Department of Quotes & Conversations: Why Buy 3 Bottles of Two Buck Chuck

Overheard conversation at Trader Joe's in Berkeley an hour ago: One man to another, justifying have three bottles of Charles Shaw in his basket:

"You know how when you buy two bottles, after you finish one, you're like, oh, I only have one bottle left. But when you buy three, after you finish one, you're like, I have two bottles left."

Unsurprisingly, I also had three bottles of Charles Shaw in my basket (pink wine to mix with lemonade for our Midsummer Shakespeare picnic tomorrow. I'll be playing Robin Goodfellow.)

Special Manifesto: "YUR THER" - A Political Spelling Reformation

"Yur Ther: A Spelling Manifesto"

In the late 18th Century, Noah Webster had a political vision to revolutionize spelling for the American language. Many of his reformations eventually happened, like less-idiotic spellings of ‘color’ & ‘wagon.’ Some of his more radical ideas, like spelling ‘is’ with a ‘z’ like it sounds, never caught on. Although Webster is still lionized as the founding father of American Spelling, we have not continued to adapt after his fashion in the past few centuries. Our pronunciations have continued to evolve, but not our spelling of them. We are constantly adding trendy new words like “omg” & “unfriend” into the dictionary after they become common usage, but never updating spelling to reflect speech. Historically, spelling has been mutable and was constantly in flux for centuries. Between 1564 and 1616, the name Shakepeare was spelled more than twenty different ways in literary and non-literary sources (Shaxberd!) This not because people were stupid or didn’t fact-check the playwright's name, but because spelling was not standardized and it was used more freely as a tool to describe speech.

In the 21st century, things have changed again, and the pendulum is again pendulumming. The youf, as they’re known, when they are texting and IMing, have begun to ignore how words are supposed to be spelled and spell shit however they want. This spelling revolution has seeped into other correspondences and into literature. However, whenever it creeps into the schoolroom or into other written formats, the youf is seen as ignorant, uneducated, sloppy or worse. It’s time to accept this war for what it is! Spelling differences set culture against culture, elite against the democratic masses, generation against generation, race against race, man against man. Language is not a protected tower that only the educated can occupy, it is a chaotic mess of wilderness. Spelling is social, racial, and political.

In this brief manifesto, I propose eliminating the UNCONSTITUTIONAL laws mandating which ‘your’s or ‘there’s are supposed to be used in their elitist “correct” usages. (I realize that there is no “constitution” of the English Language, and therefore said laws cannot be unconstitutional. However, I reject your elitist definition of ‘unconstitutional,’ and like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty, I choose to make words mean what I wish them to mean.) For too long now, incorrect uses of ‘your’/’you’re’ and ‘there’/’their’/’they’re’ have caused derision, condescension and patronizing rebukes from haughty rule-followers and narks (I’m looking at you, English teachers.) Many of the people who mess up these rules are intelligent and thoughtful users of language. Many more are not, but they are still human and still honorable members of the unwashed English-speaking hordes. Either way, surely the content is more important than the superficial spelling rules. Even if the content is crap, why should the spelling reflect poorly on the speller’s character? It is social and political discrimination to assume that spelling error makes a man less of a man.

The your/you’re and there/their/they’re rules are CONFUSING and UNREALISTIC. I have many college-educated friends who regularly commit mistakes to this rule, either because they didn’t notice the mistake or didn’t care. Others simply don’t give a butthole. Despite the widespread indifference, every day people are denied jobs or romantic advances on online dating sites because of mixing up their ‘there’s.’ I propose two new accepted words to the English Language: ‘ther’ and ‘yur.’ These are not meant to replace the other “correct” spellings, but to function as accepted stand-ins for the lazy or confused writer, in any public or private, official or unofficial written communication. Therefore their definitions would be as follows:

yur - either ‘your’ or ‘you’re,’ depending on context, or whatever.
ther - either ‘there,’ ‘their,’ or ‘they’re,’ depending on context, which should be easily discernible (hence “context”), so figure it out yourself and leave me alone.

I also propose lobbying congress to enact a Hetorograph Bill to protect citizens who regularly mess up hetographs/homonyms/homographs/heteronyms &c (the "homonymphobic" or "homonymphomaniac") from discrimination in the workplace, job market, and online dating sites.

9/11 Was An Inside Job: the song

Here is a demo rehearsal version of a spanking new song called "9/11 Was An Inside Job."

Here are the lyrics & chords:

9/11 Was An Inside Job

E C/E f#°7 G bmin C D D+
The male birth control pill has been suppressed by the FDA.
E C/E f#°7 G bmin C G D
George Bush was not the son of George Bush, but the son of Jack Kennedy.
E C/E f#°7 G bmin C D D+
John Lennon, John Lennon’s hiding in a compound near Harare, Zimbabwe.
E D C Bb amin D G
And if Obama was born in Hawaii, how come he can’t play the ukulele?

F amin9 C D E
9/11 was an inside job.
E C f#°7 G bmin C D D+
J. Edgar Hoover planned the whole thing with the Galactic Confederate mob,
C G
Where the mystery
C G
Is married to violence.
E C f#°7 G bmin C G D
Xenu bought his Douglas DC-8s from the armory of the United States,
C G

And the rest is history,

C G

The rest is silence.

The Rapture happened on Y2K, we just failed to capture it.

