August 12, 2005

• Why, the old bugger got home drunk as crap ("it's pouring", get it?), bumped with everything but the old lady, woke up with a mean hangover. I wouldn't want to get up, either. Ah. One I recall fondly, certainly not from bedtime, that is:: My Bonnie lies over the ocean, My Bonnie lies over the sea. My Bonnie lies over the ocean... And that 'A diller, a dollar...' one, I'm not fond of, really *cough*
• I always thought it was 'my body' lies over the ocean. I grew up thinking that was very surreal.
• Sometimes I wonder if the old west cowboys roamed the ranges shouting "Seldom... Seldom... Seldom" and discouraging all the settlers within ear shot.
• Where are my socks?
• Kits, cats, sacks, Saxon wives, how many are going to St. Ives?
• Damn, Wolof, I was going to say that.
• And all nursery rhymes are about the Plague. Not really, I know.
• Yeah, well, my point really was (hoping someone would catch my driff') that most of those old lovely nursery rhymes have a dark and rather sinister reality. Tracicle alludes to the ring-a-ring a rosies, pocket full of posies, a tissue etc, which as most of us grok was about the plague. There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.. I think she'll die.. now WTF is that about? etc. So this old guy bumps his head, and rather sinisterly, cannot get up in the morning. I was wondering, genuinely, what that actually alludes to & whether anyone has any insight. And then there's the fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood in it's original form is one of the most disturbing stories I can imagine, full of rape imagery and people being chopped up or devoured by wolves! Most original tales of 'the little folk' ie brownies or redcaps or whathaveyou involved mutilation and death for the poor mortals who encountered them. These are awful.
• Horsey horsey don't you stop Just let your feet go clippetty clop The tail goes swish and the wheels go round Giddy up, we're homeward bound.
• Much mayhem in the old nursery rhymes indeed, and many of the fairy tales read like little horror stories. Why did (or do) people feel the need to scare the shit out of their kids?
• Yeah, well, right.
• Because the world's a scary place, islander.
• Snopes!
• I think it's because the words rhyme good. Try find rhymes for happy, nice, pretty, etc... It's not as much fun to sing: It's raining, but I'm okay with that, I'll just wear a coat and a pretty hat, and the sun'll come up in the morning.
• People enjoy scaring themselves, frankly. This is why we have rollercoasters and horror movies. When scary things happen in a frame of the fantastic or the fictional or in folktale, they allow folk to experience frightening things in a safe way.
• *Jumps in bed and pulls covers over head, whimpers*
• Mots fairy tales were cautionary tales for children: don't go into the forest alone, don't talk to strange wolves, don't let your step-parents leave you in the dark with nothing but breadcrumbs, don't go wandering into bears' houses, etc.
• Use bricks when building houses. Don't eat apples. Girls should grow their hair long.
• If you're an egg, don't sit on a fucking wall!
• "The old man" clearly refers to the male sexual organ. "Bumped his head" is taken by some scholars to denote injury, but I believe it refers instead to sexual activity (as in the contemporary slang phrase "to bump uglies.") "Went to bed" clearly signifies "detumesced." Inability to "get up in the morning," then, must refer to the absence of an erection-- in the morning, too, when most males experience full tumescence. This is reinforced by the description of the penis as "the old man" in line 2: surely a gloomy reference to the narrator's feelings of his own, as well as his organ's, mortality. The heavy rain of the first line, then, is clearly a metaphor for the depression and ennui caused by erectile dysfunction-- perhaps the unnamed partner, disappointed in the narrator and his weary "old man," has departed, leaving him to his vain attempts to awaken his own "snoring" penis?
• The old man couldn't get IT up in the morning, if you know what I'm saying. It's a rhyme about Bob Dole, who's always been old.
• Damn, Athena got there first.
• Well, I'm convinced.
• The one that puzzled me was, "With a knickknack- paddywhack- give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home." (I REALLY don't want to know what Pallas Athena thinks about that one.) No, but seriously- why was the old man rolling? Is that how you have to get around after you've bumped your head and subsequently been unable to get up in the morning? If he continues rolling all over the place, will his body eventually lie over the ocean?
• I was always told the 'my bonnie lies over the ocean' refered to Bonnie Prince Charlie, making it a Jacobite song.
• warning: drunk rugby players' song follows my one skin lies under my two skin my two skin lies under my three my three skin lies under my four skin so peel back my four skin for me
• I can't believe I read this whole thread.
• I can't believe you're not butter.
