I couldn't make it through the video. She looked so unhappy. Poor kid.
Well, the 60 Berber kids must have it worse if they are making carpet at that age.
Weren't you even listening? They have never seen a violin.
Aww, thanks for including all the apostrophe misuse! And hey, whoever was surprised my parents started me on violin at 3.5, apparently I was actually a laggard! I was also not miserable, which is a bigger plus.
Actually, no, there are photos of me playing the violin at age 6 with exactly such a serious face. I'm not sure she's actually miserable. For me it was embarrassment about being pushed to be a young performing horse plus worries about perfectionism. But I still enjoyed it and was proud of myself, just shy.
5: You probably weren't even bilingual until 8 months old. Lazy.
It would be inaccurate to say that she started playing at 2, because 23m isn't even two! She started playing at 23m! And now she practices tunes from her Suzuki books all over the world!
Last violin comment, I hope, but she really needs to get her chin off the chinrest like that and turn her face to the side a bit. It looks all kinds of uncomfortable the way she's doing it. But probably I'm the one doing it wrong, what with being a lazy slacker.
Christ, my daughter is 5, and she can't even play the kazoo. I'm a shitty parent. Thanks, heebie.
Yeah, I wouldn't read anything into her expression: kids develop all sorts of habitual gurns while learning music.
It's not your fault, Walt. You just weren't blessed.
I can't stop commenting! Someone stop me and make me go eat my leftover lentils. But also I love that they have never seen a violin, so apparently they've already been blinded by their rug-making and/or had to be blindfolded while watching Lil Mozart to keep from being blinded by her amazingness. Or were they just all weeping at their sad, sad lives that they couldn't even see? Argh, I'm really not mocking the child, just the writing.
Good point, but should I really have brought children into the world given that? Maybe these parents will adopt my daughter?
10: Her posture is terrible. Leopold would've beat her straight.
Were supposed to make fun of the kid, right?
You would think their video of her playing the violin would include audio of her playing the violin, but no.
Somewhere there's an overweening Berber mommy blogger writing about how little Mdaghri played for 60 American kids who had never seen a Ginbri.
19: If only that were true, I'd feel so much better about western civilization.
18: that, I assume, is why the joke is on you.
18: Maybe her violin skills far surpass her piano skills, but the "Live Webcam Piano Lesson!" doesn't exactly show a piano prodigy.
Holy shit. How do they bankroll the whole thing? Wealth is wasted on the wealthy.
An NBC show about wine living did a piece on their vineyard before they sold it and became travelers. They are just brimming over with vision.
23: They claim to do it on under 25K/year.
[H]er Godmother spent her early childhood in Pakistan and a summer living with a Mexican family[...] Before she was even born she had a blessing on tape made for her in Mandarin and Aramic. I lived in Italy for a year when I was young which affected my perspective.
Geez, fetishize much?
As I mentioned earlier we will be going by nicknames after some of our heroes.
That the blog author has chosen to call herself Jeanne D'Arc cracks me up. Also, that her husband goes by Da Vinci, rather than Leonardo.
"wine living"?
The firing squads can't arrive fast enough. I'll start building some walls.
Somewhere it explains that Mozart really didn't start out bilingual, but trilingual, but they dropped the Mandarin because the school was an hour away.
"We are thoughtful people who deeply analyze choices in an attempt to make the best one, but sometimes one must just trust one's heart and jump."
"We have been married for 16 years and consider each other soul mates. We named our child & committed to her soul in our wedding vows."
We were blessed in the early years with an amazing teacher from Columbia
You know, the District's schools are struggling enough without these people snatching up the bilingual teachers.
We named our child & committed to her soul in our wedding vows
They must have picked an androgynous name.
Wine living is just a fancy phrase for "alcoholism", surely.
Hmm...
Like many campsites in France and Italy, they even had a bidet in each bathroom ( but they also had some squat toilets which we never use, but some Europeans prefer).
Prefer a squat toilet to a bidet? I would think one does rather different things with them.
Yeah, that's kind of baffling. First you squat, then you huff in shocked delight. That's why they're next to each other.
but she really needs to get her chin off the chinrest
I don't play the violin, but if this is true, it's some awfully confusing nomenclature.
Wasn't the annual Christmas letter enough for this lady?
Does anybody send those anymore, what with blogs and facebook and whatnot?
39: I admittedly have more chin than most people, but you want the side of it and not the point of it to be what's pressed against the violin. That actually reminds me that by the time my younger brothers were students, our teacher was calling it a jawrest to prevent just that argument.
She has hummingbird boundless energy and eats like an air fern.
The fuck? [goes to Wikipedia] So, like a dead hyrozoan then?
I don't know how they have the nerve to call themselves travellers if they won't use the squat toilets. Does authenticity mean NOTHING to these people?
Heebs, you only needed to give us the name of the blog. We could have filled in most of this shite just from 'soul travelers'.
squat toilets
Those are already inauthentic. When I was in the Amazon basin (3rd grade trip), I learned how to shed my materialism by shitting in a little hole dug into the ground. You can even cover the hole when you are done, if you are the kind satisfied with going half of the way.
I'm obviously not putting enough pressure on my child.
the Amazon basin
Is that what you call those fields on their website where you type in your credit card number and ship-to information? I never knew.
