Music Monday: The BEST Part of the London Olympic Ceremonies

Sometimes I am reminded how much better the world is with a little humor, when something knows it is beautiful and serious, and yet can laugh at itself. 

I caught a lot of the Olympics, but an ill-timed flight in July made me miss the opening ceremonies. Honestly, if you missed it, too, you didn't miss much. For some reason organizers decided a five-line speech from Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest was enough to represent the greatest writer of all time, and they pretty much skipped over the rest of British history until the Industrial Revolution, which was, well, revolting.

But one tiny glimmer of loveliness came out of the otherwise boring and clumsy presentation, and it involved the theme from Chariots of Fire, accompanied by none other than Mr. Bean. Due to copyright laws, I can't post it here, but I laughed and laughed. My kids are fans of Mr. Bean, for he's over the top stupid. Usually that simply irritates me, but his humor this time was spot on. 

And it's humor with music. It's along the same lines of the Looney Tunes' "What's Opera, Doc?" Brilliant use of beautiful music to create comedy. 

I forgive all the rest of the crappy ceremony because of it. Okay, maybe not. I am such an anglophile that I was hoping for spectacle that truly reflected the history of my favorite place. Where was King Arthur? Where were the bagpipes? Why ignore 90% of their own history?

Pretty sad when Mr. Bean is the only bright spot. Bright spot he was, though, thank God.

Correcting the World

I opened my mailbox this morning to find my daily astrology report:

Cheer up and have fun, Cheryl. You may not be able

to resist temptation today, so why fight the urge?

Going with the flow will lead you most likely into a

place of laugher and merriment. There is nothing

wrong with being a bit selfish once in a while. Feel

free to indulge. Your sensitive, outer-worldly personality

will find comfort in a decedent meal by candlelight.

Romance is your ticket to pleasure.

While I won't expound on the accuracy of the reading today (do I ever try to judge whether astrology is accurate?), I was pretty upset by the errors. I adore "going with the flow"--I've had Taoist leanings for about ten years now--but why in the world would I want "laugher"? What the hell is that, anyway?

And since when is decadent spelled "decedent"? Does the astrologer mean "decent"? That might fit better, given that I have two kids to share dinner with, I'm trying to lose a few pounds, and my husband will be coming home late from a meeting south of Seattle today. I'd be happy with a decent meal, honestly. It might even suit me better than a decadent one.

But it isn't just an astrologer who can't seem to handle the English language. Yesterday, an AP article about the shooting near Columbine had at least two grammatical errors. A blog this morning about the speed skating issues (involving the Koreans) ended in this way:

They may have backed into bronze, but as the fourth-best relay

team in the world. Don't say it wasn't earned.

Please don't ask me what's wrong with this. It should look like this:

They may have backed into bronze, but as the fourth-best relay

team in the world, don't say the medal wasn't earned.

Am I irate because I've been grading too many student papers lately? No. I'm upset because whoever is writing these articles is doing this for money--these people are PROFESSIONAL WRITERS--and their stuff is published with obvious disregard for editing.

Enough of my ranting. I'm off to mark up the newspaper with a red pen.