no planets strike (Friday's Sunday's Poem/Hot Actress 69)

Hamlet, Act I, Scene I [Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes]

by William Shakespeare
Marcellus to Horatio and Bernardo, after seeing the Ghost,

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

___________________________________________________________

About the Poem: Yesterday, driving home in the snow from Stevens Point, I was listening to Stuff You Missed In History Class, and it was the "Mysterious Death of Christopher Marlowe" episode...

... yes, that's really what I listened to...

... and then last night, when Sweetie and I took Mr F and Mr Bunches for a ride after they helped me shovel the driveway, I'd commented that I didn't feel all that Christmas-y yet -- not that I was down or sad but that I just didn't feel like it was really Christmastime, even though we're only two weeks from Christmas Eve and I've gone shopping and have been posting the best Christmas songs and all.

So today, I went searching for a Christmas poem other than "A Visit From St. Nicholas," and the first one I found was this excerpt from Hamlet, which completely fails to have what we think of as the Christmas spirit, despite in fact having a Christmas spirit, if I'm reading it correctly. (And I'm not sure I am because I faked my way through Hamlet in AP English in high school.) A Christmas poem about some guys seeing a ghost and hoping that the Christmas season will protect them from such harms as ghosts might cause seemed to me to be interesting enough to post here -- and the exact opposite of what has become one of the main themes of Christmas since Dickens, the idea that ghosts are abroad and can help us at Christmas.

Food for thought.

About the Hot Actress: Zooey Deschanel is not only Christmas-y -she's in Elf, but she also just turned 30 this year, and also serves as food for though: someone who wrote to the editor in Entertainment Weekly suggested she be cast as Wonder Woman, which made me think: Who has the time to write to Entertainment Weekly to make casting suggestions for movies that don't exist yet?

It's not every day I recommend destroying a secondary market for overpriced art. But this seemed important. (This Is Why I Hate People.)

And, back to hating people. Or at least some people. After trying to be positive and not always talk about the lowlifes that abound in society, I was awakened this morning by two things:

First, Mr F had apparently decided that he liked Mr Bunches' blankets better and had gone over to Mr Bunches' bed to steal them, resulting in a fight and Mr Bunches complaining to me when I went in there, "Something happened."

Second, a news story that someone, somewhere, had paid $10,000,000 for a book. Something by Audobon, the news story said. So once I finally gave up trying to go back to sleep and headed downstairs for some 'puting, I looked it up and found an article explaining that a copy of John James Audobon's Birds Of America sold for $10.3 million. According to BBC news, the book is extremely rare -- apparently only 119 copies of them exist -- and featured "phenomenal" print quality for the time.

That wasn't the only book sold at the auction. In total, the sale of books and paintings took in $105 million worth of books, including Shakespeare folios and the like.

$105 million.

Remember that guy who's going to die in Arizona because the state wants to save $4.5 million?

Maybe he and the other 97 people who are no longer on the Arizona organ transplant list because people are selfish ought to self-publish their own book of birds to sell to some greedy sucker.

And maybe they just ought to do it. Maybe they ought to begin producing laser-printer quality copies of Audobon's Birds of America, and just giving them away to people and selling them for a $1 in used book stores. I bet $200 worth of materials and a link to Lulu.com would let them create so many fake Audobons to give away that the value of the real 119 remaining copies would drop to zero because it would be so hard to tell what's real and what's not.

The only thing is, they likely don't have enough time to put that plan into action. You know, because of the whole dying because they need organs thing.

Quote of the Day, 51

"Can you believe those ugly uniforms?"

-- The Boy, talking about the Green Bay Packers' throwback uniforms worn on Sunday's game against the 49ers.

The Boy blurted that out, with no prompting from me, as I came downstairs yesterday to eat lunch and watch the Packers' game with him.

What makes this such an important quote is that on Saturday, Mr Bunches and Mr F and I had spent about 4 hours going from store to store in Madison trying to find The Boy an Aaron Rodgers' throwback jersey, and, having not found one at the malls, I had Sweetie go online and order him one from the Packer pro shop Saturday night -- just hours before he uttered this quote.

When I asked him if he was serious, he said "Yeah," and added that he really hated them.

"I was going to get you one for Christmas," I said -- not telling him that I had gotten him one.

"Oh," he said, and then, after a moment, said "You still could. I could just start an Aaron Rodgers' jersey collection."

(The picture, I know, has nothing to do with this post. It's just one of those Transformer robots you get with a Happy Meal. We've got three of them so far -- I'm trying to stock up while I still can.)

