Today’s Zippy, with several varieties of language play:
Noodo the Great as the name of a magician (with Noodo /núdo/, i.e. Nude-o) is a transparent invention, based on magician names like Carter the Great and The Great Carzini. Then there’s Huddy Bedletter, Zucchini Park, and “Where Have All th’ Muu-muus Gone?”
Bedletter is a Spoonerized version of Ledbetter, as in Lead Belly:
Huddie William Ledbetter (January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an iconic American folk and blues musician, and multi-instrumentalist, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.
He is best known as Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as “Leadbelly”, he himself spelled it “Lead Belly”. This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation. (link)
Then, Zucchini Park, a play on Zuccotti Park:
Zuccotti Park, formerly called Liberty Plaza Park, is a 33,000-square-foot (3,100 m2) publicly accessible park in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
… In 2011, the plaza became the site of the Occupy Wall Street protest camp. During the demonstration, activists occupied the plaza and used it as a staging ground for their protests throughout the Manhattan Financial District. (link)
Finally, the muu-muu folk song, a parody of the folk song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”:
The first three verses were written by Pete Seeger in 1955, and published in Sing Out! magazine. Additional verses were added by Joe Hickerson in May 1960, who turned it into a circular song. Its rhetorical “where?” and meditation on death place the song in the ubi sunt tradition. (link) [many recordings — including those by Seeger, by the Kingston Trio, and by Peter, Paul and Mary]
The song begins:
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
And continues, though this part isn’t in the Dingburg parody:
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Then the young girls have gone, taken husbands every one, and the young men have gone, gone for soldiers every one. In the continuation, the soldiers have gone, gone to graveyards every one, and the graveyards have gone, covered with flowers every one. So we’re back to the flowers.
Goodness knows where the muu-muus have gone, but they’re not on the nudist Dingburgers, that’s for sure.
September 5, 2012 at 3:58 pm |
It’s interesting that although Seeger’s inspiration was some lines from a Ukrainian Kozak (Cossack) folksong, he transmuted them by adding “when will they ever learn?” The original is a back-and-forth that ends
– А де ж тії квітки?
– Дівки порвали.
– А де ж тії дівки?
– Хлопці побрали.
– А де ж тії хлопці?
– Пішли на війну.
– А де ж та війна?
Нема.
And where are those flowers?
GIrls have picked them.
And where are those girls?
Boys have chosen them.
And where are those boys?
They’ve gone to war.
And where is that war?
Nowhere/It doesn’t exist.