Diavola

 

Surely I wasn't the only one that thought this. 

Explanation: Connections is an online puzzle game which gives you 16 tiles and you have to make 4 groups of 4 similar items. The day in question had "diavola" as one of the tiles (it's a spicy pizza) and I had to look it up but totally read it as diablo mixed with viola. Then that made me think of the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" which mentions a fiddle showdown. I don't really know the song but I had a friend recommend it for a roller coaster ride in Florida that let you pick a song to listen to while getting launched through the coaster (it might have been Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit but I totally thought it was Disney not Universal but we went to both parks during that trip so I get them confused).

Text:
A: Did you get the Connections puzzle today?
L: Yep.
A: Did you think "diavola" was an instrument that Satan plays?
L: 🎜The devil went down to Georgia... and picked up his viola. His diaviola.🎝

Horsey Video

 

More parental translating, like the last comic. It has become part of Ori's bedtime to watch "the horsey video!" which honestly is rather calming and peaceful and he's learning Greek mythology so that's something ("the rainbow lady is Iris!"). This section has centaurs and unicorns and pegasi as well as other mythological figures, but my kiddo has focused on the horse-like ones.
Fantasia made in on our list of low-peril movies (both the 1940's version and the 2000 version) with only minor edits, mainly we skipped the demon part at the end of the original because wow that gets intense. We also skipped the soundtrack personification part because my kids totally lost interest. I don't believe we skipped anything in the 2000 version. I should share a list of all the low-peril movies/shows we've found that are not terribly dull. It's a fine line - not intense but also something needs to happen. 

Text:
O: Watch the horsey video!
L: Pastoral Suite Part 5 from Fantasia, coming right up.

Silly Donkey Song

 

Happy early Birthday to my niece! I am blessed with many nieces and nephews, and tomorrow concludes this one's first trip around the sun. 

Oh, the many translations/connections you make when you're a parent. We went to the Disney On Ice Encanto/Frozen show earlier this year, and for the song "Surface Pressure" Luisa sang/skated about with a crew of backup dancers/skaters who were dressed as donkeys. My kids thought it was hilarious. They giggle every time the song plays because they're thinking of the ridiculous donkey skaters ("they should be on all fours, like Sven, not on two legs!") ((Sven was played by two skaters in a shared reindeer costume whereas the donkeys were all individual skaters)). I'm pretty sure most people don't think of "Surface Pressure" as a silly donkey song. 

Side-note, did you know that Luisa is the middle child??? I totally thought she was the oldest. Isabella (must be said with all the disgust Mirabel can muster) is the oldest, while Mirabel is clearly the youngest. You learn something new every time you google a random thing to spell-check your comics. (I couldn't remember if her name was Louisa or Luisa). 

Text:
R&O: Silly Donkey Song!!!
L: Uhhhh *remembers Disney on Ice Encanto* right, "Surface Pressure." 

Cinderella vs Encanto

 

I didn't realize that the name has been used in two different movies until my kids pointed it out. Now I'm trying to think of other names that have been reused but I'm coming up blank. There are so many movies, surely they aren't all unique. But they have a lot of specific names like Cinderella and Snow White and such. Well, Prince Charming is used a few times I believe. But is it really, or do I just not remember the guy's name because the princess is the main character of the story? 

Explanation: Bruno is the name of the hound dog in Cinderella (1950). Bruno is also one of the uncles in Encanto (2021). 

Text:
Title: In our Cinderella Era
Music: We don't talk about Bruno - No no No ...
R: The DOG?!
O: *shocked*
L: Disney reused a name? I guess it has been 70 years.

Musical Day of Creation

As a bonus, here's the sketch from my Sunday bulletin. My pastor is doing a sermon series on Creation - listen to it on SermonAudio.com! You can look it up by the sermon title and passage on the bulletin. 

Explanation: A music rest is a marking to show that you pause. The seventh day of Creation is when God rested, and is known as the day of rest. 

Text:
Whole-note rest: None of you got a day of creation.
Quarter-note and Eighth-note rests: *backing up their spokesperson*
Various music notations that are not rests: *sad* 

Tune the Car Musically

Happy early Birthday to my father-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephew! So many birthdays this weekend. 

Explanation: Tuning a car and tuning an instrument are not very similar but we use the same word for both. Why is English like this.

Text:
A: Are you ready to tune the car? *holding a wrench*
B: To the key of C. *holding a tuning fork*
A: What?
B: What?