My poor, poor exploded head, that I've had ever since I was a little boy!
I confess that if I believed that my actions had a non-negligible chance of making my hypothetical offspring significantly like the real Mozart*, I would probably put this lady to shame with my SWPL craziness.
* "Danny told me not to trust you. He said you killed Mozart."
"Mo who?"
"Zart."
"You know, I kill a lot of people, I can't remember half of them."
Imagine never having seen a violin. Imagine being Sappho of Mytelene or Hildegarde of Bingen or the author of the Song of Songs, and pity the dreary, uncreative existences they must have measured out. The bloody thing was only invented about 1500.
Further to 48, I wonder if the parents of Mozart 2.0 are aware of Mozart 1.0's scatalogical predilections.
Because god knows those are the first things I think of when I see the name.
heebie, I also read where they said that Mozart had been speaking Spanish since birth, but then I made myself close out of their website for good.
46: I meant the river one. With the fish that can swim into your penis if you go swimming.
52. As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, she lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
I think this kid is going to grow up to be Penelope from Saturday Night Live. "I invented Spanish...and speaking, so...."
I believe that the blog's sidebar explains everything you could possibly want to know: the family was "Featured as Case Study in New York Times Bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek."
I credit The 4-Hour Workweek with sparking my first suspicions that all of the personal productivity stuff I was then obsessively reading was actually horrible and soul-killing.
She has hummingbird boundless energy and eats like an air fern.
The fuck? [goes to Wikipedia] So, like a dead hyrozoan then?
Nor do hummingbirds have boundless energy. Quite the opposite. Rather famously, they have to consume many times their own body weight of nectar each day just to survive.
50, 51: I think of those fancy bonbons, but de gustibus.
It looks all kinds of uncomfortable the way she's doing it.
My cat looks terribly strained when he plays the tuba but I know, deep down, that his soul sings through those dulcet tones.
You should teach you cat to play the violin as I think the strings are made from other cats.
60: My cat has never even seen a tuba! We should arrange a playdate and then videotape it with a recording from the US Marine Band as the soundtrack.
Or it is just the strings on tennis rackets that are made from cats?
Catgut isn't really made from cats, Moby.
Disappointing as that may be, I should add.
You're right. Wikipedia says it is usually sheep or goat. English is a confusing language.
Next you'll be saying that rotgut isn't made of rot. What a world!
Rotgut rots your gut. What's hard about that?
Mom was a playboy bunny!
JEANNE D'ARC A loving and fun wife,mom and writer. Another one who appreciates beauty in all its forms. An entrepreneurial spirit who was a former actress and Ford model who appeared in many magazines, films, commercials, TV shows and theatrical productions many moons ago. Later she started 2 successful small businesses. She has also been a nurse who worked in ICU and a psychiatric hospital, a flight attendant for TWA and a Playboy bunny. She loves to read, learn, garden, create, meditate, listen to classical music, dance, massage, sing, laugh, cuddle and play.
Man, the posts are link-tastic. Protip: you don't need to link every word that could plausibly have a reference point somewhere else on the internet.
a flight attendant for TWA
My mother knows her. Not guaranteed, but it wasn't a big workforce by the end, and Mom knew pretty much everyone. I wonder if she was around for the strike in the late 80s, and if she scabbed? She's about the right age to have started her career there crossing the picket line.
This chick?
http://www.explayboybunnies.com/biographies/sharonhansen/sharon.html
She left TWA in '83, so I can't hate her for scabbing. And a shorttimer in the early 80s, Mom probably didn't know. In other words, never mind.
I wonder if the people leaving comments about how talented the violin performace is stopped to ask themselves how even the most talented child prodigy managed to make her violin sound like a string quartet.
||
Brian O'Shaughnessy has died. "I cannot really imagine this will without this body", indeed.
|>
Maybe not Jeanne D'Arc. If she were a bunny in 1971, say @ 20 yrs old, that means she had little Mozart at what, 55 yrs old. Not unpossible, given her amazing amazonian skillz at everything, but unlikely.
Not unpossible, given her amazing amazonian skillz at everything, but unlikely.
I haven't got the ages straight exactly, but I recall the blogger had her kid at an age where the options were adoption, egg donation, or divine intervention. So probably still the same one.
"We also have taken thousands of disadvantaged school children with us virtually through the highly praised nonprofit , Reach The World."
This makes me queasy.
That the blog author has chosen to call herself Jeanne D'Arc cracks me up
Perhaps she was referring to the French warship.
Also, I remember our annual school musical evenings. Age-graded classes of everyone one socioeconomic notch above us, all skrawking away at their violins, making a noise like sharpening piglets. Jesus wept, the music. Adorno would have gone off and got into 2 Live Crew.
Says here they consulted a professional hobo.
And you people mocked me.
81: In our defense, we've mocked you for a huge variety of different things. Some of them were bound to be off.
That's not really a very good defense. What I'm trying to say is that we have no intention of not mocking you regardless of past accuracy.
83: Good. I was afraid you might be going soft or something.
Further to 78 -- yeah, the front page describes the couple as in their early 50's, with a six year old. Early 50s doesn't quite match the bunny/flight attendant Leech found, but close enough if you leave room for a little lying.
...we have no intention of not mocking negging you regardless of past accuracy.
but close enough if you leave room for a little lying.
