Scenes from an apartment: Haley's gum

Did I ever mention that Haley loves mint gum? She loves toothpaste too, though I don't let her have it. I once bought her real mint, but she was uninterested.

Shlp shlp shlp

Magicians and WW2

I'm reading an article by Connie Willis about the WW2 research she loved but couldn't put into Blackout or All Clear. Here's one example:

During the North African campaign, the British moved the city of Alexandria
to keep it from being bombed.

You heard me—they moved Alexandria. It was one of the many clever
deceptions British Intelligence carried out, this one with the help of Jasper
Maskelyne, who'd been a magician in civilian life.

Here's how it worked. They took photos of Alexandria's harbor (famous for
its distinctive ancient lighthouse), then went down the coast and found a place with a
similar coastline. They set up lights to simulate the city's and built another, much
shorter lighthouse (the heights of things on the ground can't be judged from the air,
as witness those damned hedgerows in France which nearly derailed the D-Day
invasion), and then blacked out Alexandria and lit up the fake city. Luftwaffe pilots—
looking for the harbor and the lighthouse—bombed the new location, and in the
morning when they sent reconnaissance planes over, found rubble where they'd
dropped their bombs the night before, which meant they were bombing the right
place. Except that the rubble had actually been piled there the night before to match
the spots bombed in the fake Alexandria, and the rubble was portable, so when the
Luftwaffe bombed "Alexandria" the next night, they simply moved the rubble to the
new locations. (Full article here.)

Scenes from a marriage - a typical scene in the Mabel-Fernando Home

Me (singing Gershwin in fake French accent): Eez madness! To be always sitting around in sadness!! I'll build a stairway to Paradiiise with a new step every daaaay! I'm going to get there at any priiice stand aside I'm on my waaaay!...

[5 minutes later, husband waltzes into the room with calico cat]

Fernando: I'll build a stairway to Haaaleeey with a new paw every daaaay!
me: [the orchestra] doo dooo doo doo dooooo
Fernando: I'm going to get to Haley at any priiiice...
me: doo dooo doo doo dooooo

Scenes from an apartment: the boys upstairs

Every Saturday I hear the boys upstairs yukking it up like mad. I don't know if they have guests, or it's just the three of them, but they certainly have a Nice Time. One of them has the loudest, craziest laugh. I can hear chairs scraping, and the occasional bang! (which we've been given to understand is two of them practicing their judo.) I can't even hear a tv, and rarely hear music... it's like they're just sitting around talking and making jokes.

Well, they've been my fave upstairs neighbors since we moved here, I must say. One family, years ago, used to yell at their kids all the time. And the last family were the ones who used their washing machine after I expressly asked them not to, thereby flooding my whole kitchen.

Fave Songs?

I'm doing a little project at work, where I've asked all my staff to give me one of their favourite songs of all time, and I'm going to make a mix-tape. But now I've got to pick mine!

Originally I was going to pick The Roots' "The Seed (2.0)". If this song doesn't make you drum your keyboard then... well, you've got no inner majorette, that's all I can say.


But most of the staff are picking male artists, so I decided to pick a song by Kate Bush, since she's probably my fave pop artist ever. I was probably going to pick "The Fog" which is lyrically meaningful, and instrumentally interesting, the music matches the lyrics, it's beautifully engineered, and just lovely. It's KB.


Then it occurred to me... what about my favourite songs outside the realm of rock-pop? And I almost immediately thought of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's recording of the operetta "Porgy and Bess." Oh my days. Gershwin + Ella + Louis = Out of Body Experience. If I'm going for A Fave Song, why not pick one that has the power to give me goosebumps or even bring tears to my eyes. [For this version, skip to the end of this post!]

Porgy and Bess is the story of a nice, disabled guy who's in love with a drug addicted woman in an abusive relationship. Racially it's controversial--written by white guys, black people portrayed as poor and durggy and thieves, and the dialect is insane. But enough African-Americans have and still do record it, and musically it's luv-er-ly.

Though "Summertime" is probably the greatest song from this musical, I've loved "Bess, You is My Woman" ever since I heard it on Streisand's first Broadway album. (It's a combination of this song, plus "I Loves You Porgy.")



I didn't know there was a Miles Davis recording of the whole operetta... must investigate.


Here's a version the way it would normally be sung. The ending, esp when acted well--that's the tears part.


And here's Ella and Louis, uploaded by moi pour vous. "Morning time and evening time and summertime and wintertime..." That's the goosebumps part. (And if this gets taken down from youtube by the time you read it, I apologize. You'll just have to go buy the song!)


So what would you choose as One of Your Fave Songs of All Time for a mix tape to share with coworkers?

Canada Reads result

Well. Nikolski won the Canada Reads debate. But I personally cannot urge every Canadian to read it. It's won a ton of acclaim, but I didn't care for it.

Maybe I'll read the winner of the Combat des livres instead.

eeek!

It's that time of year again. When I sit around looking at pictures of creepy-crawlies on the internets.