Teeny Tiny's Travel Tuesdays: Sleeping in Florence

Teeny Tiny has been to Florence a few times, and each time, he stayed somewhere different. On this trip, he made sure to stop by all of the old hotels to see if they had changed over time. Hotel Casci, run by the Lombardi family, had undergone some renovation but was still the same wonderful place as it was fourteen years ago. Halfway down Via Cavour between the Duomo and San Marco, the Casci was Teeny Tiny's home for nearly a month. He liked to imagine his Medici neighbors as still roaming the palace next door. During this trip, there was some construction being done on the facade, but he sort of got a picture:


He once stayed in the Albergo Universo, just off the piazza of Santa Maria Novella. At that time, the hotel may not have had any stars, and he had to share a bathroom, but he remembers it as clean and with a friendly staff. It too has undergone some renovations (apparently art deco is a thing now) in the last decade. The entrance remained unchanged, however:



The other place Teeny Tiny stayed in Florence all those years ago was still there too, but he refused to take a picture. Hotel Zanzari, as he renamed it, only holds terrifying memories of nights dominated by thousands of mosquito attacks. He will not describe the place further, except to say that the walls were streaked with blood.



Luckily, Teeny Tiny's fortunes have changed since his undergraduate days, and he was able to book a higher class of hotel for this most recent trip. Actually, the N4U Guest House was a bit cheaper than the renovated Casci, and it offers great deals if you book in advance.



Occupying a floor of a renovated 14th-century palace on Via del Proconsolo just a block from the Duomo, the N4U is run by the wonderfully tiny and charming Lorenzo. Lorenzo let Teeny Tiny use his computer to print some pre-ordered tickets to the local museums. He brought strawberries to the room in the evening and loved to tell stories of the history of the old palace. Each room at N4U is done in a theme color and is in no way teeny tiny.



The silver room (or London Grey) was a corner room with two great windows that provided both a cross breeze and the nighttime music of Florence (and only one mosquito).



The neighbors seemed homey and friendly. Unlike many Italian hotels within Teeny Tiny's budget, the silver room in N4U had a great modern bathroom.



The shower was a delight.



Even Ernie Little found the place to be supremely relaxing.



Teeny Tiny had a lovely Italian breakfast every day in his room before he headed out into the city. He even got to practice his Italian with the woman who brought him his yogurt and breads. The N4U Guest House was so charming that no matter how many times Teeny Tiny wins the lottery, he will take advantage of its great deals and character until he buys his own flat in Florence.

Bert Mondays: Bert's Brother Bart

Last week we met Bert's nephew Brad; today his brother Bart comes to visit. I'm not sure if Bart is Brad's father or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the result of a union between Bert's mom and Fozzie Bear. Although Brad has the same cucumbery nose and bushy bush of black hair as Bert, he's a bit more, well, gregarious.

Sing Saturdays: Gloria Estefan

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays all around, and from Ernie and Bert:

More fun for the Snowpocalypse

With the snow still blanketing the East Coast, it's fun to revisit the classic snowman scene. I enjoy this clip especially now because I missed out on the weekend snow fun. The neighborhood had an Twitter-driven snowball fight, and folks built countless snow people all over the city. I, however, was stuck inside, doing my grown-up job. Instead of indulging my inner child with actual snow play, I have had to settle for doing it vicariously through Ernie and Bert.

It's actually good enough for me. In fact, I must admit that I would probably pull an Ernie in that situation--if only because Bert looks so adorable in his ski jacket.

It's Cold Outside

I have found, in all of these years of life experience, that there are generally two ways to approach every situation: the Ernie way and the Bert way. I will let you characterize those particular ways yourself, but there can be no doubt that when faced with a couple of feet of snow and cold, wintry weather, you can either take the Ernie approach or the Bert approach.

Ernie: "Do you have your hockey puck, Bert?"
Bert: "Will you be careful with that sled in the living room, Ernie?"



Both methods, I'm sure, involve hot cocoa at some point.

Teeny Tiny's Travel Tuesdays: Florence, Finally

After too short a time, Teeny Tiny had to leave Assisi.

Luckily, his next stop was Florence, his favorite non-peaceful-retreat city in Italy.

With some clever planning and a great sense of recall, he made sure to navigate past the Duomo on his way to his hotel.

He also made sure to hit nearly every possible sight in the city, including Santa Maria Novella:

Santa Croce:

The Palazzo Vecchio:

San Lorenzo:

The new market:

The Baptistry of Saint John:

Of course, he couldn't see everything in Florence in one day. Luckily, he had six days to enjoy the city, so there is plenty more to come.

Bert Mondays

This Monday introduces us to Bert's Nephew Brad.

Brad is pretty much a wee ginger version of Bert.

