The other day, I saw a very silly movie called The Saddest Music in the World. Let me see if I can explain this. Set in the Great Depression, it is the story a Winnipeg beer heiress who sponsors a worldwide tournament to discover which country’s music is the saddest of all. She is sad all the time because her legs had previously been amputated by mistake by a drunken doctor, who loved her, and one of his sons, whom she loved. The father (representing Canada), son (representing, for some reason, the United States), and son’s brother (who has run off to become the saddest cellist in Serbia) all enter the musical tournament. I can’t remember anyone’s names, so this will be difficult, but what has apparently happened is that the brother’s son has died, and the brother’s wife developed amnesia from the grief and ran away to become the lover of the first son. The first son has also taken up his affair with the beer heiress sponsoring the contest, who has rigged it so that he will win and get rich on the prize money. Perhaps most importantly, the father, no longer a drunk, has spent years crafting a pair of glass prosthetic legs for the beer heiress, whom he still loves. He has the brother present them to her. They are filled with beer. Also, the winner of each round of the tournament gets to slide down a chute into a beer vat and splash around for a while. Beer might just be a symbol here, but of what, I’m not sure.

The Important Life Lesson I took away from the movie is simply this: “If you are sponsoring a tournament to find the saddest music in the world, keep it legitimate. If you play favorites, and if, even though you’re the judge, you turn up in the entry for your secret lover so you can show off your beer-filled glass prosthetic legs, you are going to anger your secret lover’s Serbian brother, who will play a note so piercing on his sad, Serbian cello that your beer-filled glass prosthetic legs will shatter, and not only will you be humiliated in front of everyone, you will set into motion a murderous chain of events that will burn your beer factory to the ground.”

I hope that didn’t spoil it for anyone.

Update: What if I changed Goblin’s name to Spottie O’Snubtail, Lady Pilot?

Update Two: For the second day in a row, a black cat and a cicada crossed my path in the same instant. Whatever this is an omen of, I am apparently in for a double dose.