Clearly I should have had this as a question, I don't know what I was thinking:

I spent my teenage years in the US and I never learned the lyrics to "American Pie"

(If the answer is "no," you want the prior post.)

So I have long had this theory about the song "American Pie" by Don McLean, which is that for American teenagers of an appropriate age, it is something of a rite of passage to sit down and deliberately learn all the lyrics. Chad got around to buying the MP3 this weekend, and SteelyKid finds it soothing sung a capella, so this seems as good a time as any to test my theory:

At one time I knew all the lyrics to "American Pie," and at that time

I still know all the lyrics to "American Pie"

Ticky?

ETA: yeah, I missed something crucial. See next rock.

An extremely mixed bag, today:

Of the recent attempts at suppressing discussions of racism that I'm aware of, I think literally and repeatedly ripping down an entire protest display takes the cake. The poison-filled cake of racism, privilege, and oppression, that is. (This was a student protest at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities Dance Program, ripped down by other students, and the university administration's response was to call the destruction "the changes made by another group of individuals." And . . . nothing else. That would be the icing on this particular cake.)

(Edit: okay, my metaphor got away from me. The protest is actually about pervasive institutional problems, in which context the administration's non-response is more than just icing. But the ripping down (because it will help the discussion! Um, wtf, over?) just infuriates me.)

sparkymonster has a helpful summary with more. Support the students through their petition, passing the word about the protest, or joining this Facebook group.

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Baby sloth!

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tool_of_satan has an interesting thought on what gives LotR its quasi-mythic feel in this thread on the non-European epic fantasy post:

This is a complicated question, but I think part of the answer is Tolkien's use of deep time. Things that happened thousands of years ago have direct consequences that the characters need to deal with, and there are people around who were actually alive back then, mixing with the mortals. Furthermore, we (and the hobbits) are told much less than everything about the ancient people and events - the critical bits, of course, and there are allusions to many other things, but one ends up feeling there are many other stories that could be told, which I think helps make the ones that are told feel more real. (I haven't read the Silmarillion or any of the other posthumous volumes, I should note.)

(Underlined emphasis mine.)

For me, I suspect this may be a matter of the golden age being twelve: it's certainly de rigueur these days for epic fantasies to build or at least suggest elaborate historical and mythological backstories for their worlds, and I mostly feel like they're, well, there because they're de rigueur, and I'm not sure the underlined detail of the execution is enough to make the difference. But I'm also not very interested in epic fantasies now, so my reactions might have been different, back in the day.

* * *

There's a reboot of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and you can watch it free and legally, with official subtitles, at Funimation. (I recommend a downloader like Orbit, because the streaming is very rocky.) I've been watching but don't really have an opinion yet; it's based closely on the manga which I've been reading, so it's familiar enough that I don't know how it'd look to a new person or in comparison to the first anime. Well, okay, the first episode was filler and kinda dumb, but the manga rocks so I have hopes.

* * *

Songs that make me happy lately: "Toe Jam," by the BPA featuring Dizzee Rascal & David Byrne (ETA: YouTube video of version we actually like; NSFW (but rather clever) for happy dancing naked people with black bars over women's breasts & people's pubic areas); and "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead (choose song title in sidebar).

* * *

I've also watched the pilot of Leverage and enjoyed it. I am morally certain that it was pitched as "Ocean's Eleven meets Robin Hood," and indeed the wish-fulfillment is blatant, but my love for capers is fierce, and I suspect that these lawless elites aren't going to be violent, which makes it easier for me to take. Note that the aired order is not the intended order; see this blog post from the creator for the proper order ('ware spoilers after that in the post).

* * *

Two Dreamwidth invite codes; comment if you want one; if necessary, will pick at random and ask for e-mail.

(Decided against crossposting (and asking people to comment only there) until a few more wrinkles are ironed out. Am filtering out people here who are fully cross-posting, and have adjusted LJ "friends" list to try and match DW access/subscribe lists. Now going to look for missing subject pronouns. Goodnight, everybody.)

