Origins
“Well, it’s because you’re related by blood, isn’t it?” was Mother’s reply when I asked her if she realized why Melissa and I titled our joint project the “Blog of Blood.” Wrong, wrong, wrong! How short parents’ memories prove, for it seems Dad fails to recall the coining of the phrase “Blog of Blood” as well. And so to clear up any misconceptions by those who presume Melissa and me to be mercenary fascists or Visigoths, here is the true story behind the Blog of Blood:
It all starts with a Chevy van, the kind they made in the late 70’s-early 80’s. My family had such a van, complete with cocktail table, felt curtains in the window, and, the crowning feature of all, captain chairs. These chairs shared many aspects with Captain Kirk’s seat of command aboard the Starship Enterprise: They were gray, kind of loungey, had ashtrays in the armrests, and, best of all, they swiveled. The majority of the time the chairs were swiveled 180 degrees and positioned so that the four of us children faced each other in the back of the van, a feat no longer possible in the Windstars and SUVs of today. This was best of all for road trips—us strapped into the back of the car while Mom and Dad droned us out in the front. As our family is overflowing with creative energy, we had no need of Gameboys or DVD players to entertain us on long drives. No! We entertained ourselves, isolated from the rest of the world in the back of that van. And one of the best ways to entertain ourselves, we found, was driving our parents crazy.
I think I was the one who wrote the song initially; it seems an entirely Amilynnian thing to do. The song starts out low, and then rises in a crescendo of pitch and volume before dropping back down to return where it started. “Blog, blog, blog BLOG—of blood.” Then again from the beginning, over and over again. A masterpiece. Of course, I was about seven years old when I composed this work, the world of Inter-Net and Web-Logs and other such Non-Sense years upon years in the future, not even a possibility then, and so if asked to define a blog, I would have had to have said that it was a glob of partially-congealed liquid, like a blood clot. Hence, Blog of Blood.
The song soon became a family favorite, and it wasn’t long before any trip in the car became a venue for an improve performance, at the top of our lungs of course, punctuated frequently by Mom’s “Stop singing that awful song!” or drawn to an early finale by Dad’s “You had better quiet down before I tape your mouths shut!” The threats were real, the song was sung less and less, and it eventually became defunct.
Cue the *New Millennium*, some years later, and the creation of the modern reincarnation of the blog. I had no use for web logs, really, until Melissa started hers. Ok, so secretly I panged with jealousy every time she would post, especially since I worked myself into her blog as often as not. Melissa eventually tired of my attempts to usurp her, and when I suggested a post on Neve and Gliz she drew the line—you would think she would have grown used to my taking over her things since the Hello-Kitty Jelly-Belly incident of 1982—but because she really really is the best sister an English teacher could have, instead of saying Get Your Own Blog, she suggensted the revival of the “Blog of Blood,” a joint project. And the rest, as they say is history.
Thanks, Chevrolet!
It all starts with a Chevy van, the kind they made in the late 70’s-early 80’s. My family had such a van, complete with cocktail table, felt curtains in the window, and, the crowning feature of all, captain chairs. These chairs shared many aspects with Captain Kirk’s seat of command aboard the Starship Enterprise: They were gray, kind of loungey, had ashtrays in the armrests, and, best of all, they swiveled. The majority of the time the chairs were swiveled 180 degrees and positioned so that the four of us children faced each other in the back of the van, a feat no longer possible in the Windstars and SUVs of today. This was best of all for road trips—us strapped into the back of the car while Mom and Dad droned us out in the front. As our family is overflowing with creative energy, we had no need of Gameboys or DVD players to entertain us on long drives. No! We entertained ourselves, isolated from the rest of the world in the back of that van. And one of the best ways to entertain ourselves, we found, was driving our parents crazy.
I think I was the one who wrote the song initially; it seems an entirely Amilynnian thing to do. The song starts out low, and then rises in a crescendo of pitch and volume before dropping back down to return where it started. “Blog, blog, blog BLOG—of blood.” Then again from the beginning, over and over again. A masterpiece. Of course, I was about seven years old when I composed this work, the world of Inter-Net and Web-Logs and other such Non-Sense years upon years in the future, not even a possibility then, and so if asked to define a blog, I would have had to have said that it was a glob of partially-congealed liquid, like a blood clot. Hence, Blog of Blood.
The song soon became a family favorite, and it wasn’t long before any trip in the car became a venue for an improve performance, at the top of our lungs of course, punctuated frequently by Mom’s “Stop singing that awful song!” or drawn to an early finale by Dad’s “You had better quiet down before I tape your mouths shut!” The threats were real, the song was sung less and less, and it eventually became defunct.
Cue the *New Millennium*, some years later, and the creation of the modern reincarnation of the blog. I had no use for web logs, really, until Melissa started hers. Ok, so secretly I panged with jealousy every time she would post, especially since I worked myself into her blog as often as not. Melissa eventually tired of my attempts to usurp her, and when I suggested a post on Neve and Gliz she drew the line—you would think she would have grown used to my taking over her things since the Hello-Kitty Jelly-Belly incident of 1982—but because she really really is the best sister an English teacher could have, instead of saying Get Your Own Blog, she suggensted the revival of the “Blog of Blood,” a joint project. And the rest, as they say is history.
Thanks, Chevrolet!
posted by Amilynne at 8:58 AM
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