kermit gets homicidal

writers should not underestimate children. i think it's an enormous pity when people treat kids as if they were all sweet but just a little mentally handicapped. as if they were puppies rather than reasoning individuals, albeit small and still developing ones. now, i certainly don' t think that a 5-year-old has my sense of mental acuity, because i am really, really smart. hah! but that kid is probably sharper and more inventive and interested than my 40-year-old high school english teacher who had us watch the tv version of gulliver's travels starring ted danson instead of having us actually read swift and then (egads!) discuss the book. because he hated anyone disagreeing with him and discussion tended to lead to disagreements, he generally opted for lectures composed of historical facts gleaned from textbooks, arranged chronologically, and then deployed via bullet point sentences clearly designed to smother your desire to learn. this method largely succeeded, unless you took enormous pleasure in disrupting class and making a general nuisance of yourself. which i did.

perhaps i'm just bitter about never getting to talk about the complete and total awesomeness of jonathan swift in a classroom setting. but my point is that kids are active and engaged learners who respond not to condecension, but to challenges and activity and, quite frankly, anything interesting whatsoever. treating kids nicely reveals more about the adult than the child.

which is why i am such a huge fan of morbid humor for children. for some reason, people tend to interpret this assertion as either cruel or irresponsible (or both). in fact, the frequent antipathy this opinion generates has led me to develop a boring person litmus test. if you think that kids should be exposed to flowers and rainbows and kittens until they are 21, you are boring and i want nothing to do with you. if you think edward gorey's the gashlycrumb tinies is both art book and illustrated children's story, i may deign to speak with you again. poor you.

morbidity is intellectually challenging - that is what makes it so good for developing minds. it forces you to think and interpret images, events, and relationships counterintuitively. death is funny. death is funny.

the thing is, people who find morbidity to be unsuitable for children generally think morbidity is simply in poor taste for everyone. which means they don't get it. they don't think death is funny. in the right circumstances. here lies an atheist. all dressed up and no place to go.

even if they didn't deploy gorey's kind of overtly violent and ennui-ridden imagery, the best children's entertainers created work tinged with the depressed and morbid. did sesame street ever seem a little strange to you - entertaining, but kind of unsettling, as if there was something you weren't quite getting?



henson had a wonderful, quite, deadpan sense of humor that i still find enormously endearing, especially when it tips into the vaguely offensive. one should not be too serious and one's not-seriousness should not be too upbeat. you end up launching yourself into ashton kutcher humor, and i start gleefully contemplating your demise, turned into a homicidal kermit myself. which is why i love the complete lack of emotion in the narration of henson's films on these coffee commercials. and their "documentaries."





the wonderful thing about henson's creations and, indeed, edward gorey (at first, they seem to have little in common) is their attempt to create stories and characters that will appeal to children and adults in equal measure. morbidity seems to be a good way of bridging this gap, largely because it reduces an occurance that is often complex and loaded with meaning to something very simple. because death is very simple. you are alive and then you are dead. almost anything could precipitate death, thus the hilarity of gorey.

you are unlikely to be assaulted by bears anytime soon, but that's the point. basil's fate is the same as ernest:

and choking on a peach is equated with wallowing in self-absorption and self-pity:

ennui - like being mauled by a bear! it's funny and unnervingly true, especially when one considers the fact that in the case of melancholy, you are the bear mauling you. gently and quietly. these morbid, occasionally cringe-inducing equivalencies often remind me of biblical lessons, whacking you so squarely in the face with a lesson that you might not see it, focused as you are on the stars circling about your head. details. in conclusion, the bible is horribly, excitedly morbid - and often feels geared very much towards children.

so i encourage you to expose your child to the ghastly baby as soon as it emerges from the womb.