News You Can Bruise for 2009 September 18

My uncle John plays the banjo and I distinctly remember him singing a couple unusual sea shanties many years ago. This came up a couple days ago in conversation with Paul Wright and after flailing to describe the shanties in question, I went online to find the lyrics. There's "Paddy West", the rollicking traditional song about padding your resume. And of more recent composition there's Yankee Clipper's alternate-history Mormon eco-shanty "Lament for the Landlocked Whale".

Not really relevant to anything in my larger life, but if you're not interested in an alternate-history Mormon eco-shanty, you might be reading the wrong weblog.