Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Sitting at the Kids' Table

I know I'm partial to the name Simon, but in the case of Simon Rich, author of a recent New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs piece, I think deservedly so.

Shouts & Murmurs, the magazine's comedic short, is very inconsistent. It's not even that it depends on the writer; just some weeks it'll be funny, others it will totally bomb. But the March 26th issue carried a piece on children's perspectives that I thought was pretty awesome.

Called "The Wisdom of Children," it imagines what happens with adults when they're not around, and how they respond to the machinations of the young. Here is a clip from the first section, entitled "A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table":

MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
[snip]
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.

And in the final section, the US Govt. responds to youth political engagement:
—Did you hear the news, Mr. President? The students at the University of Pittsfield are walking out of their classes, in protest over the war.
—(spits out coffee) Wha— What did you say?
—Apparently, students are standing up in the middle of lectures and walking right out of the building.
—But students love lectures. If they’re willing to give those up, they must really be serious about this peace thing! How did you hear about this protest?
—The White House hears about every protest, no matter how small.

And a description of Woodstock: "Apparently, young people hate the war so much they’re willing to participate in a musical sex festival as a protest against it."

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