Names in the News

From the Daily Telegraph (24 July 2008):

The parents of a New Zealand girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii have been ordered to change her name because it risks making her the target of abuse and ridicule.

A lawyer acting for the girl claimed she was so embarrassed by her name that she had kept it from her friends, insisting she should be known as "K" instead. She also feared that if it became public she would be mocked and teased.

The lawyer claimed the girl fully understood the absurdity of her name, unlike her parents who had not considered the implications when they named her.

Justice Robert Murfitt said the name clearly presented a social hurdle for the child.

"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," he said.

He also voiced concern over other names given to New Zealand children, such as Violence, Midnight Chardonnay and Number 16 Bus Shelter.

A set of twins was named Benson and Hedges, after the cigarette brand and some children had been named after six-cylinder Ford cars. There has ever been a case of a child being named after the entire All Blacks side.

"Recently, for the first time in my experience as a Family Court judge, the name of a child described in text language has emerged," Mr Murfitt said.

In that case, a girl was named O.crnia, but in negotiations with the mother over a parenting order, the name was adjusted to Oceania.

New Zealand officials said they did have the power to block outlandish names.

Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages, told the New Zealand Herald that the law did not allow names that would cause offence to a reasonable person, that are more than 100 characters or that include titles, military ranks, punctuation or numerals.

Names rejected by the office include Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit. [...]

And this is the transcript of an Arkansan trial from 2004, Shepard v. Speir, where the unmarried parents were in litigation over the name. I'll cast James Mason as "The Court" & Rockets Redglare as Mr Sheppard.

The Court: I simply do not understand why you named this child — his legal name is Weather'by Dot Com Chanel Fourcast Sheppard. Now, before you answer that, Mr. — the plaintiff in this action is a weatherman for a local television station.

Sheppard: Yes.

The Court: Okay. Is that why you named this child the name that you gave the child?

Sheppard: It — it stems from a lot of things.

The Court: Okay. Tell me what they are.

Sheppard: Weather'by — I've always heard of Weatherby as a last name and never a first name, so I thought Weatherby would be — and I'm sure you could spell it b-e-e or b-e-a or b-y. Anyway, Weatherby.

The Court: Where did you get the "Dot Com"?

Sheppard: Well, when I worked at NBC, I worked on a Teleprompter computer.

The Court: All right.

Sheppard: All right, and so that's where the Dot Com [came from]. I just thought it was kind of cute, Dot Com, and then instead of — I really didn't have a whole lot of names because I had nothing to work with. I don't know family names. I don't know any names of the Speir family, and I really had nothing to work with, and I thought "Chanel"? No, that's stupid, and I thought "Shanel," I've heard of a black little girl named Shanel.

The Court: Well, where did you get "Fourcast"?

Sheppard: Fourcast? Instead of F-o-r-e, like your future forecast or your weather forecast, F-o-u, as in my fourth son, my fourth child, Fourcast. It was --

The Court: So his name is Fourcast, F-o-u-r-c-a-s-t?

Sheppard: Yes....

The Court: All right. Now, do you have some objection to him being renamed Samuel Charles?

Sheppard: Yes.

The Court: Why? You think it's better for his name to be Weather'by Dot Com Chanel ... Fourcast, spelled F-o-u-r-c-a-s-t? And in response to that question, I want you to think about what he's going to be — what his life is going to be like when he enters the first grade and has to fill out all [the] paperwork where you fill out — this little kid fills out his last name and his first name and his middle name, okay? So I just want — if your answer to that is yes, you think his name is better today than it would be with Samuel Charles, as his father would like to name him and why. Go ahead.

Sheppard: Yes, I think it's better this way.

The Court: The way he is now?

Sheppard: Yes. He doesn't have to use "Dot Com." I mean, as a grown man, he can use whatever he wants.

The Court: As a grown man, what is his middle name? Dot Com Chanel Fourcast?

Sheppard: He can use Chanel, he can use the letter "C." [...]

This Year in Seriousliness: Batman & Dubya

The Dark Knight has made more money quicker than any movie ever (in a world with more people who go to the theater less.) And the reviews, whoo! Rotten Tomatoes gives it 94% good reviews, & imdb gives it an average 9.4 out of 10 stars, making it currently the best film of all time. (The Godfather, 9.1; Citizen Kane, 8.6)

What sour percentage of society would then dare to drive down its perfect score? Don't they know that Heath Ledger looked into the void for his Joker, ominously presaging his accidental prescription drug overdose? I'd say I'm in lock-step agreement with the hipsters over at Salon.com. The movie is confusing, noisy & badly-paced. Stephanie Zacharek writes "...The Dark Knight looks as if it were made from a messy blackboard diagram with lots of circles, heavily underlined phrases ... and crisscrossing arrows that ultimately point to nothing." And not in a good way, I might add.

