When An Ogre and A Princess Ogre Love Each Other Very Much...

Since I've just written a post on sexual overtones in children's films:

The marketing for Shrek the Third is out in full force, as I noticed when I was grocery shopping this evening.

Unfortunately, since I am over the age of, say, eight... I can't see the advertisements for those cute little diapered ogre-babies without instantly getting a mental picture of Shrek and Fiona... um...

Yeah, now you're imagining it too. You can thank me later. Don't forget to add the voices.

(P.S. I am very grateful that Disney decided not to go for the old joke of "one of the babies in the set doesn't look like the father," as was done, for example, with Apu's octuplets. Because having Fiona birth a little Donkey baby would have been just too much.)

Why Has The Rasam Gone?

The above reference is for this friend, to whom I owe a thousand apologies because I am currently here, on my blog, instead of visiting her for the weekend.

However, life intervened, as it does. Finals Week at my university was typically insane, what with the grading and the testing and the *frink noise*...

And then, due to unexpected and unfortunate circumstances, my roommate had to move out of the apartment. In two days.

She, unlike me, is the sort of person who "has stuff;" so we spent the past two nights staying up and having conversations like "I need to cut this pile of CDs from 500 down to 200; which ones do you think I should keep?"

We ended up filling a 15-ft. moving truck with her belongings (the two of us, each weighing in at around 115 lbs, lifting and moving and hauling all of her furniture and books and the 200 chosen CDs). Getting the truck was hassle enough, as we went down to the local place at the right time only to learn that the truck we had ordered had never made it, but there was another truck available at the neighboring town an hour's drive away, if we wanted it... and it ended up being a four-hour trip, as we managed to get lost en route.

Anyway. The point of this story is that I haven't yet made rasam. (The truth is, though, that I did try, just a few days after writing this original post, and the result was so disastrous that I told no one but S. It had to do with the fact that tomatoes were expensive and a can of tomato paste cost forty-five cents. The tomato paste ended up spattering the entire kitchen as it boiled, and the "rasam," if it can even be called that, was gooey and salty and inedible. But I ate it anyway.)

But I hope to get another shot soon, as I start my temp job on Monday, and prepare to assume the role of "that strange new girl who always brings the weird lunch in her Tupperware."*

On the other hand, since my community is diverse enough to sustain three (competing) Indian groceries, perhaps one of my officemates will be able to give me cooking tips.

And (*sigh*) if anyone is looking for a place to stay, I am in need of a roommate.



*When I temped in Minneapolis, I was definitely "the strange new girl who always brings the weird lunch in her Tupperware." Particularly because in those days, I couldn't cook. I still remember one of the full-time employees coming into the breakroom and looking concernedly at my baked potato and "soup" combination (the soup being little more than a bouillon cube dissolved into water).

Those were strange days, though. My supervisor at that job once gave me a sweater, under the guise that it did not fit her anymore, though I suspect it had something more to do with my own ill-fitting clothing. My officemate, on the other hand, kept trying to get me to do her teenage son's homework for him, because, as she explained, "I was smarter." Strange days.

More Alice Fun!

Here's another clip from the 1985 Irwin Allen/Steve Allen tv version of Alice in Wonderland.

I'm including it for your amusement, primarily because it features "the incomparable" Jayne Meadows.

As she was married to songwriter Steve Allen, it's no surprise that she gets the best song in the show.

But what fascinates me is her delivery. Listen to her pull and distort those words -- count the number of sounds she pushes through on the word "Squirm."

Also note the sex.

And, since I've given you the job of noticing things, do be aware of Steve Allen's masterful use of the post-bridge modulation. Except this time, it's not a leading tone modulation; it's a modulation where the tonic of the first key becomes the dominant of the second... and I can't remember what it's formally called!

Aural Memory

What kind of music did you teach the choir in Our Town? he asked.
Church music, I said. The singers in the play are part of a church choir.
Sing it for me, he asked.
Oh, no -- it's over the phone -- it will sound terrible, I said.
Sing it for me, he asked again.
So I began singing the hymns in the play, and when he requested more (as I had, once, been a church organist and knew all the hymns), I sang through the Doxology.

Well, halfway through. Halfway, until I suddenly shrieked with laughter and recognition.

It's the same tune, I told him.
What? he said.
The same melody -- isn't that amazing?

And, to prove it, I sang it for him.

Om jai jagdish.


(From the editor: No, it's not the same "note-for-note." Check the comments section for a better explanation of the music theory involved. I'm not sure how to post audio files on Blogger; run an audio search through your favorite search engine for "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow" -- don't search "Doxology;" you'll get a bunch of songs by the Christian band of the same name -- and for "Om Jai Jagdish" to hear the two melodies.)

A Brief Detour: Back to the Lion and the Unicorn

While searching for a YouTube video of "If He Walked Into My Life" as performed by, say, Angela Lansbury or Lucille Ball or Eydie Gorme, I found this.

Consider it "Alice, Part Six: One Film Representation of the Lion and the Unicorn Scene."

My favorite part is where Harvey Korman and John Stamos jump in time to the timpani. I find myself itching to recreate a similar moment with tabla.

I'm A Barbie Girl

From the New York Times: Mattel's just created another Second Life-style playland for young girls called "BarbieGirls.com."

To explore this website, young girls (the intended age is 8-13) must first register and make themselves into a Barbie avatar.

These look nothing like the Barbies I remember playing with as a child. Wasn't it that we were supposed to be making Barbie look more like a real woman and less like the German sex toy she started out to be?



Here's my Barbie avatar.

She looks eight years old, doesn't she?

(BTW, only one of the Barbie shirt options covers Barbie's navel. Just so you know. And there is no "sneakers" option for Barbie's feet: just heels -- yes, heels! -- and these Mary Janes.)

Pretty Watercolor (for S.)

Because I know he's online right now... here's an internet-style bit of connection. Fingers stretching through the ether and all of that.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a reimaging of springtime in Central Park:



I think he and I are probably behind that cluster of white flowers. ^__^