Dancin' in the dust.

I'm here with another stupid product review! This time it's a musical stupid product review! Although you'll have to provide your own music. 

I bought these dust mop slippers for my wife for a gag gift at Christmas. Well, the gag was on me, since she wouldn't even wear them for a lark. Not even two larks and a pheasant. But she didn't throw them away, which means I got to wear them! And I gotta DANCE! 

The other day I was vacuuming downstairs and thought I'd done a pretty good job, although with baby dog Izzy following me around it was hard to tell. The vacuum doesn't bother him, but he likes to keep a close eye on it to see what it's doing. Consequently, I missed a few spots. Plus, Izzy sheds like a shedding machine on Extra Shed mode with the optional SHEDDD+ attachment, so even if I had done a flawless job there'd be new hair already.

But that's okay, because I've got HAPPY FEET!

I slipped the slippers on and went skating around the downstairs, dipping my feets here and there for bits of dust and dog hair that I'd missed. And I did have to skate fast, because Izzy REALLY thought these mops were toys and was after me from the moment I put them on. You have to be light on your feet to keep the dog away from your moppin' shoes -- man, if I had a nickel for every time my mom told me that, I'd have no cents at all. And indeed, I do not. 

I did keep away from Izzy, and I certainly did a good job with the slippers. 

Fortunately they are machine washable. Unfortunately that means everything in the washing machine with them will get a good coating of the hair I was unable to shake off. But hey -- I'm a dancer, I suffer for my art. 

Can the slippers take the place of a vacuum or a dust mop? No. You'd have to mince around in a back-and-forth pattern like a guy cutting the grass to do the floor. BOR-RING! But for supplementary dust mopping, they're great.

So that's my lesson for today. Put on your dust mop shoes, start humming a tune, and off you go. Remember, for every job that must be done there is an element of fun. Find the fun and snap! the job's a game. Would Mary Poppins lie to you?

Misty watercolor memeries.

Happy Monday, fellow people! Here are some happy little memes to start your day. Steal 'em, trade 'em, put 'em in your bicycle spokes. They're all for you! 

Yeah, I've written on this topic before, but the so-called 
superior speed of the falcon persists. 

See also: Crazy Boyfriend

The disco menace.

It's hard for kids today to appreciate the disco menace. It came on suddenly, and when it had done its damage, it went away. But even though I was a kid, I can never forget.

The word disco was alien when I first heard it, and it seemed like a nonsense word. But it came from the French discotheque, which itself came from "disque disk, record + -o- + -thèque (as in bibliothèque library)" according to Merriam-Webster. In other words, disco is short for record library. A discotheque was a place where people would dance to music played on vinyl records rather than music played by a live band. Any little town could have a dance club even if they had no musicians. The word disco dates to 1957, but disco didn't conquer the world for a while after that.

Disco music was defined by a particular beat, as classic rock is, and as the waltz is. Whereas rock used the backbeat (the emphasis on every even beat -- one TWO three FOUR etc.) and the waltz's emphasis is on the second and third beats (one TWO THREE one TWO THREE), the disco bass drum is hit on all four beats of the measure. Thus the four-on-the-floor, thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa. It's harder to play than you'd think, but it had the advantage of letting songs run one after another with the exact same rhythm and speed, so dancers never had to stop unless it was time to re-up the cocaine. 

The thing is, during the height of the vogue, any music could be put through the discoizing machine and come out disco. Any. Music. 

They dusted off a 1926 hit ("Baby Face"), put it through the discoizer, and it got to number two on the disco charts. They took the theme from the TV show I Love Lucy and discoized that, and "Disco Lucy" got to number 9 on the Easy Listening chart. The music from  May 1977's unexpected smash film Star Wars managed to get a whole disco album out of it before the end of the year (Meco's Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk), which is not to be confused with the mashed-up film music set to a disco beat by a studio band called the Force, released as a single before the end of the year. (The B side was the timeless classic "Funky Hat.") Even Ludwig van Beethoven became discofied in 1975, his breathtaking Fifth Symphony shrunken and beat to "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band. Disney discofied itself, doing a takeoff of the Village People's "Macho Man" ("Macho Duck"), certainly the most famous track on the immortal 1979 album Micky Mouse Disco. If you stood still long enough, you might get discoized, too -- finding yourself with a whitefro and a leisure suit, gold Italian horn chain, shirt open to the waist. 

