HAPPY NEW YEAR YA'ALL!
soooo.....this brings fashion illustration of the every third day to a close, at least for the time being. I've put 'em all into a scribd book (link below) for perusal.... the department of fashion will be bringing in 2011 with a series of fashion illustrations of dictators, monarchs, and other political figures, beginning with Salou Djibo, president of Niger. Slainte!




G.F Marlier; Fashion Illustrations 2010

Happy 2011, song number 2: Rag Dance Song (La Guignolée) & a happy new year.

And our second New Years song, with Friends Around the Campfire, starring Miss Minnie Molly Mary on ukulele, the French American folksong Rag Dance, La Guignolée. Happy 2011~!

Happy 2011, song number 1: Plenary

The first of two New Years songs we've youtubed for you in celebration of New Year! Plenary, page 162 in the Sacred Harp, also known as "Hark From The Tomb", takes its melody from the Burns-ian folk song & lyrics from Isaac Watts.

Hark from the tomb a doleful sound;
My ears, attend the cry.
Ye living men, ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie,
Where you must shortly lie.
Ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie.

Princes, this clay must be your bed
In spite of all your towers.
Ye tall, ye wise, ye tall, ye wise, a reverent head
Must lie as low as ours,
Must lie as low as ours.
Ye tall, ye wise, ye reverent head
Must lie as low as ours.

Great God, is this our certain doom,
Or are we yet secure?
Still walking down, still walking downward to the tomb,
And yet prepare no more,
And yet prepare no more.
Still walking downward to the tomb,
And yet prepare no more.

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #37

Three Years Ago: "Bring Your Mug To-night" & "Live Blogging from the Pomegranate Raspberry Mulled Wine & Whiskey 2007 Sendoff Festivus Eritrean Party"

Once again, we bring you Three Years Ago, an always special segment which celebrates this blog's continued longevity by re-posting posts from exactly three years ago. TODAY, a double header, starting with an advertisement for the day's Christmas party, "Bring Your Mug To-night", followed by the "Live Blogging from the Pomegranate Raspberry Mulled Wine & Whiskey 2007 Sendoff Festivus Eritrean Party". If you so desire, you could make the mulled wine recipe I printed in the first post (which I realize now is quite different from how I did it this year at my War on Christmas party; I suppose it evolves each year, this one had more fresh squeezed oranges, black currant juice, no poms or berries & less zest. I also used something like 14 bottles of two buck chuck.) Then, starting at 17.15 Pacific time, for the hardcore, relive the party minute by minute.

__________________________________

Several of the attendees who have R.S.V.P.'d to my invite for tonight's party are fictional, but it should be a smashing party. Bring a mug! I rather strained my back yesterday carrying a case of Charles Shaw Shiraz on the BART from the new Trader Joe's on College Avenue. In preparation for this epic mulled wine, I have had pomegranates & raspberries soaking in Jim Beam whiskey for two weeks in the window. In addition to the wine & whiskey, the following things will be added to the simmering Glühwein:

-The juice & zest from six large organic oranges.
-The juice squeezed from a dozen key limes
-Raspberries
-Red currants
-The seeds from a large pomegranate
-Many cinnamon sticks
-Nutmeg
-Cardamom
-Cloves
-Brown &/or unrefined white sugar, to taste
-More rum & more whiskey & more wine.

It's important, of course, not to let the cauldron ever come to a boil (which will decrease the alcohol content). Proselytes of the Mimosa's Witnesses will notice that Glühwein in an evening, festivus-time cousin to the Mimosa, replete with all the ingredients for secular transubstantiation. Check back to this website later, there may be Live Blogging. Here is from the original invite:

You can come earlier if you desire, & help me mull the wine, & there may be food.

The following costumes are discouraged:

-Keebler Elf
-Condoleeza Rice Elf
-Aphid or other Sternorrhyncha
-Disney Princess
-Sen. Arlen Spekter (R-Penn.)
-Cole Porter
-Luna Lovegood
-Amos or any other minor Old Testament Prophet

While these would be allowed, of course, some creative variation would be appreciated this year.
Bringing a mug would assist in transporting the mulled wine from the large steaming pot to your mouth.
My apartment is conveniently located across from the Ashby BART station:

This is a picture of a Barack Obama butter sculpture, by Duffy Lyon, the famous "Butter Cow Lady" from Iowa fairs. She has endorsed the candidate.