HIV/AIDs is not spread thru sex, but comes from drinking bad beer.

Fox News, Fox News is owned by Al Jazeera, but Oprah owns their pundits.

The works of William Shakespeare were written by another man also named William Shakespeare.

9/11 was an inside job, &c...

9/11 was an inside rim job.

Friends Around the Campfire on facebooks here. The Manna Tease on facebooks here.

For Your Consideration: Kanye West's Runaway

Hello. Sorry I haven't been adding my biting cultural commentary amongst Grainne's lovely fashion illustrations, but it's been a wild last month. Meanwhile, Mr Kanye West put his entire short film Runaway on YouTube, and it's worth a watch. He seems to realize he's not a great actor, and keeps his dialog & lip-sinking to a minimum. Advantages: the art direction is beautiful, and it dwells on the modern ballet dance for a good 50% of the movie, and of course the music from his album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is pretty damn good. Disadvantages: Hmm, this could be discussed in the comments, I don't want to be too hasty with criticism. The plot is reminiscent of Shakespeare's ambiguous poem "The Phoenix & the Turtle," about the love of a mortal with a phoenix - - perhaps Shakespeare's strange text could serve as commentary on Kanye's allegorical music video, or visa versa:

Property was thus appall'd,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was call'd.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.

Three Years Ago: Shakespeare & Local Terrorism

For THREE YEARS AGO, this blog's celebration of its more-than-three-year-oldness, we repost some local drama & an interesting letter-to-the-editor:

___________________________

The local media was closely following the assassination of the editor of the Oakland Post, by some zealous bakers at a place called "Your Black Muslim Bakery" on San Pablo. They have been apprehended for other crimes, & the bakery was shut down for "sanitary" reasons. I think this guy's commentary in the Berkeley Daily Planet well grasps the scope of issues (both 21st Century & classical) in this public drama. Truly the stuff of a poetic five act play, with cookies - sort of "Merchant of Venice" meets "Chocolat".

Commentary: Your Black Muslim Bakery (Or What’s Left Of It)
By David Nebenzahl (08-14-07)

You’re gone now, it looks like for good. That’s a shame, at least for me personally. Let me explain.

For the past five years or so, my breakfast has invariably consisted of a single cup of strong coffee, home-brewed, and one of your sweet rolls. The same thing every day for five years. Actually longer: When I lived on the Peninsula in the 1990s, I used to buy these same rolls from the now-departed Palo Alto Co-op. Back then they seemed somewhat exotic, coming from a place called “Your Black Muslim Bakery” and labeled “A Taste of the Hereafter.”

In any case, they were damn good sweet rolls. I also treated myself to your excellent fish sandwiches from time to time.

So even though I will definitely not miss the actions of the thugs who were part of your organization—the terrorizing of small liquor store owners, the Carrie Nation-like smashing of refrigerated cases, the over-the-top, racist ideology, the ersatz pseudo-religious mish-mash of Islam, fundamentalist Christianity and black nationalism—even though I found myself stepping into your shop with a lot of trepidation of late—I will miss your bakery and its products (and even its historic San Pablo storefront).

I hasten to add that even though I witnessed your black-suited thugs smashing their way through local businesses on the TV news, and read about the criminal activities of your organization, I was always treated courteously in the bakery. The young people who worked there were very businesslike and treated their customers respectfully, no matter what color they were, and they all seemed genuinely concerned with running a neighborhood business properly. That, too, will be missed.

(I leave speculating about the cause and implications of the demise of your organization to others, as will be unavoidable in the weeks to come. To me, it appears to be yet another case of a well-meaning group of people, struggling against injustice, who fall victim to the usual human shortcomings—greed, hubris, religious mania and messianic visions, and plain old corruption—in a spectacular, Shakespearean drama, leading to a final implosion. You’re not the first, and you certainly won’t be the last.)

So let me ask some of you, perhaps naively: Is it possible that you might be able to regroup yourselves, shake off the dust of this scandal and reopen your bakery? Preferably in, or somewhere near, the old location (I say selfishly). If you could somehow shed the ideological aspects of the operation, and just concentrate on producing sweet rolls, fish sandwiches, bean pies, cookies, cakes, and all the other good stuff you used to make, I think a lot of people would appreciate it. I know I would.

And if running a bakery just happened to advance the cause of black economic empowerment in a depressed, predominantly black neighborhood, that would only be further to your credit.

David Nebenzahl is an Oakland resident.

#Shakespalin folio

While I was warning not to be too hard on Palin for comparing herself to Shakespeare, I didn't realize that twitter was exploring a hatchtag called #Shakespalin, here are some highlights:

But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is the East, and I can see Russia from my front porch.
-@freehawk

To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous liberals, or to quit halfterm, and by opposing, rake in speaking fees
-@normative

Henry VI, part you know, well, all of them.
-@acoyne

I came, I saw, I refudiated.
-@homescribe

Neither a thinker nor a reader be / for thought oft loses both itself and friend / and reading dulls the edge of Fox TV
-@djsamk

"How's all that bein' and not bein' workin' out for ya?"
-@jon_ames

All the perfume in Arabia shall not sweeten this ink-stained, crib-noted hand.
-@spskenski

All the world's a stage, and I can see all of it from my house.
-@paulandstorm

Friends, Real Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to play "gotcha" journalism
-@paulandstorm

More on Sarah Palin poetry here. My essay on Palin & the English language here.