No room for that in coach these days.
Travel is bullshit
History is bunk.
Just on a formal level, isn't it a little weird that all the pictures on their homepage seem to be National Geographic stock photos?
I use stock photos from the Fortean Times for my page.
The NYT Frugal Traveler piece says that she was 57 and her husband 56 in November of '09.
Euripedes pants, I menda dese pants.
95: "Ooooh! Look, Mozart! An authentic Greek artisan person! Let's observe him!"
93: That probably confirms both that Leech's bunny is the right one, and that little Mozart is the result of egg donation. I wonder if the insistence on her awesomeness comes from their having bought eggs from some superwoman: I haven't seen them mentioned lately, but I remember ads seeking wildly specific lists of qualities and offering great sums of money for eggs from women matching them.
I wonder if the insistence on her awesomeness comes from their having bought eggs from some superwoman:
That is way too close to modesty to apply here.
98: Maybe they got the eggs from a Neal Stephenson character .
If you assume she's relying on the polite fiction that her age is being ignored as a factor for how likely she is to be genetically related to Mozart, and that she's very attached to having gotten good value for her money, I think it works.
"Look, we bought these amazing genes for our daughter, and she is indeed superhuman! Again, our money makes us better than other people."
But I'm uncharitable. I shouldn't be so rude about people who haven't actually killed anyone.
I'd assume that anybody who travels constantly has killed somebody or eventually they'd stay in one place.
Kobe + Neal Stephenson superwoman = a selfish superchild awesome.
104: Don't even get Moby started on the Barefoot Bandit.
Hey, if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it.
Have they been to Bruges yet?
"What do you mean it's not really your thing, Mozart? What's that supposed to mean? It's not really your thing. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? It's a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing?"
LB, I assumed donor eggs too and she does list infertility as one of her interests. I wondered if that was part of all the mystical gobbledygook about knowing her daughter's name and soul before birth, plus the "soul" thing in the name. It seems to me that people who've had children the traditional way are less likely to use that kind of terminology than people who've adopted or used assisted reproduction of one sort or another and that it often suggests a sort of (unconscious?) attempt at overcompensation, though I also admit she's a wacky writer regardless. I wouldn't be surprised if she's one of those people who thinks her daughter was so magical that she couldn't be conceived traditionally but also that the two of them could not be more alike in their magical wonderfulness if they did share genes. Or I could be totally wrong, and I'm fine with that too.
She is a lover of people of all ages and freedom.
98: Ages ago, I was paging through the -- what was it called? The Maroon? -- Chicago student newspaper when I came across an ad offering 75K for an egg donor who met certain criteria:
Dark hair
Dark eyes
Pale skin
Irish and Italian descent
IQ of blah
SAT scores of blah
Conventional attractiveness
Reasonable athleticism
Facility with languages
At this point I started mentally spending all my moneez, until I read the final item:
Height of 5'7" or taller
They had to get greedy and lose me!
You probably could have bargained them to 5'4" for $65K.
We earn a living primarily from passive income.
Is that, like, investments or what?
Talking of travelling ... I can't be the only person here watching the Tour de France? One year I am going to drive round and follow it.
I wouldn't be surprised if she's one of those people who thinks her daughter was so magical that she couldn't be conceived traditionally
Maybe some dude was shot in the testicles and the bullet traveled on into the hot tub she was in and the hot tub wasn't properly chlorinated and the bullet scared her so the jumped out of the tub and accidentally pushed a waitress onto her husband's penis.
Cause that happened to a women who went to school with my cousin.
You fucked up, Stanley. After this, I'll never feel comfortable making fun of you again.
Well that was horrible (the bits I skimmed, anyway). The costumes they put the kid in! Yuck. But the Pachelbel soundtrack is the touch of genius ... I may have to use a clip of this the next time I teach Distinction.
||
Hey lawyers! This article raised questions for me about the community standards part of the Miller test. The way people talk about the test, in this article and elsewhere, implies that to count as obscenity, something must violate community standards. But that's not really what it says. It says that using community standards, the average person would say the work appeals to the prurient interest.
The question is, does the new acceptance of pornography mean that the public no longer believes that pornography appeals to the prurient interest, or does it mean that people no longer think appealing to the prurient interest is that bad anymore?
It or maybe it is best to say that for a majority of Americans, "prurient" just isn't a live category
anymore. The word basically means "appealing to sexuality" with the implication that this is bad. And most people don't think that appealing to sexuality is inherently bad anymore.
But the Pachelbel soundtrack is the touch of genius
Yo quiero Pachelbel
I have neighbors who traveled around the world on a bike trip with their kids (who are both under 6). They seem UMC (the husband has some computer job), but not rich. I know they camped a bunch, which makes it more affordable.
111: I remember that ad specifically (or a similar one), because it was a spot on description of my big sister. Which was weird.
I don't think Leech's link is her. The photo of the Sharon person as a mature adult doesn't look quite like the author. Plus, I assume the author's real name is Jeanne.
Holy fetish, Batman! There is more than one Playboy bunny/ stewardess/ nurse? Do you think we can arrange a "meeting", or will rob helpy- chalk get the Feds to prosecute, like in his linked article.
The photo of the Sharon person as a mature adult doesn't look quite like the author.
