs and telling stories, but that they're not the same without Lucia. Bede said, "Lucia is your Gloria!"

Sidewalks of New York

Down in front of Casey's old gray wooden stoop
Boys and girls together, oh we formed a merry group
On those summer evenings we would sing and waltz
While Jackie played the organ on the sidewalks of New York.

East Side, West Side, all around the town
The tots play Ring-a-Round-Rosie, London Bridge is Falling Down.
Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke
Tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York.

--James Blake & Charles Lawler.

Children's Lit Fan-Girl at Large

Seven years ago…

My mother and I were waiting for my plane to Seattle in the Baltimore-Washington airport. Bede had already gone on ahead earlier, as we had ordered our plane tickets at different times. As we were sitting in the waiting room, I heard over the loudspeaker, “Patricia Polacco, please meet your driver in Bay 2.”

Patricia Polacco is a children’s book writer and illustrator. If you’ve heard of her, I’m impressed, but if you haven’t, I don’t think any less of you. The sound of her name over the loudspeaker in the airport is not likely to elicit any sort of curiosity unless you happen to be a children’s librarian. If your mother also happens to be a children’s librarian, the curiosity factor is bumped up exponentially.

I grinned at my mother, and said, “Let’s go see if it’s really her.”

We made our way down to Bay 2. The area was empty except for a non-descript man carrying luggage and a woman wearing a top-knot. I’d seen pictures of Patricia Polacco, and I knew the top-knot was her signature hair-style.

My mother and I debated as to whether we’d approach Patricia Polacco, and decided that we wouldn’t. Curiosity had been satisfied, after all. Then, I called out, “Ms. Polacco?”

Ms. Polacco turned toward us. I said, “We’re two children’s librarians. When we heard your name over the loudspeaker, we had to find out if it really was you.”

Patricia Polacco beamed. “That was really sweet of you,” she said. We shook hands, chatted for a moment, and then we all went on our different ways.

I had left New York City six weeks earlier, and was visiting my family in Maryland before heading off to Seattle. I had wanted to go to Seattle with an actual library job in hand, but all I had was the tentative promise of temporary work with an agency I had contacted prior to my move. As much as I was looking forward to finally living in the same city as Bede, I brooded about what I was giving up by leaving New York.* The encounter with Patricia Polacco helped me trust that my connections with children’s book writers were not at an end.

*Bede was just as willing to move to New York as I was willing to move to Seattle. However, I had decided earlier that year that I was going to move out of New York, and I was still emphatic about that decision when Bede and I got together. That’s not to say that I didn’t have periodic attacks of cold feet…

Children's Lit Fan-Girl in NYC

Genevieve—

As you requested, here is my short remembrance of Madeleine L'Engle's 70th birthday party. As I look over what I’ve written, it really doesn’t seem like much, but it will have to do.

The birthday party was hosted by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and took place in an entertainment room in some nice little hotel somewhere in New York City. I’m not being coy—I really don’t remember where the event took place. I attended the party with my 3 Central Children’s Room colleagues. For Madeleine L’Engle’s birthday, we of the origami bent (3/4 of us) made a series of paper boxes, each one smaller than the next, and placed a “lucky star” in the tiniest of the boxes.

Madeleine L'Engle sat in a chair in the center of the room, while we, her humble, loyal subjects, stood in line to wish her well. When the Central Children's Room librarians presented the origami box gift, Madeleine L’Engle looked at it with some puzzlement. I knew her eyesight wasn’t as clear as it used to be, and when she began to undo the top box (each box was made of 8 pieces of paper), I lunged forward and demonstrated how she could just lift the top of the box off. At the time, I was a real origami nut, and in that instant, all I could think of was, “Don’t wreck my creation-- It took at least 15 minutes to make!”

Madeleine L'Engle opened the rest of the boxes, and when she got to the tiniest of boxes, she held it in the palm of her hand for a moment. Then, she opened up her large locket, placed the tiny box within the locket, and set the rest of the paper boxes to the side.

