Category: Piffle

Musical Selection: Storytelling Songs

9/15/2017

It surprises me when someone says, "Oh, I don't know the words. I just listen to the music."

Words being important to me, yes, but still, how sad to miss the lyrical turns, the clever wordplay, the telegraphic details.

Sheryl Crow says, "He says his name is William, but I'm sure it's Bill or Billy or Mack or Buddy, and he's plain ugly to me." She's showing us what it is to see through the ploys of a barfly trying to get the girl's attention.

So when Ms. Crow goes on to announce that all she wants to do is have some fun, we can see it's not so easy –– even while drinking beer at noon in a bar that faces a car wash.

Of course, maybe the words and story is what appeals to me. They are kind of my things, after all.

Like this song from Bree Sharp.

Granted, it's a ballad, which would lead anyone to expect a narrative, but she paints a noir, Bonnie-and-Clyde picture of the end of a spree.

But why oh why does Lipton Iced Tea snip a bit of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweat's SOB in their television ad campaign?

Yes, the hand-clap is catchy, but there's a jarring cognitive dissonance when one pairs this particular song with a hearty recommendation for something to drink.

Someone at the ad agency must have had a sense of humor.

(Says she, making up a story.)

PS: And on the other hand, we have songs like Louie Louie.

The words are so indistinguishable that you can put whatever comes to mind into those slurred lines, and all you are left with as a listener is a passionate understanding for the need to leave.

I know it's supposed to be a sea-shanty, but honestly it could just as easily be a call to take up needlepoint or remove potatoes from the stove. Wooah, baby, me gotta go.

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The Would-Be Farm: It's All Re-Runs on Farm TV

9/7/2017

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Beach life. I worked as the first mate on a small passenger ferry* that shuttled tourists from Pass-a-Grille Beach across a short stretch of salt water to an uninhabited barrier island called Shell Key.

If there were customers, we'd also take them on a sunset cruise.

It was a great gig. My sister and I job-shared. We rendered tourists happy by the application of two-hour doses of undeveloped beach and surf. They got to see the real Florida. Sometimes they tipped.

(*The Shell Key Shuttle is still in biz, but under new management.)

The boss, Captain Alva, was perhaps the most mature and sensible adult male I'd known up till then. He offered positive, actionable advice when asked and took joy in the highlights of the day. Still does.

Inevitably, after a sunset cruise, the friendly fishing folk hanging around Merry Pier would ask how the sunset had been.

Because I love to get the laugh, I usually answered with something flip, deadpanned for shock value: "Aw, you know –– same old same old. It was a re-run. Saw it last week."

At the Would-Be Farm, we get a lot of that re-run stuff.

The fire-pit doing its thing, for instance. A bonfire doesn't seem to get old.

Even if we don't have any magic on hand, there's a lot of material for rapid oxidation. Brush transformed to dust. Heat and light. Sticks in the fire, sparks in the sky.

The night-time music is on repeat, too. Between the maniacal Whip-poor-wills and the spring peepers, it's something to have a bit of peace. Not to mention, though I am, the canids.

Coyotes serenade us most nights. We call it the chorus of the damned.

We try to pick out the individual voices in the quavering-howling-yapping-yipping wall of sound. In late summer, the pups join in with typically youthful enthusiasm.

The closest human sound might be atonal music by way of a middle-school band tuning up. An example? Sure, she typed, grinning evilly.

Check this Messiaen YouTube clip. At your own risk, by the by: Despite everything, I think I'm getting addicted to it.

We often end the sunlit day at the beaver pond.

We put a two-seater deer stand up a pine tree so we can get above some of the mosquitoes and see beyond the fringe of cattails that surrounds the pond.

The beavers –– true to stereotype –– clock in at dusk and work their fannies off maintaining the mud dams. They are reliable as clockwork, chugging through the water like mammalian tugboats.

With the right show, we can watch re-runs –– one most devoutly hopes –– for years.

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15 Amazing Listicles That Will Completely Change The Way...Whatever.

9/1/2017

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Even if you didn't know the name –– a combination of "article" and "list" –– you've probably clicked through one of these short articles. They promise valuable content in a compact package, which seems ideal.

But then you go to read it, and suddenly, it's not so ideal.

After all, it's the internet, so when you are prompted to click...and click...and click...and click –– understand that the listicle is less about providing information to you than it is about harvesting your attention for advertising pennies.

I know, no duh, but still, I worked in journalism for years. I write for a living, I edit the crap out of stuff, and I STILL feel drawn to the formula.

Formula? Take an integer + an over-the-top modifier and noun + a promise and Bob's your uncle. Like this:

27 Times Bacon Has Changed the Course of Modern History (Number 3 Will Make You Swear Off Eating in Restaurants!)

via GIPHY

34 High-Def Images of Dust Mites That Will Haunt You Forever

45 Amazing Hacks To Transform Common Household Products Into Creative Table-toppers

It's kind of addicting, actually, once you get going:

35 Things You Absolutely Need to Know about Roqueford Cheese

19 Pathetic Pick-Up Lines That Make Us Fear for the Future of Procreation...which links to 23 Most Ruthless Tinder Snaps

18 Shockingly Images of Celebrities Doing Housework –– You'll Never Guess Who Doesn't Sort His Laundry!

37 Ridiculously Simple Ways to Avoid Political Discussions Over the Holidays –– or any other time (#13 is Genius!)

Kind of addicting? Cripes. Must. Quit. Thinking. This. Way.

