Stop Lookin', Listen

This blog focuses on visual media for children that I, in my infinite personal bias, would say falls outside the mainstream. Truth is, my kids spend more time listening to audio books (and reading), than watching, and I think that's a good thing. Limiting sensory input to one channel often deepens the waters.

This brings me to a plug for the short-story podcasts of The New Yorker. I've been listening to them during downtime lately, and this week I had to pull my kids into my bedroom to have a listen to Jonathan Franzen reading "Coyote v. Acme" by Ian Frazier. Frazier's parody of a legal brief, contrasting the formal, deflective language of legalese and the slapstick antics of the famous Warner Bros. cartoons is deft, hilarious, and affectionate. My children greatly enjoyed it.

Another good one for children (8+up, I'd say) is George Saunders reading "You Must Know Everything," by Isaac Babel. There's plenty to explore in the free podcast area of iTunes, from Selected Shorts and This American Life to more independent efforts—a free library for a rainy day or long car trip.

Life: A Journey Through Time

Frans Lanting
Viewable online
All ages

"The Life Project is a lyrical interpretation of life on Earth from its earliest beginnings to its present diversity." Start with the slideshow on the website, then explore the timeline. This is all part of a multivenue spectacle that includes a book, orchestral performance (music by Philip Glass), and exhibition (scheduled to tour the world), in which images by Frans Lanting, a photographer for National Geographic, are placed in the service of telling the story of life on our planet. Read along with the slideshow or not...the pictures tell the story either way. Stunning.

Solidarity Not Charity

Common Ground Collective
Posted to their website
Viewable online
All ages, but 5+ will get the most out of it

This organization has been working with New Orleans communities to gut homes, offer healthcare, keep people fed, fight evictions...you name it, all with a view to sustainable, nontoxic operating strategies. If you want your children inspired by the possibility of social change even in the midst of unthinkable disaster and governmental abandonment, here's a short, free stop you can make on your information highway cruise. Wish I'd known to post this a long time ago, but it's never too late to watch it with your kids and donate, send supplies, or better yet...take a working vacation. These folks have skills we can all use.

Sita Sings the Blues/The Sitayana

Artist Nina Paley
Sita Sings the Blues/The Sitayana; Viewable online

The Ramayana and the blues of the 20s (via vocalist Annette Hanshaw) get an exhilarating animation treatment from Nina Paley in this movie that's an accessible retelling of The Ramayana from Sita's perspective, and a fiery cross-cultural mash-up. Paley has been slowly building this work for years. When I first posted about it, Sita Sings the Blues was in progress and Paley was posting it to her website in chapter-sized chunks—now it's finished and collecting awards at festivals.

Here's a New York Times piece about it and how Paley developed the idea—a great story for people of any age about how creativity can be fueled by personal circumstance.

Despite Paley's difficulty in securing copyrights for some of the music in her animation, beginning February 26, 2009, Sita Sings the Blues will be viewable online through Channel 13, which is allowed to show it as a public broadcaster. This should be an active link to that.

For more of artist Nina Paley's work, including her graphic contributions to the Christmas Resistance Movement, visit
http://www.ninapaley.com/

Love Is So Sweet

2004, Henry Lowengard and Nancy Graham—aka your host, red eft
Color digital animation
All ages

Here's one you can view online, in high- and low-bandwidth versions. My husband and I made it as an email Valentine; our daughter sings on the vocal track. Young children like to dance along with the animated characters with heart-shaped torsos; none are wearing any clothing, so consider this a naturalist cartoon.

Here's the link:

Love Is So Sweet