It’s been bally ages since I posted a decent moose gif
St Otto’s day
I will practice on Otto today, it’s his saint’s day (St Otto of Bamberg). And I know this because John Cleese tweeted about it.
Today I’m going to do biscotti running around, pay some bills, and generally get out of the house.
What an obituary
The Telegraph wrote a great obit for Count Robert de la Rochefoucauld. It doesn’t survive internet rot, so in 2020 I found another. Now there was a life filled with interesting stuff.
The Maid of Tarth Lyrics rev 1.
Oh the Maid of Tarth she went a riding x 2
For her honor and king, for the minstrels to sing
Branded traitor and fled into hiding
Swearing fealty to Lady Catelyn x 2
Put her sword at her feet, promised vengeance so sweet
Little reckoning what she’d be battling.
Lady Catelyn was missing her daughters x 2
To trade Lannister’s life, on the edge of a knife
Never minding their lies and their slaughters
“Take the Kingslayer back to King’s Landing X2
With your guile and your might, staying well out of sight
It’s his miserable life you’re defending.”
He fought but he still could not best her x 2
He’d have drowned like a rat were it not for the trap
Brave Companions had now set to test her
The Companions took Lannister’s sword hand x 2
Put the hand on a string, between them to swing
As in fetters they rode through the wasteland.
Said the Maid, “My lord, live for your vengeance X2
Serve the future instead, you’re no use to us dead
And so plan your revenge with all patience.”
Said the Kingslayer “you are no beautyX2
But your heart knows the right, and you know how to fight
with all justice and fierceness and duty”
Knowing this he defended her virtue X2
Spoke of jewels and wealth, kept her whole and in health
as the Kingslayer worked for her rescue
In King’s Landing he gave her Oathkeeper x2
“Save Starks with Stark steel! it is fitting, I feel;
As their captors sowed death, be the reaper!”
So the Maid rode away from King’s Landing x2
and of her no word comes, not with ravens or drums
But she lives still to my understanding.
A few remarks about migraines
I didn’t have my first migraine until I was expecting Keith; normally migraines start earlier than that. In that, however, I have been very very consistent; the neurologist says I get atypical migraines. Like a bucket of memes, I just never know what I’m gonna get!
When I get a flash, or a weird sensation, or a heavy lowering feeling, I never know what to think. Is it “Ermagerd, I’m having a small stroke?” (link removed for safety) Is it, “Bloody weather!”. Is it, “Oh great, now I can’t trust my emotions, since a migraine made me think I needed to end it all when I er, actually had no basis for such a belief!!?” (Actually, on sober second consideration, when CAN one trust one’s emotions? Apart from the Gift of Fear?)
Then there’s the bizarre range of physical sensations, previously catalogued, and visual disturbances (which in the last five years have occasionally been mesmerizingly beautiful, like the time my entire visual field briefly filled (transparently, I hasten to add, so if I had been driving I still would have been able to see) with coruscating rainbow fishscales about two inches wide at arms length. SO PRETTY HOW I GET SOME. EAT UM!
About five years ago my relationship with migraines changed. I realized that since migraines are brain chemistry foulups, pure and simple, I had the power to change my brain chemistry. If I think happy thoughts, I can make scintillating scotomas go away. At first I did not want to believe that I could do that, but I have enough evidence to satisfy myself that, yup, I can do that. If I sit, breathe, think about the days I gave birth to my children, and saw Hole at Thunderbird Stadium, and went to Hot Springs Cove, and watched mOm and pOp put up the geodesic greenhouse in the back yard in Ottawa, and saw mammatus clouds IRL, and saw a UFO shaped lenticular cloud, and flew to Vancouver in an Otter about 15 meters off the deck the whole way…. I can make that brain chemistry break up like morning fog.
So I dunno, Ms. Migraine, whether you think you’re going to land on me today, but I don’t want you around, so I gotta cheer up.
Lemming’s Twofer midi
Lemming’s Twofer and News of the Sun
Why the hell is the surface of the sun hotter than the interior? It’s a theory.