A big welcome to "Refudiate", Sarah Palin's new word in the English Language!

I was just reading at Mediaite.com about Sarah Palin's invention of the word "refudiate" (which she tweeted yesterday afternoon), and the tweetosphere's subsequent mocking embrace of her malapropism.

This was taken down by her people & a correctly spelled one was quickly put up. "Refudiate" was already a big hit tho, & her response is endearingly both self-deprecating & aggrandizing:

She was mocked for comparing herself to Shakespeare. The headline at Mediaite was "Sarah Palin 'Refudiates' Criticism, Declares Self Shakespeare on Twitter". Okay, that's a masterpiece of a headline, but slightly false advertising, because comparing yourself humorously to a great writer is a different bird than Declaring Self. (Somewhat unrelatedly, John Lennon actually said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, but he didn't mean he wanted them to be. He was just making an interesting point that resulted in a lot of Beatles burning parties. When he later sang "they're going to crucify me," he actually was Declaring Self, but again with a wink. Luckily, bardophiles aren't generally into book-burning, and have a subtler appreciation of celebrity metaphor, or there'd be a lot of "Going Rogue" bonfires.)

I want to urge the blogosphere to back off from defending Shakespeare against Palin's comparison! She's absolutely right! And she even makes an important point that Americans especially of all English-speaking nations shouldn't forget. In France, there is a committee that makes sure no foreign words creep into their pure tongue. And they ended up with a very silly language! English has always been mostly the opposite, letting itself evolve naturally, and gladly welcoming slang, foreign words, incorrect foreign words, mistakes, malapropisms, portmanteaus, nonsense, & coinages from all corners. I think that this makes English healthier, more chaotic, more fascinating, and more honest about the nature of language than faux [sic] French puritanism. Palin was also dead-on to compare it to "misunderestimate", because a number of Bushisms were lovingly adopted by a world that hated him & are now used widely even in contexts which contain no reference to Bush. (Another word, "strategery ", was invented by Saturday Night Live in 2000 to parody Bushisms, & not only became a real English word, but was adopted by the Bush administration itself; they had an official Department of Strategery. Stephen Colbert's word "truthiness", coined in 2005, is included in the latest American dictionaries.) .

If you want to read a good book which discusses the debate between keeping English a controlled language versus letting English be an organic language, I recommend Simon Winchester's easy read The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. On the losing side of this argument was 18th century Irish author Jonathan Swift, here's an excerpt from his treatise "A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue".

There is another Sett of Men who have contributed very much to the spoiling of the English Tongue; I mean the Poets, from the Time of the Restoration. These Gentlemen, although they could not be insensible how much our Language was already overstocked with Monosyllables; yet, to same Time and Pains, introduced that barbarous Custom of abbreviating Words, to fit them to the Measure of their Verses; and this they have frequently done, so very injudiciously, as to form such harsh unharmonious Sounds, that none but a Northern Ear could endure: They have joined the most obdurate Consonants without one intervening Vowel, only to shorten a Syllable: And their Taste in time became so depraved, that what was a first a Poetical Licence, not to be justified, they made their Choice, alledging, that the Words pronounced at length, sounded faint and languid. This was a Pretence to take up the same Custom in Prose; so that most of the Books we see now a-days, are full of those Manglings and Abbreviations. Instances of this Abuse are innumerable: What does Your Lordship think of the Words, Drudg'd, Disturb'd, Rebuk't, Fledg'd, and a thousand others, every where to be met in Prose as well as Verse? Where, by leaving out a Vowel to save a Syllable, we form so jarring a Sound, and so difficult to utter, that I have often wondred how it could ever obtain.

That is right, under Swift's proposals, we would not or should not be allowed to contract or abbreviate words, lest English be difficult to utter. It cannot be! Swift also had grievances about many 'slang' words entering the language, like "banter" & "mob", which he accused of being "invented by some pretty Fellows" & "now struggling for the Vogue." Heaven forfend! Since the beginning of time, every generation has groaned about newfangled words becoming trendy. The word "lengthy", for instance, was once thought to be a horrible American abomination.

I think the archtype for an American nonsense word becoming common in languages around the world, is "okay." The etymology of "okay" is shrouded in academic controversy, probably because some academics have trouble accepting that it could have originated in a dumb joke. To sum it up, incorrect acronyms were popular jokes in New England newspapers in the 1830s, and "O.K." (meaning 'All Correct') came to being during the presidential campaign between Andrew Jackson (who was supposedly a bad speller) and Martin van Buren (who maybe tried to re-define the acronym to stand for his nickname, Old Kinderhook.) According to the wikipedia, "The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in okay's history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States." But there you go, political humor leading to the creation of a word that's now ubiquitous all over the world. It's alternately been attributed to Greek origin, Native American (Choctaw), & African slaves, each of which is a more tidy & rational explanation, but language isn't tidy or rational.

Anyway, the speed with which trendy words or political jokes can become language has increased with the internet, so that Sarah Palin can coin a word on Sunday & I can write an essay defending it on Monday. Welcome to the English language "refudiate", whatever the fuck it means.

(PS, to prove it wasn't a typo, and actually a word that Sarah Palin thought existed, here's the archive video of her actually saying it earlier this year.)

