Well, dear readers, I woke up this morning and for some reason I was thinking about that old nursery rhyme, Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey. I have no idea why I was thinking about it, it just came into my head like an unwanted fungus. Do you suppose there’s a wanted fungus? Anyway, the first thing I would like to know is just what in tarnation is a tuffet? I’d like to sit on a fershluganah tuffet, wouldn’t you? I think Mother Goose was just making things up in search of an easy rhyme, that’s what I think. That darned Mother Goose – she didn’t have a rhyming dictionary like my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim. And then there’s the little matter of the curds and whey. If I go to Gelson’s will I be able to find some curds and whey? And if I find them will I want to sit on a tuffet and eat them? Do you have to eat them in that order, or can you eat whey and curds? Can you eat curds without the whey and vice versa? That Mother Goose sure knew how to open a can of curds and whey. In any case, there’s Little Miss Muffet sitting on whatever the hell a tuffet is, and she’s eating this stuff called curds and whey. And then, of all things, a spider comes along and frightens her away. Okay, what I want to know is, did she leave the curds and whey on the tuffet or did she take them with her? And, after she left, what did the spider do? Did the spider sit on the tuffet and eat some of the curds and whey? There are way too many unanswered questions here. Can you imagine what someone who’s never read these here notes before must be thinking?
Did you know that at the very same time Little Miss Muffet was sitting on her tuffet that her close personal friend Little Jack Horner was sitting in a corner? I can’t remember what Little Jack Horner was doing in the corner although he most certainly was not eating curds and whey.
I hope everyone had a safe and sound St. Patrick’s Day. I actually forgot to wear green to a dinner party I attended, and I got pinched by the various and sundried people who were there. Everyone at the party commented on my dazzlingly white teeth. I now have to do my lower teeth, because my upper teeth are so incredibly dazzlingly white that my lower teeth are from dullsville, man. My lower teeth are unseemly-looking compared to my dazzling upper teeth. My lower teeth aren’t fit to be around my upper teeth. So, I shall have to go back to Dr. Chew and have him create a device for my lower teeth so they can be dazzlingly white, too. For now, I shall keep my lower teeth hidden from one and all and also all and one.
The galley for my novel arrived on Saturday, and I have several people proofing it and soon it shall be ready to go to print. And then we can all sit with our curds and whey and read it. Well, let’s all click on that Unseemly Button below and hope something interesting happens down there.
I’m in the midst of watching the Me and My Shadows: The Story of Judy Garland DVD. I’d only seen a bit of the film when it first aired. As you know, this is the story of Miss Judy Garland as told (and narrated) by her daughter, Miss Lorna Luft. Miss Lorna Luft and I used to chum around when she was twelve and I was sixteen. If she had been four and I had been twenty would we have been baked in a pie like so many blackbirds? In any case, these tell-all movies are always amusing, because they have to telescope so much into a certain amount of time. It all becomes a series of connect-the-dots scenes – look, there’s Baby Gumm, look there’s the man who gives her pills, look there’s Wizard of Oz, look there’s Roger Edens telling her to be herself, etc. I’m still in the young years, and the gal who’s playing Judy at that age is terrific. I think both she and Judy Davis won Emmys and by the looks of it, those Emmys were well deserved. I had to laugh when I saw that the executive producers were Neil Meron and Craig Zadan. This is so them. I’ll have a full report after I’ve watched the rest. The DVD quality is okay, not great.
You still have till midnight tonight to get your answers to the trivia contest in. At least we’ve had some players this week, so who knows, we may even be able to award a handy-dandy prize.
Big news, according to that muckety-muck, Ken Mandelbaum. Li’l Abner, one of my favorite musicals, is coming back to CD. It was released very briefly over ten years ago, and that CD is a prize rarity amongst collectors. I, of course, have it, as I bought it the day it came out. That was the first title I tried to license when I (yes, when I) set up the licensing deal with Sony that resulted in Subways Are For Sleeping, and the upcoming Juno and I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road. But we couldn’t pry that one loose, no matter how hard we tried. Well, it’s being done in house and will come out on Columbia Masterworks. I’m sure that my pal Didier Deutsch will be producing the reissue. It will include some bonus material. In the announcement a key piece of information was left out, which I found curious. I’m loathe to disclose what it is, in case there’s some problem all of a sudden, but when we were going to license it I discovered this key piece of information and was wildly happy about it. Tell you what – I’ll see what I can find out, and maybe I can disclose this key piece of information and say “You heard it here first”. Actually, why shouldn’t I disclose this key piece of information here and say, “You heard it here first”? By Francis Gumm, I will disclose this key piece of information! I will preface it by saying it’s what we were told – if it has turned out not to be true then so be it. Be it so. It be so. According to those in the know, they have found stereo tapes for Li’l Abner. The album (and original CD) were only ever available in mono. Isn’t that exciting? And I do believe they may have found the Sadie Hawkins Ballet, which wasn’t on the original album. Remember, you heard it here first, but if it turns out to not be so I’ll just ignore the fact that I just said you heard it here first. However, if it turns out to be so, I will, of course, say you heard it here first. Take that, Mr. Ken Mandelbaum.
I am so hungry for some damn curds and whey. Don’t forget to catch up on the weekend notes if you missed them. Simply use the handy-dandy Unseemly Archive Button and you can read all about many important things. Plus, we had a Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest song yesterday, The Irishman and the Jew. It was quite something.
Well, I must get going, I must get ready, I must be on my merry way, because today is a busy day. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Cole Porter songs? I know, I know, I know, Mary (that is three I knows and a Hail, Mary), there are too many Cole Porter songs and most of them are amazing. I’ll start: True Love, Anything Goes (one of the most perfect songs ever written), It’s All Right With Me, Don’t Fence Me In, Dream Dancing, Every Time We Say Goodbye, Leader of the Big Time Band and Night and Day. Your turn. I’ll be back tomorrow and hopefully I will have located some curds and whey in the meantime. In the meantime, don’t forget to tune in to Donald’s new radio show, with special guest Lisa Richard (I’m there, too – and they even play a song of mine that she sings on her brand spanking new album).