Plagiarize

Wherein Tom Lehrer

♫

Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please "research"

♫

Sainted

Wherein I skipped over the Christmas songs for reasons  

These are from my play list.

• Hang on St. Christopher, Tom Waits
• A Very Sorry Saint, John Wesley Harding
• Au Fond du Temple Saint, David Byrne & Rufus Wainwright
• Litanie Des Saints, Dr. John
• St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast, Frank Zappa
• St. Elizabeth Story, Eels
• St. Judy's Comet, Paul Simon
• St. Louis (in situ), They Might Be Giants
• St. Louis's Balcony, Patrice Pike & Wayne Sutton
• St. Patty's Polka Medley, Jimmy Sturr
• Ghost of the St. Louis Blues, Leon Redbone
• Bonnie St. Johnstone, Richard Thompson
• The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (album), Charles Mingus

If perusing the STAX catalog for campaign songs you might want to avoid these

Wherein personally I'm going with Eddie Floyd's Yum Yum Yum (I Want Some)

• Can Your Monkey Do the Dog
• You Won't Do Right
• Who Will It Be Tomorrow
• Don't Leave Me This Way
• I Don't Want You Any More
• Can't Explain How It Happened
• Bush Bash (if Republican)
• Yank Me
• Mr. Pitiful
• Don't Let Her Be Your Baby
• Biggest Fool in Town
• A Place Nobody Can Find
• Boot-Leg (if RIAA is a major supporter)
• Crying All By Myself
• I Take What I Want
• You're Taking Up Another Man's Place
• Tramp
• Born Under a Bad Sign
• Don't Rock the Boat
• You're Good Thing is About to End

Music I have listened to the last couple of days

Wherein I am more likely to skip over REM than Enya


iPod playlist set to random while I was at work and this is what happened.

• Hold On Tight, Alabama Shakes 5 Stars
• Pray No More, Momma Stud (I'm a sucker for a horn section)
• Stop, Sam Brown 5 Stars
• Can't Get There from Here, REM skipped
• World Class Fad, Paul Westerberg
• Mbaka Aka, Mahlathini 5 Stars
• Good Fortune, PJ Harvey
• Dream On, Prudence Johnson, syncopated ska-like bass with a bitchin accordian solo 5 Stars
• I Own America, Pt. 1, Slick Rick (great rapper OR greatest rapper?)
• Alley-Oop, Hollywood Argyles skipped
• Night Fever, Bee Gees
• Wheels, Lone Justice
• Flying Cowboys, Rickie Lee Jones
• The Bare Necessities, Louis Armstrong
• Beautiful Girl, Robyn Hitchcock 5 Stars
• Ghost Train, Marc Cohn skipped
• What you want me to do, Leon Redbone
• Big Blue Sea, Bob Schneider 5 Stars
• Joy, PJ Harvey
• I Will Keep, Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans
• Baby. It's YOu, PETTY BOOKA
• Two Loves, Peter Wolf
• Uncle F***a, South Park
• Dream in Colour, Rick Springfield skipped
• The Boy in the Bubble, Paul Simon skipped
• Death of Butterfly (Tu Tu Piccolo), Malcolm McLaren
• Satisfied, Laura Love
• Zodiac, Laura Berkner
• Dialog Box, David Byrne
• Shpadoinkle Day (Solo), Cannibal: The Musical 5 Stars
• Jesse James, THE Pogues
• Wakko's America, Animaniacs
• I've Done Everything, Rick Springfield skipped
• Night Train, The Scofflaws (excellent sax and trombone song)
• I'm in love with a girl named Spike, Skankin' Pickle (loud and fast, yeah)
• Air, Ben Folds Five skipped
• Dirty Back Road, The B-52s skipped
• Gloria, U2 skipped
• Munjana, Archie Roach skipped
• Little Girl Blue, Linda Ronstadt skipped
• High Cumberland Jubilee, Jimmy Buffet skipped
• Watch the City Sail Away, Mr. Gnome
• Adrift, Jack Johnson skipped
• Praying Hands, DEVO
• Big Party, Barbara & the Browns
• African Friend, Jimmy Buffet skipped
• Sharks Can't Sleep, Tracy Bonham
• Knockin' Em Back, Paul Westerberg
• Early Warnings, Love Is All 5 Stars
• One Shot, John Wesley harding
• Gunslinging Bird, Chuck D and others from Weird Nightmares: Meditations on Mingus 5 Stars
• White Flags of Winter Chimneys, Wendy and Lisa
• Belleville Rendez-Vous, Triplets of Belleville soundtrack 5 stars
• Man on the Moon, REM skipped
• Neuvo Y Vivo, El Arranque
• Dancing Lessons, Sinead O'Connor 5 stars
• So Misunderstood, Jesse Johnson
• Anywhere Is, Enya
• Let It Rain, OK Go
• As Hard As It Is, Fine Young Cannibals
• Crazy Love, Van Morrison
• Nighty Night to Brother, Steve Kramer (featuring Haley Bonar) 5 stars
• Guilty, The Muffs
• Just Friends, Amy Winehouse skipped
• After the Lights Go On, Urban Guerillas
• White Trash Wife, Exene Cervenka
• Cultural Value, Deep Schrott
• Angel, Kirsty MacColl
• I Gotta Connect, Mojo Nixon
• Somebody Got Murdered, The Clash
• Love Shack, B-52s
• Three is a Magic Number, Mike Doughty
• Moonlight and Shadow, Diane Schuur
• Finest Worksong, REM skipped
• Bone, Dayroom
• I'm the Man, Joe Jackson
• Racing, Windmill