Last week's very short lyrics quiz has five left unguessed, one of which I'd thought was pretty easy:

4. Houston and Third

8. gemstone halters

11. soup-stained tie

12. bottlecap ashtrays

13. pink private jet

( More hints: )

(I think someone besides Chad can probably get all of these but the last, which is admittedly quite obscure, but I like it a lot.)

Probably everyone but me knows this already, but bestofyoutube.com's podcast is great fun. After watching a couple, I told iTunes to download everything it had for the feed (over a hundred videos), and I've been working my way through them in reverse chronological order. So far my favorites are the very brief and self-explanatory bunny letter opener and the longer roots of breakdance (the Soviet army dances to Run DMC), but there's an excellent variety.

Also, Slacktivist embedded a video of Springsteen performing "Mary's Place", which reminded me that I have never been able to listen to that song without at least wanting to tear up, and yet I still always want to hear it when it comes on. Which I think is a decent argument for its being Springsteen's best song, or at least the best song on The Rising. Discuss. (Actually, three wonderful things, since Slacktivist is a consistently excellent and sadly under-recognized blog.)

After this spring's very short lyrics quiz, I started collecting more lyrics, and then forgot all about it until just recently. So, it's a rainy and (so far) quiet day here, let's play.

I think some of these are probably harder than the last time, and so I've ordered them roughly easiest to hardest, at least according to my best guess.

1. mirrored perspective
2. burned-out Chevrolets
3. insanity laughs
4. Houston and Third
5. out on 441
6. scimitars and scarves
7. telephonic invasion
8. gemstone halters
9. winter in Firenza
10. useless tools ourselves
11. soup-stained tie
12. bottlecap ashtrays
13. pink private jet

Only one of my very short lyrics hasn't been guessed, and it was in retrospect not a good one, so I've updated the post with a full line.

Chad's posted a two-word lyrics quiz.

And today's candidate for Best Thing Ever: the iTunes Lyrics Importer automatically imports lyrics into iTunes from Lyricwiki (Windows). It's like magic.

(Oooh, and then I can use the script here to see what songs didn't get lyrics automatically imported, and do them by hand if I want! The Internet is awesome.)

When I read this quiz of lyrics in alphabetical order, I remarked to Chad that some of the songs were given away by single words. Combined with a dim recollection of Izzle Pfaff's 2003 two-word lyrics quiz, this set me off on yet another cat-vacuuming project, to wit:

( The Very Short Lyrics Quiz )

Updated April 1 with a better clue to the one unguessed lyric.

While I work and suffer from the Wintertime Blues [*] and unusual prose sensitivity [**], Chad discusses our book shelves; poses a cheery hypothetical on love and death in preparation for teaching "Story of Your Life" (spoilers); and posts a more detailed explanation of the pregnancy health issues. And the dog hunts squeaky toys in the snow.

[*] John Hiatt (last.fm). Particularly:

There's no spring
There was never any spring
Spring's a long gone thing
There won't ever be a spring no more

Since my favorite line, "Three hours of daylight and all of them gray / the suicide prevention group has all run away," is no longer quite applicable.

Oh, and while I'm linking to music, have some pretty harmonies from a lesser-known alt-country/folk rock band called the Jayhawks who came up on shuffle recently:

• "Save It for a Rainy Day" (YouTube)
• "Stumbling Through the Dark" (YouTube)
• "I'd Run Away" (last.fm)
• "Blue" (YouTube) (also covered by The Thorns (last.fm))
• live version of "Tailspin" with the Sadies (artist website)
• short, poor-quality live snippet of the very pretty "All the Right Reasons" (YouTube)

[**] Decided not to attempt Acacia because the retrospective omniscient was grating on me. I hardly ever care about this stuff, what is my deal lately? Not that I have time to be reading now.

iPod shuffle tossed up the Death Cab for Cutie version of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and the Afghan Whigs version of "Lost in the Supermarket," and I said, "Oooh! Cat-vacuuming!"

This cat being thoroughly vacuumed, behind the cut find:

( A cover songs poll )

( Bonus Afghan Whigs edition )

Inspired by the morning earworm:

Poll #1100244
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26

Pick one:

Feel free to explain in comments.

