Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept. The odd thing is that people themselves are not willing to be strict in how they speak and liberal in how they listen. You'd think that would also be obvious." -- Larry Wall, Inventor of Perl. (Thanks to acroyear70 for pointing it out.)

Woke up too early, fell asleep again a couple hours later, didn't wake up again until evening. Not sure which of the things I need to do today will get done tonight. Going to deal with answering email and reading LJ later, maybe tomorrow, but I did want to mention the bit of bad news I heard when I woke up -- like a whole bunch of my friends, I mourn the passing of Warren Zevon, the songwriter who gave us "Gorilla, You're a Desparado", "Tenderness on the Block", and "Poor Poor Pitiful Me". We all knew it was coming, since he had come out months ago telling the world he was dying, but it's still sad to know his voice is stilled.

I saw him perform in DC a few times. I never caught him with a band (some of my friends did); I only saw his solo shows ... Zevon alone on a stage, moving between electric piano, acoustic piano, and guitar. Good performer.

I remember hearing "Gorilla, You're a Desparado" when I was in high school (or maybe junior high -- I don't recall what year it was). I heard it one morning but didn't catch the name of the artist, then went to school and asked all my friends if they knew the song. Not only had they not heard it, they all thought I was nuts. They were sure I must have hallucinated the song, 'cause if such a song existed they'd have heard it. The next time I heard the song was three weeks later, and one of my friends was singing fragments of it, and nobody remembered having told me I was crazy for mentioning it before. Years later, when I'd learned more of Zevon's work, a new friend was startled when I knew why he'd named a beret-wearing skull sitting in a surplus store "Roland" without his having to explain it. (He was also surprised when I got a CS&N reference, so his surprise may not mean much -- he named his Volvo "Guinevere", and I looked at him and sang, "Guinevere had green doors, like yours, my lady, like yours," and his mouth dropped open.) Later, a friend of mine ran a fantasy role-playing campaign for several years (I didn't play in it, but I heard lots of stories) called "Lawyers, Guns, and Money", based partly on Warren Zevon lyrics (Roland occasionally appeared in the game), partly on the Cthulu stories, and partly on The Weekly World News. I wound up moving from a circle of friends who heard the occasional Zevon song as a novelty, to a circle of friends who knew a large portion of his work and quoted songs apropriate to various situations, sometimes at loud volume. (I'm not sure what percentage of my current friends are big Zevon fans now. But I think most know who he was.)

Thank you, Mr. Zevon, for shining a red flashlight into those dark corners, for providing a soundtrack for some of the more absurd parts of my life (and there've been plenty of those!), and even for opening a door to a few more surreal moments. Oh yeah, and thanks for some great music, too.

Hmm. Time to shovel stuff off the lid of the turntable and put on some LPs.

Quick note, just 'cause I've already edited my QotD file to put Zevon lyrics in place for tomorrow...

merde was challenged to write a Warren Zevon haiku:

let's take warren home
and build a cage with his bones
excitable boy

Apropriate. Kind of creepy if you don't know the song, or the themes of many of his songs, I guess, but apropriate.