Looked It Up
After all these years it finally occurred to me to Google a translation of Lou Monte’s Pepino the Italian Mouse, which led me to lyrics translate.com. Most of it baffled me, as does most Italian songs, particularly two phrases. “Pepino suracila/Ma fatta scumbari,” “Suracila” sounded like “Sur de cielo,” which I assumed meant below heaven, as in hell and devilish. The two phrases translates as “… mouse made a fool of me.” “Scumbari” sounded like “scoomp-pah-ree” and left me clueless. The other phrase that stumped me is “c’encappa,” which sounded to my tin ear as “chon-ga-pa.” It means “will be caught.” Although in a foreign language, I assume they qualify as Mondegreen, the term for misheard lyrics, which was coined in 1954 by author Sylvia Wright. I’ve blogged about this before. This is for anyone who missed it the first time or has forgotten the details. When her mom read Thomas Percy’s poem The Bonny Earl of Murray to her, little Miss Wright misinterpreted “layd him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen.” The title is itself a Mondegreen, the actual being The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray, a Scottish ballad in which the titular character is murdered.
And while playing Microsoft solitaire last night, Steely Dan’s Reelin’ in the Years aired on the Classic Vinyl Rock Iheart Radio stream I had on in the background. I’d never bothered to research who does the great lead guitar work, although I assumed it was either Walter Becker or Donald Fagen. No, it’s studio session whiz Elliott Randall, who also elevated Irene Cara’s Fame. He has released six of his own albums, the last in 2012, according to his Wiki profile. He also worked on the soundtracks of The Warriors (1979) and The Blues Brothers (1980). Born in 1947, he attended New York City’s High School of Music & Art, where he was a classmate of the late Laura Nyro.
If you haven’t noticed, Brits are gaga about mysteries. Every Saturday night at eight, PBS channel 21 in NYC runs back to back episodes of The Midsomer Murders. I noticed a different actor had taken the lead role — the nephew. I wondered how many episodes had been shot — “only” 135. Eastenders, a soap, has done 206 episodes in its 34 seasons. Coronation Street, also a soap, running since 1960, has more than 10,000 episodes in the can. In the U.S. Guiding Light ran 15,762 episodes, 1952–2009. General Hospital, which premiered in 1963, more than 14,000 episodes, must avoid cancellation to pass it.
Anyone surprised by this nypost.com government-in-a-nutshell headline?: “NYC shelled out millions on watchdogs overseeing failing agencies.”
Love this NYP headline: “Some socialist! AOC flies first class from Texas.”
Quid Pro Joe shut down the Keystone oil pipeline, putting an end to America’s energy independence and allowing Russia to help fill the void and reemerge as a power. Now he has a reason to shut down the coals mines too. Headline from foxnews.com: “Russia, China agree new coal deal for 100 million ton supply.” Import it from them and pretend its as great an environmental move as putting the kibosh on the pipeline, which forces us to buy oil from others, including our enemies.
It was one of those fluke days when the floating book shop resembled a real business. A thirty-something woman asked if I had anything in Albanian. Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, yes, nay to the former. No matter. Once she noticed the non-fiction on display she went to town, pulling out about 50 titles across a wide spectrum: math, chemistry, self help and kids books. I gladly helped carry two of the three bags to the stairs of her apartment building. My thanks, and also to the young woman who bought a couple of kids books and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in the mother tongue; and to the young woman who bought Virgil’s The Aeneid and Cosmic Numbers: The Numbers That Define Our Universe by James D Stein; and to the one who took home a romance by Bertrice Small, a huge sci-fi tome from The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and a thriller by Michael Connelly.
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