Mandatory Fun

I feel guilty about writing a blog post while Stillwater still hangs over my head like the fountain pen of Damocles, but for this I break my silence: Weird Al has released a new album called Mandatory Fun. He's releasing one video a day for a week, on different sites, but you can see them all as they come out at weirdal.com.

So far we've got:

Tacky (parody of Happy by Pharrell Williams



This is one of those where I hear the parody and think, "Oh, that's what that song is!" The comedian cameos are good goofy fun (I love Eric Stonestreet's little tap combination at the mention of resumes in Comic Sans.)

Word Crimes (parody of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines)



I don't know anything about the original except that it's the song which accompanied Miley Cyrus's infamous Twerk That Launched a Thousand Facebook Posts, and I'm told that one should not, under any circumstances, look for the original video. No matter. This must transcend its source material, because it's absolutely hilarious, and is the sort of thing that will have homeschoolers canceling their English co-ops in order to study the lyrics for a semester.

Foil (parody of Royals by Lorde)



Now this one I do know, and I tell you what, despite the inspired silliness of this song, I just can't take my eyes off of Weird Al's hair, especially when he dons that fetching hat. My girls were in hysterics by the twist at the end, since they've become die-hard fans of the original Mission: Impossible series, which used that little device all the time.

Handy (parody of Iggy Azalea's Fancy)



Another "Huh, so that's what that song is" moment. Not the craziest thing you've ever seen, but definitely watchable, and he's doing some clever things matching the rhythm of the original. And that wig! I'd hire him.

Keep checking weirdal.com daily until July 21 for more fun.

Ye Ballade of Mistress American Pie

Geoffrey Chaucer, who doth forsake thys realm of Blogger for the wyldes of le Twitter, hath composed a fair ballade yclept Bye, Bye, Englisshe Jakke, a translacioun of the ancient songe Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie. Take and rede, gentils all. Take and rede.

Christ the King, Lord of the Dance

The Lord has blessed His people with peace; we did not hear this at Mass today.

And speaking of churchy music one can't sing with a straight face anymore, I now have a hard time with this one since Darwin composed some alternate lyrics:

"Thing a new thong unto the Lord,
Let your thong be slung from mountainous thighs."

Of course this sort of recomposing is nothing new, and can be done with more traditional hymns. No one has surpassed Evelyn Waugh in Decline and Fall, in which prisoners exchange information about a murder to the tune of O God, Our Help in Ages Past:

At last the hymn was announced. The organ struck up, played with great feeling by a prisoner who until his conviction had been assistant organist at a Welsh cathedral. All over the chapel the men filled their chests for a burst of conversation. 

'O God, our help in ages past,' sang Paul.
'Where's Prendergast to day?'
'What, ain't you 'eard? 'e's been done in.'
'And our eternal home.' 

'Old Prendy went to see a chap
What said he'd seen a ghost;
Well, he was dippy, and he'd got
A mallet and a saw.' 

'Who let the madman have the things?'
'The Governor; who d'you think?
He asked to be a carpenter,
He sawed off Prendy's head. 

'A pal of mine what lives next door,
'E 'eard it 'appening;
The warder must 'ave 'eard it too,
'E didn't interfere.' 

'Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away.'
'Poor Prendy 'ollered fit to kill
For nearly 'alf an hour. 

'Damned lucky it was Prendergast,
Might 'ave been you or me!
The warder says and I agree -
It serves the Governor right.' 

'Amen.'

Amen, indeed.

Cocktails for Two

Here's a bit of Spike Jones for your Tuesday afternoon. I've heard this for years on Dr. Demento's 20th Anniversary Album, but I never knew that Spike Jones made theatrical shorts.

Margaret Thatcher and the Dead Parrot Sketch

In honor of the late Baroness Thatcher, we present to you the most delightful thing we've seen in a good while: the then-Prime Minister delivering, absolutely deadpan, the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.



I did miss the line about how, if he weren't nailed to his perch, he'd be pushing up daisies.

This is Crazy

You know how some video is making the rounds, and all your friends are laughing at it, but you don't watch it because you don't have time, and anyway, some annoying people thought it was funny, and you're just too cool to indulge in all the hysteria?

Well, that's how I felt about this. But I was wrong. A song championing Women's Ordination In Our Time, to the tune of Call Me Maybe. Just... watch it.



The group that made this is serious. Unfortunately for them, their arguments aren't. The tipoff: the baby in the "Mommy for Pope!" onesie, the college girls in Catholic school uniforms making sloppy signs of the cross, and the post-song cheering, as if they'd completed some great feat equal to Pheidippides' run from Marathon.