Here's David Denby over at The New Yorker:

At times, the movie sounds like two excited mattresses making love in an echo chamber. In brief, Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle. Yet “The Dark Knight” is hardly routine—it has a kicky sadism in scene after scene, which keeps you on edge and sends you out onto the street with post-movie stress disorder.

Years ago, there was a rumor that the director Darren Aronofsky (who made Pi & Requiem for a Dream) was asked to write the batman-returns script, & that they took it away from him because it was too weird or confusing or something. (I'm sorry if I'm botching or making up this saga.) But then what is this we're watching now! I guess the only way to save their favorite comic-book star from the camp of the TV show & the specter of post-Burton sequels was to let the brothers Nolan write movies that would get reviews like this: "Watching The Dark Knight is like gazing into a mirror on a waning moon night: chilling and mesmerizing." (Denver Post). I'd be surprised if we ever see Robin again. Someone once told me that Aronofsky's Batman was going to have the "Pow" visual effects from the television series!! If he could have updated the campy Batman & still told a good story, with the necessary indispensable 21st-century visuals & MTV editing, now we're talking. But no use lamenting what never happened...

I have to lump The Dark Knight in with the Pirates of the Carribean franchise: Movies that made baffling amounts of money, & were too confusing & bangy for me to have any clue what was transpiring. Oh! And the visual stunts & acting were real great.

In related film buzz, there's a good article in The Independent about the casting & bizarreness for Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic, & a trailer: here.

Mourning my Late Wife (in my mourning cloak)

New Barack Obama tunes

How do I get the job of the guy singing "Obama"?

Obama auf Deutschland - Live-Blogging from Die Zeit tranlsated by robots

Too true, you very well might need to know, what are robot translators saying about Barack Obama's day in Germany? Follow these links to hear directly:

In no particular order: (& notice, some have several chapters.) I recommend slowing the speed from "0" to "-"...

19:38 Uhr:
16:20 Uhr:
13:19 & 13:30 Uhr:
20:00 & 20:05 Uhr:
17:40 Uhr:
18:55 Uhr:
19:45 Uhr:

Falute the Slag

News from the world of leisurely TV watching: Concerned viewers in Germany are calling it a pennant breakdown. First, their evening news program Tagesthemen (trans. Daily Topic) displayed a German flag with the black and red stripes incorrectly swapped.


A few days later, they displayed one extra stripe on the stars and bars.


3 out of 10 on the amusing scale, isn't it?

ECHO

The lyrics to this Western Harmony shape-note tune may seem strange, but they're based on many of the dog references I found in the bible. There's a PDF file here. Click on the image above to see it big & print it landscape-paper-size, or right click to download the jpeg image.

ECHO

The hounds of hell are let out,
Bones are walking around the desolate earth,
Ten thousand trees die of drought,
Birds are silent, but I will sing in jubilant mirth.

Follow me,
Who's a good boy?
Follow me, I pray you,
Give loaves of bread unto the people that follow me.

Shall not a dog move his tongue?
Must a traveler ride solo on life's lonely train?
When I my song have sung,
Sows will wallow & dogs will drink their vomit again.

Follow me,
Who's a good boy?
Follow me, I pray you,
Give loaves of bread unto the people that follow me.

My bones dug up from the sod,
Eyes are seeing in color, I shed my cocoon,
I try to talk to God,
But I feel like I'm howling at a taciturn moon.

Follow me,
Who's a good boy?
Follow me, I pray you,
Give loaves of bread unto the people that follow me.

More Western Harmony tunes.

A note about the modes, if you care or are confused: Many of the minor key Shape-Note tunes (in the Sacred Harp) are written with the minor key signature (aeolian mode) but sung with a raised sixth (dorian mode) - "Wondrous Love" is a famous example of this. Singers in the tradition just know what sounds good & sing it the way it has been sung for centuries (probably). I've been notating my minor key tunes with the key signature appropriate for the dorian mode: The tune above is written in "Bb Minor" but has four flats in the key signature. However, the verse of this song is in aeolian, so I've added flats for the sixth (Gb), & the chorus is in dorian, so there's a few reminder naturals. I'll post a recording soon, so you can hear what it's supposed to sound like.

