Captain from HMS Pinafore v Major General from Pirates Of Penzance fight

OTD in Music History: “The Pirates of Penzance,” a “topsy-turvy” comic opera with lyrics by dramatist W.S. Gilbert (1836 – 1911) and music by composer Arthur Sullivan (1842 – 1900), receives its New York premiere in 1879. Gilbert and Sullivan are still widely recognized as one of the all-time-great teams in musical history, churning out more than a dozen classic comic operas (including “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “The Mikado”) between 1871 – 1896, many of which continue to delight audiences nearly a century and a half later. In 1922, conductor Sir Henry Wood (1869 – 1944) explained the enduring success of their remarkable collaboration as follows: “Sullivan has never had an equal for brightness and drollery, for humour without coarseness and without vulgarity, and for charm and grace. His orchestration is delightful: he wrote with full understanding of every orchestral voice. Above all, his music is perfectly appropriate to the words of which it is the setting.... He found the right, the only cadences to fit Gilbert's happy and original rhythms, and to match Gilbert's fun or to throw Gilbert's frequent irony, pointed although not savage, into relief. Sullivan's music is much more than the accompaniment of Gilbert's libretti, just as Gilbert's libretti are far more than words to Sullivan's music. We have two masters who are playing a concerto. Neither is subordinate to the other; each gives what is original, but the two, while neither predominates, are in perfect correspondence. This rare harmony of words and music is what makes these operas entirely unique. They are the work not of a musician and his librettist nor of a poet and one who sets his words to music, but of two geniuses..." PICTURED: Two short autograph letters, handwritten and signed (separately) by Gilbert and Sullivan, respectively.

Fleeced

Life, (New York), March 11, 1886, No. 167. —The Question of Copyright— Speaking of copyright, as I was in my recent post about The Sarony Case, reminds me that the 1880s was a vexed period for authorship rights, and matters could get a little fraught. Continue reading Untitled

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It's world poetry day so here are some of my favorite poems:

Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Crossword by Lloyd Schwartz

The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert

Love Train by Tomás Q. Morín

Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts by Mark Halliday

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

in another string of the multiverse, perhaps by Michaella Batten

acknowledgments by Danez Smith

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

San Francisco by Richard Brautigan

How to Watch Your Brother Die by Michael Lassell

You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton

On Political(ized) Life by Kanika Lawton

All the Dead Boys Look Like Me by Christopher Soto

It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz

In Time by W.S. Merwin

It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib

Dear Life by Maya C. Popa

I Could Touch It by Ellen Bass

To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds by Ada Limón

Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing hunter's narrative.

Bugs Bunny

Hi! First, I must say I'm a big fan of your ramblings, they're always so interesting!

And also I found out something today and I needed to share it :

Okay so, I was watching Despicable Me 3 and the minions performed a song (Minions Idol - Papa Mama Loca Pipa) and it sounded... familiar? And yes, it was, because it had the exact same tune as the song in Rottmnt season 1 episode 17 : The Evil League of Mutants. And I thought, "Huh, this is too big to be a coincidence"

So I started looking it up. Despicable me 3 was released in June 2017, while Rottmnt ep.17 was shown in November 2018, but this is obviously a dead end.

After a little searching I found that the original song was actually named "I am the very Model of Modern Major General" by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan in The Pirates of Penzance (1879) which is a comic opera.

I find it quite clever and hilarious that they would use a song from a comic opera to introduce Draxum, proving once again that he's a big drama queen.

That's it, I know it's not as interesting as your ramblings but I couldn't keep this for myself and I really wanted to share it. Thank you for reading my little rambling!

Keep up the good work and have a great day, or night !

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like my silly little rambles. 😌💜 Yes! You are absolutely correct, but I'm even more impressed with your research!!!! Fantastic deduction work! (You've cooked and served a delicious dish. Well done! 🍛) Ok, so this song has been around for a long time and has shown up in many a cartoon/cultural reference. The one that people my age may remember is: "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual" from the show, "Animaniacs," which aired in 1993.

