Suddenly COVID

This has gone viral. (And should, if only for the play on words.)  

 I don't care. 

 I adore this.

   

A helpful YouTube commenter has listed the musicals being parodied. ("I Believe" was the one I didn't recognize, having seen The Book of Mormon only once. It's also the musical for which Andrew Rannells won a Tony):

"America" - West Side Story 

"Suddenly Seymour" - Little Shop of Horrors 

"16 going on 17" - The Sound of Music 

"Hello!" - The Book of Mormon 

"Defying Gravity" - Wicked 

"One" - A Chorus Line

 "Memory" - Cats 

"And I am Telling You" - Dreamgirls 

"Tradition" - Fiddler On the Roof 

"You Can’t Stop the Beat" - Hairspray 

 "Maria" - West Side Story 

"My Shot" - Hamilton 

"I Believe" - The Book of Mormon

The privileges of irritation

The Resident Fan Boy is beginning his third week of working from home, which entails his work laptop on the dining room table, phone conferences, and video meetings.

That's not so bad. I can work around him. I can visit Demeter.

The tough thing is, RFB's volunteer work has also followed him home.

At various times of the day, and also on weekends - especially Sundays - our computer screen fills up with the faces of church volunteers, people who are mostly retired, and for whom such meetings are a welcome distraction.

For me, it's a bit like the 1990 movie Truly, Madly, Deeply, in which the heroine finds her home filled with her deceased lover's music-playing, video-watching dead friends. It spurs her to move beyond her lover's death and find a new love.

Not exactly an option for me; I'm still reasonably fond of the Resident Fan Boy.

Besides, if I needed perspective, it arrived in the form of a tweet this morning. Of course, I can't find it now - the volume of tweets on Twitter these days is considerable - but I believe it came from India, and the gist of it was this: Social distance is a privilege. Self-isolation is a privilege. Even a lock-down is a privilege. Many people don't have the personal space to "social distance" themselves. Many do not have comfortable homes in which to self-isolate - or a home at all, which means hand-washing is a hell of a challenge - to say nothing of WiFi. Let's not even get into the financial hardships being created/exacerbated by this thing.

A few tweets later, in an unfortunate juxtaposition, came this viral video. It's very popular. With people with large kitchens backing on a garden with parents who miss dining out.


Our kitchen is a tiny little galley kitchen, and our dining room is a corner near the window that would look over the parking lot, if not for the translucent reeded glass window. However, we have a large window overlooking the landscaping and the road beyond. The Resident Fan Boy has work. We have a home. We're together and, so far, everyone is healthy.

We'll skip the sommelier.

Avoiding the issue

You may have noticed that I haven't said anything about the American election.  It's not just because I'm Canadian.  It's also because what has been going on for the past few months has been as scary as all get-out.

One thing the American election has over other scary things such as ISIS, North Korea, and global warming:  there has been a helluva lot of satire.  In fact, the only way I've been able to bear finding out about what happened in each presidential debate is by tuning into John Oliver or Samantha Bee.

Or by searching out viral videos.

The following give pretty good synopses of the first and third debates.

For you Mary Poppins fans:


And you Weird Al Yankovic aficionados:


Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to dig a large hole and hide in it.  Will you come get me after November 8th?  (If Trump gets in, don't bother…)

Can't stop the viral videos

I gather this is the song of the summer.  I wouldn't know; I don't listen to those kind of stations.  The first intimation I had was this viral video a couple of months ago: 
Not sure where that six-year-old got the hip action, but heck, it's rather adorable.  (Just wish my house looked that uncluttered.)

Next, it turned up on my Postmodern Jukebox feed:  
I feel that Aubrey Logan is channeling Channing here.  It's that wide-eyed and rather surprised Carol Channing stare that does it for me. Also, don't miss Melinda Sullivan risking life and limb (well, limb, anyway) to tap-dance on the narrow lunch counter at about the three-minute mark.

Finally, while I was hiding out from the humidex in Victoria, this video brought it right into my laptop: 
This was apparently inspired by the viral video of Officer Tracy Turpin dancing on duty on Elgin Street during the Canada Day long weekend, and was widely shared in the aftermath of shootings involving American police.

