Halloween with the Autistic Child

October 28, 2014October 20, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Halloween is coming fast! Holidays are often confusing times for the autistic child. They want to participate like everyone else, but too much change in routine or clothing can create problems. While older, less-impaired children can have input into what they like or don’t like, what do you do with the young or more severely-impaired child? As the parent of a profoundly impaired son with autism, here are some of my holiday-saving tips:

1) It’s okay to say to no. Autism is fickle second to second. Halloween was a snap last year, this year everything is a meltdown. It’s okay to skip this year. Next year may be a winner again. If all else fails, have the child stay home and pass out the candy.
2) Keep costumes simple. No masks. Little to no face paint. Nothing that feels unnatural. Nothing out of the ordinary like giant wings or high heeled shoes. No gloves to decrease already shaky sensory input. No strings or fringe to obsess on. No beads that can be picked off and eaten. Make sure sleeves are close-fitting. Flapping is an issue with some children: don’t risk accidents in this season of open candles.
3) Allow the child the right to say no. If there’s a decoration at a house that scares them, allow them to skip that house.
4) Keep it short. Participating doesn’t mean you have to hit every house in a two-mile radius. The year of the October Blizzard, when no one had power for Halloween and the festivities were “canceled”, it was impossible to explain the situation to my younger foster son. We dressed him up anyway, stopped at both grandparent homes and a neighbor who was in on it, and he got to “trick or treat” on that all-important correct day. Three houses was enough. Meltdown avoided.

So what do you do, then? How can you have a costume without all the cool trappings? Keep it simple, keep it real. J. has a baseball jersey. Paired with a ball cap and a pair of matching sweatpants, he’s gone as a baseball player several times. The clothes are normal to him. Firemen. Policemen. A barbecue chef in an apron. A nurse or doctor in scrubs. Any community job you can show the child in a book and they can relate to. Dancers, the lady who cuts hair, the bus driver, a mommy with a doll and a stroller or shopping cart. Bob the Builder, with a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt, a tool belt, and a yellow hard hat. Very simple, very easy.

If you want to get fancier, create something easy that goes over their clothes. We have an orange fleece poncho with a pumpkin face made out of felt and glued on the front. A couple of felt leaves and a brown stem sewn to a green hat, and we had a pumpkin costume. Because it’s a fleece poncho, it’s not only warm, but fit for several years. A cat costume out of black clothing, a pinned-on tail, and felt ears either glued to a headband or a hat. A hobo clown, with mismatched plaid shirt, baggy jacket, and ragged pants with a rope belt and touch of red makeup to the nose was another year. Many times kids like capes, so an all-black-clothing Batman with a cape and a hood, or a vampire in white shirt, black pants and cape, and a red ribbon “Medal” made of tinfoil are often well-tolerated. One year we found a Hoodie with skeleton bones on it, added chalk “bones” on a pair of black sweatpants and we’d found our every-day-clothes costume.

Halloween doesn’t have to be a meltdown. Keep it simple, keep it calm, both for your child and yourself. Explain the day as you go: We will stop at ten houses and ask for candy, then we will go home. Try extra-hard to stop only at the homes of people your child knows; for a child with no awareness of stranger-danger, you want to reinforce who is safe and who is not. If all else fails, stay home, play some Halloween music, watch Charlie Brown, and try again next year. It will get better.

Beat Them at their Own Game!

October 12, 2014October 12, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Are you tired of feeling boggled when that internet meme comes around, pretending that it’s SOOOO impossible to think up a movie title without the letter “T” in it? Beat them at their own game and look super-smart to all your friends: here’s 100 easy movie titles that never use the letter T – and there’s a lot more than that! How many have you seen? If you haven’t seen them all, check out our catalog and watch one today!