He's not fully verbal yet, but he has Bert's penchant

for stunned reactions.He also is apparently not a

fan of sharks. The level of adorable in this clip is

almost too high to bear.

Sing Saturdays: 2000

Here's the montage that started Sing Saturdays. Pay attention to all the great folks singing, and make sure you catch Ernie with Liam Neeson.

Oh no! Rest in Peace, Olivia

Sad news today from Sesame Street. Alaina Reed, who played Olivia, Gordon's younger sister, from 1976 to 1988, has died. After leaving the Street, she starred in 227 and made a ton of other television appearances. Olivia was an important presence on the show during my growing up, and, as you can see, she was important to Ernie as well.



I hope she fills endless albums with her thunderstorm pictures.

In addition to my favorite, enjoy these other memories.

With George Benson:


At Birdland:


An Ernie-adjacent scene:


Be at peace, old friend.

Prehistoric

Here's another clip from "This Way to Sesame Street," where Ernie and Bert introduce the Street and some of the people who live there.

Make Your Own Muppet!!

One of the most indulgent but greatest things an Ernie-lover can do is to make your own muppet. Yes, seriously, you can make your own muppet. You can either make one at the workshop in FAO Schwartz's flagship 5th Avenue shop in New York or order one online. With all kinds of options for heads, eyes, hair, noses, and clothes, you can be as creative as you are clever. The Muppet Newsflash has recently announced that you have even more choices. You cannot, however, make a muppet who looks like Ernie or Bert. Nonetheless, it's loads of fun.

Teeny Tiny's Travel Tuesdays: Assisi Day Two

If you go to Assisi on a strictly tourist basis, you might think that there is no reason to stay there for more than one night. Teeny Tiny asserts that your assumption is flawed. Not only are there plenty of amazing things to keep you occupied for days, but the quiet pace of Assisi is also a perfect respite after running around Rome or Florence or any of the other big cities that impel speed and urgency.

If you are lucky (or a good planner), you might end up in town in the days leading up to the great May festival, Il Calendimaggio. During this three-day festival at the beginning of May, the Assisans celebrate their Holy Week and the life of Saint Francis. They transform the town into the place it was in the 14th century, covering all signs of modernity and adorning every winding street with pieces of the past.

When Teeny Tiny arrived, he wandered through the narrow hilly streets to get to his hotel. Around every corner was an Assisan, arms loaded with boughs cut from the trees that blanket the slopes of Monte Subasio. Anyone not covered in leaves was carting about yards of silk or medieval-looking weapons.

It turned out that the entire town gets involved to reenact the 14th-century battle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, as represented by the Fiumi and Nepis families, respectively. Briefly, the Guelphs supported the Papacy, while the Ghibellines supported the Emperor, and their feuding engulfed most of central and northern Italy throughout the Middle Ages.

The three-day festival is a joyous series of dances, rituals, and other ceremonies in which the town welcomes Spring and celebrates it history and community. The town, as it did in the 14th century, divides itself between the Parte de Sotto (lower) and the Parte de Sopra (upper), and it appears that each person in town is assigned a role, from the most disaffected teenager to the grumpiest patriarch. The winning neighborhood captures Il Palio, the town banner, and bragging rights for the year.

Because Teeny Tiny's travel agent wasn't completely on the ball, he happened to be in Assisi the two days before Il Calendimaggio. His hotel, off of the piazza in front of San Rufino, was in the center of the Parte de Sopra. Teeny Tiny was lucky enough to be hanging out in the square in the evenings when the neighbors, all clad in their blue Sopra jackets and sweatshirts, each with the name of the role across the back, came together to practice their medieval horn playing and drumming. Others practiced their swordplay and crossbow work or fancy dances. After practice, the Sopras met the red-clad Sottos in the main piazza for some friendly ribbing and loud drinking.

Teeny Tiny had to leave before he saw the townsfolk engage in the ritual dancing, parades, and games. He didn't get to see the march up to the Rocca Maggiore with torches and banners. He didn't eat medieval food or play medieval songs, but his time among the folks before the pageantry gave him a sense of the town that he could not have gotten simply as an observer of its festival.

Bert Mondays: Bert in German

Okay, so I was looking for the Elmo's World clip in which Elmo makes a home video of Bert right after Bert washes his hair, and Bert complains because he hasn't had a chance to put any of that hair gunk in his hair yet, but I was not able to locate it in the whole wide interwebs. Until I become skilled enough to pull that clip from the television myself, I guess you all can imagine the clip. While I was looking for that clip, I came across this great old scene of Bert's telling his pigeon jokes. In German.

Frankly, Bert sounds a little more Bertish in German. I'm transfixed by his guttural consonants and the quintessential Bert laugh.

For translation purposes only:

Sing Saturdays: 1993

Ladysmith Black Mambazo makes Big Bird happy.

