Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry for Kids, Parents, and Teachers: Plays, Poems, and Songs Edited by Norma Bowles with Mark E. Rosenthal 2000 Weight: 1.9 lbs Method of Disposal: Donating
I am not an educator, and I do not work with children. I am confident that I would not be the best person to review this book. What I do like, is having helpful conversations with kids about race, ability, sexuality, gender, consent, age, and culture instead of acting like every person is the same and that you need to see no differences. This way of thinking hinders children, as they exist in a world where racism, sexism, ableism, etc DOES exist and then they do not have the words or comfort level to further explore and understand this. If we do not have the language, we cannot learn and progress.
This book offers playful ways to get children talking and learning about diversity. You know it is going to be good when one reviewer claims it will cause gender confusion in children and encourage cross-dressing! Mostly this book receives 5 star reviews, and it looks like that particular reviewer was never inoculated. Do you see what can happen?
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Arts Samuel Beckett
19821
Weight: 8.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating
Growing up, I would sometimes hear my mom chuckle and say, "It is like we are waiting for Godot." Wanting to understand what that meant drew me to this book for the first time, and I have come back to it several times since. Often, when I myself feel like I am waiting for Godot, and I am getting restless and frustrated. This is a wonderful, repetitive play open to many more interpretations than the author likely could have imagined when he wrote it. I would love love love to see it performed in person one day.
Closer by Patrick Marber
1999
Weight: 5.6 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating
In college, I loved this play and this movie. It just reaffirmed my belief that most people were polyamorous and trying to fit themselves into monogamous boxes. I watched with a girlfriend (a monogamous one), and it just straight up pissed her off. Ironically, she would be the one to cheat on me with her ex-boyfriend and eventually leave me for another woman. I guess that should reaffirm my college beliefs on polyamory!
I reread it last week before giving it up, and I had a totally different experience of it this time. I would be really interested to see the movie again and see what I think. I, honestly, think I own it. This time it irritated me to no end, and I could not stand Dan or Larrry but mostly Dan. I found all the havoc and heartache and drama that was self-inflicted by all the characters to be ridiculous and disrespectful. I no longer could even imagine being in their position. I use to empathize, but I felt so disconnected from it this time.
That being said, the play and the writing are good. It is a testament to the author that he can make people feel different things and so strongly.
Sylvia by A. R. Gurney
1996
Weight: 1.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating
I am at home sick as hell, and I have been for days with no clear end in sight. I have been reading book after book because it is all I can do other than sleep, take baths, and throw up. I am hoping to read and donate as many as possible because it is my only way of being even vaguely useful for our upcoming move to...where? I have no idea. I just know I need a place by February, and it needs to be very dog friendly--pit bull friendly in particular, and I am freaking out just a little.
This screen play was a weird one for sure! It read fast and had a dedication to Sarah Jessica Parker who was Sylvia the dog in the first rendition of the play. I am fairly certain this book was given to me because someone thought it was about Sylvia Plath, which just makes it funnier! It is a play about two empty nesters in New York City who are having a battle of the wills over a stray dog that the husband brought home. The stray dog is Sylvia and is played by a human. It is bizarre. I'd love to see it live!
The Actor's Book of Contemporary Stage Monologues: More
Than 150 Monologues from More Than 70 Playwrights Edited by Nina Shengold 1987 Weight: 1.3 lbs Method of Disposal: Leaving at Joe's at EAV
Another book of monologues...I wanted to be an actress before I wanted to be a writer. That was so long ago. During the transition from one to the other, I would read monologues out loud with other book obsessed friends, and we just enjoyed taking on different voices and personalities. We thought it might even help us with character development within our own writing but, if it didn't, no pressure. It was all in good fun.
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler 2001 Weight: 9 oz. Method of disposal: Attempting to give it away through a social networking site. If I cannot I will move on to plan B.
Today, I am parting with my copy of The Vagina Monologues, complete with the highlighting of the fifteen year old I was when I bought it. I saw it on a shelf in the drama section at Waldenbooks when I worked there, and I bought it because of the title. I read the book that same night and loved it. It started a sort of-affair. I went to see college productions of it on a regular basis throughout the years and one time I went with my friend Sarah to see it done by Eve Ensler herself. Later, I would volunteer at an event that hosted Ms. Ensler and Jane Fonda. A whole group of us took a picture I have never seen. I remember Eve Ensler’s hand on my shoulder. Even later, I would go to Charis with a very attractive queer preacher to see her talk about her publication, The Good Body. This is yet another time when I will be disbanding a book from a complete collection of all the books written by an author. I use to be in awe of Eve Ensler. Can you tell? There has been a gradual letting go of that awe over the last six years and now I have a dull curiosity when I see her name in print. I will continue to read about her and her work. But I also think about that initial collection where a father buys his daughter a vagina—the only intersex narrative in the book—with dismay. She has spoken with students about it for years and compromises have been worked out, but it lingers in my copy and thousands of others. I think of Jakarta, Warsaw, Kenya, and other places where The Vagina Monologues has traveled and the mixture of emotions about it expressed in the feedback—the validity of the feelings of those who loved it and those who hated it. I love talking about sex, bodies, and sexuality. I also recoil from gynocentrism, and its effects on our beliefs about gender and sex as binary systems. There is a lot good about Eve Ensler and about The Vagina Monologues, and I will never forget my initial love for it. It is time for me to move on now. Looking at my highlights, “My Angry Vagina” was my favorite piece in the collection when I first read it. In hindsight, it is hard to imagine growing up without it. I found this book at the perfect time. It did what, I think, it was intended to do. It helped me fall in love and/or maintain my love for my genitalia—though I do not think my vagina is the truly important component of my anatomy. It pales in comparison to my clitoris, my ears, my neck, and my back.