____________________________________________________________________

Welcome to the Live Blogging of the Glühwein Party, for all of you poor cold losers who decided to settle in other parts of the world. It's 5:30 P.M. Pacific Time, 40 degrees in Berkeley, somewhat ugly weather here. Life is short, but the Webb Block has been polished & dusted, roses are on the table. A dvd of a fireplace burns on the tv set.

5:15. I am alone & I wash my hands, & make my delicious Puffed Millet Cookies.
5:30. Liam calls from the recycled paper office & tells me he is on his way, bringing friends.
5:40. Six bottles of Two Buck Chuck Shiraz are opened & emptied into a large cauldron.
6:40. Liam & friends have come & gone back to the store for more cheese & more bread. The past hour has been spent slowly warming up the wine & adding many many delicious ingredients. The third movement of Gorecki's Third Symphony, coming on randomly, made the de-seeding of the pomegranate much more emotional than it might otherwise have been.
8:30. Ten people are here eating cookies, Stolen, pineapples, & drinking Liam's amazing Raspberry Whiskey (which has been fermenting for two months), & my mulled wine. Cheeks are beginning to look a bit flushed.
9:00. A brief interlude to watch Leopard Slug sex.
10:15. Virtue's hit the rum.
10:30. The roses on the table have been replaced by a Trivial Pursuit board.
11:00. Liam creepily correctly answers "Fifty-four" to the question "What was the number of Gunther Toody's patrol car?"
11:30. Sixty-six-point-six percent of the party up-&-runs out the door towards the penultimate BART train.
12:00 A.M. My upstairs neighbor makes an appearance with her husband, erroneously thinking they have interrupted something between me & the remaining guest. They drink a glass of Glühwein & borrow The Princess Bride.
12:45. I am alone with a few glasses of mulled wine to go. A few hours ago I rejuvenated it with dark rum, sugar, & limes. It's sticking to my teeth, but I'm determined to see the sun rise, so, Merry Festivus to all, & to all a googily opulent yarblat.

Sacred Mother-in-Law

Here's a new short narrative poem, part of my Sacred Songs series. I put it in a scribd pdf because blogger won't let me do indents & hanging indents. The illustrations are by Olaf Mary.
Sacred Mother-in-Law - S. Sandrigon

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #36

merry christmas, ya'all. I am celebrating by reading the christmas mass to myself from st. Joseph's continuous sunday missal, in bed. self-imposed total isolation (after fam time this morning) in preparation for the chaos that will be Cole Coffee tomorrow....

Sacred Crèche

Happy Christmas, world! While I cook chinese food with some jewish friends, I'll offer you a new "sacred song" poem:

Sacred Crèche

A half dozen young geese clumped behind their mother,
Out in the duck pond behind the watering trough.
It’s cold, but they haven’t flown North:
Certain meteorological events have kept them from flying off,
So they cuddle in the dark, bodies close to each other.

Maureen Dowd announces it in the New York Times:
Her brother Kevin owns about seventeen Christmas crèches,
Hundreds less than some collectors’ collections, & for what it’s worth,
A child is born, the wings of a swallow, the little wishing fishes,
And all the other animals for which the rappers know no rhymes.

There’s two rats in my nursery,
So much incense, & other useless gifts for a baby,
Several unexpected human guests, uninvited, and others missing:
My midwife is imprisoned at the airport in St. Louis,
And the bridegroom & his beloved are in Vegas for their millennial anniversary.

The geese stretch their pinions to the four winds,
Take to the night, & fly into the east star.
Their take-off ripple in the duck pond freezes like an old man reminiscing.
Take to the night in Phaethon’s stolen car:
Just six friends on a sacred joyride, six friends, a means & no ends.

Maureen Dowd calls me on a two-way radio.
We rent out billboard space in Times Square
To advertise the the dawn with the world’s largest ultrasound.
Meanwhile, in a cave owned by an exiled billionaire,
In relative anonymity, a booby bird makes a nest out of guano.

There’s two rats in my nursery,
Joined by the widowed mother goose,
While bankers watch their stocks, all seated on the ground.
Since antiquity, the rats have had nothing to lose.
Their story is a universal story, a cursory, unmiraculous story.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XXIV

Happy Christmas Eve! In honor of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who most wanted socks for Christmas, & in honor of socks, the final chocolate of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Carols returns to the Squirrel Nut Zippers' cruelly underappreciated Christmas album Christmas Caravan, to the song "Hanging up our Stockings". And to all a good night! (Post script! Don't miss the hidden reprise!)