Life With Unicorns: Table Of Contents

Life With Unicorns is what I call my series of posts about raising our two youngest children, Mr F and Mr Bunches, both of whom have autism.

Here's the original essay about how I came up with that title -- and why I decided to start writing overtly about this topic: Life With Unicorns.

And here's the rest of them:

Earth's Greatest Superhero Eats Some Cheesepuffs, Everyone Cheers.

The many faces of Mr F

How much unusual is too much unusual?

Don't worry, chicken, you're going.

One night Mr F somewhat unwillingly helped me make Rice Krispie treats. (Photo Essay!)

The Partially Edible Snowman and the Happy Bear

What Mr Bunches is watching, 1.

How about "I'm feeling a little arjvmydgs?"

Chair Pioneer, 6.

World's Youngest Daredevil Leaps Over Kid!

Mr F does not like slides.

I give you People's Sexiest Man Alive, 2027.

Mr F likes his red blanket.

We actually never got near many pumpkins at the pumpkin farm.

The Adventures of Mr F Stardust and the Gargoyles from Mars... or something like that.

Mr F does NOT like blue jeans.

Chair Pioneer, 5

You know what's a match for a good blaster? Bustin' a move. (video!)

The Greatest Chase Scene Ever Filmed (Video!)

The NEXT Greatest Chase Scene Ever Filmed (Video!)

Mr Bunches covers "Sweet Talk Sweet Talk" by The New Pornographers. (Video!)

InstrumentQuest!
Part One

Mr Bunches is camera shy, which poses problems for my career plans for the Babies! (VIDEOS!)

Texts from Sweetie.

Mr Bunches sings Numa Numa. (VIDEO!)

Nailed it!

From here on out, "9" shall be pronounced "mab." (VIDEO!)

Milestones for Mr F!

A pep talk for Mr Bunches ends with a twist.

Today you will learn a word in a new language.

The Pancakes of Time Get Their Revenge
UPDATE: Watch the video!


As seen on TV... hopefully someday

Imagine not knowing what "fun" means.

Crayon tourists.

I didn't get to read the paper yesterday morning.

More time at the library.

Roosters don't live in rainforests, for one thing.

My desk gets reorganized.
Indian Bunnies Wearing Crowns.

Mr Bunches hits the red crayon jackpot!

Chair Pioneer, four.

Mr F's abstract art.

Chair Pioneer, part three.

Also, we did eventually clean up that room.

Be careful what you promise, or you might end up playing in the rain in a diaper.

Singing a song you don't know the words to.

Doing the cookie boogie.

Mr F helps me eat pizza a little faster.

As it turns out, he DID change into a different outfit.

X is for Dog.

Awesome Covers of Already Awesome Songs: Christmas Edition 2

Today it's Do They Know It's Christmas...

In patriotic version:



And Swedish Christmas Home Video Version:



And in a version that manages to be more eighties than the original song was -- even though the original was made in the 80s:





And, of course, the self-proclaimed "historical" 20-years-after remake -- complete with people talking over the singing:



Here's the version of that one that lets you hear the song,



And I think the real lesson from this is that it's impossible to wreck this song. Although they certainly tried with that unnecessary rapping bit in that last version.

I always knew these would be a big hit, so now you can get punctuated.

About two years (maybe longer) ago, I spent a morning creating what I thought would be a genius idea: the You've Been Punctuated line of clothing apparel.

Nothing much happened during that time -- other than I bought myself a semi-colon -- until the last two weeks, when they started selling like well-punctuated hotcakes. Never one to miss out on a trend, I thought I'd reprint them all here and remind you that Christmas is just 19 days away -- and these t-shirts would make a great gift for that special someone in your life who always wants to punctuate someone. Click the shirts to go buy one:

! by brianefp

ellipses by brianefp

parentheses by brianefp

Colon by brianefp

Ampersand by brianefp

Semicolon by brianefp

Comma by brianefp

Awesome Covers Of Already Awesome Songs: Christmas Edition.

When I was a kid, I'd play We Three Kings in a sort of upbeat, fun way -- I liked the melody but thought the song was too ponderous. My mom would always say "What are you doing?" and make me play it right.

If only she'd known that encouraging my Christmas Improv might lead to my joining a moderately successful rock band someday:



Okay, it's only a small part of that song -- but still, I was on the right track.

Singing a Song You Don't Know The Words To. (Life With Unicorns.)

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