Das Tagebuch Murnaus

At lunch today I was shuffling through the stack of 45s every thrift store still seems to have, and came away with two interesting items:

The Glencoves, "Hootenanny" b/w "It's Sister Jinny's Turn To Throw The Bomb" (JOY J 724) - from 1963; and

Johnny and the Hurricanes, "Beatnik Fly" b/w "Reveille Rock" (Barry BAGT-556X) - from 1959. Instrumental versions of old tunes ("Blue Tail Fly" and the Army bugle call), featuring the then-new Hammond organ. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_and_the_Hurricanes

Haven't heard either yet (still have to haul the record player out of storage), but I did find the lyrics to the first one:

It's Sister Jinny's Turn To Throw The Bomb

In an old chemist's attic, so dreary and so mean,
Oh smell the fearful odors of nitroglycerine
They're busy building bombs, and filling cans with nails
And little starving kiddies set up this tearful wail:

[chorus:] Oh, it's sister Ginny's turn to throw the bomb
The last one it was thrown by brother John (brother John)
Mother's aim is bad and the coppers all know Dad
So it's sister Ginny's turn to throw the bomb

In a dark and dreary attic, all filled with nitro fumes
They spend each waking hour planning others' dooms
They build bombs every morning, so not a day goes by
That from some smoking building goes up this mournful cry:

[chorus]

They're taught bomb-building from the day they're born
And peace is something they all learn to scorn
They can hardly wait to see the blast and hear the noise
And watch the heads go flying off little girls and boys

[chorus]

She was maiming little children one fine day
When her older brother swore she'd have to pay
Grit his teeth and pulled the pin
The whole darn house caved in
And I'll bet she's building bombs below this day

[chorus]

What they used to call "sick humour" in 1963, I suppose. The flip side (actually, it was their big hit) is just stupid:

Hootenanny

There's gonna be a big
Hootenanny, hootenanny
Everybody's gonna come along
All join in at the
Hootenanny, hootenanny
Sing a hooting, hollering song

Put on your hat
Put out the cat
Bring a little money
Cause you might need that

Throw out the blues
Kick off your shoes
Sing a little, sing a little
Make a little love a little

Bring a little honey to
The hootenanny, hootenanny
Everybody's gonna have a date
Hurry hurry, hurry to
The hootenanny, hootenanny
We don't wanna be late

You get the girls
I'll get the car
Bring a banjo and an old guitar
Get out the spoons
You know the tunes
Hey diddle diddle with
A fiddle in the middle

If you can't fiddle
At the hootenanny, hootenanny
Play a little paper and comb
Once you get to the
Hootenanny, hootenanny
You'll never wanna go home

You get the girls
I'll get the car
Bring a banjo and an old guitar
Get out the spoons
You know the tunes
Hey diddle diddle with
A fiddle in the middle

If you can't fiddle at the
Hootenanny, hootenanny
Play a little paper and comb
Once you get to the
Hootenanny, hootenanny
You'll never wanna go home
You'll never wanna go home
You'll never want to go home

(Of New Things)

I saw some kind of goshwow mention the other day on some media outlet - tells you how much attention I was paying - about some people in California who had taken a vow of "nothing new" for the year: they would buy nothing new except food, gas, underwear and other fungibles and get everything else they needed at thrift stores, barter, recycling and so forth. It made me think about how much of my life has been like that, for the last 12 years and more.

I really can't remember the last article of external clothing I bought new - I think it was a suit jacket, about 10 years ago. Otherwise, everything I wear either comes from a thrift store or was a gift from a family member.

Sometimes I will buy a new book or CD, but generally only if it is on sale or on a remainder table. Otherwise, used book and music stores give me more than enough to look through. I don't think I have ever bought new computer software, except what came with a new computer (I have bought one new computer in my life, a Mac Performa 580CD in 1996 - paid full price, can be bought for 1% of that in a thrift store now). Sometimes I will buy new DVDs, but generally they are of older movies and are cheaper than the normal run of DVDs anyway.

And there's my chipper (http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/102284.html), though even that was half-price on clearance, and sometimes I will buy replacement tools or rope. But I spent Sunday afternoon and evening filing a bar of aluminum rod down by hand to fit the hole in a replacement wheelbarrow wheel I had bought, because the old axle was too big.

