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Wednesday 29 May 2019

State of the Union - Vermont


George writes:
Week 21. The state where wives have to get written permission from their husbands to get false teeth, Vermont. In Vermont, the city of Burlington has the great distinction of being “the least populous city to be the most populous city in a state”


I found a list of twenty five famous film actors from Vermont. Yes, I had never heard of any of them. Orson Bean????


Philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey was born in Vermont,  He believed in democracy through not just full voting rights but by fully formed public opinion, among citizens, experts, and politicians. Brexit, Dr. Dewey, where were you when we needed you? Dr Dewey also had strong beliefs regarding teaching. For example “He argues that in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way that allows the student to relate the information to prior experiences, thus deepening the connection with this new knowledge.” but of course Mr Gove and co. know better.


But to a song, and the obvious one is OF COURSE by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, namely Moonlight on Vermont.


The best song you will hear today, fantastic slide guitar in that song. Not be confused with Moonlight In Vermont, load of old nonsense that is!

I’m not wasting 9 hours of my life reading about vermont and listening to rubbish songs pertaining to the state.You’ve had one great song.  “Vermont” by The Postcards startled the two sleeping cats next to me. Maybe Burlington can provide one. This proved rather tricky because although there are a plethora of songs called Burlington, there are twenty six cities in the USA called Burlington (Virginia has TWO). There was a real find, featuring a kazoo, but it was the wrong Burlington (Connecticut).

So I gave up on Burlington and tried Winooski, which resulted in this (starts off a bit like Joy Division, then has a reverb-y thing going on, then pootles along in a rather catchy way, certainly after 4 listens).


And the Joseph Smith was born in Vermont. So was his friend Brigham Young. And so was Bill Wilson, who founded alcoholics anonymous.  And as for foods, well, you get fiddleheads in Vermont and there is a Fiddlehead Festival. Of course I knew not what they were, but my partner did. They are very young ferns, just as they are unfurling. Vermonters also eat sugar snow, they get fresh snow and put maple syrup on it, then eat it. Hopefully not on yellow snow.


More next week.

CC writes:
A tough one this week. The only song I could find not containing the word Moonlight was this one by The Breakfast

13 comments:

  1. My favorite fact about Vermont is they have a state program that pays you $10,000 to move there if you will work remotely and are employed full-time by an out-of-state employer. At one time in my life this was tempting. An awful lot of snow, however. Oh, and Orson Bean is fabulous. Check him out in Being John Malkovich.

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    1. Brian, does it have more snow than your place has rain? Just going to see who Orson Bean is, but I think I did that when I wrote this and still had no idea.....

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  2. George,
    Vermont gets 72 inches of snow per year. We get about 38 inches of rain per year. Our rain is generally light but constant from about mid-September to June. In the summer, which for this area we say starts July 5 and ends Labor Day, we get almost no rain at all. In fact, Arizona gets more rain in the summer than we do.

    As for Orson Bean, he was a comedian and big on television talk and game shows in the '60s and '70s. From your perch across the ocean, you probably shouldn't know him. I'm just a sucker for the golden age of television.

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    1. I think Orson Bean is an unknown in the UK. He seems to be one of those actors who had small roles in just about every USA TV show in the 60s and 70s but never was the main man. His father seemed like an interesting man. And I think Orson Bean is still alive

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  3. I’m thinking of re-naming this blog Raintown!

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  4. I went to Vermont once. It's a dangerous place. I nearly got run over by a moose, then was propositioned by a lady in a bar who invited me back to her trailer to "carry on the party" after telling me at length about her psychotically jealous ex. I politely declined.

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  5. Personally I love the song Moonlight In Vermont and have featured the Willie Nelson version twice over at my place, once when writing about Vermont and once as part of my "Moon Series". Written in the form of a haiku doncha know!

    I though that Dewey chap might have had something to do with the system of cataloguing library books but no, another Dewey. As for the unfurled ferns, no thanks. I would however enjoy some of Ben & Jerry's Vermonty Python ice cream which is made in the state.

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    1. I am assuming it features no pythons?

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    2. or is Vermonty Python a euphemism?

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    3. Yes, definitely just a play on words. No euphemisms (or pythons) in Vermont.

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  6. The only Vermont song in my collection is The Magnetic Fields' Long Vermont Roads - quite pleasant actually.

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