Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Though I'm pretty sure no-one ever said re: the nativity "the census required Joseph to move back to his ancestral home of 40 generations ago".

I was raised areligious and attended American public schools, so finally making a concerted effort to learn more about the varied religions of the world over the last several years has been m/l a daily dose of 'shockingly old when'.

the gospels were written by the primary (competing) sects that had grown in the wake of jesus' death life aiui, or at least that's how an old friend of my dad's from divinity school told me when i was 11 years old, who memorably followed that information up by admonishing me that the idea they were actually written by people named matthew mark luke and john was "horseshit"

I remember that the lost common source for synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, which share the basic story and have many verses in common) was named 'Q', which is funny in the light of QAnon.

"Q's existence has been questioned", lol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source#:~:text=The%20Q%20source%20(also%20called,in%20the%20Gospel%20of%20Mark.&text=Q's%20existence%20has%20been%20questioned.

Ah yes. That's short for 'Quelle', right? (German for 'source'.)

i don't know if that's true and i don't care cause lols xp

So, though Mark is synoptic, the Q parts don't feature in his gospel, apparently. Not sure if I was taught this wrong or have just forgotten.

Mark and Luke, Gospel authors, were not in the original twelve apostles.

No. Even though on later reunion tours (like in 57 AD) they were billed as apostles, they weren't in the original lineup.

Mark had first been brought on as a session bassist, then was asked to fill in on keyboards for the European leg of the 45 tour, when Andrew was in rehab. After Andrew's overdose, Mark was invited to become a permanent member of the live band. But he still craved a greater role in songwriting because otherwise he couldn't get in on any of the lucrative publishing rights.

Luke was just a guy in the same scene - playing the same clubs, knowing some of the same people. His solo debut flopped commercially, but he got enough attention from the apostles' producer, Melvin the Arimathean. So when they needed a rhythm guitarist for some dates in Galilee, Luke was the guy to call. He never got along with Simon the Zealot, which led to later tensions both in the studio and on stage.

Meanwhile, original apostles Matthew and James began touring as "The OTHER Apostles," leading to a contentious lawsuit over use of the name. The suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Mark had first been brought on as a session bassist, then was asked to fill in on keyboards for the European leg of the 45 tour,

Fake news, there was no 45 AD (nor any of 1 AD through 524 AD)

sic, okay. You got me. I do know that the dating nomenclature is disputed.

Especially if you look at the fine print in the rockism/poptimism decisions made by the First Council of Nicaea. My understanding is that the dating of the 57 reunion tour was reconciled via papal dispensation; cf. the bull De Datum Tourium and its corollaries. Things got even more confused by the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar; and almost none of the literature on early Apostles lineups survives.

I claim no expertise in this area, I'm just going by what the t-shirts said. Some of the bootlegs from that era don't have CE/BCE dates at all; they only express years since the founding of Rome.

This might be clarified when the Gnostic gospels have a one-day-only copyright extension release on Spotify next month.

a 4AD release, I assume

I just learned today that XTC are amazing

I recently (to my shame) got that "Space Oddity" was a play on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not sure how I missed that one.

Read Marlowe's late-16th century Doctor Faustus yesterday, got a bit of a surprise at the snippet "Che sera sera / What will be, shall be".

Safe Harbour day for the election this year was the day after Pearl Harbour day. Somebody pointed that out on a podcast I was listening to a few days ago. Is that a coincidence or did people think you needed a safe harbour after that attack or the memory of that attack.

I recently (to my shame) got that "Space Oddity" was a play on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not sure how I missed that one.

Only got this now, thx!

That the it in Hey Jude’s “don’t make it bad” refers to the sad song. I’d inattentively put the phrase down to being a clumsy idiom.

Now doubting myself on this

Well, this is Paul 'in this ever-changing world in which we live in' McCartney we're talking about here.

I’ve always given him the benefit of the doubt on that and had it as “in which we’re living” not that that makes it much better.

Also, it's "If this ever-changing world..." There's nothing wrong with that line, it's just people mishearing it.

Okay, that was my bad, but there's still 'in which we live in' to contend with.

shrug emoji

speaking of Bowie, just yesterday I was reading something about his favorite books and realized I'd never spotted "Jean Genie" / Jean Genet before

That list he made near the end? I seem to remember people thinking it was too middlebrow but I kind of liked it.

