Bad Timing MP3

See http://www.khaosworks.org/mp3/timing.mp3

Chords by request.

English geek answers for "Bad Timing"

I didn't know that "ships passing in the night" was actually a literary reference - that's new on me. I always thought it was just a figure of speech. Well, if anyone figures out where it came from, let me know.

The first conscious reference, which most caught, was the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, LXXVI:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The second one I'm disappointed none of you got it, because it stood out like a sore thumb. Unsurprisingly, of all the people who commented, the incomparable Joy Tan got the closest... probably because as my oldest female friend she's familiar with the extent of my obsession with Shakespeare.

It's Caliban, of course, cursing his creator, from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act I, Sc ii:

You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

If there is a origin to the song, it's probably a desire post-OVFF to write more love songs, having heard some really good ones during the con. Also, those of you who remember my sadly out-of-print opus The Nightmare Factory will figure out that the same themes of regret and missed opportunities surface in the short story, "Requiem." I'm getting so desperate for inspiration that I'm mining my own stories now.

Thanks for the kind words. I wouldn't keep doing this if not for all of you.

Now *this* is a fun meme

I'm trying to get all my Livejournal friends' locations plotted on a map - please add your location starting with this form. Username: (Then get your friends to!)

Statistical data is always fun. And I know tigerbright isn't in Alaska.