Apo calypse Now
Life of Pi
Black Swan
Blood Diamond
Million Dollar Baby
Donnie Darko
Ghandi
High Noon
Fanny and Alexander
Groundhog Day

Roman Holiday
Slumdog Millionaire
Alien
Scarface
Up
Die Hard
Elysium
Blade Runner
Rebecca
Casino

Fargo
Cool Hand Luke
Kill Bill
Annie Hall
Wizard of Oz
Life of Brian
Ben-Hur
Django Unchained
Amelie
Rush

A Clockwork Orange
Lawrence of Arabia
Godzilla
X Men
Anchorman
2001: A Space Oddysey
Raging Bull
Rocky
On Golden Pond
Halloween

Ordinary People
Freaks
Avengers
Superman
Frenzy
Jaws
Son of God
Dumb and Dumber
Casablanca
A Boy and his Dog

Iron Man
Pride and Prejudice
Eraser Head
Cinderella
Pinocchio
Cars
Shane
Duck Soup
Unforgiven
Amadeus

Princess Mononoke
King Kong
Bonnie and Clyde
Wall-E
Finding Nemo
Free Willy
Born Free
Space Jam
Mary Poppins
Psycho

Mulan
Speed
Bambi
Frozen
Planes
Goodfellas
Seven Samurai
Hell Boy
Rear Window
Jurassic Park

Ocean’s Eleven
Saw
Jailhouse Rock
Help
Scream
RED
Juno
Unbreakable
Speed Racer
Hairspray

Being John Malkovich
Spider Man
American Psycho
Jerry McGuire
Zelig
Robocop
Rain Man
Children of Men
Airplane!
Nebraska

Susan Reads: Room 1219

September 4, 2014September 19, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

One of the fun things about reading non-fiction is you learn things about subjects you never knew anything about. Such is what happened when I picked up Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood by Greg Merritt.

I am not a silent-movie fan; my tolerance for old films extends to occasional forays into Marx Brothers comedies, so I knew nothing about Fatty (Roscoe) Arbuckle but his name, and a vague notion he’d committed a crime. I discovered a story that could have easily been ripped from today’s headlines, perhaps with far more scandal but as much unfounded public shredding of a popular figure as happens today.

Roscoe Arbuckle was one of the biggest names and biggest money-makers in the silent films of the early industry (1913-1921). He earned the equivalent of millions when the average worker made a thousand dollars a year. His persona was of a sweet, bumbling round man and his movies full of slapstick gags and stunts that made people laugh, and his box-office receipts were consistently high. His enduring and close relationship with Buster Keaton didn’t hurt. He was charitable with his time and money, showing up unannounced for appearances, in parades with his custom-built cars (in an era where a car cost $800, Arbuckle’s cost $34,000), and was fond of children (he had none of his own). He was cinematic royalty.

Until 1921. Arbuckle, estranged for several years from his wife, was on vacation in San Francisco with several lackeys. An impromptu party erupted, including Prohibition-illegal alcohol and several second-rate actresses, friends of friends. At some point during the party, Virginia Rappe (pronounced Rappay), disappeared into Arbuckle’s bedroom and was struck ill, so ill she died in agony several days later. Autopsy results showed a ruptured urinary bladder.

Wild rumors erupted about what Arbuckle did, most of which revolved around bizarre sexual tactics involving icicles and Coke bottles, none of which were physically possible based on the autopsy, and spoken lines worthy of the worst film noire. What was known for fact was that Rappe had a long history of bladder infections and gonorrhea, in a time before antibiotics had been discovered. Arbuckle was arrested for murder. The country erupted in scandal, and Arbuckle, right or wrong, was immediately deemed guilty of extreme perversion and his movies banned in every theater in the country.

It took three trials to finally win an acquittal, but the damage was done. A star was destroyed, and Arbuckle was banned from films for several years. He never regained his royalty status. Out of the ashes rose an effort to censor movies, lest they corrupt the morals of the country. While a huge backlash rose in the industry against it, eventually we did wind up with the current rating system (G, PG, R, etc) to warn viewers what they might expect, a direct result of his scandal.

Roscoe Arbuckle was tried and found guilty in the court of uninformed and vindictive public opinion and died a heartbroken, and most likely innocent, man. A hundred years later, are we any smarter and more forgiving?

Cast in Bronze – No Ordinary Ring a Ding

June 22, 2014May 14, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Everyone’s heard bells before, but have you ever heard a carillon? A carillon is a set of at least twenty-three bells in a belfry, which can be played singly or in concert with each other to make harmonies and chords. Carillons are played like a giant keyboard, with both hands and feet pressing on levers that pull wires that ring the bells. Because of their great size, carillons are considered the heaviest of all musical instruments (one low bell alone can weigh several hundred pounds!).