Three Years Ago: Apology to Loyalists

In continuing celebration that I've been posting to this website for three years (that's one million years in blogosphere time & twenty-one million in dogosphere), here's another offering to the series THREE YEARS AGO, where I publish posts from three years ago to the minute. I forgot that, after I had moved into the building pictured below, I had briefly considered renaming this blog Live from the Webb Block, where I still live. Now, of course, we post to it from all around the world.
______________________________________________________

Here I offer my regrets for the summer vacation of this weblog (I assure you I was listening to the below listed "summer listening") I will shortly return with a reknewed literary enthusiasm. In the past month I have been on an aimless roadtrip, with a hoped goal of settling in Berkeley, California, at the end. In the meantime I read Lolita & saw Shakespeare's King John at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival; I camped on several beaches & among the tallest lifeforms on Earth. I have finally settled at the historic building, 1985 Ashby Ave, across from the Ashby BART station in lower Berkeley. I am considering a revival of this weblog with the updated physicality, namely, "Live from the Webb Block".

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere: London Still & Sigh No More

We're now blog-o-wich friends with Alexandra Silber's London Still. She is an old friend of mine, now a professional actor in Lud's Town. London Still is an excellent blog about theater, including a classy department called "Ask Al", where she answers inquiries histrionic. I believe she was campaigning to get one hundred "followers", for some sponsorship reason, so please "follow" her (in the left-hand sidebar) & help her cause.

Ready for the Link: LONDON STILL

On the subject of following, if you enjoy this blog for instance, I have one of those "follow" boxes on this website, down to the left, also. There's nothing binding or obnoxious about "following", I promise. I know it seems like these networks exist to waste time, but when these weblogs are as cultural & edifying as ours, there's a risk that by not following them, you will be left behind in the shitty gutters of society's progress. Also, I think the google reader is a swell tool to keep UP, & I like how they've made it easier to see what your friends are publicly following & sharing. It's not just cute videos of kittens or political rants about teabagging. FOLLOW IT WAS LOST! (Again, it's down in the sidebar, scroll down a bit, on the left. You can also follow anonymously if you're shy.)

Al Silber wrote me one of the most beautiful letters a month ago, titled "a song you wrote has always been in my head", which was partially an apology for using a recording of a string quintet I wrote in high school in a number of theater productions in Britain over the years. I want to dig those recordings out of the archives & post them here with our recent correspondence, so look for that here in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's another recording from the same era, I'll embarrass Miss Silber by posting her singing a Shakespeare song I had written for the drama department when I was fifteen, & rearranged for my high school senior recital - I apologize for my horrible piano flub, remember we were just teenagers. "Sigh No More" from Much Ado About Nothing:

Purple Flags? The Sequel

It seems like only thirteen months ago that I wrote a post about Purple Flags. I did declare that it was a mystery why the color purple - a strong color, the color of royalty, a good Christian color - is represented on NOT ONE OF THE WORLD's national flags. I presented pictures of several of the curious flags, some regional ones, some defunct ones, which contained some purple, still a surprisingly tiny number - & I asked for help finding more. I still declare this a bizarre mystery, unsolved, why one of the major colors is almost unused in national iconography. Is it because nationalism & modern country flags grew up while royalty was losing its footing? Is it because purple is a more expensive dye, inherently un-populist - altho I suspect that explanation would have lost its logic by the 19th Century when flags were on the rise. In America, where, as pick-up truck bumpers inform us, these colors don't run, otherwise we'd have plenty of purple or light-purple flags.

Because the original Purple Flags essay became one of the most clicked-on posts at itwaslost.org, & it is not like us to deprive the loyal readers what they want, HERE ARE MORE PURPLE FLAGS - some of which were mentioned but not shown in the last post or suggested by readers' comments.

Mr Brains Aha!, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, sent us the city's current flag:
Is the color related to the Fleur de Lise? Looks a bit bluish.

Here's Tokyo's Flag:
In the comments for the last post, Pele wrote "It's like an anime arse a-winkin' at me. Hard to think of any offensive cause with a purple flag, so I'm FER it!" Here here.

Do you remember the Iberian peninsula's Kingdom of León, which existed independently from 910 to 1301? (I've never seen a purple lion in Europe.) This is the "classic example" of porpora, or Purpure, the original rare tincture. You would think these high middle ages, with the height of heraldry, would be the origin of all the purple flags to follow, such as this Castile flag:

In that original post, I linked to The “purple” flag of Chuvashia at a "flags of the world" website. Here's that flag:
I notice now on that website, there's quite some debate there about what exactly purple is. António Martins writes:

[...]Then I decided to make an experiment. I grabed a handful of objects clearly red and other of purple ones, and then asked Russians and Chuvashs «What is this color?»…

The red ones, ranging from a Marlboro cigarrette pack to a Swiss Army knife, were imediately classified as "krasnyĭ". After some insistence, the swiss army knife could be called "temno-krasnyĭ". And then I’d ask: «Could it be "purpurnyĭ"?» and most would hesitate and concede a yes.

The purple ones, after some hesitation, were said to be "fioletovyĭ" or "malinovyĭ". Most people would confess that the differences between those words are not very definite, only maybe in the head of graphical artists. And then I’d ask: «But could any of these [the purple ones] be "purpurnyĭ"?» And every interviewed person, even already color confused, would imediately say: «No, not at all! Definitely not "purpurnyĭ"!».