Step up folks you know you can’t go wrong
Got a back catalog about five miles long
if he gets bored he’ll write another song
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
A fas cinating miscellany of
all the subjects that he really hates and loves
And I’ll stand with him when push comes to shove
comes to his opinions I’ll be his minion
Step up folks and do not be perplexed
If you can’t guess which instrument he’s playing next
turn off the phone, he hates it when you text
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Step up folks and get some bile on wry
While the gun-totin’ smokers get it in the eye
If he was wine, he would be very dry
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Idio syncratic entertainment
delivered in eyepopping Hawaiian raiment
devoid of refinement or containment
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Brain abraded with a loofa
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Filker parodist and spoofer
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer now!
Sad family news
Kaitlin Schmidt, Paul’s niece in Medicine Hat, has passed away. Paul has gone to Alberta to be with Lois.
Lemming’s Twofer update
I have fired off an email to Lem asking him to review the lyrics, as although I don’t think he’ll take offence I suresheck don’t wan’t to give it. Once I know he’s okay with them I’ll post them, because I worked hard on them (over seared scallops and tomato boccancini salad yesterday at Borgo Antico, which is so upscale it doesn’t have a website, and comped me San Pellegrino when they didn’t have near beer. )
Roundup
Gotta love the Germans: circumcision declared child abuse/harm to child.
There’s a fine line between narcissism and self esteem. What facebook is good for.
Don’t even get my brother started on dark matter/energy.
Now that mOm is watching SG1…..
Yes, wish I had some.
Fire up some way cool google search techniques.
There I was wondering what had happened to my ex
I remembered today would have been our 33rd anniversary if we had stayed married.
Alas, he is dead. I am glad I went to see him a couple of years ago. In his memory I vow to read more poetry. He was a very interesting guy, and much of what I know about living in an inherently racist society I learned from him.
Love each other while you can.
A wonderful set of optical illusions
So I decided to see some live theatre
Let’s just look at the whole thing here: http://emeraldpig.ca/?q=news/2012/05/29/particular-class-women-june-24th
If that link no longer works here’s another: https://sites.google.com/site/siteoctogon/a-particular-class-of-women
So I had no idea I was going to a show about strippers. It was HILARIOUS, moving, the costumes were droolariffic, and I got to sit next to the president of the Beacon Unitarian Church board, a fellow congregant, my former minister and her husband. Nudity! Swearing! References to bars in Toronto from the 80’s – when I lived there! The former minister repeating some of the vilest of the lines in a stage whisper to her deaf husband!
frack! I LOVE BEING A UNITARIAN! The food and drinks were overpriced and meh, but it was a great show and I am grateful to Sue for the opportunity to go and grow.
Lemming’s Twofer and Maid of Tarth
Yesterday (still drenched in music from the housefilk) I wrote THREE SEPARATE melodies one right after the other, in the space of 17 minutes (I fired up the movie camera in the computer and just noodled so I have proof this happned). I used to sit at my desk at work crying on the inside because all I wanted to do was sit in a corner with an instrument and work out a tune and a chorus and now I CAN WRITE ANYTIME I WANT. It’s intoxicating. I should be working on biscotti. And I will. but for NOW…
Anyway, Blind Lemming Chiffon is a Denver filker and musician of protean talent (the guy with the ukeleles) who inspired the following.
Yes, it almost sounds like the beginning of the chestnut “Dixie” but it goes to a much different place. No lyrics, but I can totally hear Lem singing this (transposed to the correct key, natch) about the insanity of the current American election year cycle. Twofers, for those who don’t know filk, are a standard way of getting folks up on stage to practice stagecraft or just share; you sign up to sing two songs at the beginning of the con, and it’s a great way to see new talent and old.
Also, Maid of Tarth. Lyrics when I’m done. I’m six verses in and the son of a seacook’s nowhere near done, it’s going to be one of those darned EPIC filks with a hundred verses mit chorus and bridge. This is just the verses, I haven’t notated the chorus and bridge yet.
The other two songs are going to be something contemporary and another GoT song, I just haven’t figured out the donkey to pin the tail on yet.