It’s all in how you look at it, plus I'll be a monkey's uncle

Here is one of the most famous places in the world, the Rock of Gibraltar at the southwestern tip of Europe, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean:

...and here is a graph that Blogger kindly provided of my blog’s pageviews for the week of August 6-13, 2013:

The second figure could almost be an abstract, reverse image of the first. I have thought and thought and the only thing I can figure is that one view was taken looking eastward from the west and the other view was taken looking westward from the east.

Another major difference between the Rock of Gibraltar and my blog is that the Rock of Gibraltar is home to about 250 barbary macaques...

...and my blog has only 123 followers.

Please do not misunderestimate misunderstand me. I am not, repeat, not intimating in the slightest that any followers of my blog are anything at all like barbary macaques. Nor, in case you are wondering, am I disparaging barbary macaques. In fact, if a barbary macaque wants to become a follower of this blog, he or she would be most welcome here at rhymeswithplague.

I once wrote a song parody, back in the days before organ transplants were common. The medical community was (were?) still experimenting when it was announced on the telly that a baboon’s heart had been transplanted into a little girl’s body. The media referred to her only as Baby Fae to protect her family’s privacy (the little girl’s family I mean, not the baboon’s -- in fact, I will go out on a limb here and say the media probably didn’t give a fig for the baboon’s family). Well, my mind being what it is I immediately thought about an old song from 1926 called “Baby Face” -- it enjoyed another round of popularity in 1948 in a recording by the Art Mooney band, and it was included on the soundtrack of the 1967 movie Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Julie Andrews, Beatrice Lillie (Lady Peel), Carol Channing, and others -- and I dashed off a little song called “Baby Fae” in about thirty seconds. Sometimes inspiration works like that but most of the time it takes a lot of blood, toil, tears, and sweat, to coin a phrase.

If you don’t know “Baby Face” here is Art Mooney’s 1948 version (2:23).

And here’s my “Baby Fae” which should be sung to the same tune. It helps if you try to picture a line of chorus girls singing it; move your hands back and forth if you like, the way they do in show biz.


Baby Fae

Baby Fae,
You’ve got that certain somethin’,
Baby Fae,
Keep that new heart a-pumpin’,
One day real soon
You’ll be a baboon,
Gee, the doctors love ya,
They made a monkey of ya,
Baby Fae,
If you like strained bananas
Sue the A.M.A.,
With missing links they toyed
And now you’re anthropoid,
Our little ape-girl, Baby Fae!

and now for the reprise and the big finish:

Baby Fae,
If you like strained bananas
Sue the A.M.A.,
With missing links they toyed
(dunt dunt dunt DUNT dunt dunt)
And now you’re anthropoid,
(dunt dunt dunt DUNT dunt dunt)
Our little ape-girl baby,
Little ape-girl baby,
Little ape- (*kick*) girl (*kick*),
Bay- (*kick*) bee (*kick*) Faaaaaaaae!

and exit, stage left to wild applause.

I wish I had thought to send it in to Saturday Night Live or somewhere but I didn’t.

P.S. - The A.M.A. is the American Medical Association.

P.P.S. - No barbary macaques were harmed in the making of this post.

P.P.P.S. - In a comment, Carol in Cairns (FNQ) calls my song, or maybe my whole post, “light and witty.” Therefore, to inject some all-too-rare seriousness into our fun, here is more information about Baby Fae.