Jonathan Coulton's Thing a Week, Valentine's card/comic book edition

From September 2005 to September 2006, Jonathan Coulton (http://jonathancoulton.com) released a song a week (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/wiki/Thing_a_Week), thus transforming from mild-mannered code monkey into internet superstar. Meanwhile, Len Peralta (http://lenperalta.com) was inspired to illustrate each of the songs (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jawboneradio/sets/72057594103636347/). Here are the music, the illustrations, and my summaries of the songs in the style of the popular rhyme:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
and so are you

I got Len to draw a new picture for the intro, and a flipface (http://flipface.me) for me in the credits. All art is by him, except for iMovie's comic book theme, a photo from the Sky Mall catalogue, screenshots from John Hodgman's website (http://areasofmyexpertise.com) and the Earth Edition of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy (http://h2g2.com) and a clip from Jonathan Coulton's video for the Flickr song that he wrote about the video. The 'How I Did It' comic shown after the credits is based on this post: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2007/05/18/how-i-did-it/

The song in the beginning is 'Opening Band', by Paul and Storm (http://paulandstorm.com) and a clip from the end of a live performance of their song 'A Captain's Wife's Lament' which always closes their sets. This is my perception of a Paul and Storm concert, in 30 seconds. There's a lot of other good stuff in between, but that's less predictable, and it goes too fast.

All other background music is by Jonathan Coulton. I'll add links to the individual songs later.

All rhymes are by me, mostly spoken by me or my Mac, with one cut together using The Bots' audio archive of George W. Bush, and another read by Rock and Roll girl Etanda.

Words and explanation are available at http://angelastic.com/2008/12/15/king-of-diamonds-anniversary-cards/. I wrote the rhymes as a Thing in my own Thing-a-Week-style adventure, which I called Writing Cards and Letters, because I wrote things based on playing cards and letters of the alphabet. I didn't quit my job first like Jonathan did, so most of my Things were pretty rushed and very rough, but some of them were good, and I hope this was one of them.

Here are some of the words (limited by YouTube's character limit)

1. See You All in Hell

Eyeballs are red,
water is blue.
Arm's gone to hell
and so will you.

2. My Monkey

Monkey saw red,
monkey feels blue.
Bananas are yummy,
but monkey loves you.

3. W's Duty

Let's do our duty
to red, white, and blue.
If you do a duty
then I'll do a poo.

4. Shop Vac

Picket fence white,
flower beds purple.
Shop vac sucks nicely,
just like the suburb'll.

5. Baby Got Back

JC likes big butts,
as if he were black;
hope they were covered
before baby got back.

6. Someone is Crazy

Violets are red,
roses are blue.
That's clearly crazy
and so are you.

7. Brand New Sucker

You're not pure white,
and I'm not that green.
This can't continue
the way that it's been.

8. Sibling Rivalry

Jane's wearing orange,
Joan's wearing slate,
soon they'll face off
and then separate.

9. The Town Crotch

Roses are red,
violets are blue.
She's well deflowered,
but our love was true.

10. When I'm 25 or 64

25′s square,
64 cubic.
A mashup of both
released intertubic.

11. Podsafe Christmas Song

Some bite like redbacks
protecting their greenbacks.
Your present this Christmas
is taking the scene back.

12. Furry Old Lobster

Lobsters are red.
Once they were brown.
Don't doubt this knowledge
when Hodgman's around.

13. Drive

Fast cars red
Mine infrared
drive like sexy
not get dead

14. Flickr

Red Green and Blue,
or CMYK,
These pixels are free,
CC-BY-SA.

15. Resolutions

Reasoning's solid,
guidance is clear.
These tips will bring you
An excellent year.

16. You Could Be Her

Pretzels are brown
beer is brown too.
Someone will love them,
will it be you?

17. I Will

Sugar- and heartbeats
covered in honey,
this song is sweet;
no need to be funny.

18. Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance.

Strobe lights are green,
with reds and with blues.
When they turn off,
you'll bring us the news.

19. So Far So Good

Roses are red,
(so far, so good)
didn't quite last
as long as they could.

20. Curl

Dreaming of gold,
for red, white and blue,
wake from dream early,
make it come true.

21. Chiron Beta Prime

Snow's hooloovoo,
snowrocks are orange.
Our family is trapped
[MESSAGE REDACTED]

22. Take Care of Me

Roses are red,
water is blue.
Separate beside me
waiting for you.

23. A Talk With George

Stories aren't read
of days people blew.
George made it count,
and so can you.

24. Don't Talk to Strangers

Lavender's purple,
mint flowers white.
Big city men
won't treat you right.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jonathan Coulton
• JoCo
• Thing A Week
• Roses are Red
• poetry
• music
• cartoons
• Paul and Storm
• Len Peralta
• Visual Thing A Week

[Cernoise]

@dantes1976 It's just some kind of summary/retrospective/homage/s­ampler inspired by Thing a Week Redux but not finished on time to celebrate that. :) Well actually, I wrote the rhymes years ago, the Redux just gave me the idea of doing a video of them.

[dantes1976]

Interesting. Don't get the meaning of this completely, but anything to celebrate JoCo's music is worthwhile. :)