Would it be a fair guess that as the paper grew, you eventually decided somewhere along the line to call it an encyclopedia?

I didn't call it that, but it got accused of being one. I don't know where I put it though...

One of my goals is an annotated script.

I want to add a section now about the connection between Harold Hill and modern-day conspiracy hucksters. They certainly never knew the territory.

One wonders if there's a connection with certain other unique Midwestern words, such as shivaree.

Likely, but inconclusive. Scholars have had good luck tracking down a number of Willson's other fairly obscure vernacularities. The shipoopi eludes capture.

In the final analysis it probably has something to do with Columbus and his conception of the egg.

...er, globe.

Imagine also a game of Iowa Fizzbin on the Rock Island. In one production I did, three actors expanded the "playing a card game" stage direction into an unbelievably complex actual onstage game with rules that seemed borrowed from poker, Calvinball, and quantum mechanics.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Which, is, of course, itself "lifted" from "To Anacreon in Heaven,"

True, but not in the spirit of a lift. Key wrote his lyrics specifically to be sung to that tune. Keep in mind that few people of the day read musical notation. The clever Key picked a drinking tune everyone knew and would remember thanks to its baudy lyrics. Its enshrinement as the American national anthem (with slightly altered melody) came much later, after it had been largely forgotten as the 18th century equivalent of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall."

This too is a familiar pattern in musical history. Handel borrowed a number of popular melodies to adapt as arias in Messiah and other sacred oratorios.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Were they risque, or did they actually have a high bit average unit density?

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

PDQ Bach probably has Ives beat, at least percentage-wise.

And of course, PDQ is the exception that, well, breaks the rule.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Got that right.

Exhibit A would have to be the "Unbegun" Symphony, about which Professor Peter Schickele remarked

For those of you unfamiliar with the good Professor, here's some background information. Peter Schickele was a faculty legend at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and served also as music critic for The Hoople Scoop. His radio program Schickele Mix somehow managed to avoid cancellation for a number of years. His concert tours presenting the music of P.D.Q. Bach have become the stuff of rumor.

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I don't know about unit density, but they're not particularly bawdy, either. Frankly, they're terribly dull.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Were they risque, or did they actually have a high bit average unit density?

Wow, how Freudian.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Here are the baudy lyrics. Judge for yourself:

except for Gillianren, who's already made up her mind.

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Well, Gillianren's already read the bawdy lyrics before. Several times in several places. She made up her mind a decade or more back that they're dull.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Somewhere I've got an LP of a bunch of semi-sober choristers singing this classic piece, complete with its baudy (as in bit average unit density: thank you, Emile Baudot) lyrics!

Parity? Check!



BTW, did you see the Wicca ceremonies, etc., on TLC last night?

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Huh, neat lyrics! Is there a tune to go with them?

Speaking of "borrowing" music, my college alma mater is sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". But, that's not an homage to the music. The lyrics were written somewhat in jest for a campus minstrel show and are based on a frequent saying of the then UT President. The saying just happened to fit the tune.

I once did know a President,
Away down South, in Texas.
And, always, everywhere he went,
He saw the eyes of Texas.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the live long day.
The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
You can not get away.
Do not think you can escape them
At night or early in the morn-
The Eyes of Texas are upon you
'Till Gabriel blows his horn.

(BTW, the Longhorn band toured South America in the 1980s, I think. In one country, they had a military officer accompany them to each performance, always ended with The Eyes.

At the last concert, the US Ambassador was in attendance, sitting next to the military officer. At the end, as the band struck up that familiar refrain, the officer stood. After a moment, he turned, looked disdainfully at the still-seated Ambassador, and asked coldly, "Do you not stand when they play your national anthem?")

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

LOL!

I understand Kinky Friedman's rewriting that song. The new version will be "The Oys of Tehas Are Upon You, You Should Be So Lucky, Already!"

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Try here for that, it's a rather cool site I stumbled across which consists of a collection of old folk music in midi format plus lyrics.

8 ball pool? a 'low' pub game, 50p a rack, no money on the table.

Snooker, that's the game to play.

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Must...not...give...tradional...Aggie...reponse... to...Eyes of Texas...

Must...control......is family board...

( Matherly raises a beer Jim's way. Here's to rivalries!)

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

In my college marching band we played "Wabash Cannonball" (a crowd favorite) so often that many students thought it was our fight song.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You realize that Texas Fight is simply a reworded, jazzed up version of the older Farmers Fight, which used the music from Taps?

Hey, you went and branded our steer, whaddaya expect?

Ya gotta love tradition!

Indeed. Here's raising one to you.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Um, no. I don't watch TLC much, and I was watching Cat People and The Curse of the Cat People in a double feature.

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Gillian

"Now everyo