July Quotes: "Leftist Propaganda About the Evils of Mankind"

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

-PZ Meyers, Pharyngula, 8 July 2008


A pro basketball player named Micheal (yes, that’s the way he spells it) Ray Richardson once famously said of the New York Knicks franchise: “The ship be sinking.” When a reporter asked him how far it could sink, Richardson reportedly replied: “Sky’s the limit.”

-Bob Herbert, The New York Times, 12 July 2008


For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease a couple of weeks ago. Which sucks. Because I hate baseball. I'd really much rather have been diagnosed with a basketball disease. Maybe Wilt Chamberlain disease. That's the one where you have sex 20,000 times and then you die.

- singer Carla Zilbersmith, updating fans at a concert

Wall-E…supposes that the human race of the future will become a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk. Instead they zip around in flying wheelchairs surfing the Web, chatting on phone lines and stuffing their faces with food meant to be sucked down like milkshakes while unquestioningly taking orders from the master corporation that controls all aspects of their existence. I’m trying to think of a major Disney cartoon feature that was anywhere near as dark or cynical as this. I’m coming up blank. I’m also not sure I’ve ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers.

-Kyle Smith, "Disney’s “Wall-E”: A $170 Million Art Film"


The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie [WALL-E], ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E’s future. The government unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth’s downfall.

Another lesson missed is portrayed perfectly in Coffin’s claim that WALL-E points out the “evils of mankind.” The only evils of mankind portrayed are those that come about from losing touch with our own humanity. Staples of small-town conservative life such as the small farm, the “atomic family,” and old-fashioned and wholesome entertainment like “Hello, Dolly” are looked upon by the suddenly awakened humans as beautiful and desirable. By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice.

-Patrick J. Ford, The America Conservative, 30 June 2008


Those who restrain their desires do so because theirs are weak enough to be restrained.

-William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven & Hell, "Proverbs of Hell"

Speaking of transubstantiation, this video failed to load on my post a month ago, I was trying to upload it at 4 AM before my flight to England. It shows myself - currently sitting the archpapal seat for the Mimosas Witnesses, an evangelical organization which drinks champagne & orange juice on Sunday Mornings, among other times - in a rare video from 1983, drinking a beverage which I would spend a significant portion of my adult life campaigning in behalf of.

Mountainous Recline of Chaos

Report from the Dargle

Report from the Dargle

A palinode & walking off the whiskey,
His hipster hairdo without too much spillage,
Would it be fiscally risky to mortgage the village?
I threw a wish into the Irish Sea.

It's like water without the cruel aftertaste:
The corps of coral can trace its ancestry
Down the coast past the sexiest incestry,
Prima donna & the roots of man will not be replaced.

It's a revelation, but you knew it all along,
Don't be alarmed by the blues in my blood.
I never liked Bishop Berkeley's ugly old neighborhood,
And the carillon & my carillon only really used for the ding-dong.

It's like water but without the chemicals in your soap.
Help me to find meaning in sitting & standing,
And I'll join you on your first crash-landing:
Hope Jacob's Ladder is made of strong stuff than hope.

Scribble you courage on a sticky-pad.
My legs are weary from a life of wayfaring,
I can assuage your pangs without passion or caring,
Remember when things could never have been this bad.

It's like water without bees & stop signs & lost children.
An old man approached me from the channel,
His intentions are as translucent as flannel.
And of course, mix my smelly armpits into this salvation's cauldron.

CHOCTOW

Another in my series of shape-note tunes called Western Harmony. Click on the image for a larger, print-sized version. Stay tuned, I'll be recording solo versions of some of these songs when I get home, & hopefully eventually choral recordings. The lyrics:

CHOCTOW

Glorious harmonies of my freedom,
A chariot carries me to my home;
I am Jack Abramoff,
No, I'm not,
No, I'm not!
A trumpet calls me to arise!

Signs of salvation are in the sky,
Agnostics look up & question why;
I am Jack Abramoff,
No, I'm not,
No, I'm not!
They burn with faces of surprise!

I fly with gladness of Thy Nation,
On wings of love earth's vices I shun;
I am Jack Abramoff,
No, I'm not,
No, I'm not!
I believe in eternity!

