“You shall not pass!”

THE LORD OF THE RINGS VERSION: “You shall not pass!”        Gandalf the wizard         These are Gandalf’s defiant words to a huge Balrog demon on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, in a dramatic, pivotal scene in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Fellowship of the Ring.         The Balrog is pursuing Frodo and the other members of “The Fellowship” who are trying to prevent Middle Earth from being conquered by the Dark Lord, Sauron, and his army of evil monsters. Gandalf saves Frodo and the others by standing on the stone bridge after they have crossed, blocking the Balrog. He tells the creature “You shall not pass!” Then he uses his magic staff to shatter the bridge to pieces. Gandalf and the Balrog both fall with it into the abyss below, presumably to their deaths.         Because Tolkien was a Word War I veteran, it is believed that Gandalf’s words may been inspired by the defiant war slogan “They shall not pass!” This slogan was originally made famous by French troops fighting the Germans at the bloody Battle of Verdun in World War I. In 1936, it was adopted by anti-fascist forces defending Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.        “You shall not pass!” became an Internet meme after the line was used in Peter Jackson’s film The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), featuring actor Ian McKellen as Gandalf. The movie includes an epic depiction of Gandalf confronting the Balrog and saying the those words, while holding his sword and staff. There are now thousands of generally humorous uses and variations of the quote posted online. Some of my favorites are below...

THE LORD OF THE BRIDGE VERSION: “YOU SHALL NOT PASS...in New Jersey!”        A headline in the Huffington Post’s Google+ feed, linking to a story about the so-called “Bridgegate” scandal.        The scandal erupted in early January of 2014, after leaked emails revealed that a top aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered the closure of certain traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge to purposefully create horrendous traffic jams into the city of Fort Lee, because the city’s mayor had declined to endorse Christie in the recent Gubernatorial election.

THE ANTI-HOMOPHOBIA VARIATION: “You shall not pass judgement.”        Slogan on a photo posted on The Confessions of a Geek Queen blog, showing actor Ian McKellen at a Gay Pride parade.

THE PRO-LIBRARY VARIATION: “You shall not pass! Without research help Ask a Librarian.”        Online poster created by the Mississippi Library Commission

THE BROKEN URINAL ADAPTATION: “You shall not piss!”        Sign taped onto an out-of-order urinal, in a photo posted on the Karma Decay site

THE BROKEN WIND ADAPTATION: “You shall not pass…gas in an elevator and blame it on someone else.”        A graphic posted on the Meme Generator site. (One of many using “You shall not pass gas” that you can find online.)

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“All I want for Christmas is…”

THE CLASSIC CHRISTMAS NOVELTY SONG: “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, My two front teeth, see my two front teeth. Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth, Then I could wish you ‘Merry Christmas.’”       Donald Gardner (1913-2004)        American music teacher and songwriter        The chorus of his song “All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)”         Gardner wrote the song in 1944, when he was a music teacher at the Smithtown, New York, elementary school. It was first recorded and made famous by Spike Jones and His City Slickers in 1948. There are two similar but slightly different stories about the origin of the song. One story quotes Gardner as saying he heard some kids telling their teacher what they wanted for Christmas that year and noticed they “were all using the same phrase, ‘All I want for Christmas.’” Then, recalled Gardner, “the teacher said something funny and they all laughed, and I noticed that 16 of the 22 in the class were missing their front teeth.” According to another version, Gardner had asked the class of 22 second grade students to help him create a Christmas song by telling him how they would complete the sentence, “All I want for Christmas is...” As they answered, he noticed that 16 of them had noticeable lisps due to missing front teeth.        After Gardner wrote the song, his students performed it at the school’s annual Christmas pageant. A local woman who worked for the Witmark music publishing company heard it and told her boss. He liked the song and Witmark published sheet music for it, but it wasn’t recorded until 1948. That year, it was recorded for the first time by Spike Jones and his group, with band member George Rock singing it in a falsetto child’s voice with a whistling lisp. Their recording was released on December 6, 1948 and soon hit #1 on several Billboard music charts. It went on to become a modern Christmas classic.

