context!

Bonjour mes Dearlings,

in honor of TODAY, which is obviously BASTILLE DAY, which is the greatest of all the holidays, as I am sure you well know, I have made for you a petite 4-song mix which you can download by clicking upon this link, and unzipping it: bastille day mix.

within you shall find the following:

1. edith piaf - non je ne regrette rien (in my measly unlearned opinion, THIS is the quintessential edith piaf song - it is epic and tragic and painful and powerful…she regrets NOTHING.)

2. jacques dutronc - les cactus (60’s french pop dude. Since i have amassed quite the collection of french pop, it was a challenge to choose just a few - dutronc is comparable to ray davies perhaps.)

3. plastic bertrand - ca plane pour moi (I love this song not only because it completely rocks out in a beach boys meet REM’s “End of the World” sort of way, but also because of its prominent placement in the National Lampoon’s European Vacation soundtrack).

4. marie laforet - toi mon amour, mon ami (more 60’s french pop - this song however transcends the genre.)

If you are not hosting (or attending) your very own bastille day celebration (as I do every year), here are your instructions for the remainder of today:

As you listen to the four songs above, do one (or all!) of the following:

• Buy butter, flour, eggs, salt, sugar and milk, make crepes and eat them.
• Get a tattoo of Gerard Depardieu… on your face.
• Replace your current clothing with a striped shirt, beret and a short neck scarf tied at the side. If possible, grow a thin mustache.
• Embroider the names of your enemies onto a blanket.
• Speak like zee french, be sure to pepper your phrasing with plenty of pauses and say “ehhh, how do you say..?”
• Form a bourgeoisie insurgency against the tyranny of the aristocracy.

AND anyway

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY TO ALL!

*Full credit to Bethany S. the artist.

I have just now noticed that Helen Q. ReadySteadyGo!-pants, the co-founder of my embroidery club and quite possibly the smartest person with whom I have ever shared french toast, has tagged me to continue a “6 unimportant things about you” blog-meme-a-mabob. Her response is delightful (also her blog is my pretty much my favorite ever).

here’re my 6 useless me-facts:

1) I can entertain myself for hours and hours by adding my own 3rd person backing vocals to songs sung in the 1st person, on the radio.

For example:

Meatloaf: I would do anything for love…
Me in a high falsetto: he would do anything for love…
Meatloaf: but I won’t do that…
Me, again: oh no he won’t!

ad nauseum.

(’hifi’ by artist chris silas neal)

2) I will go to great lengths to remove the white umbilical-cord-looking thing (called “chalazae“, see #4 & 13 in diagram below) from eggs before I bake with them. If I remove too much of the clean egg white in the process, I will crack another egg and replace the removed amount so that I don’t destroy the recipe. I know it’s harmless and tasteless and that technically its a sign of the eggs freshness, but it is not my fault that it is also the Grossest Thing Ever.

3) I have a small collection of celebrity hand-turkeys.

• Frank Black (from the pixies) - collected by me at an album signing at a barnes and noble.
• John Entwistle (bassist of The Who) - collected by my crosscountry-roadtrip-#1 friend, christian.
• Question Mark (of ? and the Mysterians) - collected for me at this year’s ponderosa stomp by my dear friend nick.

4) As a child, I thought the small chicken pox scar in the center of my forehead was where my unicorn-horn used to be.

5) I sometimes participate in harmless fibbery, en masse. Here are a sampling of untruths I have helped spread:

• The pasta-serving-spoon/fork-thing is technically called a “Supple Gaga”.
• The speed limit on Minnesota highways is relative and determined by momentum - the higher the mass of your vehicle, the slower you are allowed to drive. Hence motorcycles can go 100 mph while 18-wheelers must go 35.
• Regis Philbin invented the choco-taco.
• I have a silent ‘3′ in the middle of my name: “mere3dith”.

6) Ever since 9/11, I have a cnn.com-compulsion. I was in college at the time and we did not have a television in our campus-apartment. So to get the most updated info about the attacks, I clicked the browser refresh button on cnn.com over and over. And now, out of a sort of ptsd-meets-ocd habit, I still check cnn.com randomly and often. This explains why I am often the first to hear about important breaking cnn.com-worthy headlines, for instance on today’s homepage: “don’t adjust monitor: puppy IS green“.

I am supposed to get 6 others to do the same, like an evil chain letter, but how about some of you post your 6-unimportant-things in the comments? or not, either way.

Just because it’s icky outside, doesn’t mean you can’t shoot people.

From Alex Wooley Design: “This unique, funnel shaped umbrella harnesses the flow of rainwater down into its handle, a water pistol. The user can fire at will, maintaining a constant flow of water as long as rain continues to fall.”

Genius.

this is actually fun-umbrella-design post #2 on NSTGD, here’s the first.

And because I love you, and I love the Hollies, and because the Hollies love umbrellas, and because if a = b and b = c then c = a, here is their song “Bus Stop“.

via designboom.

This morning, the iPod Shuffle Gods chose to play back-to-back two songs that are not only Pure Genius(tm), but also happen to both be about Sad Clowns:

• Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears of a Clown
• The BeeGees - I Started a Joke*

And because sharing-is-caring, I would like to make sure that everyone I know has both of them: here you go.

