#hididdlediddle

[vampxrebarbie]

#Is this... the South? #That explains a great deal

WHAT’RE YOU TRYNA SAY, NYGMA

[operandesign]

On the last day of his anniversary year, a quick guide to mocking Wagner

Wagner parody is almost an industry. There’s nothing like poking fun at someone with an outsized ego and notorious political views. Jibes flooded in almost as soon as he opened for business. There was Rossini’s celebrated observation that "Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour" to Woody Allen’s "I can’t listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland" (Manhattan Murder Mystery). And the jibes continue.

In the early part of 20th Century, French music hall humorist Betove made a series of recordings ("Pastiches Musicaux") sending up the musical style of various composers. In this recording, ironically, Wagner is followed by Rossini. Tristan chords abound in the piano introduction as Betove starts singing melodramatically.

In 1943, silent screen vamp Pola Negri made a late career appearance in a talkie called Hi Diddle Diddle as a Wagnerian singer. The comedy storyline is a hotchpotch of swindlers, mistaken identities and stolen diamonds, ending with a happy sing song from Tannhäuser. There’s a sweet little cartoon of Wagner throwing a tantrum. It's delightfully surreal:

Talking of cartoons, surely the most famous of all Wagner parodies is Chuck Jones’s 1957 What’s Opera, Doc?: Bugs Bunny is disguised as Brunnhilde, dodging the hunt of Elmer "Kill the Wabbit" Fudd. Tannhäuser’s Pilgrim Chorus is again adapted with bits of Die Walkürethrown in.

Lastly, the indomitable "musical cartoonist" Anna Russell, who looked like Benny Hill in drag. Masquerading as serious lectures, Russell delivered an "analysis" of Der Ring des Nibelungen, her comic masterpiece, to concert-hall audiences. She disentangled the complicated plot, boiled it all down to a 20-odd minute routine, and at the same time slyly acknowledged the impenetrability of the 16-hour long cycle. Her  catchphrase "I’m not making this up you, know" eventually became the title of her autobiography.

Here’s Anna Russell in fine form, on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen:

This article is from my blog on the Daily Telegraph Originally published on 31 Dec 2013

[zet-sway]

hididdlediddle requested Chris/Ada! Ada haters raeg.  Taking place somewhere before RE5ish because Chris is about to go on his Africa mission.  I've never written these two together before so sorry if it sucks lol --------------------------------------------- Everyone at the BSAA knew about her.  The mysterious Ada Wong.  She could be working for anyone, operating anywhere.  "Proceed with extreme caution," was what they told us.  Still, I thought I knew what I was up against. I didn't even realize it was her.  Her hair was long, far longer than it had been described, and her voice was a beautiful french accent.  I was buying her drinks at the hotel, exaggerating my story about being a big important agent working for a company I couldn't tell her about.  Seemed she'd taken it hook line and sinker, and we were giggling like teens in the elevator on the way up to my room. I kicked the door closed and she pinned me onto it, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth as she slid an arm around my waist, her other hand boldly tugging at my belt.  Her hair came free of it's ponytail, falling over my wrists as I fisted my hands in it.  Beautiful.  It smelled like coconut. She took it slow with me.  Much slower than I would have liked, but never a man to deny a woman something that makes her happy, I let her do as she pleased.  It wasn't until I was coming down from my orgasm, sated and buzzing from the alcohol in my veins as she excused herself to the restroom that I realized what had happened. My briefcase was gone, and with it, my laptop.  My identification and passport were gone.  I rushed over to the bathroom, kicking myself for being so stupid to not realize she would be a master of disguise.  She was gone.  A red kiss on my mirror sat beside a message written in the very same shade of lipstick. "Thanks for the good time."