Digital Rabbit Holes

 

I LOVE going down rabbit holes on the Internet. I can spend hours going from one place/subject to the next, usually via Wikipedia. I will start with something random, say, learning about the origin of propeller beanies and end up with websites that have directions for making computer slime to clean your keyboard. And if you look back, you can see the chain link of steps that led from a simple beanie to computer slime. There was a game show that I absolutely loved call Chain Reaction. They’d start with a word, maybe Puppy and 10 steps later end with the word Apple Pie. The contestants would try to come up with the words that would eventually link the first word to the last. I’ve used this device to write poetry and stories. I will write a later blog about how to do this.

 

The latest trip down the rabbit hole started with Saturday Night Fever. I had only seen bits and pieces of the movie over the years, but did watch the entire sequel, Staying Alive. The main reason I started there was I was trying to remember the name of the girl who had unrequited love for Tony. I knew she’d done a short-lived sitcom, but couldn’t remember the name of it.

 

The actress was Donna Pescow and the sitcom was Angie. Debralee Scott played the younger sister. I remembered her from Sons and Daughters, a drama show I really liked, but it was canceled after only 9 episodes. It took place in the mid ‘50s. In one episode, Debralee’s character had a job at a drive-in and wore roller skates, which I thought was cool.

 

I tried to find out when roller skating carhops first started, but didn’t come up with anything. However the sitcom Happy Days was mentioned, so I had to look up the lyrics for that song. Loved that show.

 

Since I was still in the ‘50s I suddenly remembered the final M*A*S*H episode where Charles Winchester is trying to teach the Chinese POWs a piece of classical music. It was Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Beautiful piece. That episode had so many heartbreaking moments in it.

 

Classical music led me to the Suzuki method of learning to play musical instruments. Both Sarah and Paul learned piano with this method. Sarah could memorize pieces so quickly she never really learned to read music that well. Paul had more interest, but when he tried to continue learning in a class at the junior college, he kept getting interrupted by his military reserve obligations. So he quit. I had a pretty strict piano teacher and took lessons for 10 years. I am excellent at reading music and can do a cold sight-reading piece fairly well at first, but have to really struggle to actually LEARN the piece.

 

So there ya go. From a movie to learn the name of an obscure actress to the Suzuki piano method. Fun, huh?

 

Random thought:

Octopuses, octopi, and octopus are all accepted plural spellings for octopus.
Also, stop eating them.