The character that sings this song is Yakko, voiced by Rob Paulsen... The same Rob Paulsen who was Voice Director for Rise of the TMNT.

Thanks for the ask!!! 💜💜💜

April 24, 2024: How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This, Hanif Abdurraqib

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This Hanif Abdurraqib

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown & lord knows I have been called by what I look like more than I have been called by what I actually am & I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

--

From the poet:

“I was at a reading shortly after the [2016] election, and the poet (who was black) was reading gorgeous poems, which had some consistent and exciting flower imagery. A woman (who was white) behind me—who thought she was whispering to her neighbor—said ‘How can black people write about flowers at a time like this?’ I thought it was so absurd in a way that didn’t make me angry but made me curious. What is the black poet to be writing about ‘at a time like this’ if not to dissect the attractiveness of a flower—that which can arrive beautiful and then slowly die right before our eyes? I thought flowers were the exact thing to write about at a time like this, so I began this series of poems, all with the same title. I thought it was much better to grasp a handful of different flowers, put them in a glass box, and see how many angles I could find in our shared eventual demise.” —Hanif Abdurraqib

Today in:

2023: Lit, Andrea Cohen 2022: Meditations in an Emergency, Cameron Awkward-Rich 2021: How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River, Barbara Crooker 2020: Ash, Tracy K. Smith 2019: Under Stars, Dorianne Laux 2018: Afterlife, Natalie Eilbert 2017: There Are Birds Here, Jamaal May 2016: Poetry, Richard Kenney 2015: Dreaming at the Ballet, Jack Gilbert 2014: Vocation, Sandra Beasley 2013: Near the Race Track, Brigit Pegeen Kelly 2012: from Ask Him, Raymond Carver 2011: Sweet Star Chisel, Dearest Flaming Crumbs in Your Beard Lord, John Rybicki 2010: Rain Travel, W.S. Merwin 2009: Goodnight, Li-Young Lee 2008: Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje 2007: Meditation at Lagunitas, Robert Hass 2006: Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke 2005: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

babe my dad is going to die after having been in a coma for a week due to a suicide attempt and idk what to do i feel numb and then it hits me like a truck like how does one survive this kind of pain it feels like im losing part of myself im never going to hear him laugh and see him happy again i am so sad. do you know any books or poems or movies about grief or losing someone i need to do something with this or ill implode

i'm so so sorry you're going through this. it's one of those things that platitudes and comforting words can barely even put a dent in. there's actually no words at all when it comes to losing someone and it took me ages to truly understand that. i thought something would eventually wake me up from the nightmare, i still do most of the time, but there's nothing else for it but one step in front of the other and collapsing periodically whenever you need to. it's truly a pain like no other and i wish there was a way around it but if there is i haven't found it either. it's only natural that you're feeling this way. the size of the grief is the same size as the love etc etc. i'm going to leave some recommendations below - i'll be thinking of you and your dad and keeping you both in my heart. i'm so sorry. he's shaped you as a person to your core and that means a lot of you is him, you will keep him around. i know it's not the same as him actually being here though. if you need a friend or someone to talk to or anything at all, please message me any time. i hope you have good people around you and all the support you deserve to get through the next week, day, or even minute. i'm sending you so so much love. x

books: crying in h mart by michelle zauner, the year of magical thinking by joan didion, wish you were by jodi picoult, atlas of the heart by brené brown, reasons to stay alive by matt haig, bearing the unbearable by joanne cacciatore, the grieving brain by mary-frances o'connor.

poems: death is nothing at all by henry scott-holland, taking care by callista buchen, do not stand at my grave and weep by mary elizabeth frye, in blackwater woods by mary oliver, separation by w.s merwin, alone by jack gilbert, first morning by joy harjo.

movies: other people, the lovely bones, extremely loud & incredibly close, manchester by the sea, big fish, the goldfinch, p.s i love you, coco, this is where i leave you, three colours: blue.