7 Horrifying Ways Your Creativity Leads You Astray

via GIPHY

The numbers alone make me stop and think. I consider the cabalistic weight of them: are they prime numbers? is it whenever the data ran out?

And I wonder -– is it better to have
17 of the Most Adorable Hedgehog Videos
or 13 of the Most Adorable Hedgehog Videos?

Trick question: There are not EVER enough adorable hedgehog videos in the world.

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Birdwatching: Rumble in the Jungle

8/29/2017

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Thanks to my sister, it's impossible for me to see a junco like this handsome fellow on the right without saying "There's a rumble in the junco." Aloud. Every. Single. Time.

Thanks sis.

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Here Comes Sandy Claus, Here Comes Sandy Claus*

8/22/2017

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Okay, okay, he doesn't have a beard or a red suit or a nose like a cherry, but the twinkle and the red sleigh full of toys for good girls and boys? He's got that!

Thank you Harry Carpenter of Flying Scot Inc. for delivering Flying Scot #6133, The Scuppernong.

*the Flying Scot is a 60-year-old sloop design by Gordon K "Sandy" Douglass.

I know, I know, she who would tell so execrable a pun is just as like to pick a pocket.

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Artistic Taxidermy

8/4/2017

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I'll admit to a certain aesthetic weakness for a taxidermied specimen. Maybe it's ironic. Maybe it's the easy appeal of kitsch. De gustibus non desputandum est*. I have yet to act on the impulse, but I do spare a wistful thought for the ones that got away...

Like that awful stuffed red fox that I did not buy at auction –– it went over my $20 limit a lot faster than you might expect, given that its feet were visibly nailed to a chipboard base.

Or the full-body white-tail buck for a single Benjamin? It was the artist's first attempt, and I had one crisp Benjamin of mad-money in my wallet. I might have strapped the creature to the top of the mini-van...SO many practical jokes left unplayed with that bad boy. With four caster wheels and some 80-lb-test monofilament, I know it would have been a legendary traffic-calming measure.

Sigh.

*AKA "Riding the gusty bus." Isn't the language amazing?

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Grammatical Choices

7/26/2017

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When committing words to paper (or screen–– or signage–– ), it's useful to put yourself in the shoes of your "readers." Who will probably "wish" they could understand your message. Just "saying."

Bonus points for correct use of open and closed quotation marks.

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Memorable, Anyhow.

7/18/2017

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You never get a chance to make a second impression.

In Mount Dora, FL, this is a restaurant.

I went instead to the Goblin Market. It seemed more to my taste.

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Is Nature Trying to Tell Me Something?

7/7/2017

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Oh Nature. It's impossible not to imagine that the natural world speaks -- if only you are there to hear it.

Sometimes the message is mysterious and poetic, like a call to a higher artistic truth.

But not always.

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We Sing Willie Nelson by the Dashboard Light

6/24/2017

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Within four or six blocks from our driveway, one of us strikes up the song. We don't make a long performance of it, just a quick, twangy couplet. Off pitch, most likely, but in tune:

"We're on the road again/dee-doodle-deedle doh-dee-dee-dee."

It's kind of nice cap on the list-making, packing-and-stowing, what-else-are-we-going-to-need phase of a road-trip. It marks the start of a long book-on-CD (this time, Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris), the continuing dispute with the GPS, and the best the snactitian can manage.

Sailing gear, clothes for hot-to-chilly weather, snacks, books on CD, stacking planters, miscellany.

All the stuff, plus a birdfeeder, a small boat trailer (unassembled), fishing gear, a large cooler, small cooler, some buckets, chairs, sleeping bag, handtools, additional miscellany.

You know how in The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins has the occasional, intense longing to be home, with the kettle just beginning to boil? He goes on the adventure, but he suffers with homesickness.

I don't think I've felt that for years. I get home, unpack, and start climbing that Matterhorn of dirty laundry. I turn the hot-water heater back on, pay the bills, make sure the cars start and the refrigerator hasn't keeled over...but I'd be just as happy to bounce right back out the door and have the next adventure already.

We're out and about (not to mention underground) for some chunk of time.

I hope to write, but may miss a few blog-days.

So far, we are accident-free. Knock wood.

So far, we've visited some buddies, actually stopped for barbecue lunch (!), and visited the delightful Craighead Caverns in Sweetwater, Tennessee for a Lost Sea Adventure.

Before winding our way home again this time, we hope to sail the Flying Scot NACs regatta, do a bit of roller coasting at Cedar Point (billed as the Roller Coaster Capital of the World), and wrangle some farm chores...

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<<Previous

Musical Selection: Storytelling Songs

The Would-Be Farm: It's All Re-Runs on Farm TV

15 Amazing Listicles That Will Completely Change The Way...Whatever.

Birdwatching: Rumble in the Jungle

Here Comes Sandy Claus, Here Comes Sandy Claus*

Artistic Taxidermy

Grammatical Choices

Memorable, Anyhow.

Is Nature Trying to Tell Me Something?

We Sing Willie Nelson by the Dashboard Light

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