That’s all I really remember. I had a polite conversation with Mr. Straus, ate some yummy canapé, and repeatedly beamed in the direction of Madeleine L'Engle. I’d met Madeleine L’Engle a couple of times before, and had received some notes from her (I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that when it comes to children’s book authors and illustrators, I’m such a fan-girl), but I treated each meeting as if it were the first time.

Scieszka & Smith

My boss took me to a publicity party for Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith for Squids Will Be Squids. Unlike the first time I met them, in which I was totally tongue-tied by Lane Smith’s off-beat good looks, I was able to chat and be mildly charming. I also drank quite a bit of red wine, and at one point in the evening, decided I would try one of the raw oysters featured at the canapé bar. My boss looked at me with pity in his eyes and said, “If you call in sick to work tomorrow, I will understand completely.”

I almost did call in sick to work. As I learned, red wine and raw shellfish turned me from Gleeful to Gastrically-Disturbed. Still, if I had to suffer at all, it was worth it for the rollicking good evening. Sciezska and Smith signed copies of Squids Will Be Squids for my friends, my favorite of which was Smith’s dedication of The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Tales to “stinky Andrew.”

One of the things I loved about working as a librarian in New York was losing count of how many times I had met particular authors or illustrators, and relaxing a bit on my reluctance to lend out books that had been signed by those authors and illustrators. In the end, the autograph wasn’t intrinsically important, but was simply a reminder of the conversation I had with the person who signed the book.

Off the train

We're back from our East Coast trip. We spent approximately 3 days on the train and had the luxury of the sleeper-car. (La la la, now I know how the other 1% lives.) Before I left, I had fantasies of relocating us all to New York City, but now I realize that the West has claimed me. More on that later, perhaps.

I was inspired by the neat and tidy houses I visited to clean my own little hovel bungalow with a vengeance. fter tackling 1/2 of the bedroom, I collapsed on the coach from something akin to jet-lag (rail-lag?). I went to bed at 8 pm, still exhausted, and woke up at 5:30 am. It's going to take awhile to adjust to PST, but not as long as if we had jetted across the country.

Upcoming posts include:

*A reminiscence of Madeleine L'Engle's 70th birthday party, requested by Genevieve.

*A story using the word "moot," requested by Fuse Number 8.

*Another installment of [my journal of alien contact]. I hope it's lighter than the last installment. I think it shall be so.

*An encomium to Dan Zanes.

*A peek inside my not-so-secret sack of storytelling tricks.

Fuse # 8 and the CCR*

*Not Credence Clearwater Revival

Here's a shout-out for Fuse Number 8, a children's literature blog written by a librarian at the Best Library in the World. I used to work there, so I'm biased. Here are ten of the reasons why I loved my brief stint at the Central Children's Room so much:

1) Working in the same room where Mary Poppins' umbrella was displayed.

2) When someone came in to get information on a book he or she was writing, chances were that I'd already read the author's previous works.

3) Hanging on the coat-tails of library luminaries to attend author/illustrator parties, including the 35th Anniversary of Where the Wild Things Are, and Madeleine L'Engle's 70th birthday party.

4) Walking by the display of the original Winnie-the-Pooh characters and seeing Eeyore smirking to himself.

5) Even if I never really had time to go to the Museum of Modern Art, I appreciated working across the street from MOMA.

6) Working during the time of the lovely Winnie-the-Pooh controversy.

7) Accidentally-on-purpose bumping into the cute reference librarian with the devastating smile.

8) Only having to work every other Saturday rather than 2 Saturdays in a row followed by one Saturday off, then 2 Saturdays in a row again. (Argh!)

9) Raiding the Annex for extra copies of books that patrons would otherwise have to wait days to receive.

10) My colleagues. I miss my colleagues.

Quick Update

Greetings! The House of Glee is in New York City for a few days. Fortunately, we have lots of people guarding the house (go away, housebreakers, no one wants your kind around here), and Brad the Gorilla has assured us that everything is just as it should be. I keep thinking I see him here in NYC, but perhaps that's just because I miss him. One of these days, I need to read his blog to find out what's going on in Seattle. There's no time now!