directory of grief support resources / bereavement and grief self-help guide

Painted emblems of a race - a Ruddigore / Unsleeping City Iga Lisowski animatic

I did it - I made an even more obscure crossover than the last one! Based on the scene with Iga's foremothers in S2E8, "Feasts & Families", in which Iga experiences what I like to call a "Ruvthen in Act 2 of Ruddigore" moment. So here is Act 2 of Ruddigore, where the protaganist meets the ghosts of their ancestors who have come out of their portrait frames, to tell the protaganist that they must perpetuate the evil that their line has caused for hundreds of years, lest even worse things happen (which they turn out to be completely wrong about).

Description and sources under the cut:

Video description: drawings of Iga and her ancestors in the chest castle, depicting each lyric.

Painted emblems of a race, All accurst in days of yore, Each from his accustomed place Steps into the world once more. Coward, poltroon, shaker, squeamer, Blockhead, sluggard, dullard, dreamer, Earthworm, maggot, tadpole, weevil! Set upon thy course of evil, Lest the King of Spectre-Land Set on thee his grisly hand! Beware! beware! beware! Alas, poor ghost! Painted emblems of a race, All accurst in days of yore, Each to his accustomed place Steps unwillingly once more!

Audio from "Painted emblems of a race" and "He yields, he answers to our call" from Ruddigore by W.S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

‼️David Hyde Pierce, Ramin Karimloo and Daniel Dae Kim to Lead Roundabout's 2024-25 Broadway Season‼️

“April 2025 will then bring a reimagining of Gilbert and Sullvan's The Pirates of Penzance—a jazz-infused, New Orleans-style production starring Tony nominee Ramin Karimloo and Tony winner David Hyde Pierce as The Pirate King and W.S. Gilbert & Major General. The musical is newly adapted by Tony winner Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), directed by Ellis (a nine-time Tony-nominated director) and choreographed by Tony winner Warren Carlyle (Harmony). The show will also include musical direction by Joseph Joubert and orchestrations by Joubert and Daryl Waters.” [x]

ALL THOSE YEARS WERE REAL, AND THEIR LOSS WAS REAL, —  vice versa (2022) ⪢ episode eleven (part 1 of 2)

lord byron, the night we met || w.s. merwin, separation || margarita karapanou, rien ne va plus || naomi shihab nye, fuel || haruki murakami, kafka on the shore || emily dickinson, in a letter to susan gilbert || hadestown obcr, we raise our cups || vita sackville-west || michelle k., home || joy harjo, conflict resolution for holy beings: poems || dinos christianopoulos; tr. björn thegeby || phoebe waller-bridge, fleabag S02E06 || lain thoma || fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov || ana božičević, joy of missing out || wisława szymborska, map: collected and last poems || haruki murakami, kafka on the shore

The Three Gables

The lack of posts on this one is a clear demonstration of the clear rejection of the racism running through this story.

I can't say that I'm particularly enthusiastic about doing this one, but I can't pretend this one doesn't exist.

Here we go then:

First published in 1926, the Americans again got this one first.

Boxing for money was heavily regulated to the point of outright bans in much of the United States; illegal fights would frequently end as "no contest" when the police turned up.

The Bull Ring in Birmingham is a major shopping area that goes back to a market established in 1154 under royal approval. The area is named for a ring of iron that bulls were tied to for the purposes of bull-baiting, a 'sport' banned in 1835.

The area was redeveloped in the 1960s into an enclosed shopping centre considered an epitome of Brutalist architecture and which became more unpopular over time. It was replaced in 2003 by a more modern centre, branded "Bullring" that is just as controversial.

Harrow Weald is a suburban area of what is now Greater London. It still contains a large amount of ancient woodland despite major development in the early 1930s, such as Harrow Weald Common.

One highly notable resident of the area was W.S. Gilbert of operetta fame, who lived at a house called Grim's Dyke and died of a heart attack in the lake in 1911 while saving a 17-year-old girl from drowning during a swimming lesson. The lake was mostly drained after that and what is left was filled with algae during my visit to the area early this year - the London Loop footpath goes through the area.

