AJ seems to have taken to scat. I�m not sure why. Jazz singers are frequently on the CD player here in the harriet household, but not as frequently as, say, Jim Gill�s �The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes� or Burl Ives� �The Little White Duck.� And the percentage of scatted songs is even lower. But I have to admit that the syllables are fun to say and their ordered randomness is appealing.

Despite minimal exposure and a complete lack of training, AJ persists, uncowed, in his scat-singing endeavor. His latest opus, performed and acted out for me this evening in the bathtub, is entitled �Bop bop a shoo-bop duck.� An approximate transcription follows, although I�m not sure even my ethnographic training is adequate to capture the nuance of this particular masterpiece, surreal as it may be:

Bop bop a shoo-bop duck

Bop a bop a boo bop duck
Quack Quack a shoo-bop bap

Colors coming on the duck
Bop bop a shoo-bop duck
You take the green piece and put it on his head
Bop Bop boppity
Then you take the orange piece
and you make his beak and feet orange.
You take the black part
and then he goes quack quack.

And the river went sploosh sploosh
Bop a boo bop duck
Then number two goes
Bop shoo-bop duck
That�s over now; this is laying down
Bop bop a shoo bop ba ba ba
Da duck da boo ba ba
Da duck ba ba shoo bop ba

A bop ba shuck
A boop ba shook
A bop ba shuck
A boop boo shop
Annnnnd POW!

After AJ�s fabulous show, I must admit to feeling some performance anxiety at lullaby time. My usual rendition of Sha-na-na�s �Goodnight Sweetheart� (with me barking out all the parts) just paled by comparison. I�m going to have to work on my repertoire.

[second entry today]

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