I HAD NOT QUITE REALIZED just how carefully arranged was our final sing-along at the WITS show on Friday in St. Paul for to tempt the roving eye of the good people of bOING bOING,

BUT bOING bOING SAW RIGHT THROUGH OUR SCHEME this morning.

QUOTH MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER, “All we need is for a unicorn to walk out on stage wearing some steampunk headgear and I’m pretty sure this video would have the BoingBoing demographic in the bag, man.”

WITNESS, and perhaps even SING ALONG

ALTOGETHER, the WITS show was a true joy, and I am terribly grateful to JOHNS MOE and MUNSON, plus my favorite backup feral mountain man JOHN RODERICK, plus the ever delightful and spooky NEIL “JOHN” GAIMAN, the surprising DAMIAN KULASH, and those singing ASCOTS for including me in the show. You can listen to the whole show HERE, or listen to it on the radio on AUGUST 1.*

AND I AGREE WITH MS. KOERTH-BAKER: Roderick has a truly soaring voice, and you should enjoy this video for NOT MOVING TO PORTLAND that she pointed out, which dates back to January, a time when Roderick was still missing a tooth, and I apparently was not using the internet.

FINALLY, A NOTE TO TRAVELERS: while St. Paul is truly a remarkable simulation of an American city, and a lovely place to visit, as I noted on Twitter, if you are playing ukulele and/or professional singers are singing quiet country songs in beautiful two part harmony after midnight in your hotel room, the hotel WILL call security on you. REPEATEDLY.

*THE REASON IT TAKES LONGER FOR RADIO is that it takes the radio engineers a long time to scrub away the DISGUSTING VIDEO from the BEAUTIFUL, UNSULLIED SOUND.

EVERY DAMN LINK IN THIS IMITATION BLOG POST COMES COURTESY: bOING bOING, as usual.

That is all.

DAY THREE of reading my book into a microphone (OR TRICKING OTHER PEOPLE INTO DOING SO) is now complete.

MORE DAYS OF SAME to come, but it has been a delightful thrill so far. A THRILL CONTAINED IN A VERY SMALL, HOT, AIRLESS ROOM so that the thrill cannot escape.

YESTERDAY I WORE A TUXEDO in the booth, and I did my imitation of a ukulele-ist as well. I regret there are no photos of this, though plenty others exist.

BUT LET ME PAUSE NOW and say:

FRIENDS, IF YOU SUFFER FROM POOR MOOD AND ILL CONFIDENCE, you could do worse than walk around in a tuxedo with a UKULELE. It is a marvelous combination, which I dubbed on Twitter the TUXUKE, until enough members of the twitter HIVE MIND pointed out that that sounds like some sort of Japanese tuxedo/ukulele porn.

IT MADE ME RECALL that I don’t recall if Dent May rocked the full TUXULELE when we both appeared at the great THACKER MOUNTAIN RADIO in Oxford, MS last fall. But he clearly does own a tuxedo, as THIS EMBEDDED MEDIA will prove.

THAT IS ALL.

ALLOW ME TO SHARE this photo-flyer:

AND AT LAST, this link.

THAT IS ALL.

STAND BY FOR BULLETIN ONE

BULLETIN ONE:

AS YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW, today is “RED NOSE DAY” in the UK (this is a small country like Rhode Island, but with a Queen).

RED NOSE DAY is a biannual event in which comedians and also normal people wear clown noses all day long in order to raise money for COMIC RELIEF.

WE HAVEN’T HEARD MUCH ABOUT COMIC RELIEF over here since the last time Billy, Robin, and Whoopi wore sweatshirts. But in the UK it remains a vibrant charity that funds all sorts of youth and anti-poverty programs throughout the world, and inspires episodes of THE OFFICE, which in turn inspires BRITISH COMEDY NERDS like Ken Plume to wonder, WHY NOT HERE?

AS SUCH, PLUMEY and many other folks are holding an internet telethon today, a kind of RED NOSE DAY IN EXILE, beginning at 12 noon EST, and going for about 24 hours.

AND BECAUSE I AM A CHARITABLE PERSON, I have agreed to stop by and annoy him about it ALL DAY LONG. I hope you will stop by and join me, and perhaps DONATE. Take it from me: annoying Ken Plume is very amusing.

(BY THE WAY, did you know that Ken Plume once claimed that, given the choice, he would prefer to lose a finger rather than lose a toe EVEN THOUGH HIS WHOLE JOB INVOLVES SITTING AT THE INTERNET ALL DAY TYPING? He cited “balance issues.” Ask him about this, and WATCH HIM GO!)

NOW STAND BY FOR BULLETIN 2…

BULLETIN 2 INCOMING:

AS PER YESTERDAY’S IMITATION OF A BLOG POST, a reader and ukulelist and PROFESSIONAL BUSKER (!) named Ian Schwartz brought to my attention the TV show HEROES‘ reference to the age old question FLIGHT vs. INVISIBILTY.

IT REMINDED ME OF THE TIME THE OC referenced Mr. Chuck Klosterman, long ago, and I challenged Schwartz to find evidence of my own poor memory.

I AM SURE IT DOES NOT SURPRISE YOU LEARN that Schwartz has triumphed:

I WILL SEND HIM A SIGNED COPY OF MY BOOK, and also a few coins to throw in his ukulele case, and as well

MY ENDLESS THANKS.

AND NOW, some music to annoy Ken Plume by from THE SOUR CANDY ORCHESTRA, Schwartz’s busking band of ukuleles and woodwinders:

REALLY IAN? You carry all of those instruments down into the subway? EVEN THE GIANT UKULELE THAT GIRL IS PLAYING WITH THE BOW?

That is all.

MENTAL FLOSS is a website you should know. There, Chris Higgins has compiled a rather considerable compilation of people performing the same song: TONIGHT YOU BELONG TO ME

I SUDDENLY feel like more and less of a thief, SIMULTANEOUSLY.

BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW he missed this remix version.

That is all.

PS: It is true that I will be on Conan O’Brien tonight.