fox

I keep forgetting to post the answers, and it seems a lot of you needed them. So.

1. "When you say orphan ..."

( The Pirates of Penzance. )

2. "I don't mind if people talk rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot."

Bertie Wooster says this -- I'm positive it's in The Code of the Woosters, probably with reference to Gussie (or Stiffy. or Sir Watkyn Basset. Or anyone, really), but I can't find a specific cite. It's very frustrating.

3. "Things would be so different if they were not as they are." (This usually goes hand-in-hand with "But if there was one thing circumstances weren't, it was different from what they were ...")

The main quote is from Anna Russell's Gilbert & Sullivan routine, in which she points out that a G&S hero always sings an aria in 6/8 time*, accompanying himself on a banjo or a mandolin or some other portable stringed instrument. Then she picks up a guitar and ( sings: )

4. "You know, you got spunk. I hate spunk."

This is Lou Grant on the pilot episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It's the end of Mary's job interview; there's actually a sort of pause in there, long enough for Mary to start to say "Well, thank you, Mr. Grant," and then he interrupts her.

5. "It's plot exposition. It has to go in somewhere."

[horrified glances at jgesteve et al.] Dame Diana Rigg as Lady Holliday in The Great Muppet Caper -- admittedly the weakest of the original three Muppet movies, but how can you not love it?

LADY HOLLIDAY: [rambly monologue about her brother being a good-for-nothing]
MISS PIGGY: Why are you telling me all this?
LADY HOLLIDAY: It's plot exposition. It has to go in somewhere.

6. "We're not going to have enough road to get up to 88."

Chistopher Lloyd as Doc Brown in Back to the Future.

7. "Six thousand dollars? It's not even leather!"

Joan Cusack as Cynthia in Working Girl.

8. "I said no camels! That's four camels! Can't you count?"

Hee! Indiana Jones to Sallah in Last Crusade.

9. "No, just the pie, but then not heated."*

Ah. Meg Ryan as Sally in When Harry Met Sally ..., one of the best scripts ever. See below.

10. "I never wear shoes, because they make me fall down."

Hank Azaria as Agador(-Spartacus) in The Birdcage.

11. "Are you nuts? Are you some nutty nut-girl who's nuts?"

Josh Charles as Dan Rydell in Sports Night ("Eli's Coming", I think.)

*Also:

"You made a woman meow?" (Bruno Kirby as Jess)

"Look, if you ask me what a person looks like and I say she's got a good personality, that means she's not that attractive. But just because I happen to mention she's got a good personality, it could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality, or not attractive with a good personality."
"So which is it?"
"Attractive."
"But not beautiful, right?" (Billy Crystal as Harry and Bruno Kirby as Jess)

"Of course, when I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, she said, 'Ted Kennedy was shot?!'" (Billy Crystal as Harry)

"I want you to know that I will never want that wagon-wheel coffee table." (Carrie Fisher as Marie)

and, of course,

"I'll have what she's having." (Rob Reiner's mother as the lady in the diner [g])

The trouble with this kind of tests is, in probably 30 or 40 of the 75 questions I was not comfortable with the options presented as a binary choice.  It's not even that they're not mutually exclusive; they're not exclusive at all.  I am, for example, soft-hearted and tough-minded, the one because of the other.

But anyway.  Here's my Meyers-Briggs profile, and that other thing -- which, in my experience I'm better at visual-spatial than it seems to suggest, but otherwise, sure.  Also, you can't see it on here, but I totally got a mere 5% for "naturalist", which is just funny.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

( Or. Something. )

Stolen from all y'all by now:

How many times has someone on your friends list posted about something and you were really confused, but you didn't want to ask because you knew you SHOULD know?  How many times have you felt guilty asking an LJ friend a question that should be obvious?

Well, here's your chance.

If you've missed a few things, missed an entry and are confused, ask me anything.  Even something EXTREMELY basic, like where I live!  I'm not allowed to get even slightly irritated at any of the questions -- we've all missed things before.

Although I will promise not to get [read:  show evidence of being] irritated at any of the questions, I will not categorically promise to answer them all.  (If you don't know my full name, for instance, it's not because you missed a post about it here.)  But, as has been said elsewhere, the odds are decent that I will.  Have at.

Answer each question and put the answer into Google's image search engine; then post the first picture to come up.  (I'm actually modifying this by posting a picture from the first page of hits.)

( here we go )

(side note:  uh-oh; that was a rattly cough i just coughed.  nonononono, i will not get a cold!  [prepares to scrunch up face, stomp feet, flail, etc.])

now:  the iTunes meme, from jgesteve:

Open iTunes/iPod or Windows Media Player to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrassing it is.