I have a good job and a good wage, and I suppose I don't really have to live this way. But I like being frugal, and making do, and I didn't bother to tell the newspapers about it.

Sunday, for the first time in my 28 years of living here (well, less a few years for good behaviour) I went to the Chinese New Year parade to see the dragon dance etc.. Aki really liked it, he liked the BBQ duck and wonton soup even better! After lunch we went to Value Village, where we scooped a bunch of Archie comic books (which he seems to like much better than Donald Duck et al.), a double-nine set of dominoes, and a bunch of rubber balls.

Well, instead of a cake made of silage and hog feed, I made Espresso Brittle for Goodie Day. Roasted espresso beans whacked with a mallet, then boiled just-carmelized sugar syrup poured over. Probably the first time in the history of Office Goodie Day that not everything was scarfed in an hour. Hope they all lost fillings.

I've found a new sort of ever-mutable card game, Dvorak: http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.html. Decks of cards to suit any occasion, or just make up new ones as you go along. I've downloaded and prepared decks on the themes of World Domination, Secret Police, Robot Wars, Medieval Warfare, Frankenstein, Vampires, Teeth and Mad Scientist. Looks like lots of fun, and Aki and I have a good time making up illustrations for the cards!

Bad news: the Glasses Place rang me up and said they made a mistake in making up my new lenses - some number did not get faxed clearly, Or Something. I have to wait another week. Glad someone checked the numbers, though!

I admit I don't follow entertainment news, but this little piece of revisionism tickled my glands:

( Read more... )

A while back I was in the Vincent de Paul thrift store and picked up three CDs with odd titles: "Industry/ Leisure/ Pop"; "Street People"; and "Technovision". It wasn't until I got home and played some of them that I understood what I had bought: production music or, in a sense, corporate Muzak.
( Read more... )

Well, a weekend spent resting, for once. Or mostly resting.

Friday night was Gothvic coffee night, so windy and cold that we all moved inside when it got dark. Kiri_bean's friend Manjari was in town, and a few other people came out of the woodwork. Scuttle was there before going to work, and now she's home dying of some awful biological thing, seaofrain was in Vancouver organizing her Elegant Gothic Lolita tea party, and that's all the Gothvic/Livejournal people I can reference for now.

Saturday we went grocery shopping and I deked out to the Salvation Army up the hill from the mall. I found a book of Varga pinup girls in good shape (the book was good too, only a few dog-ears) and a strange French-language {{metiers de loto}} bingo style game for 99 cents. It came with six cards with six pictures of people dressed in their work clothes but with empty hands, and 36 little cards showing various implements. So players had to match up the typewriter with the typist, or the {{machine a ecrire}} with {{la dactylo}} or something like that (sorry if I get the genders wrong, I wasn't paying attention). It was a pretty old set, because there were cards for gas jockeys in peaked caps, sculptors, manual typists and so forth. Funny too, because some of the implements were out of scale so the nurse was threatening her patient with a syringe the size of a bicycle pump! I suppose these days you could work a few changes on it, too - try to argue that {{le facteur}} (the postman) needs a cleaver to do his job correctly, and the butcher needs the syringe to dope up the meat so it has a taste, etc. and so forth.

Then I mowed the lawns (actually, these days it's more like chopping the dandelions off short, as the grass has stopped growing until the fall) and we set up the new used tent in the backyard. I am planning on taking that one to Burning Man and wanted to test it out for leaks and tears and how quickly one could set it up in a wind. It's a fine little bit of shelter, but it's definitely not for two adults unless they are Siamese twins. New sleeping bag and sleeping pad are fine too.

Sunday I hacked around weeding the garden, picking cherries off the tree (they are good this year, and the birds didn't get near as many as they usually do), going for a long bike ride in search of a stamp, and watching an anime I had found last week: "Wings of Honneamise". There is so much imagination in this movie: the people who made the story of the beginnings of space flight on another world stocked this alternate Earth with believable alternate technologies, religions, styles of dress, etc.. Really must have been a labour of love.

And this morning woke up late for work already - SOMEONE had reset the alarms we use to get up at 7:15. One was set for 6:00 am and one for 7:20 pm. I love having twelve whole minutes to do all the bathroom business, shave, dress, grab food, pack bag and rocket out the house with my boots on the wrong feet (OK, so that last bit was exaggeration but you get the idea). So now here I am, updating this journal!