I'd think if you allow for aging, she's close enough. She's in her late fifties, and her face has gotten square, but that happens -- based on family history, it'll happen to me about the same age.
No, I mean there's a picture of Sharon in her 50s, and she doesn't look like Joanne in her 50s.
her face has gotten square, but that happens -- based on family history, it'll happen to me about the same age.
You're related to SpongeBob? Neat!
The date I see is 2003. Seven years is enough time for a fair amount of aging (which, on a lot of people, happens all at once, suddenly. No big change for a decade, and then you age that decade's worth the next year.)
I'd think if you allow for aging, she's close enough.
Also, the husband looks like the same person.
Yeah, but Joanne's photos are from 2006. At least the one on the "Genesis" page that I'm comparing. So only a 3 year gap. And their faces just look like different people.
Also Sharon says she is living in Long Island, and Joanne was definitely in California in 2003.
Also, Sharon's real name is Sharon. I'm pretty sure Joanne's real name is Joanne.
Also it doesn't seem that far-fetched that if one Bunny went to work for TWA, she would act as a contact for other bunnies.
Sharon's got a grown-up son, and Jeanne says she has only had Mozart.
Also, the husband looks like the same person.
Well, this could still be true.
130: He may look the same, but something has probably snapped on the inside.
119: It or maybe it is best to say that for a majority of Americans, "prurient" just isn't a live category
anymore. The word basically means "appealing to sexuality" with the implication that this is bad. And most people don't think that appealing to sexuality is inherently bad anymore.
I think that's right. The way the community standards test works, as I understand it, it's determining whether the community would consider it porn -- there's a fair argument that that's obsolete, and that the question should be whether the community objects to porn.
Scratch that. I think it was just one particular picture of the husband that coincidentally looked kind of similar; others are less so. Also, Sharon taught high school but the blogger was a nurse. I think they are different people.
Also it doesn't seem that far-fetched that if one Bunny went to work for TWA, she would act as a contact for other bunnies.
This is neither here nor there, but I was surprised by the TWA/Bunny connection. I was raised with a vivid set of airline-specific flight-attendant stereotypes, and cornfed middle-American sexpot is Eastern or American, not TWA. TWA was Catholic-school girls (still attractive, but usually better educated and less blonde), and Pan Am was glamorous model types, often European.
Talking of travelling ... I can't be the only person here watching the Tour de France?
Sounds like a wager to me!
131/136: Eh, that does sound like they're different people.
137: But T and A are *right there in their name*!
Sharon's got a grown-up son, and Jeanne says she has only had Mozart.
And Mozart would have been alive in 2003.
My google-fu has failed. I feel shame.
Hey, you found a TWA Bunny who plausibly resembled the blogger. That's pretty good.
Heebie is right! Sharon has retained the hubba hubba, and is one heart attack away from cougarville. Jean has embraced the zaftig bobo that had been lurking in her soul since third grade.
The Brits call candy, "sweeties", so I always tell Mozart that the "sweeties" made from God is fruit.
You've got to warn everyone! Soylent green is god!
he "sweeties" made from God is fruit.
HEY, WAIT A MINUTE. I DON'T SEE ANYTHING ABOUT FRUIT IN THE MASS.
God's low-hanging fruit is OFF LIMITS!
...the "sweeties" made from God is fruit.
I take issue with the implication that candy does not partake of God's substance.
See? That's why home schooling should be banned, so that kids like that can be properly bullied now rather than as adults.
But they'll be better able to understand what's happening to them as adults.
I just can't hate on these people much. Mostly because they (a) seem kind of generically tacky and (b) I'm generally in favor of spectacularly hedonistic things like saving up to travel the world (the idea that this will be educational for their daughter is nonsense, of course).
Oddly, perhaps, I think I would have a stronger negative reaction against these folks if they seemed smarter or more virtuous.
Euripedes pants, I menda dese pants.
Should be:
TAILOR: Euripides?
CUSTOMER: (nods) Eumenides?
98 and 111: The one that I saw in the Crimson sort of turned my stomach. They wanted short people, oudemia, but you wouldn't have qualified (nor I):
5'2"
Petite
Blonde hair
Blue eyes
SAT scores above 1550 (maybe just 1500)
No family history of psychiatric problems
Five foot two, eyes of blue,
But oh what those five foot could do!
Has anyone seen my gal?
Turned up nose and turned down hose,
Never had another beau.
Has anyone seen my gal?
Five foot two, eyes of blue,
Graphing cal-cu-lat-or too
Has anybody seen my gal?
Turned up nose and "Misses" clothes
Never had a crazy bro'
Has anybody seen my gal?
Granted that either the blog's author is using different definitions of "lingual" and "fluent" than me, or babies can speak and understand languages from both - I don't know much about kids, but that comes as a surprise to me - this related but separate thing also seemed odd to me.
We also helped her with native Spanish speaking babysitters, playgroups, music, books, and limited TV shows, so she is the most fluent in Spanish in the family.
Talking of travelling ... I can't be the only person here watching the Tour de France?
Sigh - With Lance out of the running in the Tour, U.S. interest has waned in yet another major international sporting event at which "we" will lose to someone from some outlandish place like Luxembourg or Spain.