No one, of course, would ever think of traveling with an entire bell tower to give a concert – or, uh, would they? Enter the musical group Cast in Bronze, who do exactly that on the first carillon with a portable frame. Cast in Bronze’s carillon consists of thirty-five brass bells, with a total weight of four tons. Founded by master carillonneur Frank DellaPenna, Cast in Bronze actually tours around the country. They have played at Disney’s Epcot center, played a concert in New York for Pope John Paul II, played as part of Alice Cooper’s “Christmas Pudding” show, and played for NBC’s Today Show. I saw the bells in action myself at the New York State Renaissance Festival in Tuxedo, New York, several years ago. As a college bellringer who spent three years throwing levers in a tower, adapting music by Elvis and Journey to an octave of bells, I was enchanted.

Before you can say “Ho hum – ding, dong, ding, who cares,” Cast in Bronze is not just a churchbell ringing. The bells are just a highlight, with full orchestration and in some cases (like their fabulous rendition of O Fortuna, the same song currently on the Nutella commercial), with the backing of a choir as well. Here’s an excellent sample of their music, along with a great video of the bells in action:

Wait – what’s with the mask, you ask? DellaPenna’s philosophy is that the bellringer was never seen in the tower; all you knew was the beauty of the music, so he remains hidden beneath his phoenix mask, to draw your attention to the music, not the player.

Cheshire Public Library recently purchased two albums by Cast in Bronze – Best Day Ever, and The Voyage. My favorites to check out are of course “Tubular Bells,” the fabulous “O Fortuna,” and the ever-lovely “Carol of the Bells.” If you like music by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, David Garrett, 2 Cellos, any of the London Philharmonic playing Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull or similar pop-rock, if you like light instrumentals, bells, or even piano music, give Cast in Bronze a listen!

Susan Reads: Nothing to Envy

June 14, 2014June 21, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Rarely have I come across a book so haunting.

If you Google Earth for North Korea at night, you will see South Korea as brightly lit as a coast of the US. Above it is a great C0044096-Korea_at_night,_satellite_image-SPL big blackness. This is North Korea. It is not black because they block out satellites, or by treaty.

It’s because there is no electricity.

In an entire country.

Author Barbara Dimick’s book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea won the 2010 Samuel Booker prize, with good reason. Dimick has seen the “official” places of North Korea, but moreso spent years tracking down people who managed to escape the deadly iron fist of North Korea and interviewing them extensively. She follows several families, some of them die-hard party loyalists, through their unwavering patriotism, their questioning, their suffering, to their desperate do or die escape.

Dimick traces some of the history, from World War II, when things started to go flaky, through the Korean conflict, when things got really wacky, to the insane tyranny of Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un. North Korea, until the 1960’s, actually had a better standard of living than South Korea, but began to fall apart in the 70’s. But, unlike Russian Communism, instead of saving itself, North Korea became even more hard-nosed, more dictatorial, more insane. By the 90’s, there were no jobs, no wages, no food, no manufacturing. People began starving to death in great masses, with children so stunted by malnutrition they barely topped 4’7” as adults. Trees died, because people stripped the bark to eat. As many as three million people died, and there were many reports of cannibalism.

Imagine a place where radios and televisions are set by the government to one single official channel. Where the government doles out the very food you are allowed to eat, and the quantity, and the clothes you wear. Where everything is in black and white except the propaganda posters, which are in red, the only color people can look to with cheer. Where every home must display a photo of the dictator, and clean it daily with a special cloth, where the picture can be inspected at any time and you can be sent to the Gulag for disrespect. North Koreans are so isolated, so indoctrinated, so starved, so cowed, that they are not only utterly brainwashed against the outside world, but cannot imagine what the outside world is like. After three generations of this, they’ve never known anything else.

Perhaps the saddest, most poignant moment is when the once-loyal mother makes a desperate swim across the river into China, crawls to the first house she sees, starved, frozen, exhausted, desperate, pushes open the garden gate, and discovers a bowl of meat and rice and vegetables set outside waiting for her, and she is utterly amazed, not having seen meat or even rice in months. Then the family’s dog comes around the corner of the house, and the woman realizes that in China, even dogs eat better than North Koreans.

Read this. Really, read this book. It’s short. It will painlessly explain so much of the insanity, the politics, the danger that is North Korea, and will help you separate the Korean government from the Korean people, who have as much control over their situation as an ant has over an elephant. You will not forget it.