Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

I wonder why ...

;-)


ETA:

So what does have four eyes and sings through its nose?

Here's what I put in the Information Section:

As we get older, our feelings toward each accumulated birthday get more complicated. And often, I'm more excited about celebrating friends' birthdays than my friends are... Thus, my inspiration for this song.

The lyrics are my own. The tune is "Vive la Compagnie" (or:"Vive l'Amour"). This song dates from at least the mid-nineteenth century, and has also become one of the more popular (in variant forms) Scouting songs.

A discussion thread on the song's history and roots can be found on the Mudcat forums, here: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=82928#1519987

( lyrics )

That I wanted to weep for joy...

Or, it could be just one of those days.

But anyway, good video (the guy who makes these patters away as though the scripts were written by W. S. Gilbert).

Link to the blog which has the video, a full text of the script, for those who can't watch video, and a bonus LOL .gif from NASA of Eris, wearing shades, and the caption: "Y Dwarf -- Chillin' in Space" (God, I love NASA -- such geeks!).

http://cgpgrey.squarespace.com/blog/is-pluto-a-planet.html

(This is unfiltered, because I can't remember if I have you all on the same one...)

Hey gang! I've actually started writing my Eloise* story -- as in actually putting it down as strings of words in a retrievable medium, and not just thinking the words to myself, over and over. I'd like to go back and reread what I (We) wrote about the time "Sweetheart" first materializes by Eloise's bridge -- I think it was just an alluded to memory, and I'll probably change it up a good bit. But I want to remind myself of the armature.

But I can't remember which story that appeared in -- was it at the start of the third Hoedown, or the end of the second?

*(Though she isn't named Eloise, yet, because she doesn't know her true identity, yet, and the tribe of Nasty trolls who fostered her through childhood would never deign to use human names)

Thanks!

Also -- am thinking of creating an Eloise filter -- would any of you like to be on it (Hoedown alums or otherwise)?

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?

It's a Muppet Sketch from the Ed Sullivan Show, the May before Sesame Street premiered. Just so you know, it's not intended for a child audience (put behind a cut for the use of a gun / death, in case that's a push-button or trigger).

But I'm posting it because it reminds me of Internet Nasty Trolls, and how to deal with them, and I want to spread some catch phrases (maybe for people to make into icons -- hint! wink!)

( 'Beautiful Day Monster' sketch, May 11, 1969 )

I actually intended to make this post [mumble]::two months ago::[/mumble], in honor of a nice, round, Tenth Anniversary. But then, I kind of forgot.

...And then, I got embarrassed that I forgot.

And then, I kinda forgot-some-more-on-purpose.

Last Night's scare about LJ purging inactive accounts reminded me that I'd wanted to do this pimp post for a while.

Anyway:

On May 24th, 2000, I started a thread on rec.arts.drwho that I hoped would be a fun distraction from the Pro-McCoy Troll vs. Pro-Pertwee Troll flamewars, called: "PRO-FUN TROLL HOEDOWN HERE, ALL WELCOME." A thread that I expected to last a week, at most, ended up lasting three weeks, and turned into a wild and woolly narrative with a dozen-and-a-quarter authors, called:

Chaos in Cyberspace (Warning: that title is descriptive in many ways; proceed with caution).

Three more such narratives followed, more or less annually, and getting longer and longer, in both time it took to physically write the story, and in terms of the storyline itself.

By January '06, the usenet usergroups were becoming ghost sites, and I moved the hoedown hub to a pair of LiveJournal comms: Tardis_Hoedown (for the actual writing of the story) and Pro_Fun (for author-to-author sidechats outside the story and idea-dumps).

pedanther, scarfman, dabhid_c and I are currently discussing Tardis_Hoedown's regeneration, so to speak. And I thought I'd take this oportunity to pimp, and invite newcomers, and open the floor to discussion on what sort of comm it should be.

AKA:

"A very special Valentine's Day Greeting for those who are not sucked into the hyper-commercialized, hyper-heterosexuliazed, false symbolism perpetuated by the Capitalist-Industrial complex (but kinda wish they were, anyway)."

(But that wouldn't all fit into the subject line).

Thanks to pedanther for his initial roundup:

First, the Discovery Channel loved the whole world -- two versions:





Then, the Discovery Channel invited people to make their own versions:





Then, Randall Munroe, author of the webcomic XKCD did his version as a comic strip (but unfortunately, now when you click it in the archive, all you get is a little red x in a square)

Then, Olga Nunes, sang the song with Munroe's lyrics, and her friends made an animated version:



Then, they got together again, and made a live-action version (with some folks that I gather geeks tend to recognize):



Why do I love this love song, in particular?

First -- it is, decidedly, undoubtedly, whole-heartedly, PRO-FUN!!

Second -- it is encouraging people to break into song (or at least, encouraging people to accept the idea of breaking into song). One of my pet-peeves with our late-twentieth century, Western, culture* is that people have become afraid to sing where anyone else can hear them. Overly produced, auto-tune "enhanced" music, has done as much, I think to harm people's perception of their own voice as the fashion industry, and photoshopped magazine covers have done to harm body image.

Third -- It's pro-fun. ...Oh, I said that already. Still, it bears repeating. Also, if you must have an earworm crawling through your mind, this one is better for your mood than "Major Tom."

*The Twenty-first Century is still a little too young to have developed its own identity, I think. I don't think the Twentieth Century got its own feel until after The Great War...

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Also: Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the Tiger!