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You are here: Home / Books / Later Night Open Thread: Quick, Henry, the FLIT!

Later Night Open Thread: Quick, Henry, the FLIT!

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I don’t actually remember the content of And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street — one of the not-acutally-banned six — but I do remember getting in trouble for publicly criticizing it, back in 1960, when I was in kindergarten. Most of the story-hour books at P.S. 291 were of the genre best described as Worthy Educational Material, designed more to lull the young audience into naptime than to inspire. But one day Mrs. Bookbinder, bless her earnest heart, decided to bring in a copy of the already-vintage Dr. Seuss book that had once inspired her children. And, of course, as a budding literary snob, I was impelled to denigrate it as nowhere near the standards of the author’s later work (not even 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, much less the slyly subversive One Fish Two Fish). Which I probably could’ve gotten away with, if not for the predicatable teacher’s pet…

“I think it was a wonderful story, Mrs. Bookbinder!”

“Yeah, cuz you’re a suck-up.”

So I had to bring home (yet another) Note to My Parents. My poor mother, a nascent English teacher herself, was torn between the honesty of my critique and her immense respect for the social forms. My old man, after explaining (probably not for the first time) that there were many things which were true and yet not to be said in public, introduced me to Mr. Geissel’s original source of fame: the advertising campaign for FLIT, which was popular enough to enter the general awareness as a tag line — I remember it being used in both Pogo and MAD magazine. (And some of those ads, if you click over: hella racist, by 21st-century standards!)

I was also held incidentally responsible, by the educational authorities, for a minor kerfuffle with the parents of a couple of my Italian-American classmates. Apparently the fuss over my brutal emotional assault on Teacher’s Pet impressed those kids enough that, although they’d never mentioned anything about earlier stories, they described the Seuss-inspired scene to their parents. Now, Geissel was talking about his home town in Massachusetts, but in NYC, Mulberry Street was (still is, such as it remains) Little Italy. You find us funny? Are we some kind of joke to you?…

Such is the power of literature, even at its most (pre)elementary level.

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    Poor Ms. Werner.  Would she have preferred getting filleted for lunch by Press Secy. Psaki?

    Psaki:  Surely, Ms. Werner, you’d agree that Dr. Seuss is universally beloved in the US, yes?  And surely you’d agree that nearly every parent knows of his work, as well as many, many children?  And that the value of Read Across America Day, is to induce people to -read- where they would not have done so before.  And therefore, that it makes sense to celebrate authors who should be read, and aren’t being adequately read, yes?  And so, it follows, since Dr. Seuss is already widely renowned and read, that the list of authors for Read Across America Day should *not* include him, yes?

    Surely all of this is obvious, is it not?  Surely?

    [sound of wet halibut repeatedly smacking Ms. Werner across the face.]

  5. 5.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: No wonder you ended up a BJ front pager, AL.

    ‘Cranky contrarian’ is our banner, and we fly it proudly!

  6. 6.

    Baud

    that will show dr. seuss enterprises for ceasing publication of some of their catalogue. they’re getting fucking owned now by people buying all these books from them

    Expect a slew of self-cancellations soon.

  8. 8.

    prostratedragon

    FWIW,  since I last read the book uncomfortably close to 60 years ago and have no other reference to the name at hand, I also think first of the Mulberry St. in Manhattan Little Italy. Might have to read the book again soon.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    I knew I loved you, AL. I was expelled from kindergarten in 1960 for not keeping my opinions to myself. Mrs. Dakin was ready to retire at the end of the year and not up for a challenge. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was my reciting the Greek alphabet.

  11. 11.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    A little OT: In the Before Times, I was volunteering for an adult literacy program, which turned out to be mostly ESL support. I had the bright idea to have my learner read The Cat in the Hat (so she could read it to her young daughter). My thinking was that it is a classic, good,  beginning reader picture book, plus it had that limited vocabulary list (beginner book) so it had to be pretty easy.  My mistake.  It turned out to be a good project precisely because it was NOT easy for a non-native speaker.  It has idioms, different tenses of verbs, odd sentence constructions, and unusual words even for someone who spoke conversational English pretty well and had just become an American citizen. Bump, mat, tricks, about, rake, hop, ship, pot, lit, bent, sank, shook, hook, fox, shut, “have no fear”, tame, kite, thump, gown, net, dots, shame. etc.  Plus she was introduced to the immortal Thing One and Thing Two.

  14. 14.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @James E Powell: Yeah, the project was a success I guess, just not the way I was expecting! She had a hard time reading the verses in cadence.  We had read the book 1x and was about halfway through a second time when the pandemic hit.

  15. 15.

    sab

    I always found the Dr Seuss books to be extremely creepy because of the critters’ weird wrinkled noses.

  17. 17.

    prostratedragon

    It’s Vivaldi’s birthday. It’s also Women’s History Month. A work of Vivaldi performed as he wrote it, for all-female voices and instrumental players, and at the location of his posting:

    “Gloria” in D at La Pieta, Venice

    Was reading aloud the word list from A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)@11 during one of the faster tempo passages and fell perfectly into rhythm. Maybe singing would help some students?

