Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

It's been in the back of my head to signal boost and promote this idea for the last couple of weeks, but, well... I kept putting it off, in part because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about it, if anything. And now the date is tomorrow, and there's no more room for putting it off.

Dave Hingsburger (and many of his blog readers, Yours Truly included) want to have an "International Day of Mourning and Memory" for those people who have been sent away to live Institutional Lives because their minds and/or their bodies are different. And when they die in these places, they have no family to mourn or remember them* ...

Dave Hingsburger explains his reason for the date in this post: http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-23-international-day-of.html and his reasoning is pretty compelling, imnsho.

He has also posted links to a video & song that tells the true story of one such person who was sent away to live in one of the more "progressive" institutions, back in the 1930s. Here: She Never Knew (She Never Knew) [trigger warning for hate speech graffiti]. This song was running through my head yesterday, as I was writing up my post on "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and I have THOUGHTS about it. But I think there are enough of those to make their own post. So maybe I'll post about it on Tuesday (Tomorrow, I'll post about remembering those who've been locked away, as my means of observing the day).


*In doing Google searchers for images for my Monsters In Town! song, I learned that institutional "homes" in Minnesota wouldn't even put family names on the grave markers on their grounds, because being connected by name to someone so defective would be too shameful for the survivors... So the grave markers would only have the patient's case file number.

( lyrics (and brief video description )

On YouTube, this video has a link to "Oh No they Didn't!" -- LiveJournal's premier "let's make fun of people" community, which makes me sad. But I do like the video, anyway...

(I've decided to cross-post this to disability)

Here it is:

( There are lots of words in this one )

( And here's the computer-or-human code for deciphering the tune (with link) )

I recently read, on lizbee's journal, there's a meme going around Tumblr that the last music you listened to will be played at your funeral. It probably only counts if it's the last music you listened to before learning that trick, 'cause otherwise, it would be too easy to be artificially dignified. But if anyone is taking notes, and my demise comes unexpectedly, I think this would be pleasingly confounding for the surviving cousins:



( lyrics (With chords): )

--

Early this morning (in the official, awake-too-long, wee hours) YouTube recommended a video clip from Primeval -- the one with the tiny pterosaurs that killed people. I knew that probably was all wrong, so I went hunting around online for slightly more accurate information. And I found out that Mark Witton has a pterosaur book coming out this fall. :::Squee!::: I first found Mark Witton's Flick'r gallery several years ago, back when he was still working on his doctorate. He's the main reason I resent the PBS kids' show dinosaur train, because the Pteranodon Family at the center of it is all wrong, according to current theories (like 40 years out of date, or so).*

--

However, I do enjoy most PBS kids' shows, so I've been checking out their online site to learn more about the programs, and I found one site that's web only, dedicated to teaching 6-9 year olds basic music theory and how to write in five popular genres. I have been thinking it's a while since I tried writing a song, so I might hang out there for a bit: Chuck Vanderchuck's *something something* Explosion. *grin*
--

*The show's gender-roles ideas are more like 60 years out of date. And that's a whole 'nother gripe. But, in a kids' show about dinosaurs and pterosaurs, where the creatures themselves are wrong and bland? Utterly unforgivable. Especially from the Jim Henson workshops.

Not for the cinematography (camera work is a bit shaky and out of focus in places), but for the subject matter: live folk music concert at an outdoor venue. There are a few folks up, swinging their knees, at the start... then the video-maker does a slow panoramic shot of the whole park. And when the stage comes into view, again, the dancing crowd has tripled, at least -- each person dancing just for the fun of it, not caring to impress anyone else. How can that sort of joy be anything but infectious?

"La Vent du Nord" gets things moving in London, Ontario

(The Music's pretty good, too)

And all other Pro-Fun Trolls in my Circle, when it comes down to it:

Here are the last minutes (just shy of ten) of On the Riviara, starring Danny Kaye (yes, more of him).

Though the more of him I see, the more I want to go back in time and hang out with Sylvia Fine-- his wife, producer, and personal song writer. She's the one who wrote this epilogue song, and that song is the reason I'm making this post. Yet all the information about her I can find is seen through the filter of her husband. When it could just have easily been the other way around.

Anyway, I stumbled across this song in the wee hours. If ever a song were a pro-fun Anthem, this would be it:

This song starts on the vid at around 6:38, and as good an epilogue for its genre as Shakespeare ever wrote for one of his comedies. Really.
And talk about meta! meta-loving Geeks, rejoice!

( Happy Ending -- lyrics and music by Silvia Fine )

Why, oh why is this not a pop-culture standard?

