“Shirt” and “skirt” both derive from the same word. If that’s not sufficiently random, you’re certain to find something suitable on this thread. Continued from v. 2007.1.
Month: June 2007
Happy 142nd Birthday, William Butler Yeats!
The Irish poet (1865-1939) was born on June 13. Below, one of his cat poems.
The Cat And The Moon
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet.
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
Song Lyrics, Part 2
Still blowing through the jasmine in our minds.
June Jelly, Part 2
Continued
Dreams, v. 2007.1
It’s hard to believe that we haven’t had a dreams thread since last year. With school out, MBers are bound to be sleeping more. Let’s hear some of those midsummer night’s dreams.
Watership Down: as Abridged by Em
Em’s famous abridgment now expanded to include Part Two.
WATERSHIP DOWN
(As abridged by Em: The Adventures of Hazel & Co.)
SPOILER WARNING!!!
Disclaimer
Watership Down Is an excellent book by Richard Addams! Go read! Now!
This abridgement is for people who have read the book, and so can appreciate it. It is written in the style of a script, as one would animate or draw in cartoon style, but is actually written to be read this way.
All of the wonderful characters are not duly represented in this work, especially Blackberry, Silver and Dandelion. All of the wonderful aspects of rabbit psychology are also not present, neither are Fiver’s weird visions, or any of the El-ahrairah stories, or the wonderful Lapine language. A lot of creative license has been taken with who said what, and other such small details.
PART 1: THE JOURNEY
Fiver: We’re all gonna die.
Hazel: Says who?
Fiver: Says me.
Thearah: Halloo?
Fiver: We’re all gonna die.
Thearah: That’s nice.
Fiver: No, I’m being serious. Bad things will happen to us.
Thearah: Maybe if I ignore them, they’ll go away.
Hazel: We’ll just have to leave by ourselves then.
Co.: Yay! We’re coming with you!
Captain Holly*: No you’re not! Badbadbad! No abandoning the warren for you!
Bigwig: Fightfightfight!
Hazel & Co.: Runrunrun!
Hazel & Co: Ohgoshlookit! River!
Hazel: Everybody swim!
Fiver & Pipkin: We are the weaklings. Fear us.
Hazel: Dang it, we can’t leave the weaklings behind, now can we?
Bigwig: Ohgoshlookit! Big scary dog! We’ll have to leave them!
Hazel: But we might need them later.
Blackberry: Being the smart bunny, I just came up with a clever plan.
Bigwig: I don’t understand it, therefore it won’t work.
Fiver: Being the psychic bunny, I do.
Bigwig: Ooooooh! It worked! You’re all so smart!
Hazel: Foreshadowing…
Hawbit, Speedwell & Acorn: We shall be jerks and rebel!
Bigwig: Badbadbad!
Hazel & Co.: Scary dark marshy place!
Fiver: Which of course means we shall have to cross it.
Co.: Darn.
Hazel: Do it anyway.
Hazel: Augh foggy…
Co.: Yeah, we made it! You are so smart, Hazel!
Fiver: Hello? Doesn’t anyone ever give me any credit?
Co.: Nice place, we shall stay here.
Fiver: No, we have to keep going.
Freakishly Weird Bunnies: We are freakishly weird and unnatural! Come be freakishly weird with us!
Hazel & Co.: Funfunfun!
Fiver: Argh! No! Runaway!
Hazel & Bigwig: No, you must come be weird with us.
Fiver: Darn.
Bigwig: Augh! Rabbit trap!
Freakishly Weird Bunnies: Oh yeah, and we forgot to mention that you might get killed unexpectedly at any moment. But it’s a small price to pay for our wonderful lifestyle.
Hazel & Co.: Runaway!
Fiver: Next time we listen to me.
Bigwig: Dead.
Hazel & Co.: No! Poor Bigwig!
Bigwig: Alive now.
Hazel & Co.: Yayness!
Hazel & Co.: Now we go.
Strawberry: I comes too.
End of Part One.
*The male rabbit captain of the Sandleford Owsla. Not the female elf captain of the LEP.
PAR TWO: ON WATERSHIP DOWN
Hazel: Well, we came all this way… I can’t read this, it’s all smudged…* blah blah… Okay, Now what do we do?
Fiver: We go up, of course.
Hazel: Up?
Fiver: Yes, up. It’s our destiny.
Hazel: But…
Fiver: JUST DO IT!!!!!
Hazel: Wowee. What a froody place!
Fiver: I told you so.
Hazel: Peoples! Dig a warren!
Co.: Digdigdig!
Co.: Chiz chiz! We shall live here forever and so will our prosperity and our young shall frolick and our does… Uh oh.
