Inappropriate for the classroom?

[evwhore]

See if you can identify who wrote the following passage (DO NOT look at the entry tags, or read under or past the cut, if you want to guess):

(Hint: it's a well-known female writer)

... Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn't realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. What's even funnier is that I thought

Comments

[el_jefe_rey]

Hmm I may have to take a second look at those Smith nights since I don't remember that bit. Yeah, Kevin Smith is a poor man's Spalding Gray. (Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box) Both of those guys may try really hard to make planning look spontaneous. Smith does a great rambling story. His latest one, Too Fat for 40, is even more rambly* but quite a bit less interesting (still worth watching). I think he overestimates interest in what is now his domesticated uber-morbid obesity. (Let's just say there are some fat people who 'wear it well' (everything's comparative) but I think he does not. (for qualification purposes I am 6'7" and 340 which makes me 'severely obese' I guess) It still comes off as adorably honest most of the time, but I guess him cracking wise about Mewes, Damon and Affleck is more interesting. He does tell a story about a wacky Canadian road trip/arrest which easily justifies the time spent watching.

Regarding the Frank truth (!) I've said for years that it deserved to be renamed "Are You There God? It's Me, Anne." Certain aspects of public education skip the uncomfortable or inconvenient parts, especially when telling female stories. I think publishers decided in holding up a hero, they didn't need one who talked shit about her mom. Weak sauce though, I mean it's a DIARY for Jeebus' sake.

The quoted bit you cite is not the (unintentionally) funniest part I've found though. Check out the end of page 26 at this site:

http://books.google.com/books?id=m3m3_Uq8qWkC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=frank+anne+expurgated+passages&source=bl&ots=G02ipl0D-T&sig=vaiK9gB-Gb-9ejsiU3_kM08N40Q&hl=en&ei=gt1jTZHqDcL88AaU16m5DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

particularly the line 'The hole's so small I can hardly imagine how a man could get in there, much less how a baby could come out.' Exactly! She is the 1940s version of Kids Say the Darndest Things.

It's business as usual for schools though, who are more than happy to teach about Helen Keller Overcoming Great Obstacles but not later in life when she was a great socialist and communist icon.

This seems like a good place to mention the ridiculous reedit of Tom Sawyer which supposedly will avoid the n-bomb. Silly fucking humans.

[evwhore]

ITYM Huck Finn, and they brought that up as part of the context while discussing where they were and weren't similar.

[el_jefe_rey]

Apparently it's both:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly's+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=74671e6e20-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email

Kevin Smith brought these up?

[evwhore]

Apparently it's both:

Mm.

Kevin Smith brought these up?

Huck Finn, yes. SModcast #156.

[el_jefe_rey]

The website only has up to 150 currently. Oldies = freebies and newies cost/must be routed through sirius, is that it?

[evwhore]

The website only has up to 150 currently.

?

I get it through itunes, but

http://www.smodcast.com/main.html

and scroll down to "SMODCAST #156: The Lost Tribe Of The Caine-inites"

"Listen Now" worked for me just now.

[el_jefe_rey]

Weird, the other ep's are listed now but was only showing #150 earlier...

[el_jefe_rey]

Heh, in reading the above release and the company name NewSouth, all I can think about is the New KKK skit from Mr. Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4txN1ut20

About 3:00 in for the specific segment, but all of it is funny...

[el_jefe_rey]

Having listened to the whole podcast, I can say with a fair degree of surety that Kevin would be more understanding of Anne Frank objections/concerns had he read the passage about a man Going There or digital insertion (at the very least he would have seized upon the points to send them up, thus not burying the lede).

I agree with his general proposition that fictional children's novel vs. biography is a drastic difference. And their point that we're not likely to read those books ever again so why should our opinions matter? Furthermore, the point they should have gotten to is that curriculum decisions like that are (still) local, so that the most important thing to do is monitor events locally. I appreciate the fact that they concede the western world will not perish or flourish based on whether the n-bomb sticks around in class.

I personally think the tradition of reading it aloud is overhyped or certainly overrated. (by age 13 students should be able to read silently).

[el_jefe_rey]

Oh, and how funny it it that they bring up Helen Keller on the cast as well? They would be thrilled to expose the censorship in telling about her, if they only knew!