It’s International Tuba Day. How low can you go?
May
Welcome in the May O. (And celebrate International Workers’ Day.)
April in Paris (and elsewhere)
“One more once!”
Spring
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.… Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows
Political science
If the people believe there’s an imaginary river out there, you don’t tell them there’s no river there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river.
Nikita Khrushchev to Richard Nixon
quoted by Rick Perlstein in
The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
Lines I like
“What ho!” I said.
What ho!” said Motty.
“What ho! What ho!”
“What ho! What ho! What ho!”
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
Merry Christmas, everybody
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale of New York.
Christmas dreams, shattered and otherwise. Soaring music and grubby lyrics. But also tenderness and hope – which, after all, is what Christmas is all about.
Merry Christmas. And a tip of the tuque to Walt Kelly, who brought joyous nonsense to Christmas when I was a boy.
Boola boola Pensacoola hulla-baloo!
Nick Lowe, Christmas at the Airport.
Proving that Christmas is where you find it. And what you make of it. A light in the darkness, a burger in a bin.
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold
Back in the 1950s, people were worried that Christmas was becoming “too commercialized.” We’re sure lucky that didn’t happen.
Tom Lehrer, A Christmas Carol
Stan Freberg, Green Christmas
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou!
John Legend and Stephen Colbert, Nutmeg. Ladies, Mr. John Legend wants to nog your egg.
(This one is for Adam Schlesinger, another early victim of COVID-19. Thank you, Adam, for all the music.)
Rannygazoo 