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Assorted Friday afternoon thoughts.
1. My friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fairmer? Is a total pro. Or at least an associate pro. In any case, her story "Huntswoman" will be appearing in Strange Horizons sometime around January. Don't worry, I'll remind you when it's time to go read.
2. I've decided that Ray used to watch Night Court. Watching Harry sometimes made him wish he'd stayed in school, and - well, I don't remember the show well enough to know how he'd mentally compare Stella and Christine the prosecutor, but he did, as appropriate. Stella said it was a stupid show, and totally inaccurate, but sometimes she would sit with him while he watched, and in between nit-picking, sometimes she would laugh, and Ray would laugh, and think that his life was really pretty perfect.
3. No, seriously, what was up with the religious-themed songwriting of the 80s? There's a Heinlein story (which I heartily disrecommend for being excessively Late-Heinlein and really kind of stupid, though I've only read a summary) called "All You Zombies," which was mentioned in a time-travel panel at Worldcon, and I felt compelled, after a few days worth of brain-niggling, to track down the (totally thematically unrelated) song with the same title. It's by The Hooters, and it's about, well.
Holy Moses met the Pharaoh
Yeah, he tried to set him straight
Looked him in the eye, "let my people go"
Holy Moses on the mountain
High above the golden calf
Went to get the Ten Commandments
He's just gonna break them in half
All you zombies hide your faces
All you people in the street
All you sittin' in high places
The pieces gonna fall on you
No one ever spoke to Noah
They all laughed at him instead
Working on his ark, working all by himself
Only Noah saw it coming
Forty days and forty nights
Took his sons and daughters with him
Yeah, they were the Israelites
All you zombies hide your faces
All you people in the street
All you sittin' in high places
The rain's gonna fall on you
Holy Father, what's the matter
Where have all your children gone
Sitting in the dark, living all by themselves
You don't have to hide anymore
All you zombies show your faces...
So, wtf, mate?
And that, of course, reminds me of the perpetual mystery of the Mr Mister song "Kyrie"
The wind blows hard against this mountain side, across the sea into my soul
It reaches into where I cannot hide, setting my feet upon the road
My heart is old, it holds my memories, my body burns a gemlike flame
Somewhere between the soul and soft machine, is where I find myself again
Chorus:
Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel
Kyrie eleison, through the darkness of the night
Kyrie eleison, where I'm going will you follow
Kyrie eleison, on a highway in the light
When I was young I thought of growing old, of what my life would mean to me
Would I have followed down my chosen road, or only wished what I could be
For the longest time, despite being as familiar as any Catholic schoolkid with the phrase kyrie eleison, I did not believe that those were the lyrics. Partly because in church, when recited along with christe eleison, every single vowel got its own syllable (keer-ee-ay ee-lay-ee-son) while in the song it gets compressed a bit (keer-ee ay-lay-zon) and partly because, dude, unless I'm getting my random bits of liturgical Greek mixed up, it means Lord have mercy. How the hell does that fit the context? Is it any wonder I thought he was saying something like Carry a light on?
fairmer? Is a total pro. Or at least an associate pro. In any case, her story "Huntswoman" will be appearing in Strange Horizons sometime around January. Don't worry, I'll remind you when it's time to go read.2. I've decided that Ray used to watch Night Court. Watching Harry sometimes made him wish he'd stayed in school, and - well, I don't remember the show well enough to know how he'd mentally compare Stella and Christine the prosecutor, but he did, as appropriate. Stella said it was a stupid show, and totally inaccurate, but sometimes she would sit with him while he watched, and in between nit-picking, sometimes she would laugh, and Ray would laugh, and think that his life was really pretty perfect.
3. No, seriously, what was up with the religious-themed songwriting of the 80s? There's a Heinlein story (which I heartily disrecommend for being excessively Late-Heinlein and really kind of stupid, though I've only read a summary) called "All You Zombies," which was mentioned in a time-travel panel at Worldcon, and I felt compelled, after a few days worth of brain-niggling, to track down the (totally thematically unrelated) song with the same title. It's by The Hooters, and it's about, well.
Holy Moses met the Pharaoh
Yeah, he tried to set him straight
Looked him in the eye, "let my people go"
Holy Moses on the mountain
High above the golden calf
Went to get the Ten Commandments
He's just gonna break them in half
All you zombies hide your faces
All you people in the street
All you sittin' in high places
The pieces gonna fall on you
No one ever spoke to Noah
They all laughed at him instead
Working on his ark, working all by himself
Only Noah saw it coming
Forty days and forty nights
Took his sons and daughters with him
Yeah, they were the Israelites
All you zombies hide your faces
All you people in the street
All you sittin' in high places
The rain's gonna fall on you
Holy Father, what's the matter
Where have all your children gone
Sitting in the dark, living all by themselves
You don't have to hide anymore
All you zombies show your faces...
So, wtf, mate?
And that, of course, reminds me of the perpetual mystery of the Mr Mister song "Kyrie"
The wind blows hard against this mountain side, across the sea into my soul
It reaches into where I cannot hide, setting my feet upon the road
My heart is old, it holds my memories, my body burns a gemlike flame
Somewhere between the soul and soft machine, is where I find myself again
Chorus:
Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel
Kyrie eleison, through the darkness of the night
Kyrie eleison, where I'm going will you follow
Kyrie eleison, on a highway in the light
When I was young I thought of growing old, of what my life would mean to me
Would I have followed down my chosen road, or only wished what I could be
For the longest time, despite being as familiar as any Catholic schoolkid with the phrase kyrie eleison, I did not believe that those were the lyrics. Partly because in church, when recited along with christe eleison, every single vowel got its own syllable (keer-ee-ay ee-lay-ee-son) while in the song it gets compressed a bit (keer-ee ay-lay-zon) and partly because, dude, unless I'm getting my random bits of liturgical Greek mixed up, it means Lord have mercy. How the hell does that fit the context? Is it any wonder I thought he was saying something like Carry a light on?