Sunday, October 16, 2011

You'd better go in disguise




Back when I had That Other Blog, in that other lifetime, I tried and tried to find this version of Teddy Bears' Picnic, an excerpt from the superb 1986 British miniseries The Singing Detective. (I've ordered a DVD copy and will probably be commenting on it later.)

But the thing is. . . I wasn't looking for this one at all, not this time. I was looking for the one I stumbled on when looking for this one before.  It was a chorus of what sounded like English people, old hippies with long grey hair and floral crowns and jerkins and that sort of thing (whatever a jerkin is). They sang it delightfully, buoyantly, but I didn't keep the link, or if I did, I'll be damned if I know where it is.

There's a movie version of The Singing Detective, but don't bother with it. The '86 series is pure surrealism. Its hero is a tortured writer of crime novels,  his skin rotting away from psoriatic arthritis (the same soul-rot afflicting my afflicted sister). It has almost been forgotten, but not by me. This little taste will give you. . . a little taste. Now 'scuse me while I hunt for that other one.