• Stan the Bat, hmmmm... (see also my forthcoming critical edition of My Old Man's a Dustman, Wallamaloo University Press)
• I was told a little while ago that the military song 'Taps', the song where they have the lone bugler wailing mournfully, is, like most other prized anonymous melodies in North America, based on an old English drinking song. 'Taps' was originally used to call soldiers back to barracks after they were out drinking in the town. It was a signal to the pub owners to turn off the taps. Of course, there are some different claims as to authorship -- I remember reading some plaque on the Upper West Side celebrating some officer who supposedly wrote it -- but there's never an explanation as to why it's called 'Taps'. Which, when one thinks about it, is a strange name for a eulogy. But mourning last call, I can understand that all too well. (And again, I have a comment only marginally related to the thread. I won't interrupt again. Carry on.)
• Oh, allright, I will interrupt again, only to say that I'm REEEEEAAAAALLY looking forward to Gilliam's Brothers Grimm, and am deliberately staying away from any and all reviews, trailers, or other spoilers, just to have myself blown away all that much more. Something tells me the Grimm tales won't be in their modern, sanitized form, even if they're presented indirectly through the adventures of the two brothers. Let's hope it comes to a cinema near me, which, given the odds, ISN'T TOO BLOODY LIKELY.
• Are you also staying away from any and all comments from other Gilliam fans who've seen the Brothers Grimm trailer?
• ...mnn... You're sorely testing my resolve. Let's say that.
• Pallas Athena's analysis is the most convincing ever. But that doesn't help me with my current problem: what shall we do with the drunken sailor? A period of convalescence in the longboat, a drenching, and restraining and hosing him down have all been tried, but with little success to date.
• Dear Ask Pallas: I have often felt the urge to desport myself in 'cor-blimey' trousers, yet to date hae only be able to find 'fuck-me' shoes, which moreover were in a ladies fitting. Any tips, municipal or otherwise?
• I like stories.
• Cap'n sir, I agree, it looks pretty cool from the trailers. Hope it's as well done as it could be.
• Cap'n sir, I agree, it looks pretty cool from the trailers. Hope it's as well done as it could be.
• Three Day Monk, that song is in a car commercial (instrumental only). Every time it comes on, Mr. Minda (who was in the Navy for a couple of years) starts singing it.
• box 'is ears is awl. 'ee'l start a-mindin' then eh?! heh! heh! heh!
• Dear Abiezer: Cor-blimey trousers in the latest style may be had from J. Felchworth and Sons, Piccadilly. The wearing of fuck-me shoes with cor-blimey trousers is perfectly acceptable in most circles, but if you wear hobnailed boots you'll look a proper nana. ThreeDayMonk: I sympathise with your dilemma. The verse beginning "Refer him to AA or other reputable organisation" is widely believed among scholars to have been lost over time or corrupted, perhaps into the present-day verse "put a lobster down his britches".
• I'm Rick James, britch!
• Ooh! In a magnificent bit of interrelated-thread action, consider To market, to market to buy a fat pig Home again, home again, jiggety jig which according to this site has 'no particular origin or meaning'. BUT! From languagehat's sheepcounting link we learn that 20 sheep are called a 'jigget' or 'jiggit'! Coincidence? I think not!
• The Lord above, Send down a dove, With beak as sharp as razors To cut the throats! of them there, blokes what sells bad beer to sailors
• its easy to grin, when your ship comes in and you've got the stock market beat. but the man worthwhile is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat.
• mothninja's theory could have serious implications. The fat pig obviously symbolises the writer's desire for material success in a capitalist society. Buying a 'jigget', or twenty pigs, the hapless shopper overspends and, rather than joining the 'fat pigs' at the top of the consumer economy, enslaves him/herself to them through debt. Hoping to make the transition from subsistence farming to entrepreneurial success, the writer is cruelly deceived. Which raises the question: should we as a society continue to condone the sale of barnyard creatures in large numbers to those who clearly are not ready for them?
• "When I was your age I used to haul sacks of cement up five stories." "So what?" "So, let's dance!" ["Any way you want it" by Journey plays]
• *passes around cocktails*
• Where did all these bikini-clad girls come from??? *stops caring, starts dancing*
• More gin in this gimlet! *does breakdance move, throws out spine*
• *grabs Northern, throws coat off, throws spine back in, does tango*
• Snopes is just an easy place to link to. When the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes is on line, (I have a copy mouldering away in the lounge room), send me a smoke signal.
• Smokes!