Zeborah

I've been whimsically noodling at this on and off for a couple of years now as a mnemonic (derailed by successfully memorising it long before I could quite get it all to scan) but a recent/ongoing Situation at work has provided incentive for me to perfect(**) it as an emotional regulation aid. Because it's super emo! but also super chipper! All exclamation marks are intentional!

O! Domine, ne in furore tuo arguas me!
Deus, neque in ira tua corripias me!
Miserere mei quoniam infirmus sum valde!
Quoniam conturbata sunt ossa mea sana me!

(Um diddly iddly iddly um diddly ay! bis!)

Et anima mea turbata est valde! Et tu,
Domine, usquequo? Et tu, Domine, usquequo?
Convertere et eripe animam meam!
Salvum me fac propter misericordiam tuam!
O! Quoniam non est in morte qui memor sit tui!
In inferno autem quis confitebitur tibi!
Laboravi in gemitu! Per noctes lavabo
lectum meum! Stratum meum lacrimis rigabo!

(Um diddly iddly iddly um diddly ay! bis!)
<modulation>
(Um diddly iddly iddly um diddly ay! bis!)

Turbatus est a furore oculus meus!
Inveteravi iam inter inimicos meos!
Discedite a me omnes qui... operamini iniquitatem!(*)
Quoniam exaudivit Deus vocem fletus mei!
O! Dominus exaudivit orationem meam!
Dominus suscepit deprecationem meam!
Erubescant inimici mei vehementer!
Conturbentur, convertantur valde velociter!!!

(*) Cantandum valde velociter

(**) While googling to double-check my spelling for this post I discovered Gabrieli also created an arrangement for Psalm 6 and, having listened to it on YouTube, I'm sorry Gabrieli your polyphonic harmony is very pretty and clever but I think you'd agree my version is infinitely superior.

So, in 1944 Frank Loesser wrote a song for him and his wife Lyn Garland to sing at parties. It proved popular, he sold it to MGM for the movie Neptune's Daughter, and it got even more popular[1]. 70-odd years later it's embedded in the American consciousness as a traditional Christmas carol, and so far and wide people are outraged when an Ohio radio station pulls it from the air as a gesture of respect to #MeToo[2].

Discourse seems to be roughly divided between

• a) "PC gone mad!" [no citation needed; you'll find this expressed in every possible newspaper/blog/YouTube comments section] which deserves little respect;


• b) "This song is pretty date-rapey"[3], which deserves some consideration; and


• c) "Actually no she's really into it"[4] which accordingly considers it but respectfully disagrees.

So here's my take: That third argument is a pretty compelling analysis of how the song was written, performed, and appreciated in 1944. Granted Frank introduced himself as the "evil of two Loessers" when they sang it, and the score has the female part as "Mouse" and the male part as "Wolf"[1], because technically social mores of the time frowned on a gentleman pressuring a lady in the way he does in this song.

But when Frank and Lyn sing it[5], even without video you can hear her smiling on lines like "Maybe just a half a drink more". In the film choreography[6] Eve is totally flirting with Jose: there are little smiles and coy glances throughout, and when she puts a hat on and he takes it straight off, there's no shock or fear or irritation or struggle, she just moves to the next thing with no attempt to evade him doing exactly the same again. (I'm a bit more concerned about the gender-swapped version that follows for comedic effect; that comedy gets in the way of figuring out how Jack really feels about Betty's advances.)

In 1944 a woman couldn't say yes and still be respected in the morning. If she wanted sex, she had to play the "no, no, no" game so that "at least I'm gonna say that I tried". In those performances, Mouse and Wolf are playing the game, and the audience is thoroughly in on it. (We may not get to see a kiss but there's got to be a reason Wolf goes from "your lips look delicious" to "your lips are delicious" and Mouse then requests the use of his comb!) Only the Hayes Office seems to have missed the joke since somehow they thought this song was more appropriate than "Slow Boat To China"[7] despite the two songs clearly coming to the same implicit conclusion.