Good things

Thank you, all, for your good wishes about Bede's mother and continued encouragement to write stories. I haven't responded yet to all of your comments, but I will-- if not today, than this weekend. Even though my comments on your blogs are a bit sparse this week, I do check your blogs on a daily basis.


Brad the Gorilla has been rather quiet this week, I've noticed. He claims that he has sore pads on all of his fingers and toes from working diligently on his memoirs, but lately I've caught him playing Laser Squad Nemesis and Ultracorps quite a bit on Bede's computer.

Today's Booktalk Friday is more along the lines of my hopping up and down, saying "Read it- Read it- Read it!" than something I'd do for a formal booktalk. So much of what I do in terms of reader's advisory is informal booktalking.

Good things this week:

1)Bede's mother is finally at home on bed-rest.

2)Lucia has just been accepted to the Waldorf preschool we hoped she'd attend starting in September.

3)While we're sad that our Family Resources Coordinator is leaving Boyer Children's Clinic one month before Lucia's last day, the FRC is going to be principal of a school that will need a part-time children's librarian. Potentially, I will be able to do some work for the school in the capacity that I can bring Lucia with me on days she doesn't have preschool.

4)The House of Glee (sans Ulric) will travel to New Jersey and New York this June to visit relatives. On the way back, we will travel cross-country by train. (Note to potential house-robbers: there will be people checking up on our house and cats on a continual basis, and if you find yourself on Ulric's bad side, I pity you.) We'll be staying in New York City three days and Yonkers the rest of the time. Will you be around NYC then? If so, email me and we can meet for coffee and real pierogies.

Strong spirit (and hands)

Seven years ago, I lived with eleven other housemates in a New York brownstone. As a newly-minted librarian with a low salary in a high-cost city, I couldn’t have asked for a better living situation. Of course we got on each other’s nerves sometimes, but for the most part, it was one long pajama party.

My friend Alexandria said that when it came to dating, being in New York was like walking into the largest candy store in the world and having no money. To cheer us up, I wrote little personals ads for everyone in the house. The ads weren't for the purposes of publication. A little morale-boost among my housemates was my intent. Since I couldn't write a personals ad for myself, Alexandria wrote one for me:

Sensuous storyteller, tea drinker and folder of all things paper seeks curious and mischievous man with strong spirit and hands. Do stuffed grape-leaves and good pesto make you weak? Come sit by my fire and I’ll tell you lovely tales.

A few months later, Bede showed up in New York. He had heard a rumor from a mutual friend that I’d always had a crush on him, and he decided to cross the country to investigate the rumor. I lured him to the rooftop of the brownstone with a bottle of Irish whiskey, a copy of Ulysses, and the story of "The Three Princes."

That week, I showed Bede the scrap of paper with the personals ad Alexandria wrote for me. Two years later, we got married.

What’s your story? (Pseudonyms are perfectly acceptable, as are tasteful embelleshments.)

Stairs to the Tower

Last weekend, Ulric and I flew to New York to attend our cousin's wedding. This was the first time I'd been away from both Bede and Lucia, and I wondered if my missing them would overshadow the trip. However, I enjoyed my three days of merriment. I stayed up late and danced until my shoes were "worn down to a laugh." The weekend event took place in an old mansion up on the top of a mountain. I often got lost among the halls of rooms and ended up in interesting nooks. My favorite discovery was the flight of stairs that led to the tower. Many stories have taken place in towers. For some reason, parents in fairy tales think that locking their children up in towers will keep away romantic interlopers.




Bede and I yearn for a tower of our own. A simple turret will do. We have argued over who gets to have his or her office in the turret. Then, we have decided that the turret will have two rooms, and we argue about who gets the top room in the turret. In the end, the fact remains that we have no turret and likely never will. Perhaps that is why the Queen Anne dollhouse is so alluring.

P.S.
Despite my lack of sleep, I have returned with energy and ideas for more stories. Future compositions will each be three paragraphs long. Try me.

P.P.S.I have edited this post since its original publication. I reread it later and was aghast at all of the editing errors. Jetlag! I blame jetlag.