"MY FAIR FIDDLE(GIRL)"
by Fiddlegirl and Tommy Turtle


INTRODUCTION

Fiddlegirl and Tommy Turtle Productions is proud to present their parody of the entire musical, "My Fair Lady", based upon George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion", with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The film version differs slightly from the record-setting Broadway production (longest run of any musical in Broadway history, at the time), as does "West Side Story". (Why???) The movie version is used throughout, as it's a lot easier to get a DVD of a movie than of a play. :)

OPENING -- SCENE 1

Professor Tommy Turtle, the world's most famous grammarian, parodist, and general authority on everything, finds one day a new writer at AmIRight, a professional musician named Eliza DoFiddle. Ms. Fiddle displays considerable raw talent for parody, but despite, or perhaps because of, her musical background and inherent ability to interpret and adapt, he finds her parodies, though funny, to be crude, unpolished, and generally lacking in technique. Her pacing and scansion are especially weak. He expresses his frustration as he votes and comments, and she replies.


TT:
Look at her: professional musician!
Condemned: wrong, many syllables' position
By rights, Sir ChuckyG should have her banned
For it's so da*nmed ab-surd!-Her many songs, mis-scanned

FG:
Pppbbbtththth!

TT:
Ewwww!
Oh, how immature
This is what Miss Fiddle’s generation
Got from Lib'ral Arts-ish education

FG:
Oh, great… I have to listen to this ramble?

TT:
You do!
Look at my lines—pacing square
Not yours—beats are everywhere
Lengthen, shorten, any way you like...
Did they ... teach you *that* at school?

FG:
And if they did, you bossy mule?

TT:
We’ll have none of that, Miss Sassy Tyke!

Dear, your timing is the worst
Hear the pacing of the verse?
Musicians ought to find subs just like “that”!
Know exactly what will “pass”
But not this one

FG: (under breath)
Ass.

TT:
I ask you, ma’am, what sort of word is *that*?

That attitude will never master pace
No more wretched insults, “in your face”!

Why can't musicians get their parodies to pace?
The turtle finds it easy: "First Time I Wore Your Lace"
If you wrote much sloppier
You’d never score past a “two”
There’s *no* parodist pace-poor as you

FG:
I beg your pardon!

TT:
A parodist’s feel for pacing absolutely classifies him
If rhythm should balk, it makes all other parodists despise him
On common page, the two of us must try to get
Oh, why can't musicians
Learn
To
Set a good example, to paro-dists, noobish, all grateful: what ear hears
Some folks, quite unstylish, find count in arrears
There even are places where "meter" completely disappears
Why, in America, they'll never learn it for years! [1]

Look at the practice from the music she has played
Exper'ienced meter reader; 'haps better: "meter maid"
Melod-ic'lly, rhythm flows from lyrical meter’s stress

The pace won't change from the words, actually, if singers would pronounce them properly

A radiance, lovely, radiates from her: parodies, enlight'ning
But meter is bass-ackwards;
It could use a little tight'ning
Want proper pacing? You're regarded as a geek
Why can't musicians --
Why can’t musicians --
Learn ..... technique?



Despite their mutual disgust, the Professor reluctantly agrees to take Ms. DoFiddle under his flipper, and to mentor her in the ways of parody. They spend hour upon hour going over various aspects of technique. A curious phenomenon emerges: Their mutual hostility continues, but at the same time, there is a meeting of the minds, nay, a melding of the minds, occurring; subtly, but at times reaching almost ESP-like levels.

In Scene 2, Ms. DoFiddle, the Professor, and all AmIRighters voice their thoughts on how things are going.




[1] Couldn't resist the switch in meaning from "meter" as the structure of verse ("pacing", if you will) to a shot at the US's abominable failure to adopt fully the metric system, despite being supposedly the most technologically-advanced country on the planet. The only others who haven't adopted it: Burma and Liberia. Yeah, we're in great company there. (TT is ashamed of his fat, lazy, dumb countrymen.) Skip the following history and status should you like:

The use of the metric system was made legal as a system of measurement in the U.S. in 1866, and the United States was a founding member of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in 1875. The system was officially adopted by the federal government in 1975 for use in the military and government agencies. In 1985, the metric system was made the preferred (but predominantly voluntary) system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce.. It has remained voluntary for federal and state road signage to use metric units, despite attempts in the 1990s to make it a requirement. A 1992 amendment to the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA), which took effect in 1994, required labels on federally regulated "consumer commodities" to include both metric and U.S. customary units. An amendment that would allow (but not require) metric-only labels is currently under consideration, and all but two US states (New York and Alabama) have passed laws permitting metric-only labels for the products they regulate.

Despite all of that, what you actually "see" (other than on your 750ml or 1.75 liter bottle of whiskey -- and who reads that -- or can, for that matter?) is still Imperial units (feet, miles, ounces, pounds, etc.), except in the scientific and tech communities, and on the tools of the mechanic who fixes your Toyota™ or BMW™.

The conversion has been described as "the now-stalled process... This process has been unsteady, with no end in sight. ...While the rest of the world has generally converted, the U.S. has, because of its size, been able to carry on with customary units, and there has been little political will to continue conversion." Send your Congressperson a 20-kilobyte e-mail, or snail-mail it: It's only 44 cents (44 hundredths of a dollar, or centidollars) for the first 28 grams.

"Today, the American public and much of the private business and industry still use U.S. customary units despite many years of informal or optional metrication. At least two states, Kentucky and California, have even moved towards demetrication of highway construction projects." Sigh -- moving backwards, as usual.