A Twist of Things to Come

... and other songs guaranteed to annoy literal-mind folk like Wee Boy and me.

So, Wee Boy had been complaining for weeks about how much he hated the last song his chorus was supposed to sing for their Christmas performance. "I hate it! It's so stupid! It makes no sense at all!"

We told him he could just mouth it if it bothered him that much, but we weren't letting him out of his commitment to the chorus just because he didn't like one song. Then, my Beloved told him we could go to the toy store and he could buy this Bakugan set he'd been eying, if he did well in the performance.

So, when it came time to sing that last song, we watched. As soon as I heard what they were singing, I got the giggles. Because it really is incredibly annoying, lyrics-wise - just the sort of thing that would have driven me nuts as a kid.

Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter... etc.

Can you not see why a literal-minded child would find this risible? Christmas is December 25th, it hasn't gone anywhere. Why should anyone be looking for it when it's the same place it has always been? No wonder he hated it. It takes itself so seriously! I nearly did myself harm trying to be quiet. Listening to that song, hearing the lyrics through my son's literal, logical, wee ears... it was just too funny. Poor baby.

He came up to us afterward, looking serious and pale, and said, "I sang every word." Sigh. "May I please go to Toys R Us now?"

My sweet little stoic. *chortle* The things he would endure for Bakugan! (Not any Bakugan, but a specific set. We were exceedingly lucky that they had just the one he wanted, let me tell you.)

So, in relating this story to my friend Sara, she mentioned the "Rainbow Song" from her childhood. It lists the colors of the rainbow as "red, yellow, pink and green, orange and purple and blue." She got in trouble for "fixing" it by singing the colors of the visible spectrum in their proper order with their proper names.

Now, I totally get poetic license. I really do. I never had a problem with "Do you hear what I hear?" despite the fact that stars don't really have voices and lambs don't really speak English, or whatever. Extended metaphors are beautiful things, and anthropomorphism can be fun. I get that. I know that "Where are you, Christmas?" is meant to be a more emotional thing, to tap into the common enough feeling that the joy of the season can be elusive. But the idea is crammed so uncomfortably into those words that I'm sure it has blisters by the end of the song.

Makes me want to run it a hot bath and remind it that this will all be over soon. Poor little "Feeling Lonely and Adrift at Christmas," you should not have to suffer such abuse.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this, but it was too squirm-inducing not to share:



On the one hand, Ewan McGregor is congenitally adorable. On the other, well, Jim Carrey. I mean, I really enjoy some of his movies. The Truman Show was awesome and Bruce Almighty was a lot of fun. But I just can't see where they are going with this. Goofball RomCom? Another movie in the "Gay is Funny" genre? I just can't tell.

Maybe I'm just pissed off that Jim FREAKING Carrey gets to snog Ewan McGregor.

I fear to look, yet I cannot turn away.

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The hubby is sick, sick today, so we didn't risk seeing the in-laws and I got to write a bunch. I'm nearly done with the shapeshifter thing, and HMOWK is coming along, too. I'm getting very close to some things I'm quite proud of, there.

But, there's this thing bouncing around in my head. It's been there since I was a teen, probably, in one form or another. A mystery sort of thing. I do love a good mystery. I can sit and untangle knots or do logic problems for hours, and that is why I like a good mystery, I think. Never expected to have an idea for one, even though I knew that these characters I've had in my head for years belonged in a mystery novel. I'm just sort of remembering being a middle-class kid in an upper-crust sort of university, and all the little abrasive edges of things that flew around socially. Throw in some sweet Sapphic longing and a dead soccer player, and frak me if I don't have a mystery novel boiling away in the hind brain.

Crap. It's like I'm playing Genre Bingo in here.