How many songs? 3065

Sort by artist:
First artist: 10,000 Maniacs
Last artist: [blank, but the last artist actually listed is] Yes

Sort by song title:
First: 'night Mother (from Forbidden Broadway - SVU)
Last: Zoot Suit Riot

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: (Blank Track) on Dixie Chicks Fly, 0:00; Blank on David Sedaris Barrel Fever And Other Stories, 0:04; shortest track with any audible content, Scene: Colin's Room on The Secret Garden Original Cast Recording, 0:14
Longest Song: Life, the Universe and Everything (Unabridged) Part 1 of 3, by Douglas Adams, 2:27:10

First Album:  20 Great Love Songs
Last Album: [blank, but the last album actually listed is] Yield
First song that comes up on Shuffle: Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes, by Bruce Cockburn ([waves to resonant8])

How many songs come up when you search for "sex?" 7, of which 3 contain the word "sexy", one contains the word "sexual", one is by the Sex Pistols, and one is by Martin Sexton
How many songs come up when you search for "death?" 5, of which 2 each come from Jesus Christ Superstar and Les Misérables
How many songs come up when you search for "love?" 126, including "lovely", "lover", etc.
How many songs come up when you search for "you?" 323, including "your" and so on
How many songs come up when you search for "why?" 7
How many songs come up when you search for "God?" 29, of which 15 are the original cast recording of Godspell
How many songs come up when you search for "crazy?" 5

from a few of you by now:  'TOP 50 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD TRY A BITE OF IN THEIR HIS OR HER LIFETIME' -- okay, sure :-) -- bold the ones you've eaten, italicize the ones you didn't like.

( what is it we dream about? what brings on a sigh? )

i mean to say, 'tapas' and 'greek food' and 'chinese food' and 'mexican food' and 'thai food' and 'sandwiches', for god's sake, but no catchall for 'seafood' -- you have to list all the critters separately?  BAH, say i.  but, whatever ...

blah blah, everyone's done it by now, but in case you haven't, When you see this, post a poem you like in your LJ.

On Being A Woman

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me-- then
I scream to have you back again?

by Dorothy Parker, of course.

i chose this poem because the days are getting shorter really, really fast.  it's 7:30 now and definitely dusky kind of twilight outside.  (of course it was also cloudy today, so it's looking darker sooner than it would if the sky were clear.  but, still.)  and i'm kind of gloomy about that, the shortening of the days, and soon when we go off summer time it'll be a real kick in the teeth -- but i also wasn't bananas about the middle of the summer, when the days were so long and it was light out until ten o'clock.  it's the grass-is-greener strain of seasonal affective disorder, which is why it is this one of dorothy's poems i chose to fling at you all this time.

or i suppose it could be that i'm just always kind of cranky.

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )

the present meme is, go here and make a doll of yourself, and then a doll of your-MarySue-self.  this only works for women, unfortunately, since they don't have a boy doll base.  tragic, i know. [eta: boy dolls yay!  thanks to the_star_fish for the info. :-)]

anyway.

( here is the me!doll. )

it doesn't, of course, look much like me at all.  but i have long, straight, dark hair and brown eyes and kind of perpetually raised eyebrows, and i don't wear makeup usually, and my face is a little jowly, and that's approximately how i dress.

( and here is the marysue!doll. )

i didn't give her purple eyes, so the purple hair was almost a given.  eyebrows are finer and higher; lipstick is darker; clothes are Goth Teeny, as i understand it now.  the raincloud is for angst.

hee.

-- that's probably quite easy.

You represent in a boat on a river, with of Tangerinebaeumen and the skies of jam.  You, call somebody you answer rather slowly, a girl eyes kaleidescope above.  Zellophanblumen of yellow and an ecologist towering on your head; seek the girl with the sun in him eyes and they gone... consequences you him to the bottom with a bridge of a well, in which Eibischtorten people eat the horse of oscillation.

1. Grab the nearest book.

to my left is Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology: A General Theory of Inflection and Word Formation, by Robert Beard.  make whatever faces you want; the other option is, to my right, Examination Regulations 2004.

2. Open the book to page 123

done and done

3. Find the fifth full sentence.

done and done

4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

beard
14.  Dryer (1989) claims to have found independent morphemes marking plural in 48 of 307 languages he examined; however, his research, to the best of my knowledge, remains incomplete.

exam regs
Classics Preliminary, Course IIB  Candidates will be required to offer:

1.  Greek Translation: as specified for Honour Moderations in Classics Course 1B, paper VIII.

5.  Don't search around for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually nearest to you (We already know you, no use trying to be pretentious.)

i don't actually have cool books, so that's fortunate.