It seems to have seized the nation and the world like a kind of mania, but ebbed within a short period. "The Hustle" was a disco landmark, released in 1975, but by 1980, when Studio 54 closed, the whole thing seemed to be old (if still funky) hat. The Who had declared disco dead in 1978. The infamous Disco Demolition Night in Chicago took place the next year. But it took a while for the rest of the culture to catch up. 

Say what you will about disco, at least it finally got out of the center ring. If only all our manias would have the good sense to ebb as quickly. I can name quite a few that I wish would go away already, or at least go on vacation.

Rotten luck.

Unfortunately for Craig's field sobriety test, he picked a bad time
to confuse "spread eagle" and "Chicken Dance."

New Year's revolutions.

Resolutions failed you in the past? Want to start the year with something more potent? More awesome? More INSANE? Well, friend, give up on those New Year's resolutions and instead make some New Year's REVOLUTIONS!

Like this one!

Sounds good, doesn't it? But it doesn't always work out well. In fact, revolutions often turn out to be pretty bad.

For example, any revolution where the word "communist" can be applied automatically means "calculator-error-inducing body count." The Chinese Communists couldn't even have a cultural one without killing 1.5 million people. So I'm not even going to mention those. I mean mostly down-to-earth, everyday revolutions, like:

New England Revolution: This Major League Soccer franchise has been around since 1994 and has yet to win a league championship. In fact, Wikipedia tells us that "The Revolution hold the record for most losses in MLS cup games." They did win a U.S. Open Cup in 2007 but that's not the league championship and I don't know why they even have a stupid separate cup. Oh, yeah: Soccer.

"Revolution 9": The infamous mishmash of sound clips on the Beatles' white album is a clear indicator of a band that is running out of ideas -- and decides to put out a double album. The damn thing is eight minutes and twenty-two seconds of nothing but audio garbage. It probably resulted in more needle breaks in 1968 than any other record, as listeners leaped to their hi-fis to move the needle over this "song." Even guys butt-up high on dope couldn't listen to this. This is what happens when bands resort to "art." When something on an album sounds just as good played backward as forward, you know there's a problem. Bad revolution! Bad!

Makeup Revolution: London-based makeup outfit. Looks like all the other makeup to me. Maybe I'm not a good judge.

Revolution (NBC TV series): Failed after two seasons. The plot had to be resolved in a comic book. Which, to be fair, was more than FlashForward ever got.

Dance Dance Revolution: The perennial favorite video game has more lives than a disco kitty, but still overpromises its revolutionary effects. You dance around on pads and score points by... dancing? As Ask a Ninja put it some years ago, "How is that gonna prepare you for the dance floor of life? How about 'Death Death Revolution'? That is a challenge."

The Matrix Revolutions: With a tomatometer rating of 36%, probably better to just leave this one alone.

The French Revolution: I guess we need to address this one. Jacques Mallet du Pan said, “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children,” and as we know the hungry guillotines of the French Revolution eventually developed a taste for its perpetrators. The 17,000 death sentences carried out in the reign of terror gave the rest of us a taste for what later revolutions could achieve (once we stuck Communist in them). This seems to be the pattern for most revolutions; a genuine oppressive grievance leads to armed revolt, death to a ruling class, and ultimately murder murder murder for everyone.

Why didn't this happen in the American Revolution? Some historians note that one difference is that ours was not really a revolution at all, in that the colonists were not trying to overthrow the crown and turn out Parliament, but rather wanted to get those characters to leave them alone. In that regard, instead of E Pluribus Unum or In God We Trust, perhaps our national motto might have been better served as Leave Me Alone. Which makes me think that the one kind of rebellion that doesn't turn on itself is the kind made up of people who wish to be left alone and are willing to extend the favor to their fellows.

Maybe that should be our New Year's Revolution: Live and let live. Not the worst slogan for a fresh start, I guess.

Happy new year!

Muse on this.

The Muses were the nine goddesses of song, dance, and music in Greek mythology. They were considered the source of inspiration for writers, musicians, poets, and all that crowd. In fact, the word inspiration, like respiration, comes from breathing in, as if the divine spark of creativity were given to the poet with the breath of life, and made of the same substance. Anyone who has felt truly inspired knows that feeling of having something outside himself, greater than himself, using him to bring some brilliance to earth---like he is a mere instrument and some Other holds the bow. None of this explains Robin Thicke, but it doesn't have to.