Prehistoric: Numbers

What follows is the next Ernie and Bert interlude from "This Way to Sesame Street." After having been treated to some quick animations about letters, including one with Carol Burnett, Bert plans to introduce a learning sketch about milk and cows. Ernie, true to his developing character, will not let Bert continue unless they move on to numbers. Ernie's persistence prevails, setting up a dynamic between the two that will become very familiar in the years to come, and the pre-Sesame audience gets a sneak peak at how their children will learn about numbers and counting.



Things to note:

1. This sketch was filmed well before Bert learned about "hair gook" (check out the blog next Monday).

2. Seven pumpkin pies: That's Jim Henson's voice, but the baker himself is stuntman Alex Stevens. The "mother" of Sesame Street, Joan Ganz Cooney, never liked the baker pratfall, but Henson kept the character anyway.

3. We see here that Ernie has already demonstrated his fickleness for favorite numbers, claiming seven as his favorite here but admitting that it had been both two and three in the past. Later, he will name as his favorite 8,243,721.

4. Some days I wish Ernie would pull out the old purple and orange shirt and wear it just for old times sake.

Classic Comedy: Fixing the Window

Two things:

A. This classic comedy sketch seems so much like my job at this point that I'm afraid I will come into the office one morning to find it flooded with rainwater. The situation is analogous to what happens when you are counting apples. For example, say it's a random Tuesday, and you are plugging away at whatever routine task you generally do. Suddenly an emergency arises. Of course, when the emergency hits, you are sitting there with the window open, and you don't have the time or the expertise or the stamina to take care of the problem. Some Bert comes in to yell at you to take care of the problem, but there's actually nothing you can do in time to fix it, so it just keeps raining into your damned office. When you finally get it together to be able to handle the emergency, the sun comes out: no more emergency, no need for all the brilliant solutions you just stayed up all night to develop, and no authorization to implement those solutions to prevent a future emergency. Why should you fix the window now?



B. The trope used in this sketch reminds me that Ernie and Bert invoke some of the greatest comedy duos in pop culture history. Although this scenario is more "Arkansas Traveler" than Abbott and Costello, for some reason it reminds me of the Smothers Brothers. Bert certainly fills the role of of the sensible and long-suffering Dickie Smothers, who can't understand why Ernie's Tommy Smothers won't act reasonably. The best thing about Tommy Smothers is that he was only playing dumb; he operated on logic at its purest, which always caused Dickie great anxiety. Dickie gets the joke, of course, but he loves being the Bert and acting all older-brothery. The secret is is that as long-suffering as Bert may be, he is still game to teach a pigeon how to play checkers.

Teeny Tiny's Travel Tuesdays: Assisi

Of all the places Teeny Tiny has traveled, Assisi is the place that imbues him with the greatest senses of peace and wonder. Nestled halfway up Monte Subasio in the Umbria region, Assisi is best known as the home of Saint Francis, and his follower Saint Clare.

Teeny Tiny thinks of it as the place most likely to make him feel at home.

Here was the view from his temporary home during his time there.

What makes Assisi so amazing is that it is a place of pilgrimage. Thousands and thousands of people come through Assisi each month on their own personal spiritual journeys. Those journeys make the pilgrims a special kind of tourist, full of grace and politeness and quiet awe. The natives have become, consequently, the most welcoming people in Italy. They invite you into their spaces and make you feel less like an interloper than you usually feel when you invade a place with your camera, giant backpack, and broken Italian.

Even the scarier citizens are friendly.

In fact, Teeny Tiny covets a place in this community so much that he has found the perfect house on a foothill across a tiny valley, just in case he wins the lottery.

Bert Mondays: Fantasy

As I might have expressed recently, it has been one of those weeks. It has been such a week that I can't even comprehend that tomorrow is Monday. What happened to Saturday and Sunday? When do they happen again? Where's my apartment?

It's during a week like this that it's important to dream great things when you get a chance to sleep. Nothing is worse than closing your eyes after spending all day staring at the computer screen and dreaming about citation formats. Okay, maybe one thing is worse: not sleeping at all because the arguments won't leave your head.

Weeks like these need Sesame wisdom. In today's clip, Ernie gives Bert some advice when he can't sleep, and lovely things happen.

Special Feature

Okay, so I know that this video has been making its way through the interwebs, and everyone in the universe has seen it (I hope more than once). I also know that Ernie is not in the video; heck, even Kermie is only briefly involved. Nonetheless, it deserves a space on this blog for multiple reasons:

1. Beaker.
2. The clever use of Animal to avoid the section about killing a man.
3. The monster who eats the rats.
4. The glorious return of the Electric Mayhem.
5. The super high production values.
6. Pepe, the King Prawn (why hasn't anyone made a plush of him?).
7. Miss Piggy's closing notes.