Duh, Persephone

I have been meditating on musical reinterpretations, which isn't as pompous as it sounds - I've been avoiding doing things I should be doing again, and this works as well as anything.

Anyway, last week this video went viral: 

Now, most people are focussing on the fact that it's older people in the video, but what struck me was this wasn't just a karaoke version of the original by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars - it's an honest-to-goodness re-recording of the audio and sounds, and it's edgier.  Nuthin' wrong with the slick original, y'understand.

While I was comparing the two (fabulous way to procrastinate and avoid - trust me), I had a feeling of déjà-vu, and tried googling Purple Rain, a film I've never seen.  I did see plenty of music videos from it, years ago, including this one:

That's when it occurred to me that the "Wait! What time is it?" break in "Uptown Funk" is a direct reference to "Jungle Love". This became even more obvious when I checked the comments for all the videos.

Duh, Persephone.

I also discovered discovered several mash-ups of "Uptown Funk" with "Jungle Love", and this recent performance of the latter song by Morris Day himself -- who is now probably roughly the same age as Alex Boye, if not the dancing grannies.

Rather a neat circle, isn't it? Day is backed by Haim:

Morris Day and the Haim. I just got that.

Duh, Persephone.

"Nobody cares"

I'm a little grumpy from writing inadequate messages in Christmas cards all day, cards that will arrive at their destinations by Epiphany, if I'm lucky.

Anyway, this video is probably viral, but I don't care.  I don't watch Downton Abbey; I gave up after the second season, and this very clever and funny spoof explains why.  Pay attention at 2:32, when Hugh Bonneville and series writer Julian Fellowes have an exchange.


Eighteen cards to go.  Then I can think about wrapping presents….

Some Trekkies have way too much time on their hands

This showed up on my Facebook Feed today.  It's over a year old, but heck, I've never seen it before, it's clever, and I'll spare you my rant about what is and what isn't a Christmas song.  Besides, I don't think Patrick Stewart or his cohorts actually mention the word "snow".

Post by Aaron Farrier.

Jukebox musical treatment for the Doctor

Running out of time for today, so cheating with this very clever Doctor Who fan-vid from about four years ago.  Gotta love the involvement of the Ninth Doctor in this. Di Wey, the creator of this mad musical tribute to David Tennant's Doctor, lives in Brazil and is promising something for the Eleventh Doctor.

For the record, I love Peter Capaldi's (Twelfth? Thirteenth?) Doctor so far, but aside from the first episode of the new season, haven't been beguiled by the plots.  Haven't come across any musical fan-vids for his tenure yet.

Another manic moon-day

Oh, I can't bear letting a month go by without at least one post. I'd like to do two posts a week, but somehow that doesn't happen. I've got excuses, but I won't bore you with them. Instead, try this. Yeah, it was viral, and yeah, perhaps not work-friendly (depending on your workplace) or kid-friendly (definitely dependent on the kind of kids you know), but I think it's hysterical -- check the etymology of hysteria and you'll appreciate what I just did. Or not.

Dancing juice

I'm working on another post which is taking too long, so I'm cheating with a recent viral video. If you have been living under a rock this past week, some fella in Portland, Oregon, with the help of his friends, family, and his girlfriend's friends and family, turned a not-at-all romantic song into a touching "lip-dub" marriage proposal. I particularly like what they did with the expression "dancing juice" (alcohol):


It's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,
Or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Well I know this little chapel on the boulevard we can go,
No one will know,
Oh, come on, girl.
Who cares if we're trashed got a pocket full of cash we can blow,
Shots of patron,
And it's on, girl.

Don't say no, no, no, no-no;
Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah;
And we'll go, go, go, go-go.
If you're ready, like I'm ready.

I'll go get a ring let the choir bells sing like oooh,
So what you wanna do?
Let's just run girl.

If we wake up and you wanna break up that's cool.
No, I won't blame you;
It was fun, girl.