The final question was «Apart from yellow, what’s the colour of your flag?». Not a single person replyed spontaneasly with "purpurnyĭ"! Everybody would say "krasnyĭ", rarely "temno-krasnyĭ" (or theyr chuvash equivalents), and when I asked «Is it "purpurnyĭ"?» they would hesitatingly reply «Yes, but… that’s not an often word…», and even one chuvash speaker was surprised to learn that the very word "purpur" exists in chuvash…

Careful direct observation of a large number of flags hoisted in public places and goverment buildings metal plates in Ĉeboksary | Чебоксары / Ŝupaŝkar | Шупашкар, Novoĉeboksarsk | Новочебоксарск, Alatyr | Алатыр and Kanaŝ | Канаш shown that the color used matches almost precisely with the shade of (dark) red in the handle of a so called Swiss Army knife (original Victorinox brand).

Not just in Chuvashia! You can see just from the flags pictured here, what purplish varieties, & how a couple stretch the definition. I remember from my Shakespeare days, that the bard often describes the color of blood as "purple".

The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses:
The one his purple blood right well resembles;
The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.
-Henry VI Part III, [II.v.97-100]

Unless I'm misreading that, King Henry seems to be comparing the purple color of blood with the red rose of Lancaster. At the end of Henry the Sixth Part III (spoiler alert!), Richard of Goucester describes the king's bleeding to death ("the aspiring blood of Lancaster / Sink in the ground") as purple tears [V.vi.61-64]. There in my Norton edition there's a side note defining purple as "blood-red". Thank you Stephen Greenblatt for your helpful annotations! I'm not sure any of this has furthered our understanding of the purple flag mystery, except to confuse the definitions a bit. There's plenty on the wikipedias about the history of purple.

The tiny purple flags at the top of the post are from the Gulf Shores of Alabama website: the purple flag, from their five flag warning system for jelly fish & rip tides, means "dangerous marine life present". That could explain the dearth of purple flags, it was frustrating that every time you tried to show patriotism, everyone would run for dry land.

Purple Flag wavers of the world, help us find more!

PURPLE FLAGS? PART THREE: NUMBER CRUNCHING

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant: "Merry Saint David's Day!"

Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welchmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, is an honourable badge of the service: and, I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s [St. David's] day.

William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene 7

Today is Saint David's Day, the Welsh national holiday, as good a day as any to wear a leek in your cap.
Dewi Ddyfrwr ate only bread & water (a classy ascetic diet, sort of an anti-North Beach, Jesus-only diet). He was known for making the ground rise below him (to better address large crowds), & letting gold-beaked doves land on his shoulder. Now listen to this beautiful Welsh singing:


I was also happy to find this image of Van Gough made out of leeks:

More William Topaz McGonagall & also The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas...

Mr Mary & I were doing some research for our William McGonagall project today, & happened upon some interesting history. First of all, it turns out our idea of throwing a McGonagall supper is already a tradition in Dundee. "The William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society held a McGonagall Supper on board the frigate Unicorn on 12 June 1997, during which the courses were allegedly served in reverse order, starting with the coffee and ending with the starters. A short play was performed by local actors."

Sadly the William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society's website is down, but I sent an e-mail to the person responsible, asking a few questions about the itineraries & rituals for a McGonagall Supper, & what the significance of June 12th is - I think September 28th, the day of McGonagall's death, might be as good of a night as any. If anyone out there reading this knows anything, please contact me! o [[at]] itwaslost.org.

Then, there are some amazing bits in McGonagall's wiki-biography (the whole thing is worth reading here.) My favorite was his production of Macbeth where "McGonagall believed that the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him, and so refused to die."

Then there's this mysterious tidbit:

In 1892, following the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he walked from Dundee to Balmoral, a distance of about 60 miles over mountainous terrain and through a violent thunderstorm, "wet to the skin", to ask Queen Victoria if he might be considered for the post of Poet Laureate. Unfortunately, he was informed the Queen was not in residence, and returned home. In 1894, representatives of King Thibaw Min of Burma knighted him as Sir Topaz, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah, a title he used in his advertising.

We looked up Thibaw Min, the last king of Burma, where it says his full name is The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas, Owner of the Royal Peacocks, Lord of the Sea and of the World, Whose face is like the Sun. In his own words, the reason he fell from the throne is:

My late father, the Royal Mindon Min, the golden-footed lord of the white elephant, master of a thousand gold umbrellas, owner of the Royal peacocks, lord of the sea and of the world, whose face was like the sun, always smoked the Esoof cheroot while meditating on his treatment of the bull-faced, earthswallowing English. Had I done the same I should never have lost my throne, but I used the opium-drugged cheroots from Manila and the trash which was sent to me from San Francisco, and I fell.

Our hip-hop rendering of An Address to the New Tay Bridge is below.

Curling Jokes

We have come East to Tahoe to sled, & the weather is a little nasty. There was some dramatic sledding this morning at the summit of Mount Rose Highway, I hope to eventually post our action sports photography, wearing our retro ski onesies. Last night, there was a long tournament at Nintendo Wii's Winter Sports, but we got stuck for an hour at the Curling, which baffled us both in operation & strategy. Today we spent awhile reading the history & rules on Wikipedia, but I think it's something you need to experience firsthand. My parents were at the curling at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, & they said they really got into watching it. Mrs Eley-Nelson had me search for curling jokes, as it's a way to peer into a world, thru the humor, going over our head. One of the chat forums under "Rock Talk" at CurlingZone.com had many:

Is curling a biblical sport?
Yes, replied Jesus: "Let he who is without spin cast the first stone."