Everyone likes the Muses, and they never got into weird trouble like some other gods I could name. The nine gals all have great and classic Greek names, but oddly, despite their popularity, their names have not spread much into wider popular use.

Calliope

Calliope was the goddess of epic poetry, and yet her name was given to a kooky steam-powered musical instrument of the type we associate with carnival music and organ grinders. It's an understandable appropriation, as Calliope may be probably the prettiest name of the bunch; you wouldn't call your new instrument "the Melpomene" and expect people to show up. Since Calliope got something named after her, though, I suppose the others ought to as well. You don't want them getting jealous.

Erato

Erato was the goddess of erotic poetry, so I guess in a way she does have something named after her. Remember that in the old days there was no prose; everything was poetry. So erotic prose would be in her bailiwick today. All those paperbacks for women featuring shirtless guys on the cover---that's Erato. (Sorry, guys; there was no Muse named Porno.) If there were a G-rated (rather than G-string rated) object we would name the Erato, I'd suggest some kind of Liquid Paper; maybe a variety used on quality stationery to remove errors while composing steamy letters to loved ones. Neatness still counts, you know.

Euterpe

Euterpe was in charge of lyrical poetry and music, so that would be more the kind of la-di-da stuff we think of as poetry now. How unfair is that name, though? Try rhyming something with "You-TURRR-Pee." "Hail to thee, beneficent Euterpe / With your flute and bright gold derby." Nah. I think the Euterpe would wind up being some kind of surgical instrument rather than a musical one. Or maybe an old-fashioned digestive illness.

Terpsichore

Terpsichore (Turp-SICK-or-EE) does sound like a kind of old-fashioned instrument, a bit similar to the harpsichord (Harp-SICK-cord); and she was the goddess of choral dance and song. She'd own a club in Vegas now. I'd say the Terpsichore would be some gizmo used by sound engineers, but I'm not sure what. Either a kind of rhythmic version of Auto-Tune to get everyone on beat or an electric prod to wake the talent up before the opening act finishes.

Thalia

Thalia is about the only Muse name you hear given to girls, and a pretty and mellifluous name it is. Thalia is the Muse of comedy, and is usually seen with a comic mask or a shepherd's staff. Not sure I get the shepherd angle. Maybe the same reason we liked Li'l Abner and The Beverly Hillbillies and The Dukes of Hazzard: Bumpkins is funny! Regardless, the Thalia should be a kind of nail polish.

Urania

Sorry, Urania; it's totally unfair, you being the goddess of astronomy, but your name is going to a device that reminds little girls to wipe front-to-back. (Yes, your great-grandfather Uranus got a planet named for him, but it didn't help him either.)

Polyhymnia

Polyhymnia looks like a total Joykillnia is this picture. As the Muse of the Sublime Hymn, or religious music, I'm not surprised. For every Ode to Joy there are five thousand Michaels Rowing the Boat Ashore. That would make anyone look glum. Still, her name fits the hymnal, as the words have not drifted too far away from the names; the Polyhymnia would be a special hymnal for choir directors, with all the professional notes for his use ("Allegro" "Fortissimo" "Make sure they don't all hiss like snakes on the 'bless' line").

Melpomene

Well, I've already made fun of Melpomene's name, and as the Muse of tragedy I'm sure she knows how to get even. That's a mask she's holding, by the way, not the head of another writer that crossed her. But I'll be nice. Ish. The Melpomene sounds like one of those exotic fruits that pop up at the grocery store that you know were flown in from someplace where they have a lot of shooting and disease, but it is SO exotic looking and impressive sounding---only, maybe it's one of those things that you have to cook or peel, or else you'll be tooting like a Calliope for days. Better check online.

Clio

And finally we have Clio, the Muse of history, whose name was inappropriately stolen for use as the award for advertising. So here's the one Muse devoted to telling the story of how things actually were, whose name is being used to reward those who tell anything else. There's nothing I can do or say meaner than that, so I think I'll just leave the poor thing to her misery.

Performing martial arts.

At least it's unarmed....