And here is a video for you.

Don't forget to De-Lurk, please!

I was going to write about Shelob's lair today but I am ridiculously tired and kind of brain-dead, and that story deserves a better treatment than I can give it in my present state of mind, so instead I'm giving you an awesome video. This song gives me the giggles every time I hear it. There are lots of other video versions, but I have a soft spot for this one simply because of the ponies (you'll see what I mean), which double the giggles.

The song is Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton.




And yes, if you were wondering, this is the same man who brought you that beloved classic, the IKEA song.

A Trip to the Library; or, Thank You, Jerry Bock.

Don't forget to De-Lurk, please!


Jerry Bock passed away last week. For those of you who aren't geeky enough to recognize that name without more explanation, he was the Bock half (obviously) of the duo Bock and Harnick, who wrote Broadway musicals (Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist to Bock's composer, is still alive). And if that doesn't help, maybe this will:



So let me pause here because I want to make one thing very clear. I adore Fiddler on the Roof. I think it is brilliant and quite possibly one of the best musicals ever written.

But it's not my favorite musical by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

That distinction goes to the little-known 1963 gem She Loves Me.



It's the story of The Shop Around the Corner in musical format. (The movie was originally adapted from a play called Parfumerie, by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, and subsequently remade as In the Good Old Summertime and, later, You've Got Mail.) The music is sweet, the story and characters are charming, and, of course, the guy gets the girl in the end. (If you think that's a spoiler you're not paying attention.)

Unfortunately, this beautiful little musical was overshadowed by the mega-shows Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly that year, with which it couldn't compete, and so it only played for a short run, and was mostly shut out come Tony time.

Which is a real shame. It features such songs as "No More Candy" (trying to sell a musical candy box to a skeptical customer), "Tonight At Eight" (our leading man is nervous about his impending date to meet the girl of his dreams), "Perspective" (the older clerk in the store explains how to keep your job), "Romantic Atmosphere" (a frustrated maitre d' tries to impress upon a bumbling waiter the importance of setting the mood for lovers' meetings), "Tango Tragique" (a cautionary tale about anonymous pen pals), "Where's My Shoe" (leading lady gets a bit of a crazy-go-nuts scene), "Ice Cream" and "She Loves Me" (the leading lady and leading man, respectively, discover a softening of their feelings of animosity toward each other), "Grand Knowing You" (the skeezy clerk's big farewell), and several others.

Including my very favorite, "A Trip to the Library."

In this scene, when last we saw our secondary lady, (who is a bit of a floozy), she had just had her heart stomped on by the skeezy clerk for the last time, and valiantly resolved to change her ways and not be taken in by such a skeezy guy again. She comes back to work the next morning and reports on her progress to the leading man. It seems that last night, she found her feet taking her on an unexpected route . . . to the library. "You've never seen anything like that library! So many books! So much marble! So quiet!"



I chose this version out of all the many on YouTube because even though she flubs a couple of the lyrics, she sings it more closely to the way the original actress, Barbara Baxley, did. I prefer the slightly more vulnerable and sweet tone to the brassier belting featured in most of the other renditions. If you'd like to see how it plays out on stage, though, I did enjoy this version:



I ask you, how can you not love a show with a song that rhymes "respectable" and "bespectacled"? And who could resist a lyric like this:

I have to admit, in the back of my mind
I was praying he wouldn't get fresh,
And all of the while I was wondering why
An illiterate girl should attract him.
Then all of a sudden he said that I couldn't
Go wrong with the way of all flesh—
Of course it's a novel, but I didn't know
Or I certainly wouldn't have smacked him!

If you have never heard of She Loves Me, I suggest you do yourself a favor and check out the soundtrack. Or keep an eye out on your community theater notices, as this show is frequently mounted around Christmas time. Check to see if there's a production going on near you and go to see it. Take a friend and sink back into this lovely little musical. I promise you won't regret it.


Day 9! Wahoo! (When was the last time you went "wahoo"?)

The 'phew says hello.

I admit, this is another baby post, but only incidentally.

See, I basically have the best nephews in the world (sorry, anyone with nephews, but mine are cooler). I have a pretty awesome niece, too, but tonight we're going to focus on my oldest nephew. Let's call him Cool Dude.

Cool Dude is my younger sister's son, and we are lucky enough to live within about 10 minutes of their family. Cool Dude is three, a chatterbox (like his mom), a redhead (like his great grandma), a great big brother to his little sister, and one of my best buds. Shallow Man and I have been close friends with Cool Dude since he was born. (Seriously. We were the first people to meet him besides his parents and the hospital staff.)

So this evening we stopped by my sister's place, arriving just in time for Cool Dude to notice that large portions of the popsicle he had just consumed had not, in point of fact, made their way into his mouth and thereby to his stomach, but were instead residing in large patches on his shirt and pants. He therefore requested that I take him upstairs to get him some new pants.

Before this operation could be performed, we had to make a quick stop by the bathroom sink to cleanse his face, hands, arms, shoulders, etc., from the leftover juice of the "wild berry" popsicle (that's what Cool Dude told me it was; his mom, who is probably the more reliable source, informs me that it was actually just grape). In the midst of this operation, Cool Dude paused in his story of wild berries and asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy still?"

Side note: We'd told him about our baby a few months back, reminding him of when his little sister was in his mommy's tummy, and telling him that now Aunt Scritchy has a baby in her tummy, too, so he gets another cousin (he LOVES his cousins. Cousins are maybe the best thing ever besides wild berry popsicles). He thought this through for a minute and then said, "I have a baby in my tummy, too." (Putting one hand on his tummy and the other on his hip) "She's sleeping right now."

I told him that yes, there was still a baby in my tummy. "That's why my tummy is big right now."

CD: Oh. That's right.

Me: (scrubbing congealed grape goo off his hands) After we wash your hands, you can feel where the baby is if you want to.

CD: Okay!

(Several minutes pass; I finally emerge triumphant with a relatively-clean Cool Dude in tow, who proceeds to choose a new shirt—bright green—and pants—blue stripes—to wear [his mom looked at the ensemble and made a dry remark about how maybe he inherited his uncle's colorblindness]; finally he is clean and fully clothed again.)

I put his hand on my tummy so he could feel where baby was curled up (not kicking at the moment, an increasingly rare occurrence). His eyes got wide and he grinned at me when I told him that was where the baby was.

And then he put his face right up by my tummy, started stroking the spot with his hand, and, in the sweet voice he reserves for his little sister when he's gently telling her not to cry, said "Hi, baby!"

Whereupon I melted.

Yeah, I have awesome nephews. And my boy is going to have a good friend and cousin to help show him the ropes once he gets here. (And I'm sure his other cousins will help, too. I can hardly wait!)

Sweet and tender

I wanted to take a brief break from this last big push to finish my Major Paper (neigh!) to share this link with all y'all. I ran into it yesterday and really liked it, but haven't had a chance to put it up here until now.

Amazing what the prospect of another hour with the Major Paper (neigh!) will do to your unimportant-but-it-would-be-nice-to-do list.

At any rate, this is one of the sweetest things I have read in a while. Enjoy!

And please don't be deterred by the fact that most of what I have read in the last while is stuff related to my Major Paper (neeeeeeeiiiigh!); even if I had just finished reading Persuasion,* this would still have been a strong contender.


*This whole scene is amazing, but if you want to cut to the chase, fast forward to 2:20.