Political meme

Via Thnidu:
Copy this sentence into your blog if you're in a non-same-sex marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Strictly speaking I'm not married, but even if I were, I wouldn't feel threatened anyway. Even further I don't think the state has any reason to legislate about my relations with other consenting adults. Abolish all marriage laws!

Douglas Adams meme

“He would put on the record of bagpipe music.”

Put a Douglas Adams quote in your blog.

Song Meme II

The earlier song meme has gone around the circle and returned to me. The rules are:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List 5 songs you like that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

This time I am to do songs starting with L. There are indeed a great many good songs beginning with L, especially in French and Spanish, but I fear I will succumb to some amount of Anglosaxon cultural imperialism in my choices.

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Lost in Her Lips
Grimwood/Idlet

Lost in her lips, I'm getting lost in her lips,
And losing track of conversation.
If Lewis and Clark had just discovered these lips,
The expedition would have ended up in Mexico, no!

Lost in her lips, downtown New York in her lips,
I try to lift my eyes with no success.
I got on with a transfer, and now I missed my stop;
The bus driver is waving, pointing me out to a cop.
What am I saying? It doesn't matter;
What is she saying? Why should I care?
What could be more interesting than staring at these lips,
Failing to communicate?

Lost in her lips, I'm taking breakfast with her lips,
Scrambling my sentences and all.
Sitting at my table, there's coffee in my drink,
It's difficult to concentrate, impossible to think.
I ask them questions, to watch them answer;
Could you repeat that, so I might watch again?
What could be more interesting than staring at these lips,
Failing to communicate, failing to communicate?

Lost in her lips, I'm getting lost in her lips,
And losing track of conversation.
If Lewis and Clark had just discovered these lips,
The expedition would have ended up in Mexico, no!

Lost in her lips, taking a bath with her lips,
In a porcelain tub, reading a book,
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and
there's music in the living room,
I've got nothing left to do but stare at these lips.
I ask them questions, to watch them answer;
Could you repeat that, so I might watch again?
What could be more interesting than staring at these lips,
What could be more wonderful than staring at these lips,
Failing to communicate, failing to communicate, hey!

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Love Is All Around
Presley

I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
Love is all around me
And so the feeling grows.

It's written on the wind
It's everywhere I go, oh yes it is.
So if you really love me
Come on and let it show.

You know I love you, I always will
My mind's made up by the
Way that I feel
There's no beginning,
There'll be no end
cause on my love you can depend.

I see your face before me
As I lay on my bed
I kinda get to thinking
Of all the things you said, oh yes I did
You gave your promise to me and I
Gave mine to you

I need someone beside me
In everything I do, oh yes I do
You know I love you, I always will,
My mind's made up by the
Way that I feel
There's no beginning,
There'll be no end
cause on my love you can depend.

Got to keep it moving
Oh it's written in the wind
Oh everywhere I go, yeah, oh well
So if you really love me, love me, love me
Come on and let it show
Come on and let it show
Come on and let it
Come on and let it (come and let it show, baby)
Come on, come on, come on let it show baby
Come on and let it show
Come on and let it show, baby
Come on and let it show

OK, so the lyrics aren't exactly Shakespeare, but with a good boy band they do the trick anyway. And, yeah, I prefer the version by Wet Wet Wet to The Troggs' original, but I couldn't quite say why.

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Long, Long Day
Simon

It's been a long, long day
I got some run-down shoes
Ain't got no place to stay
But any old place will be okay
Its been a long, long day

I sure been on this road
Done nearly fourteen years
Can't say my name's well known
You don't see my face in Rolling Stone
But I sure been on this road

Slow motion
Half a dollar bill
Jukebox in the corner
Shooting to kill
And its been a…

It's been a long, long day
I sure could use a friend
Don't know what else to say
I hate to abuse an old cliché
But it's been a long, long day
It's been a long, long day

I first thought I shouldn't add a Paul Simon song, as I had one last time, but seriously, there can't be a list of my favourite songs without a Paul Simon song.