The only non-Internets person I know watching it is my crazed friend who races mountain bikes in the Clydesdale ("heavyweight") division. He wants to follow the Tour too. Perhaps I'll put him in touch - is there room in the camper for a 195 cm, 102 kg behemoth who travels with four bicycles?
That's big, but surely he could do with fewer bicycles.
159.2: That is the very best thing about America.
The very best thing about America is that people travel with four bicycles? I'd say that was unduly modest, even in the present climate.
I wouldn't be surprised if she's one of those people who thinks her daughter was so magical that she couldn't be conceived traditionally but also that the two of them could not be more alike in their magical wonderfulness if they did share genes.
Not unlike adoptive parents who think their child was the one destined for them. My sister, I'm glad to say, thinks she was unbelieveably lucky to have been matched with her daughter but not that the cosmos magically brought them together. Which reminds me, it's been a while.
(Apologies, sort of, if any of the adoptive parents here feel that way, but y'all seem too generally sensible.)
Which reminds me, it's been a while.
Dang, cute bomb!
159 - maybe if he only brought one bike.
Fucking hell, C just told me about Renshaw getting disqualified from the *whole Tour*. Not right at all.
163: Agree 100%. It's pretty creepy to tell kids they were just born from the wrong uterus or whatever, but people still do it. Yuck.
You know, at a time when xenophobia has reared its ugly head in, well, Arizona, amongst other states, and crazypeople across the land are worried about terrorists from the Middle East sending coded jihadi messages through Spanish-language signs at the grocery store, here's a couple who want their child to be bilingual, and who also want her to see the big, broad world beyond America.
I dunno. They seem basically harmless to me, and probably more or less well-intentioned. The mother's career path (Playboy bunny, TWA flight attendant, nurse, travel blogger) sounds genuinely interesting.
The self-promotion (and, by extension, the promotion of the child) is a bit ridiculous, of course. But that's the ridiculousness of thinking that you're wonderful, and then saying so, I think (on which topic, wasn't there a fairly recent thread on this theme?).
168.1: That kid is going to grow-up to work at a hedge fund or as a producer at Fox or invent a way for SUVs to evade CAFE standards or something. Just because the parents aren't doing what you might want to rebel against doesn't mean she won't really want to rebel when she hits adolescence.
168, 169: Comity all around. They might actually be decent neighbors, if you happen to stay next to them in a Moroccan campground or such (except for the damn violin) ... it's just the blog's artless pomposity that's so easy to mock.
Reading that blog did make me hate foreigners just a little bit, but this morning when I saw a bumper sticker saying, "Gracias for the free health care, senior." Now, I'm back to being annoyed with everybody, American or not.
C just told me about Renshaw getting disqualified from the *whole Tour*. Not right at all.
I saw video of the head-butting on Huffington. More of that on the Tour and U.S. viewing would skyrocket.
I saw video of the head-butting on Huffington. More of that on the Tour and U.S. viewing would skyrocket.
I've never seen a European sporting contest that wasn't improved by head-butting.
174: I'm sure this is probably true of any sport's lingo, but I'm marvelling mildly at how many words here I know and yet know not exactly what they mean here, despite getting the gist:
The Australian paceman blew his stack when Styris hit him for successive boundaries in the 46th over of the Kiwis' two-run victory. Having bumped shoulders, Johnson went back to his mark and pointed at Styris's head to threaten a bouncer. He pitched his next ball up and when it went for four, Johnson walked down the pitch for another exchange of pleasantries.
170 gets it right. I have no beef with the travelling and the lifestyle. I'm pretty sure there is no topic alive that she could write about and fail to amuse me.
Threatening a bouncer sounds like a good way to get beaten up.
174: That was a pretty sad excuse for a head butt. Weak tea, if you will.
178: Yes, it was hard to see if it even really happened, but not unexpected given it was the helmetless headbutting the helmeted.
Renshaw's was a good headbutt. The other bloke was coming over into his line and stuck his elbow out, so Renshaw nudged him back, and then sideways headbutted him. In the live commentary they were almost admiring, talking about Renshaw using his "track skills", but then everyone was like "oh no, he's so naughty, he must be punished". Perhaps a bit of an overreaction on Renshaw's part, but the whole Tour? Fucks sake.
175, 180 - makes sense to me and I am no cricket fan.
Hey gang, thanks for stopping by our website! We've been unplugged a bit while we enjoy a beautiful, peaceful spot on the French Riviera, but I just noticed that we're getting lots of hits from something called "Unfogged", which I'd never even heard of. Oh my, is it always like internet "Mean Girls" here? ;)
"To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing" Hubbard
I've never quite understood the odd habit of dissing others for the sheer joy of it to make oneself feel better and making absurd assumptions, but each to his own & thanks for the giggle. I know internet stars like Brogan, Kawasaki, Ferriss, Scoble, Kathy Sierra etc. get this kind of catty attention, but I find it quite hilarious for our little personal blog. I guess I'm a corny one who agrees with M.L King when he said, "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear".
I've often read that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, so I'm happy that you are so intrigued by us and our little personal travelogue that I made primarily as a souvenir of our unique journey, to keep in touch with family, to take school kids with us virtually, and to help others know that traveling the world is easier, cheaper and more rewarding than most know.