Enjoy.

Sing Saturdays: 1980

One thing that's great about Sesame Street is that it has always been accessible. From early on, we learn that signing is an important and beautiful language and can be used to convey our favorite song. Here are Linda and Olivia.

Prehistoric

On November 8, 1969, a Saturday, at 5:00 pm, NBC stations showed a special entitled, "This Way to Sesame Street." The purpose of the show was to introduce the television audience to the new educational program that was to debut as a daily series two day later on the 10th. Naturally, the pair chosen to introduce Sesame Street to the masses was our own favorite duo, Ernie and Bert. Forty years later, it appears that they did their job very well.

Please note Bert's playful attitude that is hidden much deeper beneath the surface in later years. Also interesting is the approach they take in explaining the program. The pedagogical approach shines through the humor and reveals the hands of the educational and media experts behind the show's creation.

"Way to go, there, Xerox."

For you literary and historical types inspired by this clip to learn more about what it took to develop Sesame Street and put it on the air, I recommend going straight to here to purchase this book:

Welcome Home

Several years ago, I discovered that I had one undeniable duty in my life: every time I entered a retail establishment and saw an Ernie languishing on a shelf there, I had to rescue him from his lonely life as a mere commodity. When I came to the age where I could choose my own purchases and had a modest amount of my own spending money, there were more Ernies on the shelves than there are today, but they still were pretty rare. Each Wal-Mart and Target Ernie often sat alone among sixteen Elmos and the odd Furbie. He was subjected to the fleeting admiration of thousands of shoppers. Maybe one in thirty picked him up and gave him hope that he might get a home that day, but more often he was put back on the shelf to wait out the lonely nights until I walked down his aisle.

Mild poverty and reason limited my rescue efforts somewhat; I could only save one Ernie of every kind. As the years went by, the selection of Ernies dwindled, and now it is a rare thing to find one on the shelf of any store. Luckily (and dangerously), we now have the interwebs, which allow for a more comprehensive Amnesty-International-for-Ernies-type program. Frankly, the great internet Ernie search has been a little taxing on my 700 square-foot apartment, but it has not ended.

Once rescued, each Ernie gets his second name to distinguish him from his fellows and to give him a sense of individuality in the sea of orange that is his new home. And so I introduce you to the newest member of the family: Ernie Friday.

Frustration

Would it be cheating for this post simply to refer you to last week's post about Counting Apples? Seriously, that's what my 20-hour day has been: counting bushels of apples for no one nearly as fuzzy or googly as Cookie Monster. Usually the prospect of spending all day in my pajamas is something I relish, but the relish apparently sours when it has been impossible to step away from the computer long enough to put on regular clothes, let alone shower and execute my commute. Right now, I believe I have drowned in apples.

But I don't want to cheat, so I share with you a classic tale of frustration and irony, in honor of my yesterday:

Teeny Tiny's Travel Tuesdays: Last Day in Rome

Teeny Tiny spent three days in Rome, which was not nearly enough time, but until he buys his teeny tiny flat in Florence, he can only spend limited amounts of time in each of the amazing Italian cities he likes to visit. This post will be full of pictures from throughout the three days to chronicle the sights he saw that weren't limited to the Vatican and the ancient and classical ruins. From multitudes of Etruscan heads to more churches than you can count, he crammed in as much art and culture as he could.

He spent his nights in a lovely little hotel right off of the Piazza del Popolo, just down from the Spanish Steps and Villa Borghese. Hotel Okapi was tiny, with a lot of spirally stairs, but it was perfect for resting and putting the little guy in the mood to explore the wonders of Rome.

He was happy to share stories with his buddy Ernie Little after long days as a tourist.

The very first Roman sight to explore was one of the oldest: the Pantheon, where Raphael Santo lies and where the ancient and modern stand in stark juxtaposition. The evening we were there to explore the ancient temple to the Pagan gods, we had to wait for mass to end and the German oompah band to finish performing.

We then stopped into Santa Maria sopra Minerva, another church built on top of something ancient. Inside, under the brilliant blue vault, Michelangelo's Jesus of the Cross stands prudishly covered with a loincloth. Outside is Bernini's elephant and obelisk, the Pulcino della Minerva.

Teeny Tiny also pushed his way through the throngs to make his wish by tossing a teeny tiny coin into the Trevi Fountain.

He visited Lord Byron and stood proudly before the ruthless Florentine Dominican Savonarola in the beautiful grounds around the Villa Borghese.

He even paused to play a game or two.

On the bridge of Bernini's angels, a Frenchwoman recognized him: "Ernie!"

At the Piazza Navona, he enjoyed the Fountain of the Four Rivers.

Before he left Rome, he made a point to stop by the hotel he stayed at more years ago than he cares to admit.