Hitting the Books

You’d think that with my prolonged absence from the blogosphere I’d have some great excuse, like I’ve actually been writing for once, or the Punkin decided that she would only eat striped foods, or the American Punkin clothing line got bought out by Babies-R-Us already.

No such excuse.

Why the long silence?

I read a book. It was my hubbie’s fault (well, actually, it was my uncle’s fault originally–he told DH to read it).

The Long Emergency, by James Kunstler.

Basic premise: We’ve passed peak oil output, there are no alternative fuel sources strong enough to take over from oil, so it’s all downhill from here.

Kunstler is very doom and gloom, going on about no oil, no cars, no electricity, no suburbia.

His solution? Prepare to move back into small towns (like in New England) and farms, and back into agriculture and handicrafts.

Now I’m not an end-of-the-world type person, and I’m still not so sure about Kunstler’s credentials (he was an editor. Of Rolling Stone no less.). But I have a background in International Affairs (no, not the kind James Bond has) and a lot of what he says resonates true.

I’ve always liked to imagine what I would do if thrust back into a non-tech world like Swiss Family Robinson (okay, so how many of you just loved that treehouse?). So the past few weeks I’ve been letting my imagination go nuts with this scenario.

If nothing else, it’s finally gotten the DH to agree to look into buying land. And building a nice “green” house. And I can consider all this reading research for some future novel.

Anyone out there have any thoughts they’d like to chime in with?

We were in Border’s on Sunday, buying a birthday gift for a friend’s 1-year old son. My daughter loves Sandra Boynton’s Hippos Go Beserk, so I decided to buy Devon one of her books. I chose But Not the Hippopotomus (yeah, I think Boynton has a thing for hippos )–the punchline of the book is great. All us adults were laughing.

Then I saw Ms. Boynton had also written a book/CD called Dog Train. I had seen her first such book, Philadelphia Chickens, before, but never read it (she also did Grunt, a take-off of Chant, only with pigs singing in Latin). I’ll be remedying that real soon.

Dog Train is a hoot. I actually bought it because there is a duet between Kate Winslet (Titantic, Sense and Sensibility) and Weird Al Yankovic (“Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise”). My curiousity got the better of me.

The music is good, real good! This is a children’s CD that I wouldn’t mind playing over and over (truth be told, I am the one playing it over and over). Other contributors include Alison Krauss, Blues Traveler, the Bacon Brothers (yes, Kevin Bacon sings very well), Hootie and the Blowfish, and the Spin Doctors.

The songs are just hilarious. The title track, “Dog Train,” describes a sort of Polar Express for dogs. Blues Traveler’s driving harmonica rocks! “Pots and Pans” (Bacon Brothers and Mickey Hart) is about a budding percussionist, and his kitchen cabinet band. Hey, any song that includes a blender solo has got to be good

But our favorite song is the one that attracted me to the book in the first place. Weird Al and Kate Winslet sing “I Need a Nap.” Think “A Whole New World”-type song, only about tired and cranky kids. Any parent will recognize the following sentiments:

“I am mad and upset. What I want I don’t get. I don’t know what I want anyhow.”

I’ve come to the conclusion that any of Sandra Boynton’s books are well worth buying. Cute fun for kids and adults.