November 13-19, 2003

artpicks

They Might Be Giants musical performance and book signing

by John Vettese

books

John Linnell and John Flansburgh have always had an air of childlike innocence about them, even when they sing about death and despair. So when the duo comprising They Might Be Giants released their first-ever children’s album, No!, in 2002, it wasn’t much of a surprise. The lyrics were a little simpler, the themes were less severe and the music was a bit more bouncy, but it sounded natural. Bed, Bed, Bed (Simon & Schuster), the Johns’ first book, builds on those ideas in the context of interactive nighttime reading/listening for the wee ones. A CD accompanies the package, and the pages illustrate the songs, with the intent that kids see the pictures, hear the music, read the words and sing along. McSweeney’s artist Marcel Dzama provides the book’s muted illustrations, which are playful but not insulting to your child’s developing intelligence. "Impossible," a G-rated fight song, if you will, about the necessity of imagination, is coupled with step-by-step pictures of a suit jacket-wearing, bubble pipe-blowing man who progressively morphs into an elephant, then an owl. An ode to optimism, "Happy Doesn’t Have To Have An Ending," is depicted through a cosmic-looking "hippie kitten" who dances in the streets of Paris with feline friends. The disc’s four songs get progressively quieter, so by the time the closing title cut -- sung by Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches -- rolls around, the kids should be far away in slumberland and you, the parent, will find yourself smiling back at the tuxedo-clad bunny rabbit waving goodbye on the final page.

They Might Be Giants musical performance and book signing, Fri., Nov. 14, 7 p.m., free, Borders Books & Music, 1 S. Broad Street, 215-568-7400.

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