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Uncle Dave Lewis lives in a hole in the back of his brain, filled with useless trivia about 78 rpm records, silent movies, unfinished symphonies, broken up punk bands from the 80s and other old stuff no one cares about. This is where he goes to let off a little steam- perhaps you will find it useful, perhaps not. Who knows?

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Sunday, March 30, 2003

Apologies for missing the blog on Fri.-Sat. This truly was a busy weekend. Friday night I went from the work sanctioned drinking party given with my co-workers to a strange ritual at church where they held a mock funeral for "the youth" of a congregation member who had just turned 40. That was memorable - our pastor conducted it with all seriousness, and it ended with the honoree being deluged from the water from three squirt-gunners. Apparently the guy is a habitual practical joker and "deserved what he got". While it was entertaining in a way I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been on the receiving end of this elaborate gag.

Saturday, after a vexing afternoon wasted trying to get the CD case that fell down to go back up (it won't), Keith and I went to check out the ICP Orchestra at the Kerrytown Concert House. In a way it was one of the greatest concerts I've ever seen, and I would like to take some time to review it in depth - something I can't do right now as I'm in the middle of making dinner. That's to come.

Man, dere rippin' me off dept.

Mere days after the blog appeared here in reference to the meaning of the "thumbs up" sign in Arabic, this piece appears
on Slate:


Naturally, this piece is farily well researched and may have been in the pipeline while I was working on mine. However, having scooped this topic I'm not going to give it to mainstream online media quite so easily (-:
If I were Bertholt Brecht (and I'm not! though I am often inspired by his example, and have studied his work for many years), I might be moved by the Iraqi situation to write this:

Ich erlernte meine "Daumen-oben"
in den Hoffnungen,
daß es mir ersparen würde

Und ich halte oben noch,
aber es ist das einzige Teil
meines dieses toter Körper ruhige Stöcke
aus dem Sand heraus

or, in english:

I learned my "thumbs-up"
In hopes that it would spare me

And I hold it aloft still
But it is the only part of my corpse
That sticks out of the sand

copyright 2003 Uncle Dave Lewis

I am already 12 bars into the musical setting of the German verse.

I will be on Freeform Monday Morn at 6am ET tomorrow morning. It may be heard worldwide at or, if you're in Ann Arbor, on 88.3 FM. When I said "worldwide" I wasn't kidding - last week I got a piece of fan mail from Scotland.
And if you wish to comment on this blog or anything else relating to Uncle Dave Lewis, feel free to write at uncledavelewis@hotmail.com or udtv@yahoo.com

Uncle Dave Lewis
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