THE MARIAH CAREY DIS-MAS QUOTE: “All I want for Christmas, Mariah, is you to stop performing for dictators.”        Alexandra Petri           Writer of the satirical ComPost blog on the Washington Post site         Petri used the line above (a takeoff on Carey's popular Christmas song “All I want for Christmas is You”) in the headline of a post about critics of the singer’s apparent willingness to perform paid gigs for dictators. As Petri noted, Carey did a paid performance for Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi Gaddafi in 2011, for a fee of $1 million. Recently, for another million dollar fee, Carey performed at an event in Angola that was attended by Jose Eduardo dos Santos, another controversial authoritarian who has held the reins in that country for 33 years.        (At left, Mariah Carey poses with Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos.)

THE JEWISH CHRISTMAS WISH VERSION: “Of my choices for St. Nick Seinfeld, Zach Braff and Jon Stewart Are the boys with a big schtick. ‘Cause I just want them here tonight Holding on to me so tight I’ll take Zac Efron too All I want for Christmas is Jews.”        The HOT BOX comedy troupe’s parody song “All I Want For Christmas is...Jews”

THE GUN-TOTIN’ TODDLERS VERSION: “All I want for Christmas is an AR-15 with an attached grenade launcher...huh? Wait a sec, that’s not how the song goes! Or is it?…At the Scottsdale Gun Club in Arizona, kids (and adults) can get their pictures snapped with Santa and an automatic weapon of their choice – or several automatic weapons of their choice. So much for a Silent Night.”        Jacqueline Burt        American magazine writer, book author and blogger        In a post in her column on The Stir website

THE SHAUN WHITE NUDE PICS VERSION: “All I want for Christmas is for naked pictures of Shaun White to stay unpurchased and unpublished.”        Richard Langford        Columnist for the Bleacher Report website        His comment in an article about TMZ’s revelation that X-rated photos of professional snowboarder and skateboarder White having sex with a female fan were being shopped around to the highest bidder

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Everything Else from QuoteCounterquote.com!

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About God’s mysterious way(s)…

THE OFTEN MISQUOTED ORIGIN: “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.”        William Cowper (1731-1800)        British poet and hymn writer        From his Hymn No. 35, “Light Shining Out of Darkness”         These are the opening lyrics of the hymn, which was first published in Olney Hymns (1779). The first two lines are usually misquoted as “God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform” and often wrongly assumed to be a Bible quote.

BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS COUNTERQUOTE: “God does not work in mysterious ways — it’s blindingly obvious when he’s dropping you a big hint.”        A comment I read in 2010 on a now-vanished blog         At the time, it stuck me as something that could be applied to the Gulf Oil Spill, which had recently occurred (and which still may be doing mysterious things to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico).

COLBERT’S VERSION:  “God works in mysterious ways. But at least he works. He’s never on welfare in mysterious ways.”        Stephen Colbert        One of his straight-faced faux Conservative quips on the June 23, 2010 episode of The Colbert Report

ATHEIST VARIATION #1: “There are no atheists in a foxhole, and there are, apparently, no atheists in the Ku Klux Klan. God sometimes moves in mysterious ways, His lip service to exact.”          Attributed to Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983)        American author and journalist

ATHEIST VARIATION #2: “I have yet to see a good answer for why God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good – or even anything close to all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good – and still isn’t perceived by everybody. Does anybody have one? (And if you say ‘Mysterious ways,’ I’m going to scream.)”          Greta Christina         Atheist blogger and author        In a post she wrote for AlterNet

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As American as apple pie, cherry pie – and marijuana...

H. RAP BROWN’S INCENDIARY CHERRY PIE QUOTATION: “Violence…is as American as cherry pie.”        H. Rap Brown (a.k.a. Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin)        A prominent black civil rights activist in the 1960s, currently in prison for killing African-American police officer Ricky Kinchen.        In the 1800s, American-style apple pies became known for their special sweetness and flavor and the term “American apple pie” was used to distinguish them from apple pies made in other countries. The phrase “as American as apple pie” dates back to at least 1920. By the 1940s, it was a common idiomatic expression.        The most famous — and infamous — variation of that expression was created by H. Rap Brown in a press conference he gave on July 27, 1967. Brown told reporters:        “I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie.”        It’s not clear why he chose cherry pie instead of apple pie. But in his controversial 1969 autobiography Die Nigger Die!, Brown helped popularize his version of the expression by using it in the pithier form that’s usually cited: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”         (Read more about this quotation on my ThisDayinQuotes.com site)

THE FOOTBALL HATER’S APPLICATION: “We live in a culture where bullying is as American as apple pie.”        Tom Reilly         Columnist for the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle (Millbury, Massachusetts)        In an opinion piece published on November 27, 2013        (The cartoon lampooning Miami Dolphins football bully Richie Incognito was done by Nate Beeler, cartoonist for the Columbus Dispatch.)