On the way in this morning, the iPod tossed up a song with a whole lot of words—Fountains of Wayne, "The Girl I Can't Forget"—and then one with almost none—Fatboy Slim, "Praise You." Which made me laugh, and then wonder: does "Praise You" win the "fewest words in a song with lyrics" contest? I mean, it has one verse of four lines, and all the words are that verse or from it:

We've come a long long way together
Through the hard times and the good
I have to celebrate you baby
I have to praise you like I should

(Contrast the lyrics for the Fountains of Wayne song.)

Other suggestions? Bonus if you actually like the song in question.

A busy and fun week.

As I already said, there was the Springsteen concert, which was fabulous. Chad wrote that they didn't leave anything in the locker room, which is a good way of putting it. The encore exemplifies this: it started with "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," a new song with a sing-along chorus, and then "Thunder Road," and then the house lights came up for "Born to Run," which I expected was the end . . . but then there was "Dancing in the Dark," still with the house lights up, so I figured that was the end . . . but no, there was still one more, "American Land." The crowd was completely into it, belting along with the obscure "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" as much as the newer stuff or the classics, which increased the fun. I gave myself a coughing fit two-thirds of the way through "Born to Run" and came home exhausted and exhilarated.

Setlists: at the official site, with links to lyrics ("Thunder Road" has a lot of words), and at a fansite (search "restored calliope" for a picture of what puzzled me, too, at the opening). And the local paper's review.

Friday we had dinner with a classmate of Chad's, Ethan Zuckerman, and Rachel Barenblat, the Velveteen Rabbi—who has the best blog name and tagline: "When can I run and play with the real rabbis?" Great food, great conversation, and we'll have to go over to their neck of the woods sometime.

And my sister-in-law passed the California bar! Go, her! (56.1% pass rate overall, and 69.0% for first-time takers. Yikes—the equivalents for NY the year I took it was 67.5% and 76.5%.)

Saturday we had remarkably good home-repairs and -improvement luck, including the purchase of a bigger fridge that can be delivered before Thanksgiving. And then we watched the movie Stranger than Fiction, which I really enjoyed. Harold Crick is an IRS auditor with no life, who suddenly begins hearing a voice narrating his actions. Which is itself upsetting, but then the voice casually mentions his imminent death.

I asked Chad to NetFlix this because someone at the Worldcon Metafiction panel said that meta was the whole point, which is true. I've seen some reviews saying that the love story is the heart of the movie, which I just don't get: I found it flat, predictable, and unconvincing. (Ditto Queen Latifah's character, alas.) But I liked the meta, and the sad look on Harold Crick's face (Will Ferrell—no, don't run away, really!), and the slightly magic-realist flavor of it all. Recommended.

So, a really good entertainment week, as it also included Shaun Tan's The Arrival, a booklog gush about which is forthcoming, and new Saiyuki Gaiden (resulting in a few new icons). Though I didn't manage to finish the last WFC panel report, on Tolkien as a horror writer. (I do intend to; it's mostly done.)

Oh, and those of you who've read Grant's Daughter of the Game: I've gotten as far as chapter five, and I'm not particularly invested in any of the characters, plus I'm finding the prose slightly hard to fall in through. Should I bother with the rest of it?

Bruce Springsteen? Wins. EVERYTHING.

Oh, how my jaw and hips hate me now. (Come to think of it, my stomach's not too happy either.) Don't care!

(Shockingly, the setlist isn't up yet; the Times Union Center actually has WiFi, and so I was sure some fan was live-blogging it.)

ETA 12:04 a.m.: setlist up. Wow.

I had a bit of excitement, last week, when I turned my computer on . . . and found it caught in an endless reboot cycle because it couldn't load the OS. Fortunately, I had 1) the bootable CD that came with the computer, 2) the sure and certain knowledge that all of my data was backed up, and 3) relaxation techniques to keep me from wrecking my shoulders, jaw, and stomach while I determined that it was a software, not hardware, problem (some file in the boot sector had gotten corrupted).

Back up your data!