	Squirrel Nut Zippers - 10 Hanging Up My Stockings .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Here's a homemade animation I found of some of the song:

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XXIII

Santa has already done most of the world, saving California the best for last, but I still have two more chocolates left in my Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. Since John Lennon died 30 years ago this December. & 39 christmases (christmi?) ago he & Yoko put a billboard in Times Square in the middle of a violent war declaring "War is over! if you want it" advertising this Christmas single from the Plastic Ono Band. This may be a slightly sentimental point, but we ended a war this year (mostly), & that was because we wanted to end it bad enough to elect a president who is against stupid wars. So, Happy Christmas (if you want it).

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XXII

For the antepenultimate installment of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs, I drag out from the vaults again my miniature shape-note carols, several settings of Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night" text, sung by my one man Glee club:

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XXI

Gail Collins had an awesome tangent in the New York Times this morning in defense of folk music:

“You can watch your property right here being towed away by the Russians! Back to Moscow!” If the former Red Menace wants to “hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ ” [Senator James Risch of Idaho] added, “Well, that is fine. But give us back our stolen military equipment.”

When was it that the singing of “Kumbaya” became a shorthand for weenieness? “Kumbaya” is an excellent campfire song, especially for groups that border on tone-deafness and don’t know the words to anything. I remember singing it in Girl Scout camp with friends who emerged unscathed and became conservative Republicans. Some may be writing letters protesting the New Start treaty at this very moment. Please, give “Kumbaya” a break.

Which brings us to Nowell Sing We Clear (with Tony Barrand), who put out several excellent albums with traditional Christmas carols in the '80s & '90s. The Rag Dance gets started around 3 minutes into this video:

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XX

I only have 48 hours before Christmas to get through the final five chocolates in my Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs! (There's so much we didn't cover...) Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker tunes sort of count as overplayed, but it's always refreshing to hear Duke Ellington's versions. (Next year we could focus on great covers of overplayed Christmas songs.) I was looking for recordings of these for years, & finally found them on a CD with the generic title "Three Suites" recorded in 1960. This first youtube is the U.S. Army Blues, & the second is the old Ellington recording:

News: Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal signed by Obama today

This is a nice anecdote at the bottom of the New York Times article about the Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal signed this morning:

The audience for the ceremony included a who’s who of gay activists, among them Frank Kameny, who was fired from a civilian job as an Army astronomer in 1957 — an act that prompted him to found a gay rights advocacy organization in Washington D.C. and to file a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1965 he picketed the White House, in the first ever demonstration there by gays.

Now white-haired at 85, Mr. Kameny also served as an enlisted Army soldier; he signed up in May 1943, he said, three days before he turned 18, and saw “front line combat” in Germany during World War II. He said he was asked if he had “homosexual tendencies” and denied it. “They asked, and I didn’t tell,” he said, “and I resented for 67 years that I had to lie.”

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XIX

This one is necessary for the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Carols: Antoine Dodson's "He's climbin' in your chimney, so y'all need to hide your cookies."

I think this is a link to download the mp3.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XVIII

YouTube user MrKellsTV put it best: "This is Love Letter in version Christmas!!!" Thank you Mr SamAmidon for embedding this in your website (samamidon.com) blog:

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #35

since it's winter.....

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XVII

I weighed on whether or not to include this song in the Advent Calendar, because if you don't like Paul Simon, you're not much going to like it, it being Paul Simon's quasi-bland, quasi-rocking new Christmas hit. However, since it has some good to it, I will boldly include it as No. 17, for your consideration:

Happy 70th Birthday Phil Ochs~!

The great folksinger Phil Ochs would have turned 70 today. (He hanged himself at age 35, following a period of depression in which he believed he was a man named John Butler Train who had murdered Phil Ochs.) Ochs was the vintage Greenwich Village protest singer. Happy Birthday! Here's a smattering of songs:

"Here's to the State of Mississippi" is one of my favorite songs, incurably dated, but still powerful:

	Phil Ochs - Here's to State of Mississippi .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

And here's a website with lyrics and chords, if you want to sing a Phil Ochs song today. It's also what would have been my grandmother Helen Barnes Welsch's 98th birthday!

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #34

in honor of the massive amounts of rain currently coming down hard on Berkeley, California......