It doesn't matter how many people don't get it, I write for myself and those who do. ;)
"Trying to get everybody to like you is a sign of mediocrity" Powell
One can guide impressions by tone and quoting out of context, which was clearly part of the plan here. Interesting that none of our most popular posts were quoted, not even the recent ones on the advantages of homeschooling (since that was recently discussed here ) which are easily found in our FAQ section. (We loved FIAR when our child was young). We're not geeks, could definitely use an editor, but we just jumped into the blog world to share our journey and quickly wrote most of what was quoted out of context during the chaos of the last days of packing up and leaving on our open ended world tour in 2006.
We are an ordinary family that has been to 4 continents, 32 countries & traveled over 185, 000 miles ( most overland) so far, trailblazing a new way of being ( that has been growing exponentially since 2008), plus we are monolinguals raising a very fluent trilingual/triliterate from birth, we did radical early retirement because we saw the "new economy" coming long before most, we live large yet very green & travel the world on just 23 dollars a day per person, we are eclectic unschoolers dipping into foreign local schools, using unusual virtual edu. opportunities including violin, piano & Mandarin Chinese from another continent & CTY online programs abroad etc.... thus have a lot of unique information, photos, videos & experiences to share. We're artists & free spirits with an iconoclastic nature, so have spent a lifetime, NOT following the crowd and that has really worked well for us. ;)
We've been as surprised as anyone that we have been featured in National Geographic Traveler, New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, UK Guardian etc & they have all come to us as we have never written one PR release. We were even more shocked to be featured in several best selling books and that some of the top publishers in the world have come to us requesting that we write a book based on our blog ( which they found " a crackling good story"). It's very difficult to blog while traveling and homeschooling a child ( just finding internet connection or dealing with all our photos & videos can be an adventure) so our blog has mainly been a labor of love, service to others and creative outlet, thus it's very gratifying to get daily acknowledgment from the many people that we have helped, inspired and entertained. We love connecting with them on the road. We never knew our journey would have this travel 2.0 element, so it was never part of the plan. Obviously the appeal is about family travel, freedom and educational issues and not for everyone. Often we give people permission just by demonstrating that it can be done.
We were also stunned that our first Youtube video ( that you linked to) went viral and more than a million people have watched it and most of the 2,240 comments have been overwhelmingly positive ( as they have been for all our videos on our popular Youtube channel & we are one of the very few in the travel niche that have been asked to be Partners with Youtube & have viral videos). It's not a musical performance video, but a TRAVEL video and mainly just a fun, unique souvenir for our child that she really enjoys doing for a few moments in many classic places that we tour. It's really in the same vein as Hebee's Youtube videos of her daughter, who knew over a million people would be interested in ours? ;)
Perhaps it is because very few people have seen that much of the world in their entire lives and 80% of families dream about extended world travel. Most people think we are pretty lucky and we have made our own luck by hard work, planning well, thinking out of the box and taking calculated risks. The educational value for our child has been astounding as well as the deep bonding as a family and with friends around the world. Just the time we have together is a rare privilege as there is nothing a young child wants or needs more than time with both her parents. One could not ask for a more idyllic life for a future global citizen of the 21st century!
We have no performance videos of our daughter, because that is not what we are doing, nor what we are interested in. I don't want to raise a rote learner, over- consumer, provincial-thinking type, but one that knows how to think for herself, how to truly live, to deeply understand other cultures, and thoroughly enjoys the best of life. (There are advantages to having a child thoughtfully, late in life and my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother also did that thankfully).
No, she is not a prodigy, but yes, she does love music and has advanced skills at piano & violin ( she was the only 5 year old playing at a Stanford University concert of all Suzuki violinists in the SF Bay area where most of the others were 10-12 years old at her level, and her piano teacher said that at 7 years old she was already doing college level musical theory and counted music better than most adults etc) and that is very much related to our journey. Not too many people travel the world with violin and piano. ;) Doing service projects as we go is part of our mission and a six year old sharing her talent, connecting with kids from Africa ( and bringing them healthy food as a treat) happened to be a spectacular moment for the kids and all of us involved.
I believe global peace and understanding can begin with moments like these and our Youtube video "Sahara Dream" captures some of the magic for kids around the world. If you knew anything about kids or violins, you'd know that kids from every country are fascinated by musical instruments, few get to see violins close up at an early age, just the fingering and technique shows our daughter is a sophisticated player for her age, young natural kids concentrating do not smile for the camera on cue like puppet performers, and that an impromptu concert in the middle of the Sahara by a 6 year old is not about performance, but connection & sharing with a universal language. They also sang French songs to us and all the kids were excited for months for this special day and will remember it forever. It was a dear local family friend that came up with the idea and arranged it, because she loved our first video.
The few sentences about her walking, talking and reading so early, are just honest information said lightly that was directly connected to the "why" of our journey and our world schooling choice. Raising a baby that crawls all over at 4 months, says things like "bibliotecha" at 6 months, walks at 6 months, runs faster than you at 9 months, and teaches herself to read at 2 etc, is a very challenging experience that impacted us all in many ways and it would have been misleading not to mention it in our introduction. If you haven't dealt with these kinds of issues, of course you can not understand them, but we have a right to share and be heard by those who care. She went to a private school kindergarten at 3 years old & a public school 1st/2nd grade at 4 in California ( neither school had ever done this before) so we tried a more traditional route to meet her needs, but was also aware of the downsides of skipping via my own and my brother's experience ( he skipped 2 grades ).
