One of my kindergartens has been practicing for their February play. They'll be dancing and lip-synching to a taped Japanese fairytale, something about an old man who chops a lot of wood. This isn't the syrupy sort of kindergarten play I'm used to though, with yellow felt-covered children crouching and then growing into sunflowers, or outspoken Pilgrims clutching hands with mild-mannered Indians around a grove of cardboard trees. This play has eye-rolling devils downing sake, this play has creepy gut-voiced chanting, this play has soul.

Just last week, a six-year old girl offered me one of her cigarettes. It turned out to be chocolate, but only after close inspection.

Comments

[chris]

I was watching the Bad News Bears this evening while buttonmaking, and I was actually taken aback by how it showed ten-year-old kids freely smoking and cursing. Something's changed here in the twenty-eight years since that movie was filmed, but I can't quite put my finger on it.