But 2018 is a different time. I know, this is ordinarily a speciously ahistorical argument, so let me clarify. I'm not saying we have a better understanding of rape, or more respect for a woman who isn't consenting. That's rubbish. Valuable as the solidarity has been, #MeToo hasn't yet changed our broader culture much outside of a lot of headlines sold and a few token efforts at taking a song or two off the air: men are still having sentences reduced or commuted, or simply not getting convicted at all, for the sake of their precious reputations.

No, the key difference is that it's now more or less widely understood that if a woman wants sex, she can say so -- yet we still struggle with the idea that if a woman says she doesn't want sex, she actually means it. A song that was in 1944 a great example of how a woman could get sex without destroying her reputation (or even alarming the Hayes Office) is in 2018 setting a terrible example to men that "I really can't stay" is just a "hold out" to be got over.

So I don't think it should be taken off the air because it illustrates a 1944 date rape. I think it should be taken off the air because it perpetuates the 2018 myth that "mixed signals" is a real thing.

An alternative to a complete ban
It's interesting how when you read/listen to the lyrics over and over, you discover they've changed over time[2]. Some of these changes are pretty minor (the original "lend me your comb" becomes "lend me your coat", which is a hilarious bit of expurgation especially since it now doesn't rhyme with "got to get home"). One is pretty major: the version the radio quotes is missing out a whole verse or so -- perhaps for length, or perhaps because that section used to conclude with, "Maybe just a cigarette more".

If cigarettes can be edited out of the song with no apparent controversy, why not edit respect into it with a "Baby, I'm fine with that"[8]?

Of course Lydia now reserves the right to either go home (and meet Josiah tomorrow night at the Cheesecake Factory, a line that single-handedly makes this version of the song superior to all possible others), or saying "Oh my god, you're actually listening to me? That's so hot, do me now." So the only tweak I'd make to these lyrics is for Lydia to return after all to the final "Ah, but it's cold outside!"

Apparently aftershocks may continue for decades (though obviously decreasing in average size and average frequency). I distinctly remember, nearly a year ago, scientists saying they'd probably stop after some weeks. Clearly they were/are talking about different magnitudes. Possibly they wanted to break it to us slowly.

I gather there are people planning to commemorate the year tonight/tomorrow morning with a bottle of cheer at 4:35am. I'm hoping I'll be allowed to commemorate by sleeping at 4:35am, but we'll see.

The other commemoration I plan is being part of the large combined choir singing Fauré's Requiem (and a few lesser things: national anthem, Hallelujah chorus, and Jerusalem[*]) at Christchurch Sings tomorrow night. It's going to be pretty fantastic, primarily because Fauré's Requiem is one of the most astounding pieces of music in the history of music. (I met it last year and fell in love.)

The conductor working with us is awesomely enthusiastic - you can tell he works with high schools normally - and gives us fantastic metaphors. Ducks on water, squeezing toothpaste, bow and arrow, that kind of thing. Have learnt a heap in the last four days.

(Am also learning a heap from our new conductor in my regular choir. He's teaching us the solfa method, and after just a few weeks I'm feeling I'm getting a better hang of intervals. This Tuesday he explained modes to us so for the first time ever I know what they are, and spent the next full day earwormed with the Dorian mode - until Wednesday's rehearsal of Fauré, since when I've been earwormed primarily with Libera Me.)

I may end up lipsyncing In Paradisum, though. Is it just me or is that a particularly hard movement? I can't figure out if it's because by the time I get there I'm tired, or because it requires monumental control or something, but my voice keeps failing on the most mundane notes. The notes in and of themselves don't seem harder than any other movement, so it's a bit of a puzzle.

[*] Jerusalem narrowly missed being saddled with some words written for the occasion of the anniversary. Or, at least, the person who showed me the words thought it missed out by a narrow margin of 'not enough time'. Possibly the decision maker took one look at the words and, having the same reaction I did, scrambled for a plausible excuse. It's not that I adore Jerusalem's lyrics above all else - they've got their issues - but it is a classic, and if you're going to filk a classic for an anniversary then you need to be a genius on one of your better days.

