badmagic just posted to his journal a poll about recognizing quotations--a list of quotations asking "how many do you recognize," and a second list asking how many most people (in general) would recognize. Myself, I answered yes to most of them, even ones I couldn't get specifically with source and author, as long as I could recognize it/complete it if it was quoted at me/what have you.

Below the cut are identifiers for all of them.

( Who Said... )

The last time something like this happened, I ended up on national TV. Wouldn't it be cool if this time I ended up in the American Gods audiobook?

(This is thanks to two law school friends, who pestered me to enter. Standard "not going to happen, you know" disclaimer.)

Vote for me--you can vote once per day--and spread the word!

This started in james_nicoll's post here, but I like the idea, so I'm going to run with it. This is primarily for Americans (as defined broadly--citizens, naturalized aliens, illegal immigrants...anybody who would have a reason to particularly care)...

From memory, without references, how many Amendments to the United States Constitution can you identify/explain?

There are 27. It's enough to give what the Amendment is commonly referred to as. (Except that you can't say the First Amendment is "the First Amendment" or the like, of course.)

Bonus points for identifying/explaining Articles of the Constitution itself. There are 7 of those. There are also some particularly important Sections of those Articles, and indeed some pretty major Clauses--just knowing what they are and what they do, no need to number them.

Here's my list:

( Amendments )

I have some idea on 24 of 27, I'm unsure on 7, and I probably missed details of a few more. Not bad, but not great. Then again, I'm in law, we live and die by citation and reference material.

( Articles, Sections, Clauses )

So. Seven Articles, I know three pretty well, one I know the most important part of, two I'm much more shaky on, one barely courts. I know some a couple of significant Sections and Clauses, too. Again, not great--I bet that I could memorize the whole thing with a bit of work, but haven't done so--but not awful, I think.

Oh, and I can recite the Preamble, but that's a cheat--see music line.

(OK, I stole that from T Campbell, who titled a Twitter story--that is, a story posted to Twitter, written by a character posting to Twitter--as "Tweets of the Nightengale.")

I am now on Twitter. It should come as no surprise that my username there is scifantasy.

I'm already searching out and finding friends who use Twitter. But that flows both ways.

So, my friend Seanan McGuire has a song called "Pretty Little Dead Girl." It's an urban-legend tale about a '40s-era car-racing ghost, available on her album "Stars Fall Home."

Seanan is also a huge Doctor Who fan.

So, some time ago, when I misheard "It's the tale of Rose Marshall" as "it's the tale of Rose Tyler," I started planning this.

I tried performing this one at Baycon 2009, but it really needs production value, or at least an accompanist. Maybe if I had a karaoke version of the original...but in the meantime.

(I gave Seanan a copy of the lyrics at the con. She read a stanza before telling me she was going to kill me.)

"Time-Traveling Blonde Girl"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Pretty Little Dead Girl" by Seanan McGuire

( It's a very sad story... )

It does seem to be in vogue to discuss one's LiveJournal alternatives right now. So:

I have a JournalFen account and an InsaneJournal account, both with the handle of scifantasy.

I also have accounts in a few other places, such as Blogger, but as far as active journaling/blogging sites, it's just the three journals.

At present I do not mirror any content from this account to those; the JournalFen account is for my participation in Fandom Wank and its offshoots, and the InsaneJournal account is for following a couple of friends who use it as their primaries.

I would be extremely reluctant to move off of LiveJournal; my primary motivation has always been following my friends and their posts, and I doubt that all or even most of my friends list would end up in one other place.

What this would mean, should the worst occur and the switch be thrown on LJ, is that I'd probably end up with even more accounts on journal sites, mirroring my own posts to all of them. Unfortunately, I suspect it would cut down on the interesting comments that come out of different spheres of my friends interacting. I've always said that was the best part of LiveJournal's system.

Plus, I have a lot of material on LJ. Especially when you count comments.

And finally, I really like LiveJournal's system. Threading comments, especially, with email options for replies; locking posts (I have a single friends-lock, in which a person is either in or out, and most of my posts are locked); you get the idea.

Admittedly, I have a Basic account, so I'm not in a position to complain if something does happen. Still, I really don't think I'll have to change. Certainly not any time soon.

But feel free to add me on IJ or JF.

These are voiceofkiki's fault. And a little bit of sweetmusic_27's too. Oh, and I guess mine.

Here's how it is...Last week, VoK posted the following thought:


Still Alive: The new Banned from Argo?

Discuss.

I asked her to clarify: was this in the "everybody refilks it" sense, or the "creator is sick of it" sense? She confirmed the former.

That led to...

( Argo Banned )

And...

( Still Argo )

In a comment, though, sweetmusic_27 opined that she was getting kind of sick of the song. That, in turn, led to...

( Had Enough )

(OK, technically, I wrote "Had Enough" first, then "Argo Banned," then "Still Argo." But it works better this way in the story.)

Just when I thought I wasn't going to have anything new for the Wit's End housefilk...now, if you'll excuse me, I need that brain for exams.

"Do you think I should chime in?"
"There's half a chance in hell the pro-Dementia crowd would listen to you."
"Which is a greater chance than some of the other people discussing it would have."
"Exactly."
"Which almost says I have a responsibility."

And I take my responsibilities very seriously.

Everybody who has no interest in filk (or worse, because I know there are a couple of people, an active dislike), please skip this post.

( Filk, Dementia, Community, And You )

Of course, the flip side of my responsibility is that I have it because some of the dementia artists consider me a friend...and after all this is said and done, I don't know if that won't change.

It's like this. cadhla is a good friend of vixyish , and one day, Vixy gave Seanan an idea--which became the song Oh, Michelle. Yesterday, hsifyppah raised the stakes by challenging Seanan with Dammit, Seanan. Seanan fired back at Brooke with Oh, Brooke, and Brooke backed off, pleading Oh, Seanan M. Watching from the sidelines, tisonlyherself weighed in with Clever Brooke.

My turn.

( Oh, Michelle/Seanan/Brooke/Dagain... )

I lost all respect for Ray Bradbury when he decided to complain about the title of Fahrenheit 9/11, but this is just insulting.

"Oh, no," cries Bradbury. "Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship! It's about television!"

Right. Uh-huh. Sure. So, Mr. Bradbury, about this coda, written by you, in 1979...

"'Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door,' are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place."

(Emphasis mine.)

Nice try.

See, the only thing I can think of is, when you wrote that coda, censorship was really a game of political correctness. You write at length that you will not bow to a group which doesn't like your portrayal of them: "If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters."

I can't help thinking that now that censorship is the provenance of the side you tend to support--besides your idolatry of our current President[1], you didn't have a leg to stand on by complaining about title theft[2] so I have to assume you didn't like the politics of Fahrenheit 9/11[3] and decided to do what you could to muddy the waters--you have a choice between retracting the novel and declaring that maybe those people you support aren't always right.

Nice to see your principles are so consistent: my guys can do no wrong, truth be damned.

[1]Of President Bush: "wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a s***head and we're glad to be rid of him." --Salon, 2001. Ironically, the linchpin of his support was "now we can get some education reform." I doubt No Child Left Behind is what Ray had in mind.
[2] Or would you like to justify Something Wicked This Way Comes and I Sing The Body Electric?
[3] I thought it was a bad movie, plain and simple, but that's a different matter...