Putting a "flesh and blood" reality to things using compassion or empathy seems not appreciated here and surely derision, dehumanizing, polarizing and playing to the crowd's "group-think" lowest denominator appears to be more the game that "sells" and is egged on. Clever? Envious? Cruel? Insecure? Hard to fathom. I guess that works for your world view and I wish you luck with that. For me and mine, I prefer to take the road less traveled. One always knows more about a blog or person by actually reading it in depth or getting to know the individual. Sometimes you can actually learn something, even from someone who thinks very differently from you. ;)
Off to enjoy more hidden gems of the French Riviera and Provence! ;) Au revoir!
"Living well is the best revenge. " Herbert
Wishing all of you a good life! Peace! ;)
Oh my, is it always like internet "Mean Girls" here?
Not always, but often. Other times it's more like internet "Brokeback Mountain".
183: I do think your travels sound rewarding. "Mean Girls" is pretty accurate, and I appreciate you being a good sport about it.
Marshall McLuhan, is that you?
For one more moment of Mean Girlishness, is this interaction reminding anyone of TEC's appearance? Something about the emoticons.
I've not seen Mean Girls or Brokeback Mountain, but I seen a violin. We even have a little tiny one from when our boy was a toddler. Maybe I'll mail it to "General Delivery, the Maghreb" when he gets a bit bigger.
I've not seen [...] Brokeback Mountain
It's hard to mess up a Western.
I John were still here he'd start mooning over soultravelers3.
Specialized adult consort was about the only fantasy career Jeanne D'Arc has not participated in. That she admits to, anyway.
Not sure if st3 will check back in, but if you do, you might think for a bit about what the non sequitur in the following string of phrases "..., you'd know that kids from every country are fascinated by musical instruments, few get to see violins close up at an early age, just the fingering and technique shows our daughter is a sophisticated player for her age, ..." communicates to most people reading it (finding other similar examples left as an exercise for the writer).
And yeah, sure I'm envious, but I have my inner mean girl to take care of.
think we are pretty lucky and we have made our own luck by hard work, planning well, thinking out of the box and taking calculated risks.
I was almost sympathetic until I got to this. I guess 169 was probably rigtht...
She lost me at the six-month-old with a vocabulary including five-syllable words. And the Bionic 9-month old.
I'm back to sympathetic. I just finished a whole pizza and I'm in a carbohydrate/fat induced spell of wanting to let the whole world know it is just super.
199: well, yeah, that too, but that came after the quote in 198, so she'd already lost me by then.
200: Just to counter-balance, I just drank a great big latte and I still think they're tools. Something about "she's not a prodigy except she totally is and since when is the Internet mean to people anyway" really turns my dial all the way up to Malicious Chainsaw. I don't care if this kid hangs upside down from a helicopter to perform heart surgery on my mom, I don't need to hear a lot of glib luckier-than-thou about it. If the best revenge is living well then there's something tragic about settling for comment spam instead.
if this kid hangs upside down from a helicopter to perform heart surgery on my mom,
Wow, the Obama Death Panels are way more James Bond-y than I'd imagined.
It was a very good pizza and I was very hungry.
The healthcare of tomorrow is going to look a lot like the Fall Guy reruns of today, only better.
I, for one, feel bad about being mean. We are jerks!
199: In fact, there was never any hope of recovery after the introduction of non-ironic "Mozart".
If this is Mean Girls, then who's Tina Fey?
I don't care if this kid hangs upside down from a helicopter to perform heart surgery on my mom
I'd want to read the rest of the script before I passed judgment on this.
210: You don't think Mozart, da Vinci, and Jeanne D'Arc as pseuds are totally fetch?
a six year old sharing her talent, with kids from Africa (and bringing them healthy food as a treat)
Africa, of course, is a single political and cultural entity; no need to bother with details like the enormous variation in secure access to food, "healthy" or not.
(I went with earnest, though I considered a response involving Rice Krispies and/or Rice-a-Roni.)
Whenever I've heard anyone say "Living well is the best revenge," what they've meant is "Its all ok as long as I'm rich."
Its really an awful phrase if you think about it. The thought seems to be "I need to justify my self-indulgence. Gee, what other important things are there in life...Wait, I know, revenge! I'll justify my self indulgence by calling it revenge!"
I'd want to read the rest of the script before I passed judgment on this.
It doesn't legitimately advance the plot but it's going to push a lot of in-home 3D product so it makes the cut.
216
Whenever I've heard anyone say "Living well is the best revenge," what they've meant is "Its all ok as long as I'm rich." Its really an awful phrase if you think about it.
In fairness, I've said that and/or thought it. Geek, etc., and sometimes I've contemplated going home and I wasn't sure how I'd handle seeing the assholes again, but then I remind myself that my life is probably much all-around better than theirs. Healthy, happy relationships, decent income, easy job, few commitments and no unwanted ones... if I see them again and don't have an adequate retort in mind, or even if they go right on picking on me, so what? The fact that they are going back to their house afterward and I'm going back to mine is sufficient revenge.
I'd only call the sentiment awful if "living well" is being used to specifically mean a high personal income.
