Things you didn't know about Cosimo de Medici

[mrissa]

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion were good fun to hear last night. As was Olivia Guthrie and/or Irion; don't know what last name they gave the child, but at 2 1/2 she knew what a microphone was for. And they taught her The Bad Song*, poor baby. I don't think their album will become a favorite, but it will get put on the wishlist. Sarah Lee has her dad's way of telling a story and a little bit of his laugh, in addition to looking like him. It was lovely, lovely. I like the idea of my spawn wandering into one of Sarah Lee's concerts. Continuity can be good.

The weird thing is that she looks like keightyb's Mini-Me. (Seriously, this woman's guitar is bigger than she is.) This gets seriously weird because I never associated Kate with Cosimo de Medici, but now I have to. The summer I did research in Oregon, there was another undergrad in a different program, and I kept looking at him and looking at him, and finally one day I stopped him in the hall and said, "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Cosimo de Medici?" And he said, "No, but a lot of people say I look like Arlo Guthrie." And then we stared at each other for a minute before we went whooooa and figured out that, in fact, we had not seen them together.

Mark says that commutivity only goes so far, so maybe Kate doesn't look like Cosimo de Medici at all. I am not convinced.

Anyway: I have a short story to poke. Sigh.

*The Bad Song: "You are my sunshine." It's a bad, bad song. When I was little, my parents would sing it to me, and I would wail and beg them to stop. So, puzzled, they stopped singing it, mostly. When I was about 12, I managed to explain the problem to them: my daddy called me "Sunshine." (Still does. Also "Moonshine."** And my mom calls me "Punk.") And here was this song where someone was trying to take his Sunshine away. And all my big strong daddy could do was ask them politely not to? This was serious bad scary stuff. Obviously.

**Because I objected that there wasn't sunshine at night, and it was night and I was clearly still there, and that is when Dad explained to me about reflected sunlight on the moon and a little bit about albedo. I was 3 or 4. I seem to be ending many of my stories about my parents these days with, "So in conclusion, no one can really tell where I got any of this stuff." It's gotten to the point where I didn't get it when my cousin said you could tell she was not entirely my aunt's kid, because I never say that sort of thing without extreme sarcasm, and she wasn't being sarcastic at all.

Comments

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

My dad calls me puppy, which I like, cause it means even though I'm grown up, I'm still his baby girl, only not so overtly sappy. I don't remember what my mom calls me. (Which is sort of awful, except I think maybe she doesn't have anything like that which she calls me. But I can't remember now.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I headbutt my dad affectionately. Also still his baby girl.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

And all my big strong daddy could do was ask them politely not to? This was serious bad scary stuff. Obviously.

Oh dear - LOL.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

Transitivity, not commutivity.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Of course Olivia knows what a microphone is for; it's in her blood. (Lamarckian evolution, apparently.) I bought Guthrie and Irion's album from iTunes - albums cost about 2/3 as much that way as on CD; I'm guessing they save much more in not having to package, transport and store a concrete object so it feels like a win for everybody. Though I'd feel better about it if I thought the artist got the savings instead of the record company. Anyway, I'm not sure I'd have bought the album if Sarah Lee had had a different last name, and it's a bit much to listen to it straight through, but it's good shuffled among other songs.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Shuffling playlists has changed a lot of what I'm willing to listen to. I suppose it's a bit like people who like one or two songs by an artist on the radio but don't want to buy an album, except they don't have to be the same songs all the time.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Should you happen to come to May Day, please do not complain about "You Are My Sunshine" anywhere where I can hear you. It is an integral part of the ceremony. You don't have to like it, but don't try to bring anybody else down. If you come.

Thanks,

K.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I'd have been strung up by at least three separate Protestant denominations before making it out of adolescence if I hadn't learned the very important lesson that other people's rituals are not around for me to critique. I know enough people who didn't learn that lesson that I can see why you'd need to say so, though. I wish it was a point more generally learned. And along with it, the point that community functions will never suit everybody in every particular, and not only is it not all about oneself, it's not all about any one other person, either.

(It's the Bad Song in about the sense that Scooby-Doo is the Scary Show: not a live issue, more something that amuses me in retrospect because of how much the wrong end of the stick it required me to get as a kid. But that doesn't change the essential point that things in other people's ceremonies are not there for me to pick at, even in a marginally more positive way.)