You may not find yourself a convert to the women's priesthood lobby, but you may acquire a strange new respect for Carly Rae Jepsen's artistry.

Went With The Wind

Perhaps some of you are tired of Gone With The Wind parodies, but for those who aren't, I present Went With The Wind from the Carol Burnett show:

Tsao-rry about That

I spent yesterday salivating over a recipe for pho from the weekend section of the Wall Street Journal, and by way too late in the evening I had descended the craving ladder from hand-crafted Vietnamese soup to just anything vaguely Asian and chopstick-y. So far had I sunk, I told Darwin, that I was fully prepared to chow down on General Tsao's Chicken, though it has little to do with any of the General Tsaos, or with actual food from China, or, sometimes, with chicken.

"Well, you know," Darwin said, "that General Tsao was captured once, and the opposing forces cut off his ear and sent it to his wife with a demand for ransom. She inspected it and said, "I certainly can't make a silk purse out of a Tsao's ear."

"No, no," I objected. "She was a frugal woman. She used it to make Tsao-ear dough bread."

"But a German doctor sewed it back on, and he was known ever after as the Tsao-ear kraut."

"When he came home," Darwin continued, "he told her, 'You ruined my life, you fat Tsao.' Then when he retired he tried to run a vineyard, but all he could raise were Tsao-er grapes." 

"When he got drunk," I wheezed, "she yelled, 'Tsao-ced again.'"

"But she was his lawfully wedded Tsao-ce."

 "The neighbors heard the General screaming at his angry wife, but they didn't call the police because it was only the Tsaound and the Fury."

"His wife had several children from a previous marriage," said Darwin, "and people asked him why they had a different last name, he said, 'I have reaped what I did not Tsao.'"

"She said, 'Tsao be it.'"

"While he was still in the army, his maneuvers brought him within a few miles of his house, but he couldn't get away to go visit home. When his wife heard about it, she said, 'Tsao close and yet Tsao far.'"

We had devolved to that disgraceful point where we were nearly choked with mirth at our own cleverness, but whatever crowning witticism might have capped Tsao's saga was lost because at that moment Baby gave a mournful wail for Ma-ma, and for our sins we spent the rest of the night with a feverish child between us, and occasionally throwing up on us. The bug seemed to be a 24-hour thing, but we suspect it might have been a case of General Tsao's Revenge.

Fish Heads, for fun and mental profit

I know that there are philosophical songs and then there are philosophical songs, but around here few pieces of music have occasioned as much discussion as Fish Heads, by Barnes and Barnes.


The list of conditions for what is or is not a fish head have led to great speculation as to which of our acquaintance may actually be a fish head in disguise.

For example, here are some of the conditions of fish headery:
a) they don't wear sweaters;
b) they don't play baseball;
c) they're not good dancers;
d) they don't play drums.

Some of the youngsters were a bit worried that Daddy might be a fish head, then, until it was pointed out that he does, occasionally, wear sweaters. In fact, most of us make the non-fish head category by virtue of our positive association with sweaters, although Julia is a good dancer, Jack has played the drums, and I have played baseball. Any one of these is sufficient to establish non-fish head status, but we like to be doubly protected.

What are the positive conditions of being a fish head?
a) roly-poly;
b) in the morning, happy and laughing;
c) in the evening, floating in the stew;
d) get into movies free;
e) can't talk.

Fortunately, c) bars Baby from being a fish head, although her dinnertime habits make one question.

But now, examine this statement: "Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women (yeah)." There's a lot to unpack here. Do fish heads never drink cappuccino, or is the cappuccino ban only in effect when they are at Italian restaurants? What if they're at an Italian restaurant with Polish women? Or Oriental men? We're not given enough information to make broader statements, but with the help of Graph Jam, we put the statement into the form of a Venn diagram.

Let me anticipate correction by pointing out for myself that yes, I misspelled "cappuccino".

So we can say with certainty that if one meets all three of these conditions, one is definitely not a fish head. But wait! What happens if one meets all these conditions invisibly? After all, non-fish headery is contingent on being seen doing all these things.

Obviously, there are layers of richness here that we have yet to unpack.

Easy Listening

As we headed off on the first evening leg of last week's ten-hour trip to Wisconsin, we anticipated a ride eased by the dulcet tones of a British narrator reading about mayhem and bloodshed in rabbit warrens. Yes, Watership Down was on the menu: eleven cassettes promising enough listening hours to keep the back seat pacified for most of the drive.

And then I put in the first tape. The player whirred, clicked, and spit it out. I tried again. Same routine. I tried a different tape. I tried several different tapes. It was of no avail -- the tape player had gone on strike, perhaps permanently.  I rummaged around, but I'd cleaned the van so thoroughly before my brother's wedding that there were no random CDs on the floor or shoved into various compartments. The back seat was getting restive, waiting for their promised book. Faced with the onrushing prospect of the long haul with no trusty audio to soothe the riotous masses, I almost went tharn.