This is what it sounds like when vegetarians eat meat

Wherein Dig if you will a dinner of you and I engaged in a mixed combo 2 meat plate with BBQ beans and chunky mayonnaise potato salad


The Guardian's Music Weekly traveled to SXSW for the latest podcast. Overall, a nice report. My favorite bit was this exchange with Chairlift's Caroline Polachek about eating BBQ.

Rebecca Nicholson.: And any kind of cocktail, BBQ tips that we should be aware of?

Caroline Polachek: Oh man. We went to a place yesterday, kind of off the strip called Ruby's. I thought it was Rudy's until we showed up. I'm a vegetarian and I broke vegetarianism for Ruby's. Yeah.

Rebecca Nicholson.: What did you have?

Caroline Polachek: I had a brisket plate, which was absolutely divine. The meat was kind of like, it's almost blackened on the outside, so you get these different layers of taste. There's like the crunchy outer core, then there's the fat, which is almost like the sauce that comes built into the meat. And then the inside which was really sweet and smokey.

Oh man. I could tell you about this meal for like 10 minutes. It was so good. [said with a wistfully lustful tone in her voice -- bill.]

Rebecca Nicholson.: Was it worth breaking your vegetarianism for?

Caroline Polachek: It was. It was actually at a BBQ shack that I broke vegetarianism for like 2 years, awhile ago. But now I'm back on it.

Rebecca Nicholson.: This place is lethal. Totally lethal.

Caroline Polachek: Mostly to cows.

I love this review

Wherein I want to see a movie based on Peter Bradshaw's gluten-fueled nightmares


John Carter is one of those films that is so stultifying, so oppressive and so mysteriously and interminably long that I felt as if someone had dragged me into the kitchen of my local Greggs, and was baking my head into the centre of a colossal cube of white bread. As the film went on, the loaf around my skull grew to the size of a basketball, and then a coffee table, and then an Audi. The boring and badly acted sci-fi mashup continued inexorably, and the bready blandness pressed into my nostrils, eardrums, eye sockets and mouth. I wanted to cry for help, but in bread no one can hear you scream. Finally, I clawed the doughy, gooey, tasteless mass desperately away from my mouth and screeched: "Jesus, I'm watching a pointless film about a 1860s American civil war action hero on Mars, which the inhabitants apparently call Barsoom. I can't breathe."

I liked a lot of movies in 1992

Wherein this discussion at ALOTT5MA about Malcolm X points out that 1992 had many good films


Picking from the list below, if I had to choose 5 to watch right now:

1. Passion Fish
   
2. Shakes the Clown
   
3. Strictly Ballroom
   
4. Sneakers
   
5. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Random order (picked from wiki:

Unforgiven
The Crying Game
The Player
Chaplin
Malcolm X
Passion Fish
Glengarry Glen Ross
Mr Saturday Night
My Cousin Vinny
Aladdin
Batman Returns
Toys
Basic Instinct
Wayne's World
Bob Roberts
The Cutting Edge
Deep Cover
El Mariachi
Forever Young
Hero
Honeymoon in Vegas
A League of Their Own
Leap of Faith
Like Water for Chocolate
Mr. Baseball
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Orlando
Reservoir Dogs
A River Runs Through It
Shakes the Clown
Sneakers
Strictly Ballroom
Thunderheart
The Waterdance
White Men Can't Jump
Trespass

1977 movies I'd rather watch than Star Wars

Wherein the * notes movies I saw in 1977 and liked better than Star
Wars then

• *Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  
• *Smokey and the Bandit
  
• The Goodbye Girl
  
• *The Rescuers
  
• The Deep (or at least the wet parts with Jacqueline Bisset)
  
• Annie Hall
  
• The Gauntlet
  
• The Turning Point
  
• *Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo
  
• Slapshot
  
• *The Hobbit
  
• Jabberwocky
  
• Kentucky Fried Movie
  
• Semi-Tough
  
• *Sorcerer (this was the best movie of 1977)

Wanted to add Gray Lady Down but it was out in 1978, not 1977. I saw that one twice.