Fiver: Yup.
Co.: Alas! In our male stupidity we forgot the women!
Hazel: Ack! We so stoopid! Don’t worry, I have a plan!
Rabbit: Look Hazel, birdy!
Hazel: Quick, feed it!
Co.: Why?
Hazel: JUST DO IT!!!!!
Kehaar: (the bird) Me Kehaar, me helps you find mudders! *flies away*
Mysterious Voice: Zorn! Zorn! Zorn! All Zorn!
Bigwig: Scream, panic, and run helplessly around in circles!** It’s the Black Rabbit of Inle!
Bluebell: ‘Ello chaps!
Mysterious Voice: *reveals himself to be Capt Holly who we met in part 1* They all died!
Fiver: Big surprise.
Holly: It was!
Fiver: Well, I did try to warn you.
Kehaar: Big warren with lotsa mudders thataway, small farmhouse with hutch buns thataway.
Hazel: Righto, Holly, you take some bunnies and talk that other warren out of some does, ‘k?
Holly: You really think it will be that easy?
Hazel: Oh sure! I’m positive that all of these other pages detail our happy successful lives breeding and eating and frolicking etcetera.
Holly: Hokay. *leaves*
Hazel: And whilst they are gone, we will sit here and twiddle our thumbs… except that we don’t have thumbs! Aha!
Fiver: Oh no! I know what you’re thinking!
Hazel: You do?
Fiver: D’oh. I’n psychic.
Hazel: Oh yeah. Well anyways, I can’t look weak and lazy while the others are out saving our hides! We must go get those other bunnies!
Fiver: 
Hazel: Let us go see about these hutch bunnies.
Hazel: Erm…kitty…doggie…hutch bunnies! Hello bunnies!
Hutch Buns: Um..ok.
Hazel: Come with us!
Hutch Buns: ‘K.
Car: ROOOOAAARRR!
Dandelion: Run!
Dude(human): Oh dang it! How did the bunnies get out?
Other Dude: Look woild ones!
Dude; *shoots hazel*
Hazel: Ouch.
Other Bunnies: Where’s Hazel?
Dandelion:…
Dandelion: He fell behind.
Co.:…
Co.: We’ll keep to the code.
*all go back with ¾ hutch buns, but the 4th was a buck, so he so he doesn’t matter*
Co: Hazel-
Fiver: Je sais***.
Holly&Co.: *come back, looking worse for wear. Everyone is generally depressed*
Fiver: *has a really strange vision*
Fiver: He was just resting!
Blackberry:
Meanwhile…
Holly; We went to the warren, they called themselves Efrafa, they were weird, they were probably a metaphor for some country or political ideal back in 1972, they didn’t like us, we barely escaped with our lives.
Blackberry: Hazel’s alive!
Co: W00T!!!
Fiver: And from now on, everyone shall listen to me when I say I have a bad feeling, capiche?
Hazel and Co: *meekly* Yes mother.
Hazel: 15 males and 2 females… yeah, this is gonna work real well. We need to go back to Efrafa.
Holly: Did you not just hear me?
Hazel: Don’t worry, you’re not coming. I have a plan. dunh dunh dunh…
Fiver: Hey, it’s mostly my plan!
Hazel: Shaddup, you’re ruining my dramatic moment.
End of Part Two
*Yesh, Em cannot read her notes
**©Ebethy
***Trans: ‘I know’
PART THREE: EFRAFA
Expedition for the Scribblemaya
Gimanator explains: Ahem…my idea was to have an rpg sort of thread, based on the archeological expedition for the scribblemaya. On the thread everyone would not be in character, but under their MB name. Each person who joins would be another archeologist on the expedition. It wouldn’t necessarly be an action filled thread, just sort of us MBers creating and putting together our ideas on the ancient civilization.
Gimanator explains: Ahem…my idea was to have an rpg sort of thread, based on the archeological expedition for the scribblemaya. On the thread everyone would not be in character, but under their MB name. Each person who joins would be another archeologist on the expedition. It wouldn’t necessarly be an action filled thread, just sort of us MBers creating and putting together our ideas on the ancient civilization.
RRR, v. 2007.2 – Science-fiction, Part 4
(Round-Robin ‘Riting, for those who came in late.)
Continued from Part Three.
MuseBlog Signatures 2007 Edition Now at CaféPress
Take a look. “Musery Loves Company” (http://www.cafepress.com/musery).
Take a look. “Musery Loves Company” (http://www.cafepress.com/musery).
If you don’t see what you want, let us know. CaféPress has expanded their product line to include many more t-shirt colors, v-necks, and other items, and we’re still adding them to the line up.
Partial Scripts
Writing a script? Here’s a place for works in progress.