That's leads and seconds for those whose minds aren't as clean as mine...

"Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens."
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.

One Curling rock to the other
"Hi there gorgeous! My house or yours? I won't take you for Granite"

There's many more here: http://www.curlingzone.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2306. Anyone know any others?

& Red Allover & Tropic Thunder

I was thinking about Black White & Redallover jokes the other day, & it struck me that "a newspaper" perfectly fits the original premise, with a tight little pun on "red." I was immediately alerted that that is the original joke... We can go thru lives hearing all the variations & never the original, until we think of it ourselves. Why did the baby cross the road (because it was stuck to the cactus that was stuck to the chicken), without ever knowing why the chicken crossed the road. Anyway, in wanted to commission a few new Black White & Redallover jokes, I did some small research & realized we are fast approaching the hundred year anniversary of the original "newspaper" joke! We do need some new Black & White jokes to fit our changing 21st Century landscapes. I thought of several the other day at work:

What's black & white & red all over?
-a black-&-white turtle with hemorrhoids.

What's black & white & red all over?
-Barack Obama wearing lipstick

What's black & white & drags on the ground?
-a "Z"-bra.

The reaction from the first victims wasn't as I hoped, more of a "eww/ohh", than the gold medal chortlings the joketeller craves... But maybe treading the margins of repulsion & scraping away at the surfaces of my audience's inner-hangups (like about the extremely large breasted), is a greater reward?
We watched "Tropic Thunder" last night, & tho I found it a bit hard to hear the dialog or follow the plot, it struck me what a rare-bird the big budget comedy is. Studios are always willing to invest millions in endless schlock dramas, but they hope comedies can be more residential - - - &, like Austin Powers as an easy example, return far more on their investment than so many parading epics. And as all the great dramatists from Shakespeare to Stoppard know, humor is as equally illuminating as sorrow about the universe & the human soul. I won't give any jokes away (like reviewers are supposed to, right?), but the salon.com critic Stephanie Zacharek continued on the theme of dangerous art:

In the early '90s, when Robert Mapplethorpe's sexually explicit photographs were causing a flap about the public funding of art, I recall seeing people wearing buttons decreeing, "Art can't hurt you." But if it can't cut into you, deeply or at all, what good is it?

The same goes for comedy. "Tropic Thunder" is ridiculous and deeply enjoyable, but it also flashes a mercilessly polished mirror at the "prestige" products that the movie business so glibly feeds us in order to reflect glory back on itself. The picture also questions the way we congratulate ourselves for our appreciation of serious pictures and dedicated performances, as if, by applauding their quality, we might somehow be connected with some greater good. Movies can elevate us, helping us locate the best, most generous parts of ourselves. But that doesn't diminish the fact -- as "Tropic Thunder" so painfully reminds us -- that "quality" movies are sometimes made by absolute assholes.

So there were some Shakespearean moments with a crew of actor egos abandoned in the midsummer forest, & there's truth in the bum-fuzzled buffoonery. For instance, it turns out the jokes about retards were actually a send-up of how Oscar-hungry actors portray the slow-witted. I had no idea. So, if you were offended by that humor or the racial humor in this movie, it was actually art breaking down barriers & analyzing our societal repression, et cetera. With that in mind, can we please have some more Black & White jokes, and/or jokes about humongously-endowed chests, to put a mirror up to the shifting scenery?

My favorite color joke (courtesy of Mr David Magnolia Ficke):

What's red & invisible?
No tomatoes.

List: Songs We Sang

I am in Portland, at their lovely huge old library with tall pink walls. Last night, I met my friend Mrs Smith & hiked for most of the afternoon in the country where those tall waterfalls go into the Columbia River. It's nice round there. It threatened rain, but we decided to put up our tent & be optimistic. No veggie dogs were roasted on no campfire. We hid in our tent with a box of wine for the entire night while impossible amounts of water fell from the sky. At one point, we made a dash to get the capo & the ukulele. If the omnipotent gods of music are curious & read blogs, here are some of the songs we sang:

-Longer boats are coming to win us (Cat Stevens)
-Where do the children play? (Cat Stevens)
-Indiana (David Yazbek)
-TOXICODENDRON
-EL CERRITO (coming soon to http://www.itwaslost.org/!!)
-some of our old Shakespeare numbers
-A la clare fontaine
-Dancing with the Mountains (John Denver)
-Others I forget about

Tonight, there will be some Portland Sacred Harp, followed by fire twirling at Reed College. Outward! Stop, drop & roll!

Sam Amidon's blog Speak, Peppery points us to these existential Garfield Without Garfield comics:

E-mails: Snake-oil & Bicycle Accidents

Date:	Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:43:17 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"James Welsch" <_@itwaslost.org>
Subject:	Several quotes about snake-oil
To:	"Sigal" <__________@gmail.com>

First. I opened at this page at random by accident, from Dr Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary (the quotes are in the original):

móuntebank n.s. [montare in banco, Italian]

1. A doctor that mounts a bench in the market, & boasts of infallible remedies & cures.

I bought an unction of a mountebank
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,
Can save the thing from death. Shakesp. Hamlet.

She, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab herself with doubts profound,
Only to shew with how small pain
The sores of faith are cur'd again. Hudibras, p.i.

But Æschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trop the stage. Dryden.

It looks so like a mountebank to boast of infallible cures. Baker's Reflections on Learning.

2. Any boastful & false pretender.

As nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like libertines of sin. Shakespeare.

There are mountebanks, & smatterers in state. L'Estrange.

Nothing is so impossible in nature but mountebanks will undertake. Arbuthnot's Hist. of John Bull.

Second. This is an enormously long & almost unreadable excerpt from Ben Jonson's (no relation) Volpone, but worth mining for mentions of strange ailments & some good wheeling-dealing:

A: These turdy-facy-nasty-patie-lousie-farticall rogues, with one poore groats-worth of vnprepar'd antimony, finely wrapt up in seuerall 'Scartoccios, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a weeke, and play; yet these meagre steru'd spirits, who have halfe stopt the organs of their mindes with earthy oppilations, want not their fauourers among your shriuel'd, sallad-eating Artizans: who are ouerioy'd, that they may have their halfeperth of Physick, though it purge them into another world, makes no matter.

F: Excellent! have you heard better Language, Sir?

A: Well, let them go. And Gentlemen, honourable Gentlemen, know, that for this time, our Banque, being thus remou'd from the clamours of the Canaglia, shall be the Scene of pleasure, and delight; For I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell:

F: I told you, Sir; his ende.

G: You did so, Sir.

A: I protest, I, and my sixe seruants, are not able to make of this pretious liquor, so fast, as it is fetch'd away from my lodging, by Gentlemen of your Citty; strangers of the Terra-ferma; worshipful Merchants; aye, and Senators too: who, euer since my arriuall, have detained me to their vses, by their splendidous liberalities. And worthily. For what auayles your rich man to have his magazines stuft with Moscadelli, or the purest grape, when his Physitians prescribe him (on paine of death) to drinke nothing but water, cocted with Anise-seeds? O health! health! the blessing of the rich, the riches of the poore! who can buy thee at too deare a rate, since there is no enioying this world, without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honorable Gentlemen, as to abridge the naturall course of life --

G: You see his ende?

F: Aye, is it good?

A: For, when a humide Fluxe, or Catarrhe, by the mutability of ayre, falls from your head, into an arme or shouilder, or any other part; take you a Duckat, or your Cecchine of gold, and applie to the place affected: see, what good effect it can worke. No, no, it is this blessed Vnguento, this rare Extraction, that hath onely power to disperse all malignant humors, that proceede, either of hot, cold, moist or windy causes --

G: I would he had put in dry too.

F: 'pray you, obserue.

A: To fortifie the most indigest, and crude stomacke, aye, were it of one, that (through extreame weakenesse) vomited bloud, applying onely a warme napkin to the place, after the vnction, and fricace; For the Vertigine, in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrills, likewise, behind the eares; a most soueraigne, and approoued remedy. The Mall-caduco, Crampes, Convulsions, Paralysies, Epilepsies, Tremor-cordia, retired-Nerues, ill Vapours of the spleene, Stoppings of the Liuer, the Stone, the Strangury, Hernia ventosa, Iliaca passio; stops a Disenteria, immediatly; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures Melancolia hypocondriaca, being taken and applyed, according to my printed Receipt. For, this is the Physitian, this the medicine; this councells, this cures; this giues the direction, this works the effect: and (in summe) both together may be term'd an abstract of the theorick, and practick in the A Esculapian Art. It will cost you eight Crownes. And, Zan Fritada, 'pray thee sing a verse, extempore, in honour of it.

F: How do you like him, Sir?

G: Most strangely, I!

F: Is not his language rare?

G: But Alchimy, I neuer heard the like: or Broughtons bookes.

SONG

Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,
(That to their bookes put med'cines all in)
But knowne this secret, they had neuer
(Of which they will be guilty euer)
Beene murderers of so much paper,
Or wasted many a hurtlesse taper:
No Indian drug had ere beene famed,
Tabacco, Sassafras not named;
Ne yet, of Guacum one small stick, Sir,
Nor Raymund Lullies greate Elixir.
Ne, had beene knowne the danish Gonswart.
Or Paracelsus, with his long-sword.

G: All this, yet, will not do, eight Crownes is high.