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XVI

For the sixteenth installment of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed-to-Death Christmas Carols, I recorded a song from the Squirrel Nut Zippers' classic & under-appreciated album Christmas Caravan, "I'm Coming Home for Christmas", into the youtubes.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XV

I was wondering why this lesser-known Christmas song was played by both Death Cab for Cutie and Mariah Carey, and it turns out it dates back to Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas album. Here's the wikipedia story of the origination:

"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is a song by Darlene Love from the 1963 Christmas compilation album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. The song was written by Phil Spector, along with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, with the intentions of being sung by Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes. According to Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector was not able to put as much emotion into the song as needed. Instead, Love was brought into the studio to record the song which became a big success over time and one of Darlene Love's signature tunes.

It's also been covered by R.E.M., Cher, Jon Bon Jovi, and many other artists whose versions I can't wait to hear...

Here's Darlene Love's original:


And here's Ms. Carey:

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XIV

Quickly catching up with the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Holiday Non-Classics, I just found this song while looking for an mp3 of James Brown's "It's Christmas Time." It's Yo La Tengo's "It's Christmas Time" (no relation.) Was Yo La Tengo attempting to make a Christmas radio hit? They seem to have put only slightly more effort into it than Ringo Starr.

	Yo La Tengo - It's Christmas Time .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Jesus Christ is a Liberal Democrat

"Jesus Christ is a Big Fat Man" has not yet hit the singles charts, but Colbert last night took on the age-old dichotomy of Christ's beliefs vs. Christ's followers' beliefs. (The anti-Socialist Christians clearly haven't read the beginning of Acts, where the apostles set up a hippie commune. Nor, for that matter, basically anything Christ said in red.)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XIII

Here's a song sent from Mr Olaf Mary, The Youngster's "Christmas in Jail." Also, here is the Kardashian family Christmas card this year. Don't forget to put your hand on your hip when posing for your family portrait.

	Youngsters - Christmas in Jail .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #33

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XII

I couldn't find a recording on the internet of Phil Ochs' classic folk song "No Christmas in Kentucky," but I found a gentleman named Raymond Crooke singing it in earnest on the youtubes. (Phil Ochs original version on iTunes here.) Ochs would have turned 70 years old on December 19th.

I found an mp3 of a disagreeing song "Christmas in Kentucky" here:

	5 for The Gospel - Christmas in Kentucky .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XI

We've already had Sir Paul's evil but catchy Christmas song in our advent calendar, here's Ringo Starr's wholesome attempt to make a few copyrights over the holidays. Well, "attempt" is a strong word, as he barely bothered fully writing a song. But's it's still endearingly Ringo:

Cocktail de Blake le Rat: Recette

This is a special recipe for a Blake le Rat Margarita I just mixoligized:

3 ice cubes

1 ½ part gold tequila

1 part triple sec

2 part pear nectar

½ fresh squeezed lime

½ fresh squeezed lemon

Stir. Pour into a Pompadour coupe.

I recommend drinking it while listening to Paul McCartney's song "Band on the Run."

Speaking of pairing booze, here's a link to my older brother suggesting beer pairings:

http://www.kcra.com/video/26107225/detail.html

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. X

I apologize to Mr E___ (Singer/Songwriter) & other advent calendar followers for the slight lag in the chocolates. Moving on with Day Ten, here's a sexy contemporary classic from 2010 from the group The Irreconsilables, "See Ya Santa":

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #32

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. IX.

The Glee Christmas Special this week had versions of not one but three songs from my not-so-secret playlist mixes of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs! Generally, they found some of my cheesier selections (like The Carpenters' "Mary Christmas Darling", which neither the original nor the Rachel Berry version will make the cut for this advent calendar.) However, here is Wham's 1984 song "Last Christmas", followed by the version from Glee:

The Glee Christmas album is on iTunes here, including K.D. Lang singing the Grinch song.

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #31

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. VIII

Let us continue our Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Holiday Carols with The Flaming Lips' 1995 song Christmas at the Zoo. "All of the animals agreed they're not happy at the zoo," they sing. "But they preferred to save themselves."