Writing a script? Here’s a place for works in progress.
Hot Topics, v. 2007.5
For discussions that need to be handled with care. No flaming, please.
Continued from v. 2007.4.
The Polling Place, v. 2007.2
More questions, more answers about that perpetually fascinating topic: MuseBloggers.
Continued from version 2007.1.
chess – test 5
Just Friends
A thread for discussing non-romantic relationships.
Includes (by request of Red-tailed HAWK) Conversation Guides.
At Long Last, MB Signatures!
Take a look before we upload it to CaféPress.
Take a look before we upload it to CaféPress.
Note there have been some minor edits for clarity and space. Mostly, that means I cut out words that would be too tiny to read and removed solid black backgrounds because they didn’t harmonize well with the other signatures.
The above has been updated to include the corrected version of RtH’s signature and some minor rearrangements.
Role-Playing Writing, Part 2
It’s not easy to save the world from the Evil One, especially while writing letters about it. But the undaunted Empowered continue their mission from Part 1.
For those of you just tuning in:
This was Alice’s idea, sort of a cross between RRRs and RPGs with a touch of epistolary novel. Here’s how she described it:
Everyone makes up one character (made up, mind you!) and we decide on plot, time, etc. just like usual. Then we start. It would be in the form of letters or e-mails, and we would say at the top of our post who the letter was to.
Everyone would have to read all of the posts, though, to prevent conflicting plot twists, but their character wouldn’t know about whatever the letter said unless it was addressed to them.
Get it?
If not, then phooey. That was hard to explain.
Emmatheduck, Robert, and Apple Pie
In which a MuseBlogger and a GAPA threaten to disrupt the civility of the National Press Club.
First they trained their desserts on each other in classic pie-ing stance:
…but then their attention turned toward the photographer:
June 2007 “Happy Birthday!” Thread
Known Muser Birthdays this Month (as always, we’re not sure all of these folks are still active):
06-04 Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd’s birthday (1994 – color?)
06-05 Potato Chip’s birthday (1994)
06-06 Ninja for Christ’s birthday (19?? – color=?)
06-06 Romana2’s birthday
06-11 yesterdays_kinked_moose’s birthday (1992)
06-13 King george the stroodle’s birthday (1992)
06-20 Kricket’s birthday (1993 – light blue, electric green, pastel purple, or tie-dye)
06-29 Brave Sir Robin’s birthday (1993 – tie-dye)
You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between September 23 and October 22, 1993.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between December 28, 1990, and January 26, 1991.
MuseCast 4
Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan’s latest effort has been on the Web for weeks, but we’ve just found time to upload it onto the blog. Here ’tis.
Also on the blog are MuseCast 1, MuseCast 2, and MuseCast 3.
Muser Parodies: Things They Made Us Read In School, etc.
Everything is fair game: “The Lady or the Tiger?,” “The Monkey’s Paw,” Lord of the Flies, The Pearl. If a reading assignment annoyed you, take your revenge.
Includes drastically condensed versions of famous or popular books.
LOTP RRR Parody
“Lord of the Pies” Round-Robin ‘Riting — a Muserly parody of “Lord of the Flies,” one of everybody’s least favorite required-reading assignments.
Pastoral Pleasures
Alice and Elizabeth have been hanging out on the Homeschoolers thread discussing their sheep and cows and other aspects of farm life. They’ve sent us some awwwwsome photos. See inside.
Here are images of Alice‘s sheep.
Elizabeth‘s photos are below, posted in comment #31.
Also, see kt the gr8‘s artwork at comment #23.
Kokopelli for President, v. 2007.2
Now more than ever.
Continued from v. 2007.1.
Script Frenzy Begins!
NaNoWriMo’s new sibling debuts today. The challenge: write a 20,000-word script or screenplay in 30 days. So far, 6 6 11 MBers (+ 1 GAPA) have signed on. Here’s where you can celebrate, commiserate, advise, or procrastinate. More information inside.
NaNoWriMo’s new sibling debuts today. The challenge: write a 20,000-word script or screenplay in 30 days. So far, 6 10 11 MBers (+ 1 GAPA) have signed on. Others who want to participate, go to scriptfrenzy.org for details.
MB Participants:
Alice
biblioRose
Capricious the Great and Terrible
Ebeth [Whatever Her Current Title Is]
grnqween2011
pen,/ta/to’/nikk (adj)
purplefinch
Purple Panda
Sweet Melpomene
Taiwan Hippo Fan
Zyka
Lady Bunniful
So, Frenzyers, what are you writing about? What are your strategies? Come celebrate, commiserate, advise, or procrastinate. Most of all, have fun!
June Jelly, Part 1
Continued