We bought an exercise bike a week ago. It uses magnets for resistance and so is remarkably quiet. So far, so good; I'm going to have to be very diligent about my stretches (hip bursitis), but otherwise no complaints. Oh, and very diligent about keeping the foolish dog away from it: I clonked her good right on the flat of her nose with the pedal, the first time I was pedaling away.

Entertainment:

• My Neighbor Totoro is a charming, odd, low-key, family movie that deserves the label. I recommend it. Also, have some icons.
• We saw Amos Lee, Elvis Costello, and Bob Dylan in concert last night.

  Unfortunately we missed all but the last couple of Lee's songs, but he was quite good and got a satisfyingly warm reception from the crowd. He closed with his best-known song, "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight," and I think he may have played "Shout Out Loud" too, which you can hear at his website.

  Costello was doing the very solo thing, him and a guitar. He came out and banged right into "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," and did several songs before doing any stage patter at all. Good stuff, very energetic and entertaining, also notably smooth at getting the audience to sing without explicitly asking for it.

  Dylan was touring with a band. I am not terribly familiar with his music, especially his recent stuff, so I can sum up my reaction in eight words: I like my pop music to have words.

  Seriously, except for the occasional line, he might as well have been singing in Swedish. And I know he's capable of enunciating, because he did do it once in a while, and because he was great when we saw him in 1999. I ended up zoning out for much of the set, trying to relax in the uncomfortable seats. Fortunately, I was fully awakened by the last song, "All Along the Watchtower" Hendrix-style.

  For the perspective of a Dylan fan, see Chad's report.

• Episode 51 of Bleach has an amazing number of characters and not much forward movement. (It was on Adult Swim while I was doing stretches after the concert.)

Miscellany:

• Donate $30 to DonorsChoose and buy Chad's blog.
• Someone came to my booklog and put "i am searching for a spell to reverse timeto july29,2007" (sic) into the "search" box.
• Neighborhood fauna spotted recently: a fox, fireflies, bats, and frantically-active squirrels.
• Useful LJ bookmarklets, including one that will change pages to your style—even ones in "format=light".
• del.icio.us is my new obsession. I'm planning to use it for con report roundups, and to that end, added this year's Boskone links as a trial run. Any comments on the tagging or anything else? (Chad suggested tagging by panelist as well, but I'm uncertain about that; people often don't show or are added at the last minute, and not all panel reports will reflect that. However, if people would really like it, it can be done.)

  (Also, for the auto-posting, I need to hide the tag lists with CSS or otherwise format them so they don't overwhelm the links (see what I mean?).)

Here, let me share a Swedish song that I've fallen in love with: "Håll om mig nu" ("Hold me now"), by Nanne Grönvall (4.2 MB Mp3). File will be up for about a week. I am terrible at describing music, but it's pop-rock with a fast percussion/synthesizer (?) thing going that I just adore, and listened to loud on repeat a lot while I was driving in the past couple of weeks.

Does anyone know this artist and whether her other songs are similar?

I discovered this through a Princess Tutu vid, which is fabulous but contains series-destroying spoilers and so should only be watched by people who (1) have seen the entire show or (2) know they aren't going to watch the show. (If you're not sure if you fall into the latter category, I have a handy-dandy recommendation post for your perusal.) If you can watch it, though, do, because even my inexperienced eyes & ears can tell that the craft in putting it together is fantastic. [*] Here's a link to high-quality downloads (the "indirect" link takes you to the vidder's home page, which doesn't require registration but may sometimes run out of bandwidth).

[*] I particularly like the set of transitions at 0:54-0:58, the foot-stomp at 1:02, the overlay at 1:23, and the image matched to the drumshot at 2:47, but I could say something about almost every shot.

Oh, and I updated the Princess Tutu icon gallery.

The most important news first: I'm an aunt! Six weeks earlier than expected, but the daughter of my brother and his wife appears to be doing well regardless.

