Professional exam is OVER! Think I’ve got a good chance of passing, but have to wait another 5 weeks to find out. 🤮 Till then, here’s a mega newsletter!
Kicking off with another one of these stream of consciousness things. Really think the newsletter has been pulling away from its initial Nicole Cliffe influence but we are one and the same when it comes to Derry Girls. Oh, are you not watching the Netflix show about dorky teens surviving high school through the Troubles of Northern Ireland in the 90s? Grow up, watch the show. (It’s fine if you don’t but are you sure? It’s so good!!) So they had an episode with a wedding (and later a funeral) and the DJ played Don’t Rock the Boat and everyone flipped out and ran to the dance floor and…sat down? Have since learned that this is a thing!
It started with this thing and I guess pivoted to a different 70s American soul song and was big Big BIG at Irish weddings in the 80s and 90s (also in the UK, but they used the Upside Your Head song that we all know and love and totally remember). Incredible. One time in New Orleans an MC brought me up on stage at a bar on Bourbon and I drank a test tube shot and dropped to one knee and the black spot NEVER came out of my jeans. But maybe the Irish are cleaner. To be fair, the bowels of…well, bowels, are maybe cleaner than a Bourbon Street bar floor.
Sure isn’t, Shauna B!
So that got me looking into other Irish wedding traditions and there are many, notably that people will stay and stay and stay and eventually start singing traditional songs.
I’ve learned this song and sing it all over but hers sure is a hard tone to beat. So clear and lovely.
The song is The Rattlin’ Bog, and learning about it got me on the Roud Index, an archive (!!!) of oral tradition folk songs originally collected by a librarian. That got me thinking about this thing I heard on NPR a billion years ago about a documentary about the Carter family that I did not watch, that probably overlaps a lot with the Ken Burns country music series he did recently, that I also did not watch (why??? Anyone wanna co-stream?), but anyway the Carter family would travel and perform, and during that they would collect any song they could from anyone they met. Many songs were brought over to America and some were even hundreds of years old. So…did the Carters owe anyone money for these songs they didn’t write, but which the people they learned them from also didn’t write? If you teach me Scarborough Fair (Roud Index number 12!) can I play it? Can I make money playing it? Can I copyright my version? Interesting.
Tangentially related to that and other old ass English songs, Who Killed Cock Robin was an answer to a crossword puzzle I did recently, which is apparently a nursery rhyme and BOY is there a lot of death in kids’ songs.
Linky links!
Because summer! I read an interview with these two during their post-viral 15 and they swore up and down that no alcohol had been consumed, he was just really, really upset. Our gain!
I said “good morning!” Right out loud!
Related:
And:
Behold! The most hatable women in the world!
Link:
Link:
And lastly, my favorite:
That thing she does with her tongue kiiiiiiiiiills me. How can a tongue be smug? And self congratulatory?
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That last video’s second cousin:
I was trying to take a break from BF quizzes but you really should have heard the noises I made when I got Claudia.
Which "Baby-Sitters Club" Character Are You?
They made it to ring in the new Netflix series and have you seen it? HAVE YOU SEEN IT??? ADORABLE. Watched it in a day. It’s incredible. It’s perfect. It’s timely! It’s frothy, but still talks about real things, but somehow doesn’t kill the tone. It uses stories and titles from the original books.
If that’s not enough BSC for you these guys started reading the books in adulthood and made a podcast. They’re funny (they’d have to be) but don’t trash the material. It’s a good time.
Then I saw this quiz on Reductress and…that was enough BSC for me.
This made me laugh so hard and uncontrollably I now understand why people started believing in demons.
Then three of us took mushrooms and yelled it at people in a park but I think that’s a story for another day. That’s also the entire story, so
I chatted with my cousin earlier this week (hi, Greg!) and he mentioned that it’s better for people to be nice about asking each other to wear a mask. And he’s right, you get more flies with honey. On the other hand…
Link:
Throw people in coffins! Wearing a virus mascot costume absolutely counts as wearing a mask AND its thingies enforce distancing, the CDC says so.
Truly, the only thing that has ever mattered:
Time To Find Out Which Frog In A Hat You Are
I don’t think anyone’s even paying this guy for this service
But what about this one?
No need to question here, we are told exactly who we’re dealing with (weird pivot, I know she’s not a cat, let it go)
Today in life imitates art, in 1940 a boy named Adrian Street was born to a Welsh mining family. But Adrian didn’t want to carry on the family tradition he started working in at 15. He ran away a year later and set out to become a professional wrestler. No one thought he would make it. But he did! He developed a truly over the top persona, SO glam, and came home to pose with his father against the life he didn’t choose.
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PUH-POW
Here’s a video with some of his wrestling and pre-match banter.
The newsletter is BACK!!!
Mary Kate Korner
I think we all just need this
Feels…right. Don’t know why.
Charity of the newsletter:
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), our medical university and learning hospital. They’ve set up drive-through testing sites and are doing great work.
Be well, my friends—have a great week!
Based on nothing, I'm going to go ahead and say that we put faces on money so it can judge us when we think about spending it and thus make us think twice about our purchases. That's why credit card debt is such a problem. There's no one LOOKING at you and asking WHAT would your FOREFATHERS THINK OF THIS PURCHASE OF TWO CHOCOLATE BARS AND SOME SUSHI BECAUSE "YOU HAD A HARD DAY" AND "JUST REALLY NEEDED A TREAT?" NO, IT'S FINE, I SURVIVED CHOLERA, BUT YOU HAD A TOUGH ONE BECAUSE YOUR BOSS WASN'T AS NICE TO YOU AS YOU THOUGHT SHE SHOULD BE. GO AHEAD. 12 OF MY 14 CHILDREN DIDN'T SURVIVE INFANCY, BUT YOU DESERVE IT.