Yuletide Public Service Announcement

If you have not yet written a "Dear Yuletide Writer" letter, now is not too late!

Some of us are still wondering whether you are dying for angst or would prefer light comedy; if a story written in the same prose style as the original would make your year or isn't even in your top ten of things you'd enjoy; if you're completely caught up on canon or if we should be wary about spoilers, and if so, which spoilers; whether or not you like the characters you didn't request; what makes you like that pairing you're dying to see; or even if you really wanted the pairing you ticked off, or if you accidentally clicked on the wrong person.

Saaaaaaave us, kind writers!

Yuletide Public Service Announcement

If you have not yet written a "Dear Yuletide Writer" letter, now is not too late!

Some of us are still wondering whether you are dying for angst or would prefer light comedy; if a story written in the same prose style as the original would make your year or isn't even in your top ten of things you'd enjoy; if you're completely caught up on canon or if we should be wary about spoilers, and if so, which spoilers; whether or not you like the characters you didn't request; what makes you like that pairing you're dying to see; or even if you really wanted the pairing you ticked off, or if you accidentally clicked on the wrong person.

Saaaaaaave us, kind writers!

The Snatch Song

In a recent conversation in which we talked a bit about slang terms for women's genitalia, I was reminded of the story of the Snatch Song. It was told to me by an old theatre professor, Gary Gardner, who specialized in playwriting and musicals, and I will now share it with you.

There is an old musical, The Fantasticks, which has a song about a kidnapping, but inexplicably, instead of using the word "kidnap," they use "rape." It was written in the 1940s, I think, but that is still bizarre. It's otherwise nauseatingly wholesome.

Gary was asked to come critique a rehearsal of this musical, which was done at a Catholic boys' school, before it opened. There he discovered that, feeling that the word "rape" was too risque, even used in a non-sexual context, the director, who was a monk, has substituted the word "snatch."

Twelve-year-old boys are singing:

Snatch!
Snatch!
Snatch!
A pretty snatch!
A literary snatch!
An obvious open schoolboy snatch!

Gary told me that the most embarassing moment of his entire life was taking a monk into the men's room and explaining to him what snatch meant.