That being said, none of that is a defense of Danielle Brown here, who is a massive tool, publicity hound, and unpleasant, overbearing, irritating person for other reasons. See, I've met people who are "citizen of the world" types. I don't get along with them all that well, wouldn't choose their company for fun - they're generally too earnest, too self-satisfied, too full of Cliff's Notes ideologies - but I can respect them for other things. The thing is, though, they're too busy doing whatever it is they do to blog (and video and post pictures and...) about it at length for no apparent reason. The reporters have to track them down, not the other way around.
214: Stop trying to make "fetch" happen!
I suspect this thread's liveliness is not not rooted in meanness, but immediate mutual empathy (what I'd like the Internet to be for, though heavens know it's uncommon).
Scratch anyone in the Mineshaft & you'll find a sometime prodigy of some sort. Who hasn't dreamt of the hero's firehose or the tiara (go ahead, click send!) or the violin or whatever?
Someone chose to write about a series of choices & activities on the Internet; & then we all considered the trip to somewhere we took (or didn't) or would take (or won't); & then there was snark. I'm shocked, shocked. I haven't read the whole thread, but from the latest posts it seems less mean girl than OPINIONATED GRANDMA in spirit.
It'll all get sorted out when the kid finds a voice, which is sure to happen someday. In the meantime: hg was so right to post!
That's good, Rah. I'd add that I bet, for a lot of us, parental exaggeration of our abilities and potential resulted in some kind of rift or disappointment when it was discovered that, no, being an early reader didn't mean we got all A's, having the blue-ribbon science project in 4th grade didn't make us world-class geniuses, and playing an instrument well as a child didn't make us famous musicians. Trying to communicate to parents that we're just people, and should be allowed to fail sometimes, can be difficult. There's some projection going on in this thread, for sure, but, for me at least, it's worrisome to see parents seem to equate childhood achievement with meaningful personhood.
My cheap grandkids spend all their time bitching on the internet and only bring bottom shelf bourbon when they visit . If I hadn't willed the house to the cats, I'd be so disappointed.
I thought there was no point in making fun of this person's blog, but reading 183 made me lose all sympathy. What an entitled monster.
Who hasn't dreamt of the hero's firehose
Oh man. I'm trying to feel badly -- though I didn't even click over to the blog in question -- but good lord 183 is a piece of work. What on earth is the point of mentioning all the magazine features and best-selling book mentions and book deal proposals and whatnot? It's in poor taste.
199: And the Bionic 9-month old.
True that. Runs faster than [generic adult] you at 9 months, huh? Wow. That sounds sort of physically impossible, but whatever.
Meanwhile I'm stumped at what an internet "Brokeback Mountain" might be. Oh wait. Hrm. Okay.
That sounds sort of physically impossible, but whatever.
Stop oppressing me, parsimon.
I'm sorry that 9-month-old beat you up, Apo. Still, you were compensated.
Also. They travel with a piano? That's got to be challenging. Maybe it is an electronic piano; except we all know that the attack (and release) on those are problematic. Though I hear they've improved a great deal since back in the day.
I mean, it has to be an electronic (electric?) piano. How the hell would you keep tuning a regular piano every time to you moved it? Unless the child has learned how to tune pianos. That could be it.
I'm sorry that 9-month-old beat you up, Apo.
His parents called him Ali on their blog.
I just actually read this thread, and I suppose it's mean, but honestly, if reports on the content of the blog in question are accurate, it's difficult not to pile on to 183. The time is past, of course.
I'm reminded of a woman in the bookselling world who carries on in a similar manner: at excruciating length, with emoticons and sighs at how mean and awful people can be, when she's just going about her business, if only other people would do the same, and the lurkers support her in email, by the way, and meanwhile so-and-so famed dealer stopped by her place and they enjoyed a lovely iced tea and lengthy chat, and then she found five dollars the absolutely awesome acquisitions she has in hand would make a lesser dealer salivate, but meanwhile she fears she will have to cut back on the requests people have made of her to do literary editing, because a person only has so much time available ... etc. etc. Etc. Endless, and repeated.
After a year of a dozen or so of us being mean to her, to no avail (humor didn't work, correcting her errors didn't work), we gave up. In a couple of private exchanges, I tried to explain to her: look, I'm not an asshole, it's just that you carry on. Many of the people listening to you are likewise busy and successful (really); you need to get over yourself. She's not a bad person, and I noticed recently -- 4 years later -- that she continues to do basically exactly the same thing in public forums. Nobody bothers to say anything any more.
What's my point. There's a kind of tone-deafness in some people that's just a complete waste of time to address. The whole thing makes me tired.
Maybe I'm lucky that I really only come across stuff like that in Christmas letters from cousins I don't see much.
God, that was long.
Shorter me: I don't know. As soon as someone pulls the 'you're being a really mean jerk, shame on you' routine, there's not much you can say.
Parsi, that's the wrong attitude. You need to explain that everybody in Mali loves long explanations and that you had to rush to a meeting with two former members of Menudo so you didn't have time to edit.
Right! I'm exploring the power of the oral, or in this case written, tradition in story-telling in order to evoke complex responses that may resonate for the listener (reader) long after my words fade.
Or, I just decided to spit out a long thing.
I just decided to spit out a long thing.
That's the second-wave feminist spirit, pars!