A Christmas gift from my sister, Amy…
Enjoy the softness of gentle breeze that sweeps through the vineyard spread vast on the hill in each soft and juicy Kasugai Grape Gummy.
I tried, but I was only able to enjoy the softness of gentle breeze for approximately 10 seconds before my daughters, nieces, and nephews swept through the vineyard spread vast on the hill and stripped the vines of every last soft and juicy Kasugai Grape Gummy.
In J.B. Miller’s alternative literary universe, Virginia Woolf has a crush on William Powell, Norman Mailer provides “The Rules” for dating, Bridget Jones writes “The Diary of Anais Nin,” and J.D. Salinger sends letters to young starlets inviting them to audition for the movie of “Franny.”
Dave Eggers gives us “A Backbreaking Work of Incredible Thinness,” Philip Roth gets into a fight with Nathan Zuckerman, E. Annie Proulx is guilty of “Vocabulary Crimes,” and we read the missing transcript of Jonathan Franzen on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
We visit Frank McCourt’s disturbing childhood in “Angela’s Eyelashes,” we learn from David Mamet “How It Is To Write,” and go “Trainspitting” with Irvine Welsh. Toni Morrison gets “Belabored,” P.G. Wodehouse admits that “She’s a Right Ho, Jeeves,” Mary McCarthy foils Lillian Hellman’s attempted assassination of Hitler, David Foster Wallace proves an “Infinite Pest,” notes are found for J.R.R. Tolkein’s abandoned opus, “The Lord of the Strings,” and polar explorer Ernest Shackleton gets lost on the London bus system.
These are just some of the forty-four witty and outrageously funny pieces that comprise The Satanic Nurses, a satiric anthology of counterfeit lit.
Pine-apple Rag (1908): The third theme of this rag has the vocal quality that probably suggested its future use as a song; otherwise a strange choice. It is not particularly distinctive except for a joyful and very ragged second theme but is well enough constructed and substantial.
Source: Scott Joplin and the Ragtime Era
“Not particularly distinctive,” my eye! The mere mention of that most noble of bromeliads in the title elevates the song above all of Mr. Joplin’s other botanically-themed rags: Maple Leaf Rag, Sugar Cane Rag, Sunflower Slow Rag, Palm Leaf Rag, Gladiolus Rag, Rose Leaf Rag, and Fig Leaf Rag.
It could be argued that without “Pineapple Princess,” from Annette Funicello’s 1960 album Hawaiiannette, there would never have been “A Spoonful of Sugar,” a “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” or a “Jolly Holiday” with or without Mary.
The Sherman brothers, Richard and Robert, were relatively unknown songwriters when they teamed up with Annette Funicello in 1958. While their first hit with Annette was “Tall Paul,” co-written with Bob Roberts (no, not that Bob Roberts), it was their 1960 hit “Pineapple Princess,” recorded by Annette and The Afterbeats, that reached #11 on the pop charts and established them solidly in the wonderful world of Disney.
After writing songs for both The Parent Trap (1961) and Summer Magic (1963) they were approached by Walt Disney to write the songs and the score for Mary Poppins (1964) and the rest is history.
They won Oscars for both “Best Musical Score” and “Best Song” (for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”), won the grammy for “Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Show,” and helped make Julie Andrews a movie star.
I hope that, at the very least, Ms. Andrews sent The Afterbeats a fruit basket as a token of her apprecation.
Pineapple Princess
“Pineapple Princess,” he calls me,
“Pineapple Princess,” all day
As he plays his ukulele
On the hill above the bay.
“Pineapple Princess, I love you,
You’re the sweetest girl I’ve seen.
Some day we’re gonna marry
And you’ll be my Pineapple Queen.”I saw a boy on Oahu isle
Floatin’ down the bay on a crocodile.
He waved at me and he swam ashore
And I knew he’d be mine forevermore.“Pineapple Princess,” he calls me,
“Pineapple Princess,” all day
As he plays his ukulele
On the hill above the bay.
“Pineapple Princess, I love you,
You’re the sweetest girl I’ve seen.
Some day we’re gonna marry
And you’ll be my Pineapple Queen.”He sings his song from banana trees
He even sings to me on his water skis.
We went skin-divin’ and beneath the blue
He sang and played his ukulele, too.“Pineapple Princess, I love you,
You’re the sweetest girl I’ve seen.
Some day we’re gonna marry
And you’ll be my Pineapple Queen.”We’ll settle down in a bamboo hut
And he will be my own little coconut.
Then we’ll be beachcombin’ royalty
On wicky-wicky wacky Waikiki.“Pineapple Princess,” he calls me,
“Pineapple Princess,” all day
As he plays his ukulele
On the hill above the bay.
“Pineapple Princess, I love you,
You’re the sweetest girl I’ve seen.
Some day we’re gonna marry
And you’ll be my Pineapple Queen.”
Lately, there have been a number of people who have told me that they feel that my ex-wife and I have fashioned a “very good divorce” for ourselves.
While I appreciate that they recognize that we are working very hard to create a healthy and cooperative environment in which we can raise our daughters, I must say that telling someone they have a “very good divorce” is akin to walking up to a double-amputee and saying, “Hey, those are some good-looking fake legs you’ve got there!”
What they don’t seem to understand is that a finely-crafted set of prosthetics doesn’t do much to make up for the fact that you will never walk again, you’re still experiencing excruciating phantom pain in your missing extremities, and without any proper training and using only blunt tools, you had to carve your own prosthetic legs out of the wood of the very tree that crushed your legs in the first place.