June 2017 - Page 6 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Be more Jonathan Swiftian, or not

I was surprised that some folks did not know what covfefe was.

When my bud Amy Biancolli called out Kathy Griffin for the severed head thing, she noted:

“I know my Jonathan Swift well enough to understand the creative and moral imperatives of political satire: To call out the horrors of a failed system with blackened, ridiculous overstatement. Swift challenged heartless British policies toward the starving with a ‘modest proposal’ to sell and cook Irish babies ‘in a fricassee, or a ragout’ — a ghastly piece of irony that he knew enough to publish anonymously.

“But the ghastliness was born of compassion. It didn’t target ACTUAL BABIES; it took aim instead at the ruthlessness of the system. Had Griffin taken a more Swiftian tack on Trump, his head would have stuck to his body and polished off a large plate of authentic-Mexican food.”

Interestingly, when David Larson, like Amy, working for a Hearst newspaper, proposed, with a nod to the great 18th century Irish satirist, “that San Francisco’s housing crisis be solved by dumping the elderly on the streets and letting nature take its course,” it received more than its fair share of backlash.

For the record, I found Griffin’s artistic statement, among other things, too unsubtle and strategically problematic. “See what kind of people you have on the left?!” Though it’s true that I’ve long ceased to think of Orangeism as a left-right, or even Republican-Democratic schism. It’s a whole different animal.

Swiftian satire is often difficult to pull off. Still, we do NEED some sort of humor. If someone “discovers” the meaning of the word ‘Covfefe’ in the Samoan language, this is not a “distraction” from the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement -my, that address was incredibly deceptive – or the bogus health care bill or the Russian involvement in our government. It is, rather, a coping mechanism.

(I was surprised that some folks did not know what covfefe was; Chuck Miller explains it.)

These continue to be a difficult time for some of us. I find joking with the folks at the CVS or to a nodding acquaintance on the street makes all of it just a little mote tolerable.

The Goldblum Effect and American Pie

Briefly I thought it might be Funky President by James Brown, which has a reference to the stock market going up.

Greg Burgas, one of the first bloggers I knew (but haven’t met) was musing about The Goldblum Effect, which he invented. It is “when you’re convinced something exists and no one else remembers it… but you’re totally right.”

Greg notes, “But these days, if you believe you saw or read something and no one else does, you can probably find it on the internet.” Unless you can’t.

Eddie, another one of my long-time blogger buddies, was having one of those same feelings, but without resolution:

“I have memories of being about fourth or fifth grade and getting an LP for Christmas–one of those educational types–that was all original songs for kids about American history. I can still remember snippets of the songs. The one about the stock market crash in 1929 had a chanted refrain (“Stocks are going up! Going up!”) that kept building and building until the crash happens. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the album or who put it out. Of course, my copy is long, long gone.

“It’s one of those things I would love to find one day at a thrift, if only to prove to myself that I am not hallucinating and that the opening song really, inexplicably, was……American Pie! Surely, I cannot be misremembering something as bizarre at that. Surely.”

First, I looked for compilations with American Pie. There are several, including this one, but the other tunes are pop songs.

Then I tried to ascertain the other recording. Briefly I thought it might be Funky President by James Brown, which has a reference to the stock market going up.

But I think the song is most likely Society Bear, or That Society Bear, by Irving Berlin, although it’s actually from 1912!

As for the compilation, though, I’m afraid I just don’t know. Any thoughts?

I related to this topic because I know a lot of things, but I don’t always know HOW I know them, and occasionally, I am trying to prove that I’m not just making stuff up can prove elusive.

Good luck, Eddie!

Itsy bitsy teenny weeny yellow polkadot bikini

“At a time when bikini bathing suits were still seen as too risqué to be mainstream, the song prompted a sudden take off in bikini sales.”

Back in March, which is NOT bikini weather in the US Northeast, I was asked by a friend of mine, “What color is the bikini in the song, “Itsy bitsy teenny weeny yellow polkadot bikini”? Is the bikini yellow? If so, what color are the dots? Or are the polka dots yellow, in which case, what is the color of the rest of the bikini?”

One theory is that if the songwriter meant the former, it should be “itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow bikini with polkadots”, which admittedly is not as catchy.

I was of the position that the bikini is yellow, and the polka dots default to white, which would make the description correct.

My friend asked someone else and she told me to Google “yellow polka dots.” In Google, it goes both ways. As he rightly noted, “I’m sensing that this is a very important debate.”