One Phish Red Phish

Wherein the new album from my Marxist Dr. Seuss tribute jam band

1. Engels is Faithful 100%
   
   
2. How the proletariat stole the bourgeoisie's ambitions by bribing them with gifts on Christmas
   
   
3. A Maoist is a person, no matter how small
   
   
4. [Name]* is king of the mud Song should be updated with whomever is president
   
   
5. The 500 hats of Lumpen Proletariat
   
   
6. Squat on Trot
   
   
7. Rainbow Fish is my hero
   
   
8. The 5000 Fingers of dead bankers
   
   
9. Lenin 1 Lenin 2
   
   
10. Would you like your capitalist poached or broiled?
    
    
11. There's a Bolshevik  in My Pocket
    
    
12. And to think that I saw it on Nevsky Prospekt street

In a world where Santa is Scarface

Nothing exceeds like excess You should know that Rudolph

Because he's evil

Wherein Ronnie Van Zant's "The Needle and the Spoon"




Alternate quote, almost went with this from Trainspotting

People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it. When you're on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you're off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can't get pissed. Got money: drinking too much. Can't get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit.

'Twas the night before a midnight dreary

Wherein while the idea was interesting the ten minute execution fell short


A slightly inelegant literary mashup

'Twas the night before a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door –

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; Only this, and nothing more.'

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap, Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Trilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash, here I opened wide the door; - Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be Lenore!

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore –

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; - 'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney the Raven came with a bound

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, `Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all Nevermore."

Edgard Clement Clarke Poe

And that reminds me of this thing I read

Wherein slightly related one of the older students at The Child's ballet school has such a need to void the contents of her stomach before a performance that puke buckets are placed on each side of the stage


Slate asks Can You Be Scared Enough To Pee Your Pants? Simple answer is yes and Brian Palmer does provide a reason. However, for a more colorful explanation, let me direct you towards Neal Stephenson's Reamde:

No one could look at Peter, who had become a nearly unbearable sight on grounds of posture alone: shoulders drawn together, body trembling, back of neck brilliant red. Sokolov was favorably impressed by the fact that he had not yet shit his pants. Men always made crude jokes about people pissing their pants with fear, but in Sokolov's experience shitting the pants was more common if it was a straighforward matter of extreme emotional distress. Pants pissing was completely unproductive and suggested a total breakdown of elemental control. Pants shitting, on the other hand, voided the bowels and thereby made blood available to the brain and the large muscle groups that otherwise would have gone to the lower-priority activity of digestion. Sokolov could have forgiven Peter for shitting his pants, but if pissed his pants, then it really would have been necessary to get rid of him.

A neatly folder cardboard box is the last refuge of a recyclist

Wherein Snowclones

• Samuel Johnson: patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
• Isaac Asimov: Violence is the refuge of the incompetent
• Oscar Wilde: Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative
• Oscar Wilde: Ambition is the last refuge of the failure
• Oscar Wilde: Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do
• Oscar Wilde: I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
• Natalie Clifford Barney: Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual
• Tony Wilson: Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented
• Kim Stanley Robinson in Red Mars (1992): Historical analogy is the last refuge of people who can't grasp the current situation
• Thomas Sowell: Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument
• Joe Klein: Issues are the last refuge of a scoundrel
• The Illustrated magazine of art, Volume 3: We have said that these convents are the the last refuge of Greek art
• New Scientist Dec18-25, 19975: Wetlands are the last refuge of that most persecuted creature, urban man
• Romantic Europe and the ghost of Italy, Joseph Luzzi: Corinne responds that art is the last refuge of a nation despoiled by foreigners of its arms and government
• George Russell: the story of an American composer, Duncan Heining: In some ways, the avant-garde is the last refuge of the untalented

Under news

• The Crikey health blog: marathon running is the last refuge of the scoundrel
• Mile High Report: But a Hail Mary pass is the last refuge of the desperate for a reason
• Sebastian Shakespeare: Twitter is the last refuge of the green-ink brigade
• Andrew Scharf: Dr. Johnson once quipped, “Nationalism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”.
• DrRck, in the comments: Boxing, though, is not the last refuge of an MMA fighter, any more than MMA is the last refuge of a boxer.
• Bruce Jackson (?): "Uncertainty is the last refuge of economists who can’t explain what is going on."
• Joe Nocera quoting Paul Kasriel: (“Uncertainty,” Kasriel told me, “is the last refuge of economists who can’t explain what is going on.”)
• Lydia Miljan: "I know saying that is the last refuge of the meek."
• Adam Gartrell quoting Robert Jeremenko: Harmonisation is the last refuge of scoundrels
• Jim Carroll: [box sets and deluxe editions] are the last refuge of the record label scoundrels
• Paul Ryan: Fear and demagoguery are the last refuge of an intellectually bankrupt party
• Robert Bryce: "Green jobs" are the last refuge of the subsidy seekers.