The "Weald Station" is probably, as per Bernard Davies, Harrow & Wealdstone station. This is today the northern terminus of the Bakerloo Line, which reached there in 1917 when services were extended on the newly electrified lines to Watford Junction; London Overground services call there on their way to the latter destination. LNWR and Southern services also are available, while Avanti West Coast and Caledonian Sleeper trains go through without stopping on platforms generally closed unless a train is calling there.

The station was also the site of the worst peacetime rail disaster in British history in 1952 (only the 1915 Quintinshill rail disaster has a higher death toll) - an express train collided with the rear of a local train in fog and then another express train hit the wreckage. 112 people died and 340 were injured. Since the crew of the express train died in the crash, the precise reason why they failed to respond to two signals was impossible to establish. The result of the report was a faster introduction into service of the Automatic Warning System or AWS that gives a driver an in-cab indication of the state of a signal by visual and auditory means.

A two-station branch line to Stanmore Village closed in 1964 as part of the Beeching cuts.

Paregoric is a 4% tincture of opium, then available over the counter without prescription. Its main uses would be for treating diarrhoea, treating teething pains in children and as a cough medicine. It is today a Schedule III controlled substance in the US i.e. prescription only.

Crown Derby refers to Royal Crown Derby, a porcelain company founded c.1750 and still going today; it may be the oldest still active company in that field in England.

Langdale Pike is clearly a pseudonym, referring to a series of peaks in the Lake District.

This is, fortunately, the only time we have the n-word being used in the canon. It was considered a crude term even then.

Pernambuco is a state in NE Brazil, then a centre of sugarcane cultivation, still a major part of its economy. It was historically Portuguese, not Spanish.

Yes, let's stereotype Latina women, shall we, Mr. Doyle? I'm not calling you Sir Arthur in this discussion; you're not acting like a knight.

This whole thing leaves a rather ugly taste and if I could strike a story from the canon, I would do it for this one.

I am an acquired taste.

W.S. Gilbert

This is random but what kind of music do you think Roman Sionis and Oswald Cobblepot listen to?

I think about this a lot and I’m really never 100 sure, like I’ll listen to songs that make me think ‘this reminds me of [character], but I don’t think they’d ever listen to it’.

They both often run/own clubs/entertainment venues, but I don’t think either of them have a huge hand in picking the music. Like, they’ll pick a vibe and hire a DJ that fits.

But I will give you my best estimations below:

*Warning, the links will open to spotify.

Oswald Cobblepot:

I think his tastes would vary a lot between portrayals, with some minor crossover.

BTAs: Classical, maybe even operatic/musical, classic English/euro rock, swing, maybe even a bit of jazz.

Queen, Dean Martin, W.S Gilbert

Arkham: 100% 70/80s British punk, and again with swing and jazz.

Buzzcocks, Peggy Lee, Chet Baker

Gotham: Also punk, but probably more underground, American punk. I also think he's listen to a lot of ballet/classical, things that remind him of this mother.

Rancid, The Killing Tree, Tchaikovsky

2022: 100% A rat pack fan, swing, jazz, R&B, crooner. Things that are smooth listening.

Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Crystals

Roman:

I don't think his taste would vary as much between portrayals. I can kind of imagine him overhearing like modern techno, drum and bassy/rave music at one of his clubs, and enjoying them, probably has some faves, but he's not deliberately seeking that kind of music out.

I think he's also a ratpack kind of guy, he likes a jazz and and a bit of swing, but otherwise not he's not too into the oldies. I think maybe alternative rock, maybe some industrial style, dare I say a pinch of dad rock perhaps.

Frank Sinatra, Nine Inch Nails, Fiona Apple, Prodigy, Doja Cat, The Rolling Stones.

I'm not saying the examples are 100% what they listen too, but they kind of encapsulate the vibe.

Things are seldom what they seem.  Skim milk masquerades as cream.

Beep Beep (The Road Runner)