  27. 27.

    Ascap_scab

    When I was a Junior in High School, our English class assignment was William Goldman’s The Temple of Gold. Presumably that was because The Catcher in the Rye was banned by that time, and this was a way to get around that. I don’t think Judy Blume had caught on in our town yet.

    Of course we had to write reports on that book. I’m pretty sure our teacher took those reports home and wanked off to them.

  28. 28.

    Gvg

    What a fuss over nothing. I personally thought Dr. Seuss was slightly more entertaining than most early childhood reading but not amazing. My sister was 11 years younger and by the time she was learning to read Dr Seuss must be taught to kids was accepted wisdom. She says she read them all whereas I don’t think I did. I was also a precocious reader. Anyway by the time my nephew was in school Elementary schools were doing Dr. Seuss day and really IMO going overboard. In addition there are now a lot more good books for kids and the ones he brought home were often much better than Seuss or anything I recall. I think Seuss is just going to get passed by in a perfectly normal way. It’s not sad, because there are just a lot of good books being written.

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Mary G: We have a lot in common. I ran away from school in kindergarten and if 61 year old memory is accurate a cop found me and brought me back. Details are hazy but I still distinctly remember the feeling of a five year old’s version of *screw this shit* before I just walked off the playground at recess.

    Feisty old ladies start as feisty little kids.

  31. 31.

    sab

    @satby: My parents lived a block away from the elementary school. My little sister used to walk to the corner traffic light, and chat with people in cars waiting for the light to change, because she didn’t want to go on to school. This was first and second grade. My mom didn’t figure it out for months.

  32. 32.

    SFAW

    @Anne Laurie:

    ‘Cranky contrarian’ is our banner, and we fly it proudly!

    Not proudly ENOUGH, you whiner!

    [NB: Just trying to get dibs in for being your backup “cranky contrarian.”]

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    So I had to bring home (yet another) Note to My Parents.

    At the tender age of 30, I was taking a week-long engineering course given at my company. Another engineer and I, thinking the lecturer was taking a day to cover an hour’s-worth of material, tried to (relatively gently, actually)* point out to the instructor that we could all — about 20 of us — handle him picking up the pace a little. As the lecturer was an Important Expert in the Field, he was less receptive to our suggestion than we had anticipated.

    The next day, the Department Director summoned us, and said the Important Expert was pissed, and we needed to write notes of apology. Which we did, of course.

    Fast forward to a couple of weeks later: the Director summoned us again. It seems that he had subsequently talked with the Important Expert. His assessment?

    “Christ, what an asshole.”

    PS: And fuck Ted Cruz, that traitorous pig. Keep yukking it up, Zodiac.

    * ETA: Yes, I could sometimes be a non-asshole, when called upon. Fortunately, I’ve overcome that flaw.

  34. 34.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    One annoying aspect of this (among many) is that no outside government authority is removing those books from the shelves. The copyright holders are doing it. And they have every right to manage their books as they see fit.

    I thought Rs believed in private property.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    I think the objectionable content in “Mulberry Street” is the inclusion in the parade of “a Chinese boy who eats with sticks”, an exoticized depiction that I recall looking like something out of the 19th century. Not hostile per se, but, you know, caricatured and weird as if Chinese people were fantasy creatures. I think the text was already changed once– in earlier editions it was “a Chinaman who eats with sticks”, but that word became considered offensive decades ago.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @prostratedragon:

    That was pretty horrific. At first I thought it was an alternate/semi-parody version; alas, I was worng.

    People often thank me for NOT singing; the QPAC singer almost makes me look/sound like Caruso.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    I don’t think I am being too mean if I remark that Representative Liz Cheney (WY) reminds me of one of those Whos from Dr. Seuss’ Whoville.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    (I had a different objection to “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street” when I was a kid: my copy had the cover on upside down and backwards–my dad had gotten it at a discount because of the defect, but I found it so disturbing that for a while I wouldn’t let him read the book to me.)

  42. 42.

    Ken

    @Mary G:  I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was my reciting the Greek alphabet.

    Children can learn anything. Nowadays they waste it on memorizing the Pokemon evolution tables. (And get off my lawn!)

  44. 44.

    BruceFromOhio

    So I had to bring home (yet another) Note to My Parents.

    This should be one of those “preferred skills” for the BJ Front Pager position description.

    If it isn’t already.

  46. 46.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Ken: Children can learn anything.

    My dad grew up speaking Russian, my mom Spanish. I might have been trilingual which would have been really cool, but instead I’m not fluent in anything (well, arguably English) because they never spoke anything but English to us. Although there were stories that my older brother would ask for his bottle in Russian.

  47. 47.

    wkwv

    @Omnes Omnibus: 
    Yes! I used to read the Sleep Book by flashlight to my kids every time the power went out after thunderstorms- sometimes two or three times before they nodded off.

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