	The Flaming Lips - Christmas at the Zoo .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Heresy Song

Here's a song I wrote a year ago & hadn't played for six months. I realized I had forgotten how to play it, so I worked it out again... My recording facilities are currently down, but my fancy new phone can upload videos to youtube (danger!) so here is "Heresy Song" up for the record:

The lyrics, with some lines and themes adapted from the poem "Special Agent Francis' Prayer" from Five Prayers:

Heresy,
She leaves me there by the persimmon tree,
But to be fair to women,
With nothing to wear to swim in,
Better off inflicting glances,
And strictly clothed romances.

Share with me,
What she told you of her old heresy,
Her bold senseless offences,
Left my cold senses defenseless,
Silent my agent prances,
Dancing neath persimmon branches.

Heresy,
She glances out upon a fairer sea.
She dreams about escapin’
Out on streams, devout forsaken,
I said I’ll take my chances,
With Special Agent Francis.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily,
As Special Agent Francis knows.
She wanders out onto a fairer sea,
Where I don’t care to be.
And the sea goddesses don’t know,
But they do a mean do-si-do.

Verily,
I say unto you, barely audibly:
She’s sailing with a pilot’s speed,
Hailing ships & making pirates bleed.
Rampaging on till late night,
Her homepage is a dating-site.

Heresy,
Never alone, in agony or pity,
Forever poor in this fast city,
Together in our own chastity,
I don’t care for fleshy womens,
I’ve had my share of fresh persimmons.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily,
As Special Agent Francis knows.
She wanders out onto a fairer sea,
Where I don’t care to be.
And the sea goddesses don’t know,
But they do a mean do-si-do.

Dear Yoko, John will never ever ever ever let you go

Or so he said in this beautiful late song of his. Mr Lennon was shot thirty years ago today. Here's a neat video of him practicing "Dear Yoko" in 1980.

Yoko's short and simple piece in the New York Times today ended:

They say teenagers laugh at the drop of a hat. Nowadays I see many teenagers sad and angry with each other. John and I were hardly teenagers. But my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. VII

I couldn't find a recording of Jean Ritchie singing "There was a pig went out to dig" anywhere on the internet, but here's the great folksinger singing another Decemberry song "Wintergrace":

Otherwise, I recommend her 1959 album Carols for All Seasons, which includes the forgotten Christmas carol "There was a pig went out to dig." (Links to the iTunes store.) Here's the lyrics:

There was a Pig went out to dig
Chris-I-mas Day, Chris-I-mas Day
There was a Pig went out to dig
On Chris-I-mas Day in the morning!

There was a Cow went out to plough,
. . . &c.
There was a Sparrow went out to harrow,
. . . &c.
There was a Crow went out to sow,
. . . &c.
There was s Sheep went out to reap,
. . . &c.
There was a Drake went out to rake,
. . . &c.
There was a Minnow went out to winnow,
. . . &c.

Fashion illustration of the every 3rd day/ #30

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. VI

For Day Six of our Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs, here's a video of Peter Amidon rehearsing the song "Brightest & Best" at the Amidon House two years ago, as featured at Mary Alice Amidon's blog Idumea:

UPDATE: Here's an mp3 of a similar version, from an album called "Voices of Appalachia":

	Voices of Appalachia - Brightest and Best .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Unexpected Edinburgh Discovery: Texting

I don't have to tell you that I am not known for my text(verb) habit. So I won't.

But I will tell you that due to a recent change of living place, I am texting for the first time in my life.

It took me a while to figure out the predicting

text thing. In my phone it is, mysteriously, "T9Abc," or "T9ABC" if you are into using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

I discovered that many common words are surrounded by other common words (and nonsense words) in such a way that often one must scroll

through a bunch of other words before reaching the desired word.

I don't have to tell you this because you have

been texting for some time now and understand this phenomenon which, to me, is the greatest kept secret of all texters.

This secret, this journey, is what I am so excited about.

Here are some examples:

I want to text the word "home" instead the word "good" appears. When I venture to find my "home" I am greeted by the following list:

gooe

inof

hond

inne

imme

goof

hone

hoof

hood

gone

and finally, home.

I am interested in typing "lust," T9Abc assumes I am interested in "just." And my only other option is Kurt, then comes lust.

This must be some weird hole in this whole text thing I have discovered. Why only three reasonable words (one a proper noun!?) for this particular key combination?

I want basil. I get:

cash?

bari

abri

acri

casi

carg

cari

barg

capi

basi

bash

cash

Of course, it will never become "basil" because it dropped the question mark place after "cash?"; tragically peaking at "basi."

I hope that next time you text you notice these things.