So we tracked radio stations all across the midwest. The oldies station has become very popular with the ladies, so we followed the Columbus station as long as we could follow the signal. Then we said the rosary, and no one went to sleep. Then we threatened. Then we got to Toledo and people were quiet, but we had to drive the beltway around the whole city because we missed our exit because I was reading to Darwin. We knew we were going the wrong way when we saw that the highway was headed to Detroit.

Day two was harder. We listened to The Globe across Northern Indiana, which was the sort of awesome eclectic station I wish I could find at home. My listening pleasure was impeded, however, by a certain someone attempting to hold the car hostage by throwing a huge screaming tantrum in which she repeatedly demanded that she be allowed to sit in the middle seat on the second half of the trip. You think someone would get bored yelling, "I want to sit in the middle seat of the car on the second half of the trip!" for an hour at a time, but the young have an intensity and staying power that eludes their elders.

Digression: I tell you what, my dad is a mild-mannered guy, but if he had ever had occasion to pull this car over and tell me that if I didn't stop it, there would be serious consequences, I would have listened and piped the heck down. All I can say is that it really is better to be feared than loved sometimes, and on this trip it felt like we the adults were neither.

It was time to take measures on the trip back. We stopped at Barnes and Noble in Madison, WI and fortified ourselves for the journey with 4.5 hours of dramatized Sherlock Holmes stories (Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson), 2 hours of Aesop's Fables, and the two-disc collection of Dr. Demento's Greatest Hits.

Dr. Demento, host of the novelty hit radio show! You all know his signature song: They're Coming To Take Me Away, by Napoleon XIV.



This very same Dr. Demento collection, which I listened to (on tape) fifteen years ago, features a song I first heard on a carefully preserved 45 lp of my dad's: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, by Allan Sherman. The tantrummer listened, laughed, and pronounced it good.



One song which amused my children but was fairly inexplicable to them was Star Trekking (Across the Universe) by The Firm. I saw a lot of Star Trek in my time, but since we don't have broadcast TV, they've never had occasion to see old episodes while flipping through channels. Star Trek is rather a dying cultural phenomenon anyway, mostly remembered through parody.



One of the most weirdly catchy tunes on the album was Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes, featured here in their own music video as seen on the Dr. Demento show on MTV. It's pretty delightfully demented.



Eat them up, yum!

And we rode peacefully all the way home. Thank you, Dr. Demento.

Swan's Way

When Darwin and I were first dating, my younger sister (then 7 or 8) asked me, "Does Darwin love you because you're beautiful or because you're smart?"

"Because I'm smart," I said.

She considered for a moment and then said, "No, that's not it."

A Long Tyme Agoon in a Shire Far Away

Ich bryng tydings of grete joy: Geoffrey Chaucer, though dismayed yn hys mynd by the acclaim of the twitter, hath turned again to the makinge of verses:

And yet, a tetchy kinge notwithstandinge, finallye Ich have hadde a litel space of myn owene for to maken of verses, thogh Ich feare nowe nobody doth lyke verses eny moore. Helas, for Ich am super psyched to maken severale lynes followe oon anothir for hundreds of pages, and yet it semeth everichoon thes dayes loveth oonly to twit and tweete and maken up a gret swarme of quippes and linkes. A blog semeth about as cuttinge edge as a sworde buryed in a mounde. Thogh Ich have made an accompte of twitter, Ich knowe but litel how to maken of a fyne and retweetable tweete. Litel Lowys doth mock me dailye with a fiers mockinge, sayinge “watching yow trye to tweet, Dad, ys lyk watchinge Archbishop Arundel trye to keepe hys cool a a Lollard support groupe. Helle of awkward!” The tweet so short, the crafte so longe to lerne!

And yet Ich have had comfort in myn art. For Ich am composinge a narratif about folke who are togedir ythrowne by the windes of fate and goon on a journeye.

Read ye of hys character notes for the epic celestial: THE PILGRIMS IN THE STERRES!

Ther was a SMUGGELERE, and he the beste,Wyth gowne of whit and snazzye litel veste.He hadde a shippe that was a noble vesselFor in twelf parsekkes it had yronne the Qessel;At customes houses nevir did he pause –For resoned he ther was but litel cause:To paye a tax or impost made hym wood,And I seyde his opinioun was good:Why sholde hys labour fatten up the paunchesOf bureaucrates that sitte upon their haunchesAnd tak their paye from honest merchauntes werke?This good man kepte the officiales in the derkeAnd oft he wolde in his shippes floore hyde. From oon ende of the sterres to the other syde,He hadde yflowne, and seene many a wondere,And yet he hadde no feare of Goddes thondere.He seyde hys destinee was hys to makeWyth blastere or wyth sleight or wyth wisecrake.Of goold and eek of love he had a thirste, In altercaciouns he ay shot firste. 