Jack gambles & drinks with abandon,
But in Truth's campaign Jesus has won;
I am Jack Abramoff,
No, I'm not,
No, I'm not!
I will rest in my certainty!

Report from the Liffey

Report from the Liffey

Thank heaven for heathens, morning of durable pain,
I say, I say there's way way too many tourists,
And too few ways to avoid midnight arrests.
Out from the showers into a public house again.

I fear the government is in cahoots with the Inuits:
You wouldn't think these garlick Gaelicks could make a veggie burger of any quality.
Curse the filthy queue to get into the old library,
I only needed to get onto the internet for fifteen minutes.

I've taken care of the family business;
O International City! you smell like a bulging penguin,
Before they banned slavery in Belgium,
Twelve in two hours, I can drink this obscure beer.

We'll name each of our daughters Kirsten,
Freedom fries & a choice to digest the embarrassing enterprise;
The direction of the creek toward the sea was not the last surprise.
Well, I couldn't even finish my first one.

Harpo, you'll find your harp inside the piano.
The rain subsides, but this stool has been glued.
The stars will come out when the Chinese have been subdued.
Poor Tom knows when to invade the radio.

I will be a role-model to the wheel'd basketball,
I will finish the hanging gardens with PVC,
I will let you be who we all want you to be,
And I might as well drink the rest of this first one after all.

Read: Report from the Dee; Report from the Mersey & the Tyne

Let me be entertained: Snog Marry Avoid? & the Chester Mystery Plays

I saw a fascinating television program here in England, I forget which channel, pretty late at night. Called "SNOG MARRY AVOID?", it claimed to be the world's first make-under show, taking girls with outrageous style or hideously too-much make-up & revealing their "natural beauty." Ironically, the show's host, Jenny Frost, was wearing a ton of make-up & her hair looks like every other TV presenter. There is a computer-generated red eye, ala HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which analyzes the monsters before "deep cleansing" them. It often gives them a choice of which "celebrity style" to be made-under by, & I shouldn't need to tell you that none of these celebrities are "natural beauties". And when the make-under is complete - (the robot does it instantaneously with a magic line across the screen) - they are still wearing a lot of make-up, just dressed more conservatively. For instance, one of the girls, who was originally wearing a cake of face, couldn't stop talking about what a hippie she looked like when it was done - (She was about as hippie-like as Jennifer Anniston). Then they followed up three months later to see if she had kept the new style - which she had... except that she had also gotten breast implants. She claimed that the implants made her more confident so that she is more comfortable putting "less" make-up on her face - again, the host & the robot kept referring to her new look as natural beauty.

Yesterday, I went down to Chester to see the ancient Mystery Plays, they date back to the 1300s. They're done every five years on the green outside the magnificent Chester Cathedral. Last night was Part Two, basically Gospel thru Rapture, & the actors speak in rhymed couplets which I assume are apapted or descendent from the original. There was about a hundred people in the cast & a hundred in the audience. It had the feel of big-budget community musical theater; it was essentially Jesus the Musical without the angst or subtlety of Jesus Christ Superstar, & MIDI Anglican music. The actor playing Jesus was black, every other cast member was white. He did in fact ride into Jerusalem on a live donkey, who was on stage for only two minutes, but whom I could vaguely smell the whole time. I assume there must be an ancient tradition of having Pilate be less bad than the Jews, who are rarely more than a screaming mob & conniving middle managers, whereas the Romans seem curiously intrigued by Jesus's divinity. The kids in the cast seemed to be having a little too much fun with the "everyone-gets-to-whip-Jesus" scene. Anyway, it was great entertainment, & after the Resurrection, just when you think it's over... there's a half-hour Revelation Song-&-Dance with devils, zombies, smoke, fireworks, flaming swords, god in a wheel-chair, a female clown-antichrist on a spinning cross(!), & fifty chorus members being dragged screaming into hell.

Report from the Dee

A continuation of my series of doggerel poems composed at pubs in Northern Britain. This one by the canal in Chester, at the Frog & Nightingale.

Report from the Dee

We have been hacking away at the stump of the Tree of Mystery,
A tricky u-turn for the canal boat:
His rapping was nonpareil, his gold diamonds twenty-four karat,
A pint with you & the present president is history.

Nonsense will guide me about the city walls,
And yet there's huge emotion in the sing-song.
It's cold & the black swans are getting everything wrong,
Squeezing to rhyme around my angels sacred freefalls.