I need to upload my Due South fanvids sometime. I made them back in the old days, using two VCRs and a cassette player. It sounds horrid but really it wasn't so bad. Actually I think it was easier than my current set-up last time I tried it, which involves ripping DVDs on my old laptop, various levels of conversion, and then transferring the sections by USB to my new laptop (whose DVD player has succumbed to a certain amount of, shall we say, bouncing beyond that intended by its manufacturer) prior to being shuffled around in iMovie.

In the meantime! I got bored yesterday afternoon because the current scene in the WIR doesn't like me so I decided to do a music mashup. Since I don't actually have access to the requisite disassembled parts of anything, I made do with what fragments I could disassemble from my iTunes library and told myself it was just a technical exercise.

Seriously, there is nothing of any artistic merit to hear here.

( Autoloading but not auto-playing music behind cut )

Or just download it.

The two parts are a) the first four bars of Moby's "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" and b) a bunch of hallelujah's from an old Edison wax cylinder courtesy of Project Gutenberg; static and tempo edited, and then bits shuffled around, in Audacity.

I like to call it "Why Does My Heart Sing Hallelujah?" or alternatively (when I'm being particularly honest about its lack of artistic merit) "Why Does Hallelujah Feel So Bad?"

Every now and then I've seen ads in the uni newsletter for a choir that sings awesome medieval music and stuff, and I've thought about going along a couple of times, but last night I actually did.

I was expecting them to be big and formal with auditions and Simon Cowell telling me I can't hold a high note for beans, but I walked in and they handed out music and we sang together and I didn't in fact make exponentially more mistakes than anyone else, even when the person I was listening to for the melody went home with a migraine. And one of the other new members recognised me from a library lecture I gave last Friday.

They seemed quite happy for me to turn up again next Tuesday too. I may, um, try to actually figure out these tunes in the meantime though. o.O Sightreading isn't my superpower.

Yesterday the library I work in had a ceremony to welcome back and bless a carving of Ruaumoko, the Māori god of earthquakes and volcanoes. He was stolen last year while visiting an earthquake conference overseas; though in monetary terms the carving isn't worth much, we felt the loss a great deal. He was never recovered but a replica was commissioned, and yesterday -- the bits of the blessing I understood asked his spirit to come back and to remain. And it is *so good* to see him back in the library.

Sweden has a town called Båstad. Unfortuantely even if I could manage to get my king there, in the 16th century it was spelled Botstœdœ or Botsted or something.

Some nice person has replaced the 19th century "fantasy portraits" of Sten Sture Jr. and Kristina Gyllenstierne's Wikipedia entries with actual contemporary images of them from some altar. Of course in the 16th century *every* knight was depicted on altars and gravestones as being perpetually in armour, and a quick skim of my images folder confirms that plump faces for ladies and gentlemen alike were also fashionable. But that plain brown barrett is way better than the gravestone image I have for Mogens Gøye with his visor entirely covering his face.

Via shweta_narayan, a fun video of Revathy Sankaran singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in a whole bunch of different musical styles from India.

Said mystery commenter, seeing the photo of Boots on a piano stool, commented thusly:
Boots is a poser.

Not so! Inspired by a YouTube video someone showed me not long before I finally got the piano here, I have begun teaching her how to play. I began by sitting her down and plonking her paws on the keys then promptly rewarding her with food. After a week or so of this she finally got the idea to make a noise herself. One or two notes. I kept up the rewards. I began ignoring the shorter snatches of notes, ignoring when she merely walks across the keyboard instead of sitting in a proper cat-pianist pose, and hissing when she tries to lift the keys up with her claws, thereby pulling chips in them.

Fortunately it's an old piano.

Last Thursday I reached the stage where she was playing long stretches of notes at high volume while I was attempting to watch a particularly tense episode of Criminal Minds. I now keep the lid closed when it's not dinner time.

I have video proof (which I may even some day be motivated to make pretty and upload to YouTube or summat): okay, maybe I haven't yet taught her how to play the piano, but I've certainly taught her to play, and I'm confident that in time she will be playing every tune possible for a cat with a limited paw-span.

(1) Yes, after long and assiduous research (viz, looking at their user profile) I worked out who they are, and their icon does indeed rock.