Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

1) A recent dream I had: ( If this scene were in a movie, it would be universally panned as unsubtle and tone deaf )

2) There's much talk, in recent news (at least, on NPR), of how the political upheaval in France, South Korea, Germany, and Syria, are all connected in a web of general Global Populism. What I've not heard much about is how the murder of the United Healthcare C.E.O. is also part of this great wave. Sure, he wasn't Technically part of a national government, but considering how much power corporate conglomerates have over the daily lives of U.S. citizens, he may as well have been.

3) On a happier note (unintended pun), this video was in my recommendations, this morning:



( Lyrics )

4) Speaking of spinning yarns, I recently watched another video (It's (still) okay to lie to your kids about Santa) about studies that show, at a certain age, children learn to look for evidence to back up the stories their parents (and their societies) tell them. But they're less likely to learn that skill if they are protected from untruths at all costs. And that got me thinking two things:

• So never letting your kids be exposed to fictional stories has a similar negative effect on their intellectual health as never letting your kids be exposed to dirt has on their physical health (they can't build up a healthy resistance to 'infection')?
  
• So (in general) at what age do kids learn the distinction between manipulative lies and playful stories?

5) Subtle sign of my culture's amatonormativity: Recently had cause to call for a heating tech to come figure out why my heater wasn't responding to the thermostat (It turns out, someone had flipped the emergency switch that shuts off the heater, and I'd forgotten that switch existed; it's around a corner that's hard to get to in my chair), and I called the company whose name is on my thermostat cover. When I gave the address to the receptionist, she asked if I were Mrs. Ann [Last Name]; I (while sighing internally at the assumption that all adults of a certain age must be married) answered: "Not 'Mrs.,' but yes."

Is my 24th anniversary of signing the mortgage of this house (or the sixth, if I'm going by the Pirates of Penzace method of accounting).

Mixed feelings abound.

Have some Gilbert and Sullivan (with onscreen lyrics):

One: My "Birthday Resolution" to write a drabble a day is continuing apace. Today is day 14, and so far, I've already had one day where I failed to write anything, and two days where I failed to finish a drabble before bed (because I rely on my aide to get me into and out of bed, I don't have the option of staying up a little bit later to finish things). But, so far, I've been able to write extra on following days, so I'm still on track to write 365 drabbles in a year.

Reminder: I'm posting the drabbles here, on my journal, under a custom filter. If you want in, just let me know.

2: Sometimes, I need to listen to Rhiannon Giddens singing to cheer me up:


C: Speaking of music, yesterday I watched the documentary "Rumble: The Indians who Rocked the World," yesterday (streamed on my online PBS station, but also available for streaming on YouTube and other places, probably). Absolutely fascinating -- and infuriating (how cultural history is erased).


IV:(X-Posted from Tumblr) ( Proposed Valentine's Day Alternative (for aces and aros) )

five: Speaking of which:

[Image description: Word-and-Graphics art on a pale violet field. Five Valentine's hearts, with drop shadows, in a gentle arc, ranging from pale pink on the outside to bright red in the center. The text below, in black, sans serif font reads: "I hate the marketing and social pressure of Valentine's Day. But I love the Aesthetics." The words 'hate' and 'love' are underlined in white. Description ends]

6: Here's another documentary I watched, recently, via my PBS:


g: Question: of all the mystical creatures that populate fantasy, why do you think dragons are the ones that became ubiquitous, over all the others?

When I was six or seven, we had this Folk music Christmas album, and it had one track that I always looked forward to. It was my favorite, and always made me smile. But that album was the only place I'd heard it. I'd never heard it played on the radio, or covered by any other artists. And I haven't heard it in decades.

Just now, I decided to do a YouTube search, and Lo! and Behold! It was there. And I couldn't help dancing in my seat, a bit, as I played it:



( Transcript and lyrics behind here )

All hail to the days that merit more praise
Than all the rest of the year,
And welcome the nights that double delights
As well for the poor as the peer!
Good fortune attend each merry man's friend,
That doth but the best that he may;
Forgetting old wrongs, with carols and songs,
To drive the cold winter away.