Vegetable Musicians

I have not thought up any songs this group would sing, but I'm sure there's plenty of puns to choose from. I don't feel like looking up the difference between chives, scallions, and spring onions but I feel like they're used interchangeably. 

Explanation: Chives and scallions are similar vegetables. A rapscallion is a mischievous person. I didn't realize no spelling change was needed for the band name pun. Also, with a letter swap, a "mischiveous" vegetable is a spring onion up to no good. 

Text:
B: You chives are making horrible music!
RS: We're the RapScallions. 

Shofar So Good

 

I thought this up at my cousin's wedding reception when I saw my niece standing on a large rock and blowing on a big stick that had a distinctive twist in it. I have only heard a shofar once, and that was back in college when I was leaving my Bible class - I heard a peculiar noise and looked over and there was my future brother-in-law, blowing a shofar in front of his class. Apparently they had waited until the class hour was over so that they wouldn't disturb the other classes, but this meant that many students witnessed this event.

Text:
M: Is that ram's horn working out as a trumpet for you?
P: It is shofar.

July Fourth Medley

 

Get ready for the Independence Day concerts! We can only hope they pick someone who can truly sing the national anthem because you need a range and it can be done quite poorly. I saw a ranking somewhere of all the singers who've sung the anthem at NFL games and it was rather fascinating. But I don't remember where it was. But this would be an interesting medley to hear - each singer picks a song on the fly based on the last word of the previous phrase. 

Text:
A: ♬ O say, can you see -
B: ♬ See clearly now the rain -
C: ♬ Raining, oh baby it's raining, raining ♬

Blink182

 

True story, except this exchange happened in the car and it was a bumper sticker on someone else's car - but I prefer drawing stick figures over cars, so this is my interpretation based on a true story. Punk bands were very popular back when I was in high school but way back then I just listened to music on the radio and knew nothing about the artists so I'd know all the lyrics and music but be clueless about the band. One way this showed up was when I was quietly singing something around the house and my husband asked "is that Yellow Card or Green Day?" and I didn't have a clue (I don't recall the song so I can't say which one it was). 

Explanation: This is basically like when my grandparents tell each other that all their friends are getting old, what is with that?

Text:
L: That's a Blink182 sticker - how old is she?
M: She looks about our age.
L: ... yeah, that checks out.

Cerulean Dion

 

Ever since making this comic, I cannot think of Ms. Dion's first name correctly (it's Céline). 

We kept the genders of our children a secret before they were born and it was interesting to see how adamant people were that we were having a boy or girl when they had absolutely nothing to go on other than their feelings. Also, there was a time I dressed my daughter in a blue floral dress (with a flower hat) and I had someone say they couldn't tell if she was a boy or girl because the blue. That was a confusing conversation. And in case you're wondering, the shade of blue that is a girl's name is Alice Blue. 

Text:
B: Blue is a boy color!
R: Because clearly there isn't a girl name that's literally a shade of blue.
B: ... What?
R: You know, the famous singer - Cerulean Dion!

Coral Choral Chorale

So many words sound like "coral" and mean totally different things - a color, a sea critter, an animal enclosure, putting animals in an enclosure, a musical number, and probably more! I couldn't fit them all in this comic, but I did look up the hex code for coral and used it for the bandanas. 

Explanation: chorale is a musical term and it sounds like corral which means to round up animals into a confined space. Basically this cowboy is going to have some musical animals but he really wanted them to be put back where they belong. 

Text:
A: Why did you hire a music director as a ranch hand?
B: He's gonna chorale the animals. 

Hymn Singing

 

I thought of this during a music service and now I think of it nearly every time the music leader uses this phraseology when explaining when we are singing the chorus. So clearly he's meaning sing verses one, two, then the chorus, then verse three etc. But the phrase could be taken to mean either singing verses one and two at the same time (would be the same tune but conflicting words) or we only need to stay together for the first two verses (would be discordant afterwards as everyone does what seems the right pace in their own eyes). 

Text:
Title: Hymn with four verses
P: Sing verses one and two together.
S: Like, at the same time?
L: Do we all go our own pace on the other verses?
Postscript: He meant skip the chorus between those verses.

