good morning Hank it's Tuesday soon it
will be your 40th birthday and today I
would like to tell you the story of the
great white whale of a birthday present
I have been maniacally chasing for the
last 14 months like Herman Melville's
Captain Ahab before me I couldn't stop
chasing the dream even as it destroyed
me
and now here we are so Hank our story
begins back in 2010 when I discovered
the cinema jig these toys sing when you
squeeze them and they either sing a
series of notes or when placed in a
different mode they sing an actual song
like this one plays when the saints go
marching in etc now many sing imagines
were produced and they played a variety
of different songs there was a pink one
that played skip to my Lou a green one
that played London Bridge is falling
down and so on
there were also seasonal singham a jigs
like Christmasy ones that sang jingle
bells and there were Singham a jigs that
held smaller singham a jig that could
harmonize together for a toy that was
never particularly popular fisher-price
made a huge variety of these things I
mean there's a fourth of July Singham a
jig that plays the u.s. national anthem
but Hank if you go to the cinema jig
wiki which I recommend everything about
and you dig long enough you will
discover that almost a decade ago
fisher-price released a set of three
singham and jigs called the hits they
were for sale only at Tescos in the
United Kingdom and only for a very
limited time but one of them Hank one of
them played smash mouths all-star this
is the all-star cinema jig the cinema
jig Hank that plays the song that has
obsessed your days and nights for
decades I mean Hank you once very
seriously proposed to me that we make a
four hundred seventy eight part video
series analyzing each of the 478 shots
in the music video for all-star you're
on record saying that the remixes and
reimagining of all-star by the internet
is one of your favorite things about
online culture and who can blame you
all-star and the Internet's responses to
it are like the ultimate marriage of the
sublime and the ridiculous and so much
of our Brotherhood has been about
finding and sharing the places where
silliness meets wonder so clearly I had
to find an all-star cinema jig for you
for your 40th birthday just two problems
one
there aren't very many of them and two
they must be amazing because the people
who have them really don't want to part
with them Hank I don't know how much you
know about the ruthless world of cinema
jig collection but on two separate
occasions I've been ripped off by people
who claim to have the all-star cinema
jig but turned out not to and then
earlier this year I facetimed with
someone who showed me their all-star
cinema jig and I told them the whole
story about me and you and my great love
for you and your great love for the song
all-star and we agreed upon a price and
then the collector decided at the last
moment that no no they just couldn't
part with their all-star sing him a jig
perhaps Melville said it best when he
wrote of the all-star Singham a jig
there is one knows not what sweet
mystery behind this cinema jig whose
gently awful stirring seemed to speak of
some hidden soul beneath for here in
this all-star Singham a jig millions of
mixed shades drowned dreams Sonnambula
isms reveries all that we call lives and
souls lie dreaming dreaming Hank I am
sorry that I have failed to get you the
singham a jig that contains all that we
call lives in Souls I hope you have a
happy birthday nonetheless also if you
have any ideas for what I could get Hank
instead or if you happen to have an
all-star cinema jig let me know Hank the
Years start coming and they don't stop
coming I'll see you on Friday