buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 6:05:49 AM

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The Power of the Dog

---Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie --
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find -- it's your own affair --
But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit hat answered your every mood
Is gone -- wherever it goes -- for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept'em, the more do we grieve;

For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long --
So why in -- Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Alice in Dairyland 4/19/2020 7:56:22 AM

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buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 8:00:55 AM

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Does anyone know the name of the tune Chico Marx plays on an endless loop in Animal Crackers, where, after about the tenth repetition of the same phrase, he calls out desperately, "I can't think of the finish!" and Groucho replies, "Really? I can't think of anything else."  It goes, 

Da-da-da-da-da-bum, da-da-da-da-da-bum, da-da-da-da-da-bum-bum, ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum da-da-da, ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum da-da-da...(repeat endlessly)

Alice in Dairyland 4/19/2020 8:13:31 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 3:   Sugar in the Morning?  It helped that you hummed a few bars.

buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 8:57:41 AM

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Reply to Alice in Dairyland in 4:

I don't think so; that song is called "Sugartime," and is from 1958; "Animal Crackers" was filmed in 1930, and was, I believe, a Broadway stage show before it was filmed.

I suspect the tune is derived from some kind of "popular classical" tune, on the level of the "Anvil Chorus," or whatever that aria is from Carmen that the Marx Brothers use in "The Coconuts" for the "I Want My Shirt" number.

lucius septimius 4/19/2020 9:08:08 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 3:

I'm Daffy over You.  Which apparently was plagiarized for Sugartime. 

lucius septimius 4/19/2020 9:12:20 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 6:

buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 9:20:48 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 6:

Reply to lucius septimius in 7:

Thanks!  That certainly explains why they kept throwing references to the tune in several of their films.

I was thinking of the "I can't think of the finish/I can't think of anything else" scene while looking at yet another dreary report about "investigations into the FBI and its connections to the Steele Dossier---NOW with possible indictments!"

Yawn.  Investigation after investigation for three years plus, and not a single malefactor indicted let alone imprisoned.

lucius septimius 4/19/2020 10:22:31 AM

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I'm down with the new branding.

Occasional Reader 4/19/2020 11:13:48 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 9:

+++

“This butter is getting worse all the time!“

buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 11:47:32 AM

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There is, apparently, a "Global Citizens' Concert" being planned to raise money for WHO.  Some suggested lyrics for the concert theme:

We are the World 
Health Org'nization
We are the ones who feed on your money
So let's start griftin'
There's a choice we're makin'
We're lining our pockets
With everything we can get our hands on quietly

buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 11:53:23 AM

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In #10 Occasional Reader said: “This butter is getting worse all the time!“

I thought the Beatles song said "It's getting butter all the time..."

Kosh's Shadow 4/19/2020 12:48:55 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 11:

Need to fit in something about them hiding the danger of coronavirus for Chinese money.

Kosh's Shadow 4/19/2020 12:53:07 PM

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Reply to Alice in Dairyland in 2:

That seems to be the case with vets around here. 

Occasional Reader 4/19/2020 3:32:25 PM

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buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 3:54:06 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

There is---there was---a 96-year-old woman (a Holocaust survivor, yet) whom I met at my mother's assisted-living facility in Chicago, who just died of it.  Not a close family friend, but someone who'd been a neighbor of my mother's at the facility.  I know of some other fatalities, but I was not personally acquainted with any of them.  Do I know any personal friends who have died?  No.  My rabbi apparently tested positive for the virus several weeks back, but as far as I know was not laid low by it, and has fully recovered.

Kosh's Shadow 4/19/2020 4:06:53 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

Where I work publishes the number of people there with confirmed cases. A few. No deaths. Some recovered.

I don't know anyone else

Alice in Dairyland 4/19/2020 4:08:19 PM

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Occasional Reader 4/19/2020 4:16:23 PM

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doppelganglander 4/19/2020 4:30:38 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

No one I know has died. One acquaintance was ill but has recovered. It seems plausible that a group of friends in the Greater New York Metropolitan Area might know a dozen people who have tested positive, especially if some are mutual friends. I think it's very unlikely they each know a dozen people who have died, unless they have been on a cruise or attended a Hassidic social event in Lakewood, NJ?

buzzsawmonkey 4/19/2020 5:11:31 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

Teddy rode the subway about two months back

Didn't wash his hands and then he touched his eyes

Cathy went out walking and didn't wear a mask

Wouldn't listen when I told her she should sanitize

Bobby wouldn't social-distance at six feet

They put him in a freezer truck when he died

He was a friend of mine

Those were people who died, died

Those were people who died, died

Those were people who died, died

Those were people who died, died

They were all my friends, and they died

---the Jim Carroll Band, "People Who Died," updated for coronavirus

Occasional Reader 4/19/2020 11:08:47 PM

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Reply to doppelganglander in 20: q