Joan Ganz Cooney | 10/02/2009 1:00 am
Joan Ganz Cooney Thanks the Gods of Television
In response to: What was/is your biggest dream for yourself?
When I was about eight I told my mother and one of her friends that when I grew up I wanted to be a nun, an opera singer or a mother. My mother’s friend said, "You can’t be a nun and a mother," to which I answered, "Well, I could have a bastard." I had once seen the word and asked my mother what it meant and she said it’s the child of an unmarried mother so my response to my mother’s friend was, in my opinion, pretty smart.
I couldn’t carry a tune so I had to give up the opera singer dream and becoming a nun lost its appeal fairly early in my life and biological motherhood was not to be (although five stepchildren came along in my middle age). I thank whatever gods there be for television, which gave me something new (in the 1950s) to dream about.
I couldn’t carry a tune so I had to give up the opera singer dream and becoming a nun lost its appeal fairly early in my life and biological motherhood was not to be (although five stepchildren came along in my middle age). I thank whatever gods there be for television, which gave me something new (in the 1950s) to dream about.
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Nothing short of fascinating is the recent NYTimes piece about bringing Sesame Street to Palestine. Wondering if you are still involved with these workshop projects, or in the loop about their goals and challenges? Would love to hear your thoughts on warming up children’s lives - and their surrounding ideology - with hairy Muppets.
Article snippets: NYT Source: http://tinyurl.com/yc9cj56
The most contentious segments were the ones in which the Israeli and Palestinian The most contentious segments were the ones in which the Israeli and Palestinian Muppets interacted. Each set of Muppets lived on their own set — so where would they meet? An American adviser from Sesame Workshop proposed the Muppets meet at a neutral third location on the border of their sets, perhaps a park, but the Palestinians weren’t comfortable with that idea — they wanted to know who owned the park.
WHEN I ASKED Sayegh exactly how producing a fledgling puppet show was more effective than working for the prime minister, she told me about Muppet “walkarounds.” Every few months, “Simsim” brings human-size versions of the Palestinian Muppets to schools to publicize the show and to promote early-childhood education. “I sit and I look back at the eyes of the kids,” Sayegh told me. “They suffer a lot, and during the show I can see how happy they get. I would like to do these shows twice a day, every day, in every village in Palestine.”
Loved your story! And, like you, I entertained dreams of being an opera singer. I still say that if the proverbial Fairy Godmother descended upon me and granted me three wishes, I would only need ONE, and it would be to open my mouth and produce sounds like Dame Kiri, Cecelia Bartolo, Jessie Norman, Ann Sophie von Otter, and so on. Once I had that wish, all the rest would fall right into place.
Alas, in reality, I couldn’t keep up with Kermit the Frog unless he had laryngitis. In another life, perhaps we’ll sing the "Flower Song" from Lakme together, Joan!