Alexa, Wrong Song 2

Happy December!
So apparently "Everyday I'm Shuffling" is a line from "Party Rock Anthem" and that could be an explanation for the scenario in the previous comic. Still not sure many times what's going on with Alexa's music selection. There was one time we asked her to play Indian Restaurant music (because we were cooking Indian food for dinner) and she said she couldn't because we have a "no explicate music" filter that blocks said things and I don't know why there was an overlap between the two, but I'm glad we have that filter to stop very wrong selections from automatically happening. 

Text:
L: Alexa, play "Sunday Everyday" on shuffle.
A: Playing "Everyday I'm Shuffling" by -
L: Alexa STOP.

Alexa, Wrong Song 1

 

So I have a playlist called "Sunday Everyday" and I like it - it's songs that we've sung at my church or my parent's church or just nice one from the local Christian radio stations. It does not have any party rock anthems. I tried looking into the Alexa app to see what she thought I had said, but I couldn't find that recording after a quick search and just gave up. 

Text:
L: Alexa, play "Sunday Everyday."
A: Playing "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO.
L: That's not even close!

Cup of Honey

My Mark says a cup of honey would not be good, and I agree. Having a cup of tea with some honey is a good thing, or putting honey on toast, but just honey as the star is a bit much. Song mashups are fun to do, especially if you are fortunate enough to be flipping through the radio stations and the songs just line up perfectly. This comic was sparked by two songs that I heard near each other, so probably in the same car trip, but not perfectly lined up as portrayed above. But it all clicked together in my head hence this earworm of a comic :)

Text:
A: 𝆕 Fill my cup, Lord! 𝆕
B: 𝆕 With honey from the Rock 𝆕

Note: I now realize the lyrics are "Honey in the Rock" but that doesn't quite fit my comic so I'm claiming artistic liberty. 

My Romantic Chemicals

 

Above, the generic comic. Below, the one that came to mind after remembering that Batman, in The Batman, listens to My Chemical Romance. 

So this comic was inspired when I saw "MRC" graffitied on a dump truck. Those happen to be the initials of at least two of my family members, so there's that too. In the movie mentioned above, there is a scene where MCR is playing loudly and when something happens to shift the focus, Batman turns down his music and you realize it wasn't just movie magic music, he really was blasting music in his cave. I liked that detail. Also I totally think a young sidekick/partner would refer to music from two decades ago as oldies. Wow, 2001 was when MCR started and that was two decades ago. Bleh. 

Explanation: the band is "My Chemical Romance" and usually abbreviated MCR. The young person flips the words to be "My Romantic Chemicals" which seems like a different sort of band. 

Text:
R: Holy Oldies, Batman! It's that band you like - My Romantic Chemicals!
B: *facepalm*

Problem Solving vs Elimination

Happy almost Anniversary to us! Our marriage is gonna be a teenager. Weird.
This comic came about on a road trip where I was sitting in the back to help Lucy keep calm, and my Jeep has a speaker right between where I was in the back and where Mark was in the driver seat. There are (at least) two mindsets when it comes to problems - solve the issue or eliminate the issue. Solving the issue of the radio overpowering our conversation would be to simply turn down the radio or change our seating. Elimination the issue would involve probably rewiring my car's sound system. One is much simpler than the other, but simpler isn't always better. 

Text:
M: We could have this awesome setup -
L: OR we could just turn down the radio.
M: I want to eliminate the problem, not solve it!

Political Band Dissolvement

Happy Independence Day Eve! Last year we were reading the Constitution and I noticed the phrase about dissolving political bands and this comic came into being. Did I look up the Founding Fathers and draw their hairstyles slightly correctly? Perhaps. I had something else to say about the Founding Fathers.... OH so I was at my in-laws and the topic of road trip playlists came up and I decided one car (our family was all going up to New Hampshire for a week together and there are several carloads going) needs to play Hamilton on repeat, but it's the Muppets Hamilton. Does such a thing exist? I feel like it could. All of the cast is Muppets except Alexander Hamilton is still played by Lin-Manuel. 

Text:
G. Washington: Dissolve these political bands!
FEDeralists: *silent*
DEM-REPS: *silent*

Judging Music

 

Not a Nebraska comic! Gonna switch it up and mix in some new ones. So my husband and I have different tastes in music, namely that he has a wider range than I do of what he deems acceptable. Sometimes when I walk by his office (he works from home), I just have to comment. That's all, no judgement here :) 

Text:
Title: *barely melodic noises*
L: Not to judge, but what the heck are you listening to?
M: I feel judged.