欧宝娱乐

I am crap at reciting from books. Sure, I know your super-famous opening lines and popular misquotations, but I don't really, like, pause in my reading to note a particularly nice turn of phrase so I can commit it to memory.

Which is odd, because I have always had a pretty good memory for the spoken word and, especially, lyrics. When I was little, my parents found this most amusing. They would hear me playing in my bedroom, singing random snatches of commercial jingles and songs from A Prairie Home Companion to myself. Then they would try to make me perform them for guests.

"Sing the song from the Garrison Keillor tape!" they would say.

"No," I would respond, suddenly shy.

"Come on, sing it!" they'd smile. ("He's being shy, he usually sings this all day!")

"No, I don't want to," I'd insist.

"Come on, Joel, sing the song from the tape."

"NOOOOO!" I would shout, now in tears.

"SING IT OR YOU'RE IN TROUBLE!"

One of the things they would force me to perform like a trained monkey I liked to recite best was Shel Silverstein poetry. I had a cassette tape of Where the Sidewalk Ends (read by the author) that I listened to over and over, to the point where I had all the timing and inflections down and everything. I still have them memorized.

The Crocodile's Toothache

Oh, the crocodile went to the dentist
and he sat down into the chair.
And the dentist said, [jovially] "Now tell me sir, why does it hurt and where?"

And the crocodile said,
"I'll tell you the truth, I've a terrible
terrible
ache in my tooth!"

And he opened his jaws so wide,
so wide,
the dentist he climbed right inside!

And the dentist laughed,
[gleefully] "Oh, isn't this fun?"
as he pulled the teeth out
one
by
one.

And the crocodile cried,
[frantic] "You're hurting me so!
Please put down your pliers and let me go!"

But the dentist just laughed with a
[deep voice] "Ho ho ho!"
and said, "I still have 12 to go!
Oops, that's the wrong one, I confess
but what's one crocodile tooth
more or less?"

And then suddenly
the jaws went snap!

[pause]

And the dentist was gone,
right off the map.

From north, [pause]
to south, [pause]
to east, [pause]
to west, [pause]
he left
no
for-
ward-
ing
address.

But [long pause]
what's one dentist, more or less?

FROM MEMORY! It is better if you can hear it. Come by sometime and maybe my parents will force me to perform for you like some kind of sideshow robot freak.

Facebook 30 Day Book Challenge Day 7: Book that you can quote/recite.