Let Misery pack, with a whip at his back,
To the deep Tantalian flood;
In Lethe profound let envy be drown'd,
That pines at another man's good;
Let Sorrow's expense be banded from hence,
All payments have greater delay,
We'll spend the long nights in cheerful delights
To drive the cold winter away.

'Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined
To think of small injuries now;
If wrath be to seek do not lend her thy cheek
Nor let her inhabit thy brow.
Cross out of thy books malevolent looks,
Both beauty and youth's decay,
And wholly consort with mirth and with sport
To drive the cold winter away.

The court in all state now opens her gate
And gives a free welcome to most;
The city likewise, tho' somewhat precise,
Doth willingly part with her roast:
But yet by report from city and court
The country will e'er gain the day;
More liquor is spent and with better content
To drive the cold winter away.

Our good gentry there for costs do not spare,
The yeomanry fast not till Lent;1
The farmers and such think nothing too much,
If they keep but to pay for their rent.
The poorest of all now do merrily call,
When at a fit place they can stay,
For a song or a tale or a cup of good ale
To drive the cold winter away.

Thus none will allow of solitude now
But merrily greets the time,
To make it appear of all the whole year
That this is accounted the prime:
December is seen apparel's in green,
And January fresh as May
Comes dancing along with a cup and a song
To drive the cold winter away.

This time of the year is spent in good cheer,
And neighbours together do meet
To sit by the fire, with friendly desire,
Each other in love to greet;
Old grudges forgot are put in the pot,
All sorrows aside they lay;
The old and the young doth carol this song
To drive the cold winter away.

Sisley and Nanny, more jocund than any,
As blithe as the month of June,
Do carol and sing like birds of the spring,
No nightingale sweeter in tune;
To bring in content, when summer is spend,
In pleasant delight and play,
With mirth and good cheer to end the whole year,
And drive the cold winter away.

The shepherd, the swain do highly disdain
To waste out their time in care,
And Clim of the Clough hath plenty enough
If he but a penny can spare
To spend at the night, in joy and delight,
Now after his labour all day;
For better than lands is the help of his hands
To drive the cold winter away.

To mask and to mum kind neighbours will come
With wassails of nut-brown ale,
To drink and carouse to all in the house
As merry as bucks in the dale;
Where cake, bread, and cheese is brought for your fees
To make you the longer stay;
At the fire to warm 'twill do you no harm,
To drive the cold winter away.

When Christmas's tide come in like a bride
With holly and ivy clad,
Twelve days in the year much mirth and good cheer
In every household is had;
The country guise is then to devise
Some gambols of Christmas play,
Whereat the young men do best that they can
To drive the cold winter away.

When white-bearded frost hath threatened his worse,
And fallen from branch and briar,
Then time away calls from husbandry halls
And from the good countryman's fire,
Together to go, to plough and to sow
To get us both food and array,
And thus will content the time we have spend
To drive the cold winter away.

(A few of the verses sung by a choir, so you can hear what it sounds like)


(And if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, you can always change the lyrics around -- maybe to "To drive the old year(?) away."

Okay, here's a Child ballad of Robin Hood, that showed up in my YouTube subscription feed, yesterday afternoon. I have absolutely zero evidence that it inspired Mark Gatiss in writing "Robots of Sherwood," mind. But the adventure described in the lyrics sounds enough like a classic Doctor Who plot, that should Mr. Gatiss admit to it, I would not be in the least surprised.

As evidence, I present this excerpt from the lyrics:

(Quote -- spelling corrected)

'Come, tell me the cause, thou pretty one,'
Quoth Robin, and tell me aright,
From whence thou comest, and whither thou goest,
All in this mournful plight?'
'From London I came,' the damsel reply'd,
'From London upon the Thames,
Which circled is, O grief to tell!
Besieg'd with foreign arms.
'By the proud Prince of Aragon,
Who swears by his martial hand
To have the princess for his spouse,
Or else to waste this land:
'Except that champions can be found
That dare fight three to three,
Against the prince and giants twain,
Most horrid for to see:
'Whose grisly looks, and eyes like brands,
Strike terror where they come,
With serpents hissing on their helms,
Instead of feathered plume.

