It's no big secret that there are no Little Nibs or Shallow Jrs running about the house here, nor is it much of a secret that we have been wishing this was different for some time now.
We have a secret, just we three: The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree. The bird told the tree, and the tree told me, And nobody knows it but just us three.
Of course the robin knows it best, Because she built the -- I won't say the rest -- And laid the four little --somethings-- in it. I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute!
But if the tree and the robin don't peep, I'll try my best the secret to keep. But when the little somethings fly about, Then the whole secret will be out.
- Anonymous
The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, River and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside --
Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown -- Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down!
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Icarus
A girl. Arms outstretched, swooping wildly across the sky, returning mildly to earth, on the end of a string madly running, she catches the wind, rises aloft. She holds the twine to her ear to hear the wind sing.
A grandfather. Smiling slightly, weathered hands grip his own string tightly hovering steadily in the sky, teaching her to hear the wind sing, watching her swoop. He is remembering the giddy new thrill of first learning to fly.
So back when I was an English undergrad, I had to take a course entitled "Introduction to the English Language." I called it my crazy language class. The professor (whose name, and I am not making this up, was David Bowie) opened the class by saying that he was a Linguistics professor and that he didn't know why English majors had to take this course as a requirement, but that the powers that be didn't really know where else to put the class.
I spent a fair amount of the class keeping a detailed record of the random things this professor would say, along with the three other people who sat in the back right-hand corner of the class. One of my favorite moments (besides the time when he stopped, mid-class, to tell us "Where I grew up, hurricanes were the natural disaster of choice, so earthquakes just freak me out") was when he was talking about how the mind processes things we think we hear but that just don't make sense. The example he used was from his youth in the South (yayy for sight rhymes!) and a group of ladies (in my mind I picture a Sewing Circle like in Anne of Green Gables) were discussing what goodies and delectables to bring to the Big Function. (Probably a bazaar. Which, when I was little, I always thought people were saying "bizarre." This could explain some of my dislike of shopping.)
BUT ANYWAY. One lady said, according to my professor, "Salmon carrot cake sounds nice." (His response: "And it DOESN'T sound nice.") Everyone did a bit of a spit-take until they remembered that they were in the South, where people insist on speaking in such a way as makes misunderstandings mandatory (think: that moment in Gettysburg where Johnny Reb explains that the Confederacy is fighting for their rats), and realized that what she was really saying was "Cinnamon Carrot Cake" (which does sound nice), but her crazy accent had produced gobbledegook which everyone's brains had translated as "Salmon Carrot Cake."
Mmmmm… imagined malapropisms…. yum.
Well, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
There's a moment in the Disney version of Peter Pan where this crazy pirate (I think he's wearing a pink shirt, but I may be wrong on this) is sitting up in the riggings with a (very fake-looking) accordion (seriously, it has no buttons!) and singing. (Yodeling, almost.) And Captain Hook loses patience with the long, drawn-out caterwauling and shoots him (whereupon you hear the sound of a falling fake accordion and a splash). And cute Mr. Smee tsks at him and says, "Oh, Cap'n. Shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza? 't ain't good form, you know!"
Yeah, I like that part.
But it wasn't until I was older that I actually realized that the word was "cadenza." As in, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)
No, what I had heard as a child and for a rather ridiculously long time afterward was "credenza." As in, one of these:
It gives the line a whole new meaning, doesn't it?
I like the TV show 24. I used to watch it regularly before it jumped about seventeen sharks at once during season five or so. (If anyone missed that moment, I have two words for you: Vampire Jack.) I still will watch it occasionally, though, because Shallow Man evidently has a higher shark tolerance than I do.
I also have a fond weakness for Joss Whedon.
These two facts together meant that I was watching Fox on a regular basis back in January. And, as with every other January in memory, Fox started running promos for its fall lineup. Yes. Commercials IN JANUARY for shows that wouldn't air until September at the earliest. (In past years, September has rolled around and they've announced the season premiere for a show and I would stop, confused, because I was SURE it had been on the air forever. Which it had been. Or at least 30-second snippets of it.) Which bothers me, because I am usually of the opinion that overhype, even of a good thing, can ruin what's being hyped.
And if the hype-age continues and escalates non-stop all summer (when I'm also watching Fox regularly for amazing dance goodness), it makes me even more annoyed.
And also very conflicted if it's something that looks like something I'll like. Because my contrary streak wants to purposely not watch it just because it's been shoved down my throat for NINE months. I don't think advertising campaigns for a TV show should last the same amount of time as the gestational period of a human. But maybe that's just me.
But I really, really, really like singing and dancing and musicals. So I decided, when the season premiere finally came around, to give it a chance. Just once. Just to see.
I am, of course, talking about Glee.
Leaving aside the fact that the pilot aired I think three times before the official season premiere. Never mind that I'd had people asking me all summer if I'd seen Glee yet. Don't pay any attention to the endless commercials that have been running all year.
Once I saw it, I loved it. I forgave everything. Because it's fun and smart and sassy and full of singing and dancing and oh my goodness Matthew Morrison. Yes, that Matthew Morrison. The Matthew Morrison who, as Lt. Cable in the most recent Broadway revival of South Pacific hit one of the most gloriously beautiful high notes I've ever heard in my life in "Younger than Springtime." If I believed in putting up music players in my blog sidebar (which I don't, because they always make my browser crash; if you have one on your blog and I still read your blog it means I really love you) then I would have my blog sing that note to you pretty much non-stop. (Okay, not non-stop. I'd throw in most of the rest of the SP soundtrack and Donna Murphy singing "One Hundred Easy Ways" in Wonderful Town. But with plenty of High Note thrown in.)
