Phoebe Kate

…and that somewhere is on the internet. If you live in Boggy Bottom, NC (like I do) or a similar place whose main attractions are yard sales, karaoke night at the local dive, mud runs and ”seafood” festivals that are short on delectably cooked crustaceans and long on funnel cakes, you rely on some other source for your cultural stimulation.

I get to Raleigh and NYC and DC occasionally, and when I do, you’ll probably find me in an art museum.  In the interim, when I’ve worn out the pages of my art books and anticipate no jaunts to civilization, virtual museums feed my aesthetic soul.

This Museum of Modern Art site offers a recent exhibit of George Seurat (1859-1891), who developed the pointillist technique and spearheaded the Neo-Impressionist movement.  Seurat’s art is luminous and haunting and utterly unique.  Tragically, he died at the age of 31 — so much talent, so little time.  It makes his body of work that much more amazing and precious.

Enjoy!

–phoebe kate 

Hey, moms out there.  Do you know what the hottest thing to do with your three to five-year-olds is now? 

Send them to a fight club. 

Yes, you read that right. 

Or even better yet, start one yourself and invite the other kids in the neighborhood to join — hey, you can have pint-sized UFC in your own garage or backyard.  Or if you’re in the state of Missouri, this sport for small fry is legal, so you can tote your little ones to a gym that will teach them the fine art of hand-to-hand combat – way cooler than taking them to the Kids’ Story Hour at the library. 

Fight clubs for the milk-and-cookies crowd are popping up in all over the country, according to “Good Morning America” today.  Parental boosters of the cage fighting sport for kindergartners and elementary school kids say it develops “good character” and “prepares them for life.” One has to wonder exactly what qualities these people want to inculcate in their children — and even more unsettling, what kind of future they envision for them. 

Is it my imagination or is American family life and values getting weirder with each passing day?

When I was a kid, and later on when I was raising my own family, parents made it a top priority to provide their youngsters with music lessons, private tutors, good summer camps, trips to historical monuments and museums, tickets to the symphony and opera and ballet — even if this enrichment required a significant re-allocation of the already tight family budget.  Mothers and fathers moved to another neighborhood or another town or even another state to put their kids in the best possible school, public or private.  And this wasn’t an unusual thing; it was the norm.  As a society, most of us believed that education and cultivation were the keys to lifelong success and personal fulfillment –and we realized that the mind, not muscle, was the best means to that end.

Not so much nowadays, it would appear.  Sensibilities have changed — whether for the better or the worse is up to the individual to decide.  It is interesting to note, however, that in the GMA feature, a Fight Club kids says he daydreams in school about being on TV fighting in cage in a UFC match with everyone watching.

I rest my case.

–phoebe kate             

Never let it be said that nothing exciting happens here in Little Hog Wallow, NC.  Last night, my son Davio had drinks with a celebrity who was in town.

And I don’t mean Ina Mae Bynum who’s won first prize five years in a row at the county fair for her paintings of Jesus on black velvet.  First of all, she wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar and second of all, everybody knows that Sister Bynum faithfully attends the Women’s Prayer-and-Share on Wednesday nights and third of all, she wouldn’t be seen with my son unless it was in her church and he was responding to one of Pastor Ficus’s rousing altar calls.

No, Davio was raising a pint or two with none other than Randy Jones, the original cowboy of the Village People.  You remember them, don’t you?  The group who dressed up as construction workers and Indian chiefs and police officers, etc. and sang “YMCA” and “Macho Man” and other hits of the disco era?  So happens that Jones has family hereabouts and comes back a couple times a year to visit.  He’s also an acquaintance of one of Davio’s friends, which is how my son got to meet him.

Jones has a CD out, “Ticket to the World” and a website.      The Village People still perform and you can check out a video of the original version of ”YMCA” here.

Gotta love it. 

–phoebe kate  

My daughter J.J. has started dating someone who lives in the Midwest.  I’ve only met him once, very briefly, before they were boyfriend/girlfriend.  From what she’s told me about him, he strikes me as a very fine young man.  That impression was recently confirmed when he sent me an email by way of formal introduction.  He chatted about how much he looked forward to us getting to know each other and then he said something that blew me away:  “Ask me anything about myself you want.  My life is an open book.”  

I’ve never heard anyone say that before.  

And then I began to think: how many of us can?    

Could I?

Yes, I decided.  I could.  My life could be read by all. 

Except, umm, maybe skip over pages 17, 24, 33, 46, 55 and 56.

Oh, and there’s a couple of chapters you don’t need to read, either.        

Okay, maybe it’s more than a couple.

Hey, how about I send you the Reader’s Digest condensed version of my life?  That’ll work just fine for us both, I think.

–phoebe kate 

March 25 seems to be the natal day for a remarkable number of talented and eclectic people, living and deceased, some of whom happen to be my favorites.  So put on your pointy party hats and blow your noisemakers for:

Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marcia Cross, Simone Signoret, Hoyt Axton, director David Lean, Olympic skater Debi Thomas, sportscaster Howard Cosell, astronaut Jim Lovell, composer Bela Bartok, conductor Arturo Toscanini and last but not least, arguably the finest writer that the South has produced, Flannery O’Connor.

–phoebe kate