Middlebrowie

Yeah his top 100 list. Genet's not even on the list, but his name comes up in the discussion of it in this book called Bowie's Bookshelf.

I’ve always given him the benefit of the doubt on that and had it as “in which we’re living” not that that makes it much better.

― Alba, Wednesday, December 9, 2020 6:29 AM (three hours ago)

yeah i had "in which we're livin'" which seemed colloquially correct nuf

"Appellate Court" refers to "appeals." Just clicked the other day.

I should take this to the "Irrationally Angry" thread, but "If this ever-changing world in which we're living / makes you give in and cry..." is perfectly sensible and, as far as I can tell, grammatically correct.

I did recently learn that "House of Commons" means "House of Commoners"--not being British, my brain never made the connection between Lords and Commoners.

I'll bet the Commons chamber is drafty and has less majestic cloakrooms than the Lords.

Okay, that was my bad, but there's still 'in which we live in' to contend with.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Thursday, December 10, 2020 12:56 AM (sixteen hours ago)

shrug emoji

― Nhex, Thursday, December 10, 2020 1:13 AM (sixteen hours ago)

But if this ever changing world, in which we're living, makes you give in and cry, say "live and let die."

Nhex otm, this line is perfectly fine either as a lyric in a pop song or as an English sentence.

lol xpost

I'm gonna take the bait and say that line is fine grammatically, but clunky as a lyric. Still a good song.

clunky as a lyric

tbc this is also an excellent pop lyric:

Listen to those dancing feet
Close your eyes and let go
But it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
Bop shoo-wah
Bop shoo-wah
Bop shoo-wah

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Spinning all around the floor
Just like Rogers and Astaire who found love without a care
Stepping to our favorite tune, the good times always end too soon

Everybody's dancing lift your feet, have some fun
Come on everybody, get on your feet
Clap your hands I'M *SCREAMING*

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance
Everybody dance
Everybody dance
Everybody dance

Everybody dance
Everybody dance
Everybody dance
Everybody dance

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap you hands

Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands
Everybody dance, doo-do-doo-doo
Clap your hands, clap your hands

I had a student write a paper about that song once!

My favorite part of it is how the tone gets a little demanding when she sings "come on everybody, get on your feet."

Kinda hard to dance while doodooing

You enjoy music where the point seems to be a dude screaming about Satan.

(sorry neanderthal I get very protective of Chic. I once stopped seeing someone because they said they didn't like Chic)

I read Nile's book (which was great), but he keeps going on about his and Chic's philosophy of DHM - Deep Hidden Meaning. And I've never understood what the hell he was talking about.

For that song in particular, the student wrote about the way the spectres of Rogers and Astaire hang over the song-- they signify the good life, whiteness, refined sensibility, but also the hi-jacking of Black music to suit non-Black audience needs. In some ways, it is doing an interesting job of exhorting its Black audience to go for the good life, knowing full well it might be taken away or corrupted. (That was the student argument).

I think they were onto something. There are both obvious and less obvious critiques of whiteness in Chic's music, IMHO, but that particular line always struck me as weird.

Interesting. I do think that's a lot of heavy lifting for a single line to do, especially given that single line is functionally the *only* line in the song. I love Chic, but always kind of felt like at least part of them was sometimes taking the piss. You get these chop-monster rock guys (Nile always said how much he loved Kiss and Roxy Music, two of the whitest bands ever) sneakily beating the purportedly dumb dance guys at their own game after learning (or being taught, in Nile's case, iirc) how to adopt their chops to a different medium. Kind of reminds me of a band like Bad Brains, who were miles better, musically, than their peers in their chosen "primitive" medium.

now I have “Bad brains! These are the bad brains!” stuck in my head

lol

Maybe heavy lifting, but I guess as a poet, a single line doing that kind of work doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

Also, I often feel insane saying this, but I've never been able to get into Bad Brains-- whatever it is that other people hear hasn't clicked. And I grew up a punk kid!

lol table

see and I'm defensive (somewhat) of Bad Brains. well....I guess TO A POINT. their reign at the top was short like leprechauns