Much cookout food the last two weeks. We held one here last weekend, at which the dog ate a piece of pineapple (from the ground) and half a piece of bread (from the hand of a small child, who would wave it in front of her face); people ate all of the mac and cheese, again (I keep thinking it's not a summer food and being proven wrong); people ate orzelc's spiedes and lbmango's over-bourboned pies; and I ate way too much baklava and contemplated learning how to make it myself. Yesterday we went to a cookout hosted by someone at work, at which the food was quite good but not nearly as interesting as my coming within twenty feet of a doe. Oh, and in-between we had deep-fried mozzarella sandwiches, among other tapas-y things, at Cella Bistro. If you live in this area you really need to be eating there.

And as Chad already said, we saw Richard Thompson perform live and electric last night. Impressive show, even though I don't like Thompson nearly as well as Chad does.

In non-weekend news, I have finally started working on learning a bit of Japanese, and can recommend the audio lessons at JapanesePod101.com (the audio is free; extra material requires membership, though you can sign up for a free trial). I find it a lot more appealing than my half-remembered college language lessons, and am planning to work my way through the "Survival Phrases" series. Someone here may well have recommended this, so thanks.

So, learning survival Japanese, doing a lot of Worldcon reading, eating a lot of cookout food. There was a disc of Princess Tutu in there too, but that's a separate post. And as always, I feel like I'm forgetting something, but if I am, how important could it have been?

A friend got married in Massachusetts yesterday, so we drove out Friday night. Had dinner at a Japanese steakhouse, where we saw the amusing teppanyaki trick of stacking onion rings, pouring oil in the middle, and lighting it on fire: "Mount Fuji!" I'm quite sure that it's a tourist thing, but the kids in the restaurant loved it.

It was a daytime wedding, which allowed us to drive straight back here so that Chad could go to Union's graduation at 9 o'clock this morning. Long day, and neither Chad's knee (which he banged up playing basketball on Friday before we left) or my various health issues thanked us for it, but we're managing well enough now. Especially after I napped this afternoon—had one of those days where everything was unsatisfactory until then. I just wish I could tell in advance when a nap's going to help and when it's going to make things worse . . .

Oh, and a question for you, readers: the wedding provided an example of the inappropriate, non-ironic, wedding reception song, namely Beck's "Lost Cause". (Though that's not as bad as being broken up with by someone handing you that CD, as happened to someone there.) I still think that Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It" is the worst I've heard, though, as there's no way you can avoid realizing how inappropriate it is; at least "Lost Cause" is pretty and requires an effort to focus on the lyrics.

So, what inappropriate and non-ironic songs have you heard at wedding receptions? If there are enough really bad ones, maybe I'll do a runoff poll . . .

It is April 15 and it snowed for most of the day. This is the second time this week that we had snow on the ground.

I don't know if this is just some kind of balance for the abnormally long and mild fall we had, or a sign of climate change, but whatever it is, I disapprove.

(However, it could be worse: my uncle is running the Boston marathon for the first time tomorrow.)

Chad was away for most of the week, and I think I had jet lag by proxy or something. Also, I spent too much time playing with my new PDA, a Palm TX (wireless! nice big screen! yes, it was an indulgence, but thanks to eBay it was at least half as expensive an indulgence than retail). Today I spent too much time preparing to be a pixel-stained technopeasant, and gosh, but my for-public-consumption life has been really boring lately, hasn't it?

(I am noodling with a post about capers & morality, but my brain cells are refusing to cooperate. There will be actual content here eventually, I promise.)

Meanwhile: what's the last song you played over and over again? This week it was Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"—I tend to be suddenly seized with the desire to learn a particular song note-perfect, or at least as note-perfect as possible when one's not a very good singer. (These usually aren't new-to-me songs, either; I think the last one was "Fairy Tale of New York.") That third verse keeps giving me trouble . . .

I've been thinking about this for a while, and the dog is asleep on my foot, so now's as good a time as any to ask: is there a generally-accepted theory about the women in "Tangled Up in Blue"?

This will be easier to explain with lyrics, so cut for length:

( 'Tangled Up in Blue' lyrics )

The women in verses 1 & 2 can't be the same. I think verse 5 refers to yet a third woman (who is also the same as the woman in verse 4). The woman in verse 6 could be the same as any of the prior women, or someone completely different. And yet the singular is used throughout.

Any generally accepted interpretation of this? Personally I like to think of it as a fantasy story of some sort, but my biases are showing.