Here are some random jokes that I thought were really funny. They involve what are currently the three axes (as in plural of axis, not as in plural of axe) on which my life currently spins (in no particular order): Language, My Cello, My Wife.

This first one comes from the Language Log. Imagine a world in which the perfect language has been invented: no more syntax to remember, no more crummy grammar rules. In fact, the entire language is made up of a single word...



This second one will strike a chord with many cellists.



This link is just funny. And no, my marriage isn't really like this.

End Transmission

I am an idiot.

Day four- I think I may have made an important discovery today, and that is that "Neil Young Song" by Hayden isn't actually called that. I think it's this other song called something else on a different album, but I'm not sure.

further investigation to ensue.

Day three - I nearly abandoned yesterday's theory of things missing, because there are just a couple of songs that don't quite fit in well enough, and I can't seem to define the parameters well enough to make all the lyrics of all the songs that have lyrics plus the one that doesn't, fit.

So I'm playing with a new theory- falling. In Paranoid Android, Rain falls. In Eleanor Rigby, people throw rice (that one's kind of weak, I know). In Recovering the Satellites, well, satellites fall, along with shooting stars. Mad World has tears falling into a glass, Red Rabbits has rabbits falling into a crucible (weird!), and finally I got a category where I Bombed Korea fits. Obviously, bombs fall from the sky. Oh yeah, and Electrical Storm talks about something falling.

But again, there's just one or two little things that don't fit. L'Absente, the prime example, doesn't talk about anything, let alone about anything falling. You could say something musical, like it has a descending chord structure or something, but dude, the Shblogger would get my ultimate props both for his musical acumen and the familiarity he has with the content of his iPod.

Still, given that L'Absente doesn't have any lyrics, it fits best into yesterday's "missing" category. I'm going to play with that one some more and see if I can come up with a concise category to include all the songs.

End Transmission.

Day two: A new hope

So I lay in bed last night analyzing different possibilities: Were all the songs off of live albums, EP's, singles or foreign releases? No. Was there any correlation between the years of the albums' release? No. All of the band names appear on the album covers, but that's so weak a connection, you might as well say that they all had music in them.

And so I just popped in the CD this morning and tried to relax on the way to work. And then it came to me. The one thing that all the songs have in common. Well kind of. I'd say about half of them explicitly say this word, and the other half just talk about something similar or related. Shall I explain, or wait until tomorrow?

Aw, what the hell. The idea came to me while rocking out to Yann Tiersen's "L'absente," then a few minutes later to Sad Sad World by Sheryl Crow = "It's a sad, sad world without you in it..." and I thought to myself, hey, self, there's something. Both of these songs talk about people not being somewhere. I wonder if other songs have that as well. Sure enough, "Emaline" by Ben Folds talks about not being able to bear life without said girl; "Take me out" by Franz Ferdinand talks about "I know I won't be leaving here without you."

The question is whether or not the theory holds for all the songs. "I bombed Korea" by Cake, "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead and "My Love" by Justin Timberlake seem only to fall loosely into this category. They don't talk about being without someone, but there's definitely something missing in each one. Perhaps after a bit of refinement and fine tuning I can crack this.

End Transmission.

The sheep is jumping a fence.

I can't wait to play music with the crew again.

The Shblogger just sent me a mix with a challenge: if I figure out the defining theme shared by all 16 songs, I get a special prize. So I thought it'd be fun to document my progress, for the enjoyment of the Shblogger and for anyone else who's interested.

Day 1

I gave an initial listen to the mix on my way to work this morning and jotted down some impressions. Of course, the first conclusion I jumped to would be that all the songs would be linked by some common word or element in the lyrics. Between tracks two and three I thought I had it licked, cause both "Eleanor Rigby" as sung by Aretha Franklin and "Take my Out" by Franz Ferdinand have the word, "lonely" in them. I thought I would have the pleasure of collecting my fee after a mere 20 minutes of work.

However my whole lyrical theory was blown soon thereafter by track #8, "L'absente" by Yann Tiersen. Lyricless. Pure instrumental. It's a nice mix, though. Could it be that the only correlation between all the songs are that the Shblogger thinks they rock?

My next step was to see if there was some musical connection. Like, "each song is paired with one in the key of its minor third." I wrote a list of all the keys the songs are in, and they neither correlate in any way, nor spell anything significant. Afterwards I wrote this theory off due to the unlikelihood that the Shblogger would be able to tell exactly what key the songs were in. Away from his piano, at any rate.

Since then I've been looking for linguistic connections between song and artist, such as "the last letter in the first name of the band is the same as the second word in the song title," and such, but I don't think that that's it. Though if it is something like that, I'll be mad that I thought of it the first day and then wrote it off.

My next step is to correlate track numbers on albums and see if there's any link there. Or perhaps look at the singer's first names, or what they drove, or where the album was produced, or what color hair they all have on the cover, etc, etc.

Facts that may help: The Shblogger has a video iPod. He composed the list from said iPod while driving. He has good musical taste, and can understand French. He has a medical background, a wife and child, and red hair.

This is the most masterful use of a theriman I have ever seen.

A very astute cellist from Alaska was the first to notice that my picture of an "Italian dirtbag" was actually Jay and Silent Bob from the movie, "Clerks." Very good! Naturally, they are not Italian, but I thought it was hilarious that the picture of them came up under the google image search for "Italian dirtbag." Kevin Smith, wherever you are, Ciao, Ragazzo.