Category: Music

Channel V

Dee of On The Curb has posted a playlist of some of her favorite “vagina music,” with her post entitled exceeding my bandwith on the word vagina.¹ (You should go check out Dee’s blog, by the way. In case you haven’t guessed it, she’s freakin’ hilarious.)

Dee doesn’t quite give a definition of “vagina music,” but she gives quite a few examples. If I had to summarize, I’d say that the songs are ones that move her down to her…um…core, and tap into her emotions. And perhaps also those that remind her that she is biologically female.

Further, Dee has requested comparable lists from others. In her words, “I show you mine, you show me yours.”

Okay, Dee. I’ll show you mine. While I’ve never thought of this music in quite those terms², this is my response playlist:

  1. Save Me – Aimee Mann (listen)
  2. Thief – Belly (listen)
  3. Lucky – Bif Naked (listen)
  4. Bulimic Beats – Catatonia (listen)
  5. No Need To Argue – The Cranberries (listen)
  6. Virgin State Of Mind – K’s Choice (listen)
  7. Autumngirlsoup – Kirsty MacColl (listen)
  8. Your Ghost – Kristin Hersh (listen)
  9. Famous Blue Raincoat – Leonard Cohen (listen)
  10. De Cara A La Pared – Lhasa (listen)
  11. Wild Is The Wind – Nina Simone (listen)
  12. Down By The Water – P J Harvey (listen)
  13. Dancing Barefoot – Patti Smith Group (listen)
  14. Haunted – Poe (listen)
  15. Glory Box – Portishead (listen)
  16. Possession– Sarah McLachlan (listen)
  17. i am stretched on your grave – Sinéad O’Connor (listen)
  18. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me – The Smiths (listen)
  19. Anchor – Trespassers William (listen)

How about you. Wanna show me yours?

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¹ Dee is not shy about using the word vagina. In fact, in her post, she uses the word vagina no fewer than 38 times. (Yes, I counted. One vagina, two vagina, three vagina, four. Five vagina, six vagina, seven vagina, more…) And that, my friends, is a most impressive feat.

² The thing is, though, I’m not a big fan of the word vagina. In fact, this post here marks the first time I’m using the word on my blog. (Yes, I did a search.) Also the 2nd through 15th times. (Yes, I counted.) Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against vaginas. Or vaginae, if you prefer. I’m glad I have one of my own, and all. I just find the word vagina awkward.

Now spleen, on the other hand, there’s a word I like. Spleen. It’s a word that amuses me. I also appreciate its range of meanings. Some of you may know the spleen as an organ in the lymphatic system. But it was once esteemed as “the seat of spirit and courage or of such emotions as mirth, ill humor, melancholy, etc.” Me, I’m all about the mirth, the ill humor and the melancholy. Then there’s the whole archaic meaning of splenetic to mean “melancholy.” And my playlist is pretty darned melancholy.

So maybe you can consider this my spleen music.

April Just Posts

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The April Just Posts roundtable is here, and Holly and I are pleased to serve up another round of posts on topics of social justice from around the blogosphere. Come join us ’round the table!

This month, I’d like to raise a glass to recent progress in the US towards marriage equality rights. In April, Iowa and Vermont joined Connecticut and Massachusetts in passing legislature allowing marriage rights to same-sex couples. Just a few days ago, Maine followed suit. There’s also news of progress in New Hampshire and New York.

While this doesn’t serve to wash away the bitterness of California’s Proposition 8, it shows that more and more people across the country are becoming more accepting of marriage equality.

Of course, there’s still lots of work to be done, with a vocal portion of the population speaking out “in defense of marriage” in its less inclusive definitions. In response, I offer up “Defenders of Marriage” by Roy Zimmerman:


Mr. Zimmerman scores bonus points for this line:

Let’s get the government out of our lives and into our pants

And now, the April Just Posts:

THANK YOU to April Just Post Readers:

Thanks for reading! Please also pay a visit to Holly at Cold Spaghetti, and see what she has set on the table.

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If you have a post above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you are unfamiliar with the Just Posts, please visit the information page.
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not quite Sesame Street

We don’t watch a lot of TV in our family, but sometimes we do let Phoebe and Theo watch some short videos. They like shows best that have colorful costumed characters and musical numbers with lots of rhymes:

This episode was brought to you by the letter T.

we can dance (if we want to)

Today is May Day¹, a holiday which many celebrate by dancing around the maypole. I don’t have a maypole, but I may dance around the living room with Phoebe. Perhaps while listening to Safety Dance³.

As Painted Maypole pointed out last year, the video for Safety Dance features a maypole. (Also Morris Dancing. I probably won’t attempt to Morris dance with Phoebe.)


(You can see slightly better quality video at the MTV site here).

Painted Maypole, who has adopted May Day as her blog’s official holiday, offers a whole host of other May Day activities and photos of her own festivities.
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She also entreated us to compose a May Day poem or song for this week’s Monday Mission. I struggled with this assignment, but
inspiration finally struck, and happily without causing serious injury.⁴ Here is my May Day tanka⁵:

    the maypole beckons
    revelers frolicking ’round
    bright ribbons entwined
    you can dance if you want to
    you can leave your friends behind
Dancing 'round the maypole in the video for Safety Dance by Men Without Pants. I mean Hats.
Dancing 'round the maypole in the video for Safety Dance by Men Without Pants. I mean Hats.

¹ Today is also No Pants Day, an event I can’t really get behind with all of its dangerously anti-pants propaganda.²

² We can (wear) pants if we want to!

