Saturday, September 30, 2017

Zippety Do Dah!

From Improbable research:
Ziptune, the musical zipper has just been granted a patent.

and if you are really non PC, they posted this as the song to be embedded in the zipper's musical chip.
here is a song for you to sing along with:




That is James Backett singing...This song comes from a movie, the Song of the South, which is pretty well impossible to find since it has been labeled racist. I saw it as a kid, so don't ask me.

But the "brer rabbit" part is based on African folk tales: he is a "trickster" figure, common in mythology. From Brittanica:


The character’s adventures embody an idea considered to be a universal creation among oppressed peoples—that a small, weak, but ingenious force can overcome a larger, stronger, but dull-witted power.

the "tar baby" tale (i.e. a warning not to get involved in something that seems benign but turns out to embed you into a problem, as touching a doll made from tar glues you to the doll in the tale) is almost taboo today.... but we still can say "born and bred in a briar patch", i.e. that what seems to be a fatal situation is actually a place where some people know how to thrive.



Presumably the next film that will be censored is this one:





yes that is the great Bojangles Robinson

he was in the movie "Stormy weather", one of two black musicals from the "good old days" (/s), the other being "Cabin in the Sky". Both are probably seen now as racist too. But the history of blacks in the entertainment field shows how their talent was often overlooked, or copied (Elvis anyone?)

( I added the  "/s" part because I am old enough to remember traveling through the south as a young child and seeing segregated restaurants etc. So this history is still within living memory.)

the bottomstory of the day is that Dr Seuss is "too white" and can't be appreciated by kids in Boston, according to a librarian there.

Why? who knows in these crazy days:

It's anti green people! because the Grinch is green and Whoville is....white.


And the story is about Christmas! Religion is not PC! (never mind the author was Jewish) And the Cat in the hat is not a "trickster" teaching overprogramed children how to play but a caricatures of black people. And was one of the books about how Horton hears a Who? (a parable that some protested pushed the idea that the little fetus is human)?

The many themes in the books was about encouraging freedom, and accepting outsiders. In those days it was about McCarthyism, but today, there is danger that a child brought up with the subversive themes in Dr Seuss might even start questioning the meme pushed by the PC today.

Never mind.

Ironically, Bojangles is probably remembered today because had a song written in his memory:


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