The song was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss and first released in June 1960 by Brian Hyland. Trudy Packer did the spoken voice part.

From the Wikipedia:
“Hyland’s version hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 8, 1960 and also made the top 10 in other countries, including #8 on the UK Singles Chart. It also reached #1 in New Zealand…

“At a time when bikini bathing suits were still seen as too risqué to be mainstream, the song prompted a sudden take off in bikini sales and is credited as being one of the earliest contributors to the acceptance of the bikini in society. The early 1960s saw a slew of surf movies and other film and television productions that rapidly built on the song’s momentum.”

It was covered, a lot.

Listen to Itsy bitsy teenny weeny yellow polkadot bikini

Brian Hyland
Connie Francis
Sha na na
Bombalurina
Devo

I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

If this had happened some years ago, I would been mortified, and probably depressed, for days.

There’s an article, Quoof and other family nonsense, which is about the mispronunciation of words, both intentional and otherwise. I have done both.

There are a slew of words I simply cannot spell unless I say them – sometimes in my head but occasionally aloud, albeit in fun – the way they are spelled. For instance, I’d say epitome is EP-i-tome, not e-PIT-o- me; facade is fa-CADE, rather than fa-SAHD . And my favorite word, because it has all the vowels in alphabetical order, is facetious, which I like to do as FACE-tious, rather than fa-SEE-shus; it also works with the adverb form, by adding the -ly.

But one word I simply had never said aloud was omniscience, which I knew from reading, often religious books, meant the state of knowing everything. When I saw it, I thought OM-ni-science. Now I could, and have, pronounced omniscient, and so I knew the emphasis was on the second syllable. But that last syllable confounded me.

I discovered this on Mother’s Day, when the youth of the church was running the services. So, instead of going to choir, I attended Christian education for the adults. Folks took turn reading this paper written by the leader, my friend Grace, about “Exploring the nature of God and the existence of suffering in the world.”

The word omniscience showed up, not once but about five times. After I butchered it a few times, someone said aloud, “om-NI-shents”, and the brain said, OK. Truth is, if this had happened some years ago, I would been mortified, and probably depressed, for days, or probably longer.

During the church service, two of our church high schoolers gave the sermon on diversity fighting hatred. One of them was Sofia, the daughter of the Transitional Presbyter for Albany Presbytery – well, not for too much longer. So I jokingly say to Pastor Miriam, in front of Shannan the Presbyter, “So we got someone to take your [preaching] job.” But I was misunderstood, with both of them thinking I wanted to get rid of Pastor Miriam, instead of sideways complimenting Sofia. I so hate being misunderstood.

And since Eric Burdon’s birthday was this month, it’s time for a #15 song in the US in 1965 by the Animals, oh, Lord, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

May miscellany: going postal

Those Amazon balloon packing pods do not weigh much.

Sometimes you just have to note some miscellaneous stuff. This is a picture that the Daughter took one school day on her phone in mid-May. She was waiting for the bus about 7:30 a.m. a block from our house. It was a particularly stormy morning, but it ended up being a rather nice day.
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I was mailing a couple packages at the post office. One contained two large pictures in frames containing glass. So the box was very large, roughly 18″ (.46m) by 14″ (.36m) by 8″ (.2m). I ws told that I could spend $13 for six-day delivery or a couple dollars more for 2-day delivery.

But then the postal worker measured the package, then put it on the scales. Because it only weighed about 2 kg (4.5 lb), this meant its mass was less than a box of that size “should” go for. Those Amazon balloon packing pods – a level of them below the pictures and two levels above to keep the items safe – do not add much. So the priority shipping would have meant an $11 SURCHARGE (wha?), and I stayed with the ground option.
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Our library recently answered its 60,00th inquiry in May, news of which was posted on the internal NY SBDC listserv. We got a lot of kudos, which is nice, because we’re a couple steps away from the client most of the time. The prospective entrepreneur comes into one of our two dozen centers across the state and speak to one of our business advisors. The advisor speaks to us, or otherwise contacts us.

My favorite advisor response, unsurprisingly, was a musical one, one of my very favorite Neil Young songs, Long May You Run, which among other things, namechecks the Beach Boys.
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And speaking of music, someone took a photo of our church choir on May 21. It was the day one of our past (and hopefully future) choir members had her twin daughters baptized.