Away Today
Posted on November 10, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 23 Comments
Taking care of some stuff. So until I return, here, have an open thread.
A topic, to get you started: Why, precisely, was she singing “do-wah-diddy diddy dum, diddy do” as she was there, just walking down the street? And it have something to with clapping her hands and shuffling her feet, or were those completely unrelated activities?
I crave clarity on this issue.
I dunno, but…
She looked good.
She looked fine.
She looked good, she looked fine and I nearly lost my mind!
she was a zombie. with rhythm.
It was all the same expression of joy because sha-na-na-na sha-na-na-na-na, bah-doo, sha-na-na-na sha-na-na-na-na, bah-doo, sha-na-na-na sha-na-na-na-na, bah-doo, sha-na-na-na sha-na-na-na-na, baaaaah dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip, moo-moo-moo-moo-moo-moo-moo-moo he finally got a job.
(It was not, as is commonly assumed, because Quinn the Eskimo got there, revved up like a Deuce, another runner in the night.)
Well, she was breaking out of her shell as she got older. When she was 17, she would just stand there.
I thought she was snapping her fingers, not clapping. And don’t YOU snap your fingers and shuffle your feet when you sing “do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do”?
Great. Now I have this urge to go watch Stripes.
Simple reason: She had doo-wop in her *blood* — in her blood, I tell you!
Once the infection takes hold, singing “Doo wah diddy” is virtually inevitable.
What kind of training? Aaaaarmy training SIR!
Riight. Like Manfred Mann is a reliable source. I’ve never forgiven the guy for taking Springsteen’s strange, bluesy ‘Blinded by the Light’ and turning it into that silly over-popped mind-eating soul-stealing bit of evil. Bonus points if anyone can name a worse crime against the electric organ.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be breaking my typing fingers for the over hyphenation; then copying whole chapters of Strunk & White with those same broken fingers. Thou shalt punctuate correctly.
Hallucinogens in the water supply, no doubt.
Actually, she was Manfred Mann’s girlfriend, and she was channeling Bruce Springsteen from ten years into the future singing “Blinded by the Light,” but kept getting one line wrong.
And Manfred said to her, “Honey, why do you keep singing ‘Wrapped up like a douche; another rumor in the night’?”
And she said, “Manny, it’s the dawn of acid rock and I’m on the most magnificent trip right now. Just go with it.”
“Well, I want to write a song about you singing, but I can’t say that on the radio. It’s 1965. You’re not allowed to say that on the radio yet.”
“Just tell them I sang ‘Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do.’ They won’t notice.”
“Can I tell them you were just a-walkin’ down the street?”
“I am in this hallucination.”
“Are the walls melting?”
“Yeah. They’re made of ice cream.”
“Pass me a purple microdot.”
[Cue Paul Harvey…]
And now you know the rest
of the story.
Alternatively, it might have had something to do with an electric street sign…
It was “snapping her fingers and shuffling her feet.”
And I remember when I attended the wedding of a couple of friends many years ago. After the reception was over, I was standing in the parking lot with a few friends when the bride’s younger sister came out of the church, carrying some stuff to her car. For some reason, I started singing, “There she goes, just walking down the street . . . ” The rest of the group joined in, and we managed to both amuse and thoroughly embarass the young lady.
And don’t you want to thank the guy who srote the song that made your baby fall in love with you . . . ?
I always thought those were symptoms of having the rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie-woogie blues.
What I want to know is who, who wrote the book of love?
Clearly, the truth of this problem has yet to be revealed. It’s like this. After walking past Roy Orbison, she danced the Tripe Face Boogie with Lowell George and was on the rebound after a brief relationship with Warren Beatty, after which she promptly contracted Manfred Mann (and maybe, as Mr. Buchheit so knowledgeably suggested, the rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie woogie blues).
On a separate note, Manfred Mann was the first band to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
Not to pick nits, but isn’t it the boogie woogie flu?
The candy store was all out of Peppermint Twists…she had to do SOMEthing with her spare time!
Practice, of course, for when we’re together nearly every day…
Never mind Manfred Mann, here’s The Exciters!
I run off to a weekend of wild SF conning at WindyCon — and I come back to this?! Eep!
“She blinded me… with science!”
Dr. Phil
Steve@16: Did YOU write the Book of Love? If so, could you please elucidate on the connection between having wrote the Book of Love and having faith in God above? Because I never got that.
I’m glad we’re discussing this, because there’s something that’s been bothering me for years: what, exactly, does Paul Simon’s mother have against his Kodachrome(tm)?
She had to stand in the middle of the street, babbling her nonsense. If she hadn’t, the writers of Short Circuit 2 would’ve needed a different plot point, and civilization would have collapsed.
If you don’t remember, don’t worry about it. We’ll run away together, we’ll spend some time forever. We’ll never feel bad anymore. Whoop whoop.