³ Safety Dance is one of Phoebe’s favorite songs, and will sometimes ask to hear it over and over again. She requested it at the wedding we went to in March, and cried when she learned we’d only get to hear it the one time.

⁴ I wasn’t sure where to fit this in, but I learned that May Day, as a distress call, is actually based on m’aider from the French phrase venez m’aider, meaning “come rescue my sorry ass.”

⁵ I was introduced to the Tanka form by girlgriot, who stunningly wrote a tanka a day for the entire month of April.

The March Just Posts

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Here we are, finally arriving at the March Just Posts. Holly and I are pleased as ever to offer to you this selection of posts from around the blogosphere that all seek make a difference in our world.

Continuing in my newly minted tradition of highlighting protest songs, this month I offer to you “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie. The Indigo Girls cover of the song is one of my favorite songs, both for the messages it contains in the lyrics, and for its musical qualities. It’s an angry song, with a strong beat, and yet at the same time beautifully melodic. It’s one of those songs that I have to sing along with.

The lyrics tell of injustices being committed against Native American society even in recent days, crimes committed out of ignorance, arrogance and greed:

They got these energy companies that want the land
and they’ve got churches by the dozen
who want to guide our hands
and sign Mother Earth over to pollution, war and greed

One of the messages the song drives home to me is the reminder of the biases rampant in most of the versions of history that we are fed. (…our history gets written in a liar’s scrawl…) (I am also frequently reminded that I should finish reading the book by Dee Brown, also entitled Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.)

Below is the Indigo Girls version of the song, which I know best. I also recommend listening to the version by Buffy Sainte-Marie herself, also on YouTube.

And now, for the March Just Posts.

This month’s readers:

Thank you for reading! Make sure to stop by to see what Holly of Cold Spaghetti has to say.

If you have a post above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you are unfamiliar with the Just Posts, please visit the information page.
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The February Just Posts

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Welcome to the latest edition of the newest incarnation of the Just Posts, a monthly Social Justice roundtable. Holly and are pleased to serve up a bounty of fabulous posts from around the blogosphere on topics of activism in all shapes and sizes.

I confess that I am currently swamped, sandwiched between work and family obligations, and smothered in mixed metaphors. As such, I don’t at this moment feel like I can write a post that does justice to a topic of social justice. Instead, I had a brainstorm that each month I would feature a song that speaks to some of the issues that affect our world.

I’m not sure why it popped into my head a few days ago, but I have lately been listening to and thinking about the song “Black Boys on Mopeds,” by Sinead O’Connor. Sinead sings of her sadness and frustrations about poverty, racism and social injustice. What has really struck a cord with me, at this time when I am continually adjusting to motherhood, is her longing to protect her child from these harsh realities:

England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving

If you have a few minutes I invite you to listen to the words. (You can also read the full lyrics.)

And now for our roundtable:

This month’s nominators:

Please also pay a visit to Holly, as she is writing about an interesting proposal.

If a post of yours has been included in the list, if you have nominated posts, or if you would just like to show your support of the just posts, we invite you to display a Just Posts button on your blog with a link back to here or to the list over at Holly’s.

For more information about the Just Posts, please visit the Just Posts information page.

Under the Bridge

Running along with my bridge theme, I present to you “Under the Bridge.” This is the “literal video version” of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song. If you’re not familiar with it you must watch. You must. It cracks me up.

on the bridge

My ThThTh posts are falling down.¹ I’m having trouble finding enough time for blogging, at least of the variety that necessitates typing. (I’m doing a lot of reading, but little commenting or posting.) And I have a backlog of barebones drafts of these lists, but no time to flesh them out.²

Anyhow, I’ve had this bridge post under construction for a bit, and Saturday’s bridge photos seemed a good prompt to finish the job. So, here’s a ThThTh list on the bridge.

  • burn one’s bridges: create circumstances such that there’s (metaphorically) no going back.
  • Bridges of Madison County : A novel by Robert James Waller that become a runaway best-seller, and a 1995 movie based on it starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood.
  • burning one’s Bridges of Madison County: an expression meaning “rid one’s library of fad novels.” (Oh, fine, I just made that up.)
  • we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it: an expression meaning that plans about how to deal with a situation won’t be made until that situation arises.
  • The Billy Goats Gruff: a classic fairy tale about three goats who want to cross a bridge, and encounter a troll. Who leaves nasty comments on their blogs. (No, wait. Wrong kind of troll.)
  • water under the bridge: an expression one says of negative events when one has decided not to dwell on them.
  • “Under the Bridge,” a song by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
  • “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a song by Simon and Garfunkel.
  • “Water Under the Bridge Over Troubled Water:” a non-existent song title.
  • bridge: part of a musical composition
  • bridge: a card game
  • bridge: a type of dental work used to fill a gap
  • bridging the gap: making a connection between ideas, or other abstract concepts
  • “London Bridge is Falling Down:” a nursery rhyme and traditional song with many verses, the first (and best known) of which is:

    London Bridge is falling down
    Falling down, falling down
    London Bridge is falling down
    My fair lady.

  • Bridge to Terabithia, a Newbery Medal-winning children’s novel by Katherine Paterson. Also a 2007 movie based on the same.
  • Bridge to Nowhere: let’s not go there.

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Image: The New London New Bridge from The Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (New York: The Encyclopedia Britannica Company, 1910), via clipart etc.

¹Falling down, falling down.
²Hey, those two metaphors worked together!