(Unquote)

Now, does that, or does that not, sound like a classic Doctor Who foe and threat?

Here are the full lyrics, written out (from Wikisource): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Child's_Ballads/129 (if you read all the way to the end, you'll see that this is one version of Robin Hood's story where his life as an outlaw comes to an end, and his life a respected nobleman resumes).

And here's the video of the song being sung, that popped up yesterday (I disagree with his rhyming choices in a spot or two, but it's still earworming me, anyway): https://youtu.be/JnrN2KiTsbw (about 11 minutes long).

---
As a side note, here's a video of "Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow-wow," which is the chorus that Sarah Jane whistles as she walks away at the end of "Hand of Fear," (which might make it ironic, or simply a rounding out of her story arc, when the Doctor sends her a version of K-9 later): https://youtu.be/R45Eoi3ZeME

(But I really like this icon).

1) The dream I had this morning / through the night (it was one of the ones where I'm not sure whether each cycle through REM sleep were separate dreams, or just continuing "chapters" in one long dream) included (In order of descending complexity, incomplete):

( Cut for those who don't care about dream rambles. )

• My favorite part of the dream was that it had this musical number (yes, even dream riffs on the choreograhy) as a background theme throughout the whole thing (or nearly) which is now an earworm in my head (not that I mind):
  
  "" (Watch on YouTube)

2) Last night, I watched this video, which was posted back in January to mark the tenth anniversary of the probe Huygens landing on Saturn's moon Titan. I don't have any working earphones/speakers at the moment, so if the narration and/or background music is cringe-worthy, I apologize. But I was captivated without any sound at all; you can always mute. My favorite part is at the very beginning, where you see the Earth and Moon from Huygens' p.o.v., showing just how small the Earth is, how small the moon is, and how far away the moon really is. That's what it looks like "to scale;" good to remember:


3) Last evening, while I was having dinner, I watched a grey squirrel outside my kitchen window dig up (what I think was) an acorn and eat it -- hooray for springtime cliches (and dining companions)! BTW, squirrels don't bury their acorns because they're afraid of thieves. It's just that (contrary to Beatrix Potter illustrations) they do not have tiny kitchens with tiny stoves and tiny pots. Acorns fresh off the tree have too much tannin to be edible, but autumn rains, winter snows and spring thaws all work to leach the tannin out. This is how humans do it. The squirrel way takes longer, but seems so much much easier, I'd try that method, first, frankly.

I wrote this song back in 2013, and posted a YouTube video of it (with me singing) on May 13th. Back at the end of August, another YouTuber who posts song videos asked if he could cover it. I said yes -- after all, I'd written it so it could be heard. Well, tonight, he posted his remix; here it is:



He's changed the melody of the "B" part of the tune, to make it more of an original, and changed one word in the lyrics. But he got the gist right. And he has a more convincing "US" voice, so he's a more convincing narrator for this song than I'll ever be. ... and his subscriber list is orders of magnitude bigger than mine, so...

The ending of this story: Indigo, by raze, brought it closer to the surface. Rereading the story this morning finally prompted me to relearn the song. So I went looking for this:



( Lyrics (With blanks and mad guesses over words and place names I couldn't quite make out) )

I first saw this video last year (?) sometime, and it struck me as vaguely (or, rather, not so vaguely) sinister.



( The Lyrics )

First, the intonation makes the question: "Who wants to die?" sound like (to my ear) the same mood as: "Hey, I got some really lovely death, here! Who wants some death?" And then, there's the threatening tone in which he demands that you count your blessings...

I mean, I know there was a war on, but ...really?

Anyway, I think this would be great for a fanvid for some horror movie or other...