( Lyrics to a song (an *educational* song) that have been stuck in my head for 5 whole days... almost non-stop! )

Send help.
___
( Idea I had for a Disabled Character-Centric TV show that I think would be awesome )

And all the disabled characters on the show would be played by disabled actors, rather tha TABS in cripface -- and yes, even actors with CP, who have funky posture, and trouble speaking, maybe... Hey, a girl can dream.
___
( I realized, either last night or this morning, that the definition of the word 'geek' has *not* changed all that much, since the 1510s )

...And 'round and round it goes... This last cut brought to you by a word-geek.

[AN: When I woke up, this morning, I thought this was going to be a long, involved, post with video links and full transcripts of words, audio, and description. But that was six hours ago, and it turns out I don't have the attention span for all that, anymore. So this is just to make note of these two sychronistic phenomena]

"American Country Music" fell out of my good graces after September 11, 2001, when the whole genre turned into "America's gonna whup the World's ASS!!," and the Dixie Chicks were ostracized for daring to criticize Bush's war policy. And I thought I would cringe at Country Music forever.

But then, yesterday, I read this post from Dave Hingsburger: The Day the Dog Didn't Die [emphesis mine]:

(quote) So here's to Darius Rucker, here's to song writers Brett James and Chris Young who worked with people with disabilities in writing the song, here's to CMA [Country Music Accademy] for making space for people with disabilities to shine. (unquote)

And then, a couple hours later, I was surfing through the channels on my set, and caught a glimpse of a country music video that featured two disabled war veterans just going through their daily lives (with actual disabled actors, no less, not able-bodied folks in Cripface), in a way that just happened to include putting on your prosthetic leg and glass eye (one soldier had lost a leg, the other had become visually impaired) when you get dressed in the morning, without pity.

The lyrics of the song, without the visuals, are all about getting over a bad romantic break-up; with the video, it's all about how being Disabled is just "A different kind of normal," instead of OMG!Inspiring!Tragedy! (though you wouldn't know it by reading the comments on YouTube).


( *The Shape I'm In* lyrics are behind this cut )

YouTube Video Link "The Shape I'm in" performed by Joe Nichols

You know, a generation ago, the Disability Rights movement got a big momentum push from the veterans returning from Vietnam, translating the skills they learned protesting the war policy into agitating for accessibility. Back when these wars started, especially since the lower mortality rates, this time around, translates to higher "survival with disability" rates, I was wondering if, or when, the Disability Rights movement would get another boost from vets.

Maybe that's starting to happen, now.

I haven't played with music in ages ... *Checks her traced threads on Mudcat*

...Not since Sept. '08?! Yikes...

Anyway... Over the weekend, I discovered that I actually do have Windows Movie Maker on this machine, and even though I don't have any dedicated movie making tools, I figured I could practice with it, and play around making a slide-show vid, with a simple midi soundtrack (I do have a midi-composing program).

So, I was tumbling that thought around in my head, trying to think of what I might make a slide show of... and I remembered that I "rewrote" the alphabet, a few years back. And I thought that that would be kind of fun: to do a Sesame Street style slide show of the alphabet letters, with the midi tune playing in the background.

( here's me, wittering on about words and tunes, and stuff )

What's been less fun is that I failed to take a headache seriously this morning, and it's blossomed into a full migraine with nausea. ... So I should go eat something, now...

Toodles!

How did the meaning of the English word "Nut" evolve from: "a hard, indehiscent, one-seeded fruit, as the chestnut or the acorn" to: "a foolish, silly, or eccentric person"?

Did the word somehow get filtered through the word "Squirelly"?

'Cause I can understand how "Boy, he's sure a squirrelly fellow, ain't he?" can mean "he's a foolish, silly person," because squirrels (from our p.o.v) seem to run every which way in a nervous, nonsensical fashion. And squirrels are associated with nuts.

Or is it that "nut" is also a slang term for "head?"

Anyway.

I'm wondering this because the other night, I found I'm a Nut, by Leroy Pullens (1966), on YouTube. And it's been running through my head ever since*:

[Chorus]
I'm a nut, I'm a nut
My life don't ever get in a rut, whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop
The head on my shoulders is sorta loose
And I ain't got the sense God gave a goose
Lord, I ain't crazy, but ...I'm a nut

Is is wetter under water, if you're there when it rains?
Is it shorter to New York, than it is by a plane?
Between myself and I, I wonder who's the dumber
Is it hotter down south, than it is in the summer?


*help me! -- If you dare, here's a vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYu7gnLo688. Most vids of this song are just slide shows of semi-related Google hits. But this one actually shows four women line dancing to this song, so it actually has a modicum of creativity and effort.