I sense the dawn of a dark blue-green age.
Bricks or Martin Luther's tricksiness I believe,
Christ our Darling will the motorcycle watchmen relieve,
I'm just staring across at the cross in her cleavage.

Nonsense nor the Cheshire Cat have shown their grins today,
Retch at the pink wine popular in this county.
We will exterminate the rats, & their ancient bounty,
I'd be just as happy healthy with them anyway, any way.

Bicycle bells hectoring me like parliament,
Ding, & the future is eclipsed by white paintings under blacklight:
A mile-long housing project, no track-suits after the night,
Or the sun's son joyriding with the raiment as his bloody pavement.

Nonsense! Please pick up a pallet of biscuits.
Dog's nipples, dog's nipples - how quick you forget,
I adored you, but soon there'll be no time to regret.
No, sister, regurgitate too late & we must call it quits.

The Adventures of Little Moby Dick

I don't think I could summarize the story any better than the back cover. Forgive the awkward translation, but I just didn't want to lose anything.

“The immortal story of Herman Melville about a big white whale is presented anew in a new adventure of little Moby Dick.
“The story begins during the year of 1841, when glorious ships sail the seven seas. But deep in the ocean is another world, in which the shy orphan whale by the name of Moby meets his friends – starfish Stella and sea horse Winnie. The two of them encourage Moby to overcome his fears by showing him their underwater world including some of the strangest sea creatures. But on the surface are many dangers, particularly the ruthless Captain Ahab, who will stop at nothing to catch the biggest miracle in the sea—a white whale. Moby must come face to face with him in order to take his place as lord of the sea. One story, showing the joy of life and the magic of friendship.”

As you can see, The Adventures of Little Moby Dick is another of those post-modern re-tellings of canonical tales re-inventing previously vilified or undeveloped characters such as Wicked, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and Ahab's Wife. Of course, to say that Moby Dick was previously undeveloped is absurd. And it remains open debate how you can have a post-modern take on an already so thoroughly post-modern novel. However, it does illustrate the depth of Melville's world that it can support such further stories, even ones that contradict the events recounted in The Whale. Of course, we have no idea from Melville whether Moby had starfish and sea horse friends, and in all likelihood, he did. Did Ahab really kill Moby's mother and is this the true source of the enmity between them? The movie brings up more questions than it answers, but I must say that the movie brings the story to a more natural conclusion when Ishmael and Moby become friends and sail the seven seas together.

Speaking of the Liverpool Cityscape

This artist, with the common artists name of Ben Johnson, was in residence here for a few years, at the Walker Art Gallery, creating a huge painting of the view of Liverpool from the Mersey. It's brightly lit, the sun comes at the buildings from all angles, there's no cars or people - so it's sort of an idealized version of Liverpool, a "dream of Liverpool" as he says, which the audience at the gallery fills in & projects itself onto. (That's just an artist poetically shying away from admitting his painting is a ghost town.) It's just spectacularly detailed, I cannot figure out how he got that level of minute detail on all the buildings, & the buildings going into the distance. Apparently, he didn't use very much brush-work, more paint-guns & stencils. If you have time, take a look at his cityscapes of Jerusalem & Hong-Kong, altho Liverpool is bigger & more terrific. (Click on it to see it larger.)

Also, if you're ever in Liverpool: - There's really nothing quite like the International Slavery Museum. It's quite powerful & fascinating, & unique. Relevent that it's in Liverpool because it was a major hub of the slave trade, where the ships started & where the merchants made their money. The period of rapid urban growth was fueled by a massive influx of slave money - & a lot of those beautiful buildings in the cityscape above were built with that wealth.

Berkeley: Downloadable Shape-Note Score

Click on that image to see it larger, "landscape" printable size. I posted this text earlier as a teaser, hinting at my next big project. Now that it's slowly arriving, Here again, is:

Berkeley

Oh, Jesus like a mountain faun across the verdant plain,
Oh, Jesus like a coming dawn, close as your jocular vein.
So long I've wandered down below, so long I've lived in pain.
That I will love my Lord above till only fossils remain.

Till only bones remain, My Lord, and all the plants are dead,
A mighty angel clothed in cloud, a rainbow upon his head.
So long I've traveled on this ground, so long I've died in dread,
Now I will come to you, my Lord, and live forever instead.