Well, with all that, how could I not love it? I can't unreservedly recommend it, as it veers into very PG-13 territory from time to time, and the way they portray the not-pregnant wife is beyond the point of unbelievability (no person in that situation would naturally react like that). But for the most part it is, as far as I can tell in my admittedly limited experience, the best show on TV right now with the possible exception of So You Think You Can Dance which did I mention I'm going to see in concert in less than two months and YIPPEE for that? (Yeah, I don't watch too many TV shows. I'm more of a movie girl, or a discover-the-amazing-TV-show-AFTER-it's-been-canceled-or-is-just-about-to-be-canceled-so-I-guess-I'll-just-watch-TV-on-DVD kind of girl. See, e.g., Arrested Development, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, Pushing Daisies which also by the way does anyone have the DVD for PD so I can see more than the one partial-episode I've seen?)
But it still hadn't moved to "addiction" phase. Until last night's episode, which featured this sequence:
And there you have it, folks.
My name is Elliespen and I am addicted to Glee.
P.S. If you've missed out completely on this show so far because, say, you've been living under a rock for the past nine months or possibly just because you have higher television standards than I and never even flip past Fox, you can catch up on all the episodes so far on hulu.
So yesterday Shallow Man had an unpleasant sore throat. He even refrained from yelling at all during the football game we went to, and was popping cough drops for most of the day. But we didn't think much of it.
Until I woke up this morning with a really bad sore throat. And not the kind you get from yelling at a football game—I can tell the difference. No, this was the full-on sick, swollen lymph nodes, have-fun-because-you've-caught-a-bug type of sore throat. And I was all achy and my cough was a lot worse than usual.
I was ready to blame Shallow Man's stupid "my-immune-system-made-it-through-South-America-for-two-years" habits, which dictate that if there is an illness to be found, he'll have it for 8-24 hours and I will catch it twice and be sick for at least a week.
Except he was WORSE today. Fever, chills, sore throat, cough, etc., etc., etc., every single symptom listed on all those YOU WILL CATCH SWINE FLU AND DIE websites. Which means, if he's really sick, that 1) it is actually something, 2) I'm going to be even more of a melted puddle of misery in 24 hours, and 3) well, so much for school or work this week, since all the YOU WILL CATCH SWINE FLU AND DIE websites say you need to stay away from large groups until 24 hours after the fever breaks.
So we're staying home. Because even though I'm not [usually] the [extremely] paranoid type, if it involves something serious and contagious like potential swine flu or pneumonia or what have you, I believe you should stay home, even you don't care about your own health, out of consideration for those around you. Don't be like the girl sitting in class behind Shallow Man at the law school last week who was, between fits of coughing up a lung, telling how her doctor had tested her for pneumonia and the results would be in that afternoon.
No, folks, if you potentially have something serious, please do me the courtesy I am now showing you and stay far, far away from me.
Which is my short way of saying, we'll probably see you next week.
And now I'm going back to bed.
P.S. Many enthusiastic thanks to the MotionDeSmiths team for braving the nest of germs and bringing us all the essentials for proper recovery: delicious dinner, yummy dessert, and a bunch of old Star Trek episodes. You guys rock.
P.P.S. I also do be ashamed to own that yesterday passed without my sharin' a hearty chorus o' "Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day To Ye" with me hearties. Here's a bottle o' rum lifted in hopes that yer plunders were bloody, yer wenches pulchritudinous, yer decks properly swabbed, and yer planks well-trod by scurvy lubbers. Avast, me mateys! Belay that yargh-ing!
P.P.P.S. And no, this post's title is NOT missing a comma.
Well, folks, I have some exciting news for you. Today we have a very distinguished guest here at The Scritchy Nib and...
(whispered aside) Wait, what? Who wrote this? "Very" distinguished? Really? . . . In fact, is "distinguished" even the word we want to be using here? . . . So maybe not distinguished, but still a guest . . . Or not. . . . Did we issue an invitation or anything like that? No? So not really a guest, either. Um . . . how about we just say:
So does anyone remember that small scene in the movie Office Space (which I've only seen edited on TV, but really, who hasn't wanted to take the recalcitrant printer or other bit of office equipment out to the back field and whack it with a baseball bat?) where you hear this squeaking noise going up and down repeatedly and then the camera pans over to the next cubicle where the girl answers the phone and it's her voice pitch changing as she says "Hello" and "Please hold" that was making the noise the whole time?
Yeah, me neither.*
But I'm sitting at my carrel here at the law school at 5:36 p.m. when most people are gone so the few people who are left feel safe talking a bit louder than they otherwise would, and the tone of their talking is having the same effect where it sounds like some sort of cricket or small baby bird has made its way into the law library and is chirping whenever someone says a word containing the letter "s" anywhere in it.
Which of course, leaves me torn between the desire to save that poor baby bird and the urge to find that bug and kill it (or at the very least make it leave the building).
Which I guess is the long way of saying that the reading for tomorrow's class has failed to catch my interest.
*Actually, I totally remember this part. I just couldn't find a clip online quickly and didn't feel like making a protracted search effort. If one of all y'alls finds it, though, please feel free to share it with the class.
Happily married, book-and-movie-loving owner of two cats, who is curiously susceptible to writer's block, can carry on an entire conversation using only movie quotes and Far Side captions, and knows the correct spelling of "prima donna" and the right way to use "quintessential."
Broken
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