Truth-be-told, I had hoped to offer a wistful myriad of sad-clown music in this post, but my internet quest (interquest?) ran dry….

• “Send in the Clowns” though both sad and about clowns, isn’t technically about Sad-Clowns…
• There are songs by both Jars-of-Clay and Sarah McLachlin, respectively, called “Sad Clown”, but I refuse to include either because, well, I’ve never heard them, and i mean, jars of clay and sarah mclachlin? no thank you.
• “Behind Blue Eyes” by the Who would TOTALLY work if Pete Townsend wore a red-nose and white-face-paint, but no. and I almost gave up…

But! hope springs eternal… A little more digging and I struck sad-clown-gold** on wikipedia when I found an entire sad-clown opera!

Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (”clowns”), including the original sad-clown aria - Vesti la giubba (”put on the costume”)

“Put on your costume,
powder your face.
The people pay to be here, and they want to laugh.
And if Harlequin shall steal your Colombina,
laugh, Pagliaccio, so the crowd will cheer!
Turn your distress and tears into jest,
your pain and sobbing into a funny face.”

listen here.

amazing.

* folks who attended vassar college circa 2000/1 might recall that my friend erica’s and my short-lived hair-rock/pop-metal band (Cousin Larry Appleton) did an acoustic cover of this beegees classic.
** this post is a fertile landscape of metaphors-that-overstay-their-welcome, and I am a pioneer.

my dearest darlingest only-est little brother has just sent me a ridiculously genius submission for the song charts group, that I had to share, even though I don’t typically post about the same thing twice in a row, this is ever-so-very worth the blog-stutter:

… is inversely related to the growth of love.

I created the above addition to the “Song Charts” flickr pool today. Here are some of my favorites from the group:

credit to swissmiss for sharing the link.

this is what inevitably happens when I am at my home, alone, for the first time in 2 weeks:

(created for an interwebs community that I have been known to frequent for a while, that is closing down next month.)

*credit to -j.-dear for the name.

dearest dears of the interweb,

I apologize muchly that I have been absent for so long, but clearly, as is evident below, I had very Important Things to do in sunny Virginia over the holidays:

blame suburbia.

fellow fans of 60’s garage rock will be delighted to learn that after watching the ‘agency‘ movie, my dearling friend edwina, aka mme. awesomepants dds, found an ? and the Mysterians ‘best of’ album on the interwebs, that I am ever-so-very-thrilled to be able to share with you here.

From wikipedia about the front man, Question Mark:

“The band’s frontman and primary songwriter was Question Mark... He claimed (and still claims) to be a Martian who lived with dinosaurs in a past life, and he never appears in public without sunglasses. He has also claimed that voices told him he would still be performing “96 Tears” in the year 10,000.”

yay.

Apparently, they named themselves after a 1950’s japanese sci-fi movie (”The Mysterians“) that, judging by the cover alone, I must own immediately:

UPDATE: thank you to will (betheboy) for bringing it to my attention that mr. question mark’s home burned down last year, to donate to his help-fund click here.

In 3rd grade, my teacher picked a random word from the dictionary for each student and asked us to write a poem based on that word. My word was “agency”.

I have far too much time on my hands:

… we’d be waiting in a line for some bread RIGHT now.

(wait til you get to about 2:30 mins in… holy engels, that’s some fancy foot-work)

A dear friend asked me for a copy of The Minx (1969) soundtrack (as performed by one of my favorite 60s pop groups The Cyrkle) recently and I thought, because sharing is caring, and because it is pure genius, I will give you kids the download link too.

from the imdb plot summary: “A businessman hosts a hunting party at a remote lodge, and hires three prostitutes to take care of his clients. However, the girls have their own plans and secretly install cameras in the bedrooms to record the activities for future use..”

So, ok, it’s basically pseudo-porn; but it is very, almost disappointingly, mild given today’s standards.

But! this pornish film doesn’t have the typical techno-ish, melodyless-yet-immediately-recognizable-as-porn-music soundtrack! no sir!

It has jingly pop gems like “Murray the Why” and “Squeeze Play” all performed by The Cyrkle, a two-hit-wonder band with a brief cameo in the movie who are mildly famous for “Red Rubber Ball” (which was actually co-written by paul simon, and contains the lyrics ‘now i know you’re not the only starfish in the sea’ and ‘the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball’, which is simile-icious, and it is above and beyond my favorite break-up-themed song ever, also, sweet-baby-moses!, this might win the Longest Parenthetical Thought Ever award.)

Ok, so I recommend this soundtrack if you dig 60’s pop music or if you consider yourself a porn historian.

Download it HERE.

in a delirious exhausted haze after work at my volunteer gig, I mistakenly copied 200 flyers referencing an “iPod nana”. pretty much the greatest accident of all time, after my brother*. I imagine that an iPod nana would give you cookies or remind you to floss.

*I’m just kidding, jamie…

It is with great glee that I share with you a music video by Sweet Soubrette, a ukulele-armed sea chantess with a nothing-if-not-entirely-charming fixation on doomed romance.

A loving tribute to Bel Biv Devoe: