silly 20s singalong of the day - helen kane's "button up your overcoat"

Button Up Your Overcoat - Helen Kane

The original Boop-Boop-A-Doop girl offers all kinds of advice, ranging from the common sense ("Keep away from bootleg hooch when you're on a spree") to the fussy ("Lay off meats") to the wildly eccentric ("Keep the spoon out of your cup when you're drinking tea") with the charming hook, "Take good care of yourself - you belong to me!" The bootleg hooch line is my favourite, I confess, but the song is delightfully funny all the way through.

( Singalong lyrics! )

it's the style

Bell tower at Kuopio Cathedral in East-Central Finland

Turku Cathedral is very impressive (on the inside, much more so) but I must admit I prefer this style of exterior construction, with the big white stretches (or even the smaller ones like the small fieldstone church in the Student Village).

zebra-inset moccasins

These caught my eye because I've been looking out for the perfect loafers for several years now (I know, right?), but of course I'd like each pair of shoes that I own to be fascinating and unique in their own right, which makes it hard to find them. But the toe part looks a little on the short side, so perhaps I'll still hold out for some driving mocs (I keep seeing them in a) dark colours and b) patent, neither of which appeals to me).

homosexual mafia

I've found the Homosexual Agenda! It was behind the sofa the whole time!

Okay, not really. I found that the "homosexual mafia" is - well, not REAL, but the object of a real crazy 1950s witchhunt that took place in the Swedish government, and which lots of people totally thought was real. It's like the gay McCarthyism.

Also check out the Haijby affair, the EPIC life and contretemps of the alleged gay lover of the somewhat-openly-gay King Gustav V of Sweden (who reigned during WWI and II): lover boy met the king when a 15-yo boyscout, and his later life included pickpocketeering, shooting a man just to see him die to escape from prison, years of blackmailing the government, two separate instances of false imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital, several attempts to bribe him to emigrate, arrest by the Gestapo, and finally prison for blackmail and suicide.

I really can't understand why this isn't a movie. Look, it's already a "based on" novel.

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