“Swinging on a Star” — Bing Crosby

Loki — Fri, 27 May 2011 21:37:17 +0000

And by the way, if you hate to go to school:
You may grow up to be a mule

In all fairness to Bing, he didn’t write this song – Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke did. But since he’s the one that sings it, he gets the prize here.

Because for all the “Swinging on a Star” is a cheerful, upbeat sort of a song with a worthwhile message (albeit expressed in somewhat tortured metaphors and the occasional rhyme that reaches too far), I find myself somewhat distressed by the two lines I’ve singled out above.

Because what is supposed to be a warning sounds a little too much like a curse just here. And hey, who wants to be a mule, a pig, a fish or a monkey anyway? (Okay, maybe a space monkey, but not the others.) This is a terrible thing to sing to children, but that’s just what Bing does.

1048 – Omar Khayyám is born

Loki — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:23:01 +0000

One of the most well-known Middle Eastern poets in the West, largely due to an apparently neverending series of translations of his Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyám was also a mathematician, an astronomer, and as his poetry tends to indicate, a philosopher. He’s one of the few people in history that could have dealt with Leonardo da Vinci as an equal, a true polymath whose work remains influential even today. Notably, he was one of the reformers who modified the Persian Calendar in 1079 – the new calendar, known as the Jalali calendar, is still in use (with some minor corrections) in Iran and Afghanistan.

Of course, he was also damned cool – legend has it that he was a boyhood friend of Hassan i Sabbah (and if you don’t know who he was, you’re in for a surprise), while modern historical research has uncovered evidence suggesting that he devised a heliocentric model of our Solar System centuries before Copernicus. Frankly, he’s a candidate for interesting historical fictions just waiting to happen.

Referenced in:
Asia – Awake
Bing Crosby – The Road to Morocco
Van Morrison – Rave On, John Donne
Edgar Broughton Band – Roccococooler

The Centre Cannot Hold » Bing Crosby

“Swinging on a Star” — Bing Crosby

1048 – Omar Khayyám is born