A: No more; Gentlemen, if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oyle, surnamed oglio del Scoto, with the count-lesse catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesayd, and many more diseases, the Pattents and Priuiledges of all the Princes, and Common-wealthes of Christendome, or but the depositions of those that appear'd on my part, before the Signiry of the Sanita', and most learned Colledge of Physitians; where I was authorized, upon notice taken of the admirable vertues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency, in matter of rare, and vnknowne secrets, not onely to disperse them publiquely in this famous Citty, but in all the Territories, that happely ioy vnder the gouernment of the most pious and magnificent States of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, O, there be diuers, that make profession to have as good, and as experimented receipts, as yours: Indeed, very many have assay'd, like Apes, in imitation of that, which is really, and essentially in me, to make of this oyle; bestow'd great cost in furnaces, stilles, alembekes, continuall fires, and preparation of the ingredients, as indeede there goes to it sixe hundred seuerall Simples, beside, some quantity of humane fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the Anatomistes; But, when these Practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha. Poore wretches! I rather pitty their folly, and indiscretion, then their losse of time, and money; for those may be recouer'd by industry: but to be a Foole borne is a disease incurable. For my selfe, I alwaies from my youth have indeauor'd to get the rarest secrets, and booke them; eyther in exchange, or for money; I spared nor cost, nor labour, where anything was worthy to be learned. And Gentlemen, honourable Gentlemen, I will vndertake (by vertue of Chymicall Art) out of the honourable hat, that couers your head, to extract the foure Elements; that is to say, the Fire, Ayre, Water, and Earth, and returne you your felt, without burne, or staine. For, whilst others have beene at the balloo, I have beene at my booke: and am now past the craggy pathes of study, and come to the flowrie plaines of honour, and reputation.

F: I do assure you, Sir, that is his ayme.

A: But, to our price.

G: And that withall, Sir Poll.

A: You all know (honourable Gentlemen) I neuer valew'd this ampulla, or violl, at lesse then eight Crownes, but for this time, I am content, to be depriu'd of it for sixe; sixe Crownes is the price; and lesse, in curtesie, I know you cannot offer me; take it, or leaue it, howsoeuer, both it, and I am at your seruice. I aske you not, as the valew of the thing, for then I should demand of you a thousand Crownes, so the Cardinalls Montalto, Fernese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my Gossip, with diuers other Princes have giuen me; but I despise money: only to shew my affection to you, honorable Gentlemen, and your illustrous State here, I have neglected the messages of these Princes, mine own offices, fram'd my iourney hither, onely to present you with the fruicts of my trauells. Tune your voyces once more, to the touch of your instruments, and give the honorable assembly some delightfull recreation.

G: What monstrous, and most painefull circumstance Is here, to get some three, or foure Gazets? Some three-pence, in the whole, for that it will come to

A: You that would last long, list to my song, Make no more coyle, but buy of this oyle. Would you be euer faire? and yong? Stout of teeth? and strong of tongue? Tart of palat? quick of eare? Sharpe of sight? of nostrill cleare? Moist of hand? and light of foot? (Or I will come neerer to it) Would you liue free from all diseases? Do the act, your mistres pleases; Yet fright all aches from your bones? Here is a med'cine, for the nones.

Third. The lyrics to Sondheim's Miracle Elixir, from Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Note that Jonson also rhymed "elixir" with "stick, sir".

TOBIAS:
Ladies and gentlemen!
May I have your attention, perlese!
(Beats Drum)
Do you wake every morning in shame and despair
to discover your pillow is covered with hair
Wot ought to be there?

Well, ladies and gentlemen,
From now on you can waken at ease.
You need never again have a worry or care,
I will show you a miracle, marvelous, rare.
Gentleman, you are about to see something
that rose from the dead!

On the top of my head
Scarcley a month ago, gentlemen,
I was struck with a 'orrible
Dermatalogic disease.
Though the finest physicians in London were called,
I awakened one morning amazed and appalled
To discover with dread that my head was bald
As a novice's knees.
I was dying of shame
Till a gentleman came,
An illustrious barber, Pirelli by name.
He gave me a liquid as precious as gold,
I rubbed it in daily like wot I was told,
And behold!
(Takes off cap dramatically, to reveal hair down to his shoulders.)
Only thirty days old!

Twas Pirelli's
Magical Elixir,
That's wot did the trick, sir,
True, sir, true.
Was it quick sir?
Did it in a tick, sir,
Just like an elixir
Ought to do!

How about a bottle, mister?
Only costs a penny garanteed.

Crowd:(at the same time)

1st man: Penny buys a bottle, I don't know...
2nd man: You don't need...
1st man: Ah, let's go!

Tobias (to third man): Go ahead and tug, sir.
3rd man: Penny for a bottle, is it?
Tobias: Go ahead, sir, harder...

TOBIAS:(alone)
Does Pirelli's
Stimulate the growth, sir?
You can have my oath, sir,
'Tis unique.

Rub a minute
Stimulatin', i'n' it?
Soon you'll have to thin it
Once a week!

Penny buys a bottle, garanteed!
&c.

_____________________________________________________

Date:	Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:36:52 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"James Welsch"
Subject:	Well done, man.
To:	"James Eliot Quill" <____________@gmail.com>

James James,

It should interest you, that at the precise moment I received a text message from you with the words "fuck yeah", Liam took a spectacular fall on his bicycle, biking drunk thru the dark streets of North Oakland, he mistook a curb for a driveway, scraping up his elbow, breaking his glasses, & throwing his chain into the wheel. We had been at the Hotel Bar, Henry's, a clean place where I go to act like Holden Caulfield, thinking everyone else is a phoney, & racking up a hilarious tab. Like last night, we racked up a hilarious tab, ordering things like marinated olives, digestif liquers, & something called a "pomtini", all in celebration of the Red Sox, I dare say, for whom I believe I am something of a lucky charm (remember the last American League Championship Series I watched, was, that is correct, in 2004). God speed! Well, Wednesday, more should happen, presuming I'm not tied up at the opera, but, care to watch all or part of this so-called World Series in the Bay Area with us? I hope you're healthy.

James James