The other day I was looking up possibilities of books to read and check out of the library (decided on The Brothers Karamazov and The Portrait of a Lady, if anybody's curious), and while searching through lists, I came upon a title written by Honore de Balzac. And the first thing that popped in my head was Hermione Gingold's (as Mrs. Shinn) distinctive, disgusted declaration of "Balllllllllzac!" in The Music Man. And it made me ponder how fun it is that we associate completely disparate things together, that hearing or seeing one thing can make us think of another. (Of course, I also had "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little" stuck in my head the rest of the day, too.)
Okay, so Mrs. Shinn referring directly to Balzac isn't much of a stretch of the imagination, but what else makes me think of something completely different, that because of experience I associate two distinct (and possibly random) items with one another?
1. Ballroom Dancing with Gilbert Blythe. How did that happen? Thanks to an old friend named Caleb, who did ballroom dancing, but also dressed as Gilbert Blythe for Halloween one year to complement Megan Young's Anne Shirley.
2. Family Dinners with The Three Musketeers. Because half our dinner conversation while I was growing up was probably movie quotes, I suppose any movie could suffice, but I always think of my brothers quoting Rochefort. My opinion is that they did it in order to imitate his gravelly voice, but I still laugh when I think of them saying such things as "Burn it" and "There are three". (and then i laugh harder when i remember that i occasionally made the mistake of trying to imitate him, too.)
3. "The Blue Danube" and American Football. I wrote about this in a previous post, but it's definitely one worth mentioning again for the sake of this list. Thanks to a terrible little film named "NFL's Greatest Hits", this music and sport will forever be linked together in my memory.
4. Kinko's and Little People. No, not the politically correct term for midgets, but the Fisher-Price toy brand. I don't know if it was a Kinko's, but when I was little, I remember going with my mother to a copying store and there were toys to play with while I waited. I don't even know for sure if it the toys there actually were Little People, but that's what pops in my head whenever I walk into my local Kinko's to make a copy.
Weird, huh? There are lots of other little things, and of course they don't matter to anyone but me. But I suppose that's what makes me special. Unique. A little strange. "Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, cheep!"
-Me
"The National Rifle Association says, 'Guns don't kill people. People do.' But I think the gun helps." -Eddie Izzard
4 comments:
Ok, I don't know how we didn't become better friends when we both lived in Centennial. I wish we had.
I love reading your posts (you're witty and you crack me up) and I love that you know the things you do. I hardly ever run into anyone who knows much about The Muppets, musicals, or Anne of Green Gables.... and much more that you know about. I feel like you must be a long lost family member or something. So awesome.
ooh he's a feisty fellow...feisty indeed
I think my favorite is the Blue DAnube and football. :) I was just saying the other day that sometimes I will hear a word spoken by someone, and more often than not, I will associate that word with a song I've heard recently, and then I'll have that song stuck in my head for who knows how long... Often I'll have several different songs in my head throughout the course of the day. :) Love your thoughts! Keep it up.
Now, thanks! - cheep cheep cheep, pick a lot, talk a little more..... i won't be able to get that one out of my head. how about when we did the train scene onstage for the ward talent show?
lovenote
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