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Les feuilles mortes
Prévert/Kosma

Oh ! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle,
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié...
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Et le vent du nord les emporte
Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli.
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié
La chanson que tu me chantais.

REFRAIN:
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi, tu m'aimais et je t'aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis.

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
Sourit toujours et remercie la vie
Je t'aimais tant, tu étais si jolie,
Comment veux-tu que je t'oublie?
En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
Tu étais ma plus douce amie
Mais je n'ai que faire des regrets
Et la chanson que tu chantais
Toujours, toujours je l'entendrai !

REFRAIN

In English this song is known as “Autumn Leaves” and I have a recording with Cannonball Adderley and others where the theme is considerably expanded. Impressively, Eino Leino's poem ”Lapin Kesä” can be sung to the same melody and has been performed by Vesa-Matti Loiri.

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Les bicyclettes de Belsize
Reed/Mason

Tourne retourne dans mes pensées le regret d'un amour
C'était à Londres un matin de mai à Belsize un beau jour un beau jour
Les bicyclettes de Belsize nous ont porté tous deux et nous roulions amoureux main dans la main
Seul le ciel tendre et bleu se mirait dans nos yeux nos yeux d'enfants heureux
Souvent je rêve encore aux bicyclettes de Belsize

Tourne retourne dans mon cœur trop lourd le bonheur de ma vie
Mais l'amour joue souvent de ces tours un jour tout es fini bien fini
Les bicyclettes de Belsize nous ont porté tous deux et nous roulions amoureux main dans la main
Seul le ciel tendre et bleu se mirait dans nos yeux nos yeux d'enfants heureux
Souvent je rêve encore aux bicyclettes de Belsize.

In the film Engelbert Humperdinck sang the theme, but for me the song is for ever associated with Mireille Mathieu, so therefore the lyrics in French.

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Mutating Genre Meme

A blogging and scientific experiment.

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is …”.

Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

• You can leave them exactly as is.
• You can delete any one question.
• You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.
• You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.
• You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the “parent” blog you got them from, e.g. Aardvarcheology, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

The best epic novel in SF/Fantasy is: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The best sexy song in R&B/Soul is: "Come With Me" by Rare Earth.
The best cult novel in fantasy is: Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.
The best supersonic transport in history is: BAC/SA Concorde.

My ancestor 1 is Pharyngula.
My ancestor 2 is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My ancestor 3 is The Flying Trilobite.
My ancestor 4 is Life Before Death.
My ancestor 5 is Aardvarchaeology.

I tag
Another CyborgManifesto
Trauma Queen
Occasional Kvetch

My beliefs

Of course I believe in the Truth.

This is all about me

Catching the “eight facts about yourself” meme from Martin R.:

1. I am very susceptible to motion sickness.
2. I have every issue of MACH.
3. I have seven streets to choose from for the shortest route to work.
4. I skipped a grade in primary school.
5. The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is the subject I've built the most models of.
6. I have a membership card in the Planet Patrol, giving me the right to land on every planet in the Solar system without requesting permission.
7. My hat size is 61.
8. On two occasions I've had a bike stolen the same day I bought it.

Ow, I've been infected!

Martin R has tagged me with explaining why I started to blog.

It was simply because I came up with the name. Everybody else seemed to be blogging and I thought: “If I had a blog I'd call it ‘Pointless Anecdotes’.” I mentioned this to my friend Mats Li and he immediately responded that if I wrote a blog, he'd read it. (Are you there, Mats?)

Then, I saw Martin's Salto Sobrius in its original black splendour and realised that that was how I wanted my blog to look and getting a Blogger account was rapidly done. With time both Martin and I went for a design that was easier on the eye, but I still retain a lot of elements he came up with and I thought were cool. The English was not directly inspired by Martin, but there for the same reason: I try to include my non-Swedish-speaking friends, though I reserve the right to occasionally do bits in any other languages that strike my fancy.

I will not explicitly tag anyone else, but if you feel infected and write something, leave a link in the comments.