...A WHINY YOUTHE cam nexte, barleye a man,With yelwe haire, tunique, and farmeres tan.But aquaculture litel did he love,He wolde been a pilot al above And bullseye oump-rattes yn a nimble craft.Saye, have ye evir been upon a rafteAnd herde the wynde blowe fast over the waveSo that the winde did seme to sighe and rave?Wyth just swich fierceness sigheth thys yonge man,And whineth eek, and whingeth whan he kan,For he ne lovede nat his occupaciounAnd he wolde rathir go to Tashi stacioun. 

Take and read.

Phrases from the Russian Textbook

Come in, please. Take a seat.
I'm sorry I'm late. It was difficult to find your house.
I spoke to Vladimir Smirnov yesterday. He said that I should telephone you.
It is cold in my room. It's also very noisy. The window doesn't close.
There is no toilet paper. Please do not say that I should buy Pravda.
I have reread the letter. I cannot understand it.

We went to Russia last year.
Life will be better in the twenty-first century.
Next week we'll go to Siberia.

She loves only herself.
They are in their hotel room.
We have come to Russia in order to speak Russian.
I want him to apologize.

The students who studied Russian found interesting work.
There are very few businessmen who have mastered Russian.
All the girls who studied Russian married Russians.

And speaking of translations, this transcription of Carmina Burana tastes like chicken:

Friday Viewage

Aw, it's Friday, and I don't need any more excuse than that. I present Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back, as interpreted in a Gilbert and Sullivan style.



"Well I do say, when it comes to the fairer sex, the publication Cosmopolitan has little to do with my selection."

The Californians

I just don't have that much to say this week that doesn't relate to painting my bathroom, but here: I think I will never stop laughing at this:

 

A) People who live in California DO talk about driving like this.
B) "You have cancer. But don't even worry about it!"
C) Bill Hader totally cracks up in this sketch, which makes it so much funnier.

Something Completely Different

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of over all the discussion of marriage, sex, men, and women. So I went looking for some Mitchell and Webb to post, but these were the only ones I could find that were clean enough to post.

And don't comment to me about marriage, sex, men, or women.

Your Friday Fix: Existential Edition

About to wrap up my work week, I feel for Henri The Existential Cat

Don't Know Much About History: War of 1812

It's the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812! Contra the poor bewildered soldier here, Wikipedia actually does have a longish article on the subject.

[Hat Tip: Donald]

Reference that Sacrifice

I've never cared much for O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi, so if Darwin and I were ever to make absurdly grandiose and mutually canceling sacrifices for each other, this is probably how it would shake out.

Friday Viewage

It's Friday, which means everyone wants to kick back and watch videos. Here at DarwinCatholic, we're always happy to provide some mind-numbing entertainment to go with the economic analysis and interminable posts about sex.

So first up, for Brandon and Matthew Lickona, the future of internet advertising is: CATS!



Pass me the Doritos.

Whenever I get a chance to catch up with my brother Will, we waste our valuable sibling time in syncing up on Saturday Night Live videos. Here's what we were laughing at the entire last week of December.

1920s Party


Darwin is probably going to throttle me if I say "Don't make me sing!" one more time.

And here's the sequel: 1920s Holiday Party


I love Jimmy Fallon when he can keep a straight face during a sketch.

Let's add some culture to the diet. Darwin and I saw the operetta The Merry Widow in Vienna when we were schlepping around Europe with backpacks. (I remember that we misread our tickets and sat in the wrong seats, and then it turned out that the right seats were high up in the very first box to the left of the stage and some of the action was cut off by the proscenium arch.) The production we saw was in German and set in the 1920s, and some of the action included characters rolling across the stage on wooden office chairs. We understood no German and the comic plot wasn't quite intelligible to us (though I do remember several characters exclaiming "Zwanzig millionen!", which referred to the amount of the widow's fortune).

The most memorable moment of the opera for me was the Vilja-lied, in which the merry widow sings of a legend from her native land about a man who falls in love with a nymph named Vilja. Here is Beverly Sills performing this aria very slowly but beautifully.




And this is what I sing to Diana now that she's learned to walk and is padding all around the house in her soft leather slippers: O Mistress Mine, where are you roaming? from Twelfth Night.



O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting, 
Journeys end in lovers' meeting—
Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty, 
Youth's a stuff will not endure.