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Word of the Day: Movers and Shakers and Music Makers

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | A&E, Word of the Day | Permalink | No Comments |

For Willy Wonka fans: note the first two lines of the poem, which is what Wonka said to Veruca Salt after she declared “Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?”

From Phrases.org.uk:

Music Makers
People of energetic demeanour, who initiate change and influence events.

Origin
The expression ‘movers and shakers’ is now most often applied to the rich and powerful in politics and business. In a year (2009) in which the movers and shakers of the financial world brought us to the brink of ruin, it is worth a thought as to who the original movers and shakers were.

The public perception of the term began after the first performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s popular choral work The Music Makers, at the Birmingham Festival in October 1912. The work is a setting of Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s 1874 poem ‘Ode’, from his Music and Moonlight collection. In that poem, which singles out poets and musicians as the bards that guide lay thinking, O’Shaughnessy coined the phrase ‘movers and shakers’:

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

And here’s the complete Willy Wonka script.

Previously - “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

Previous WOTD - Ames Window

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“Button, button, who’s got the button?”

Thursday, November 8th, 2007 | A&E | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Last night Melissa was showing me some old books of hers. One was Singing on Our Way, a 1949 collection of children’s songs. Flipping through it I found a song called “Who Has the Button?”, attributed to Verna Meads Surer.

I stopped, because I instantly recognized it from the Inventing Room scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Wonka is looking for the start button for the machine that packs an entire meal into a piece of chewing gum (which turns Violet into a giant blueberry) and says “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

Here’s the song in its entirety:

But-ton, but-ton, who has the but-ton? Oh, where can it be?
I have to find it, I have to find it, If I could on-ly
John-ny holds his hands so tight, Ma-ry will not tell,
Jim-my looks as though he might, They’re hid-ing it so well
But-ton, but-ton, who has the but-ton? Oh, where can it be?

Later - Rustmeister tells me the song is part of a game. I found this description:

Arrange all the children in a line, either seated or standing. Select one to be the “seamstress” or “tailor”. She or he stands before the line of players. A button or a coin is handed to the player at one end of the line. He holds it in hands that are cupped and closed. She holds her hands over the hands of the next player in line whose hands are cupped in a similar fashion. She may drop the button into the next player’s hands or she may not. Now the next player goes through the same procedure all the way down the line to the last player. If the button does not get passed on, then the remaining players merely pretend to pass the button. Throughout this procedure the seamstress closely watches the passing. Since the hands are cupped and held together it will be difficult to discern where the button actually stopped.

When the procedure reaches the end of the line. The last player in line asks the seamstress, “Button, Button, who has the button?” The seamstress then guesses. If she guesses correctly, she gets to keep the button. If she guesses incorrectly, she sits at the end of the line and the player at the head of the line becomes the seamstress.

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“The Fairies” by William Allingham

Sunday, December 31st, 2006 | A&E | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Katie, got curious about this line spoken by a knife sharpener to Charlie outside the Wonka factory:

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;

Turns out it’s from The Fairies by William Allingham. I found it at the Baldwin Project for children’s online literature, which is fantastic.

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Waiter Rant is on Fire Lately

Tuesday, February 8th, 2005 | Food & Drink, Star Wars | Permalink | 1 Comment |

His tipping war stories are hilarious. And he got a mention in this NY Times story on blogging waitrons. The second paragraph in the article is pinched from this Waiter Rant piece on the intersection of Star Wars and Sideways.

But this… This is outstanding. Willy Wonka is a parable of the Hebrew idea of God and the nature of evil.

Tags: willy wonka