Today's post brought to you in Gungan

Last night Mesa ate a strange brownie. Ooh! Mesacky icky goosa! Mesa had an experience Mesa had only seen from afar or watched on Sid and Marty Krofft TV shows. Huh? As mesa friend was speakin', his head and words began to stretch. Ooh! Mesa'd say things that didn't seem to make sense to anyone, such as 'der soreness in mesa throat is not where tis' or 'Mesa have convinced yousa Mesa am a Chinese waiter.' Way? Esqueeze mesa.

(Inspired by Maggie Sullivan) Today I'm in love with the Stith Thompson Motif Index. I want to caress its pages in the shadows of the research library reference stacks as it shows me its classification system for folktales. A kiss for each heading:

A. Mythological
B. Animals
C. Tabu
D. Magic
E. The Dead
F. Marvels
G. Ogres
H. Tests
J. The Wise and Foolish
K. Deceptions
L. Reversal of Fortune
M. Ordaining the Future
N. Chance and Fate
P. Society
Q. Rewards and Punishments
R. Captives and Fugitives
S. Unnatural Cruelty
T. Sex
U. Nature of Life
V. Religion
W. Traits of Character
X. Humor
Z. Miscellaneous

It's coyly missing some vowels. Its brother, the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index, does not share the motif index's intensely playful eyes, not by a long shot.

Check this. The guy that wrote the libretto for Porgy & Bess is the same guy who wrote The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. Wild! I didn't even know the Country Bunny was that old.

Grammar fun at http://www.burgy.50megs.com/grammar.htm

It looks like Mun Mun is getting a federal grant to work in a public library next quarter (unless she blows the interview). Know what mommy would say if she were still around? "Real good!" I miss that.

I'm looking at a table from a book called Marketing Public Health: Strategies to Promote Social Change with the title "Pitfalls to Avoid When Developing Communication Strategies." One of the pitfalls to avoid is "Appealing to noncritical values (e.g.,good health) rather than core values (freedom, autonomy, control, independence)." I wonder if I can find a list somewhere of core values versus non-core values. What makes "good health" not a core value? I want to know because I'm trying to develop this totally manipulative marketing strategy for children's services in libraries that associates libraries with good feelings. Like if you read Fast Food Nation it talks about how MacDonald's associates it's image with weird things like patriotism. Do you think associating libraries with community pride is core enough? Is sharing a core value?

Incidentally,ya know how if you type a search in Google, you get these automatically generated advertisements along with your results? I thought this one was sort of funny:

Great deals on Core Values
Shop on eBay and Save!

I don't think this chocolate and jelly bean diet is working.

Why am I reading blogs when I should be doing schoolwork? Arrrgh!

Check out this Puppet Vision blog, eh?

The DMV is requiring me to have my thumb print taken to renew my driver's license. I hope nobody steals my thumb prints and makes little thumb molds to leave all over a crime scene. That would suck.

The Seven Film School Dwarves

Artsy
Touchy
Flakey
Testy
Sulky
Peevish
& Jorge

(Reject pile: Smugly, Hostile, and Saccarin)

TK forever, Ringo never!

Too many diamonds!

It's crunch time. Will Mun Mun procrastinate instead of doing her work tomorrow? Is a bear Catholic?