THE YANKEES HATERS APPLICATION: “Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax.”        Mike Royko (1932-1997)        Legendary Chicago sportswriter        One of his most widely-cited zingers (though I couldn’t find a specific date or source for when he said it)

THE DEEP-FRIED FOOD LOVERS VERSION: “Today, deep-fried food is almost as American as apple pie—which, incidentally, can be dunked into a vat of oil and emerge with a greasy, crunchy coating, along with almost any kind of food.”        Marina Koren        Staff correspondent at the National Journal        In her November 27, 2013 column on the National Journal website         (Cartoon by James Cahill via the DeviantArt website.)

THE WEED LOVERS VERSION: “SAMHSA [The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] research determined more than 100 million Americans have consumed marijuana...Marijuana is as American as apple pie - and healthier.”        William Breathes        Writer for the Denver Westworld News        In the November 14, 2013 edition of his "Dear Stoner" column

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Life is like riding a bicycle…or maybe a horse, a wave, or an escalator...

EINSTEIN’S POPULAR (AND SADLY IRONIC) QUOTATION: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”        Albert Einstein (1879-1955)        German-born theoretical physicist         In a letter to his son Eduard Einstein, dated February 5, 1930        Since this famous bicycle metaphor appears on many websites and in Facebook posts without any specific date or source, I wondered if it might be another one of the phony Einstein quotes that float around online. So, I emailed one of my favorite quote mavens, Dr. Mardy Grothe, and asked him. He said it was indeed a real quote and told me he cited the source in his new quotation database, Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations (an amazing resource for quotation buffs).        As documented there, the origin of the popular saying is a letter Einstein wrote to his second son Eduard on February 5, 1930, while Eduard was studying medicine at Zurich University. In the book Einstein: His Life and Universe, author Walter Isaacson notes some other less-famous pieces of fatherly advice that Albert passed on in the letter. Commenting on the fact that Eduard had recently become enamored with an older woman, Albert suggested he should instead have a dalliance with some younger “plaything.” He also told Eduard he should get a job, saying: “Even a genius like Schopenhauer was crushed by unemployment.”        The line about keeping one’s balance turned out to be sadly ironic. In 1930, Edward became increasingly imbalanced. Not long after he received his father’s “bicycle” letter, he abandoned his studies and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1932, Eduard was committed to a psychiatric sanatorium in Zurich, for the first of many times. He eventually died there in 1965, at the age of 55.

THE MOVIE TAGLINE VARIATION: “Life is like riding a bicycle…As long as you keep pedaling, you won’t fall down.”        Poster tagline for the movie Forest for the Trees (1998)

THE HORSE RIDERS’ VERSION: “Life is like riding a beautiful, wild stallion. You either throw yourself up in the saddle and ride the wind, or you let him bronc and throw you to the ground.”        Alice Collins          American newspaper columnist        From one of the humorous “Cookies ‘n Chaos” columns she wrote for Chicago-area newspapers, collected in the book Cookies ‘N Chaos: A Selection of Reader's Favorites from the Past 25 Years (2006)

THE WAVE RIDERS’ VERSION: “Life is like riding a wave. One stupid mistake and its all over...but if u get it right it can be the ultimate high.”        Anonymous Facebook post        (Wikimedia Commons photo, from the page about “Big Wave Surfing.”)

INSCRUTABLE ESCALATOR ANALOGY #1: “Sometimes, life is like riding an escalator. We stand fairly still and it just carries us along. Sometimes, though, it feels as if we’re trying to go in one direction and the path of travel is heading somewhere else.”        Jonathan Cainer         Astrologer and author        In the August 18, 2012 edition of his syndicated Daily Horoscope column. (From that day’s horoscope for people born under the sign of Leo.)

INSCRUTABLE ESCALATOR ANALOGY #2: “Life is like riding a department store escalator which dismounts you on the floor of oblivion, which is right next to men’s shoes.”         Jimmy Jabroni         American humorist         In his book Everyday, Ordinary, Insane Life (2006)         (The “Escher Escalator” animated GIF is from The Mighty Optical Illusions site)

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