I *heart* remix culture

[liv]

So first of all there was Dumb ways to die, an incredibly morbid yet strangely cute transport safety video that went viral. Then rysmiel pointed me to Cool things to find which is, um, a Mars Rover / safety video mashup, I guess? with added surreality.

Then some friends in a locked post started writing DWTD verses on a Biblical theme. My best attempt was:

Offer incense when you've had a skinful
Encourage your neighbours to be sinful
Disobey your parents and refuse to change
Get caught in Saul's spear-throwing range

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die
Bible ways to die, so many dumb ways to die...

But it turns out this kind of thing is strangely addictive, I've written half a dozen other ridiculous Biblical death couplets since I saw the post; I almost can't help myself.

So there you go. Of all the unlikely crossovers, Bible with horribly morbid safety PSA must rank pretty highly. (In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, when I say the original DWTD is morbid, I am really not joking. It's about the same style of humour as the Darwin Awards, and the fact that all the characters in it are adorable cartoons doesn't entirely detract from that.)

Cool things to find is already subtitled. If you particularly want the words to the original DWTD, there's a karaoke version...

Comments

[jack]

My first thought was "be anyone other than Elijah or Cain" or "be anyone other than Noah", but I couldn't make it funny, or make it rhyme :)

[liv]

Be favoured by God more, or less, than Cain
Lack fiery chariots to return again
Have Jepthe, not Jairus for your dad
Assume Noah's ark is just some fad

[jack]

ROFL!

[lethargic_man]

Seconded!

[lethargic_man]

We live in a strange century.

[liv]

Yeah, but strange in cool ways :-)

[atreic]

Post all the rest of them! And you're welcome to cross post mine if you want :) It is addictive, isn't it, I found myself writing more in the shower. I think they'd make a nice quiz for children's church (or Jewish equivalent) aimed at 11 year old boys - a bit like Horrible Histories... but the parents might complain...

[liv]

You're right, this'd be great for pre-teen boys! Although maybe not the last verse, I'm starting to get into offensive territory here.

Challenge Moses for the leadership
Let reluctant prophets stay on your ship
Let your townsfolk rape your guest
Gather sticks on the day of rest

Dumb ways to die...

Drink some milk in Jael's tent
Touch the mountain where Moses went
Try to grow too fat to be stabbed
Trust Delilah when your secret's blabbed

Dumb ways to die...

Rape Jacob's daughter when uncircumcised
Wank when your wife should be fertilized
Get stuck with the ticket marked "for the Lord"
Live by the sword and you'll die by the sword

[lethargic_man]

I like, except:

Try to grow too fat to be stabbed

Poor causality here.

Wank when your wife should be fertilized

Do you really think that was what his sin was?

[liv]

Hm, how would you sum up the sin of Onan in one line? I know that the verse has been misused as if it were against masturbation in general, which is why I specified the circumstances that made it problematic. Wank has the advantage of being only one syllable – I can't think of a short way to say "perform coitus interruptus" – but it does have the disadvantage that it kind of implies the stereotypical and incorrect interpretation of the story. Maybe pull out is better, but that is starting to get too obscure, and it still fails to cover the point that this was supposed to be a levirate marriage and the problem was not that Tamar was Onan's wife but specifically that she was his brother's widow.

The thing with Eglon, it's true that his being fat didn't cause him to die, but it did cause his death to be more black-comical than it would have been if he'd been a normal size. So it was a dumb way to die in the literal sense, not a dumb way to get yourself killed.

[lethargic_man]

Hm, how would you sum up the sin of Onan in one line?

Who said I could? ;^b (There's a reason you're writing these verses and not me!)

[liv]

I really have to stop this, though, because now my brain is trying to set the end of Al chet:

Get stoned, burned or crushed or hanged from a tree
By the Beth Din's august decree

Four ways to die, 1-2-3 four ways to die

Incur a smiting by Heaven's hand
Die in childbirth for what you've planned

Commit sins and die, commit all these sins and die...

[lethargic_man]

crushed

I thought of this post after seeing the relevant comment here. (My internal response was: I should have thought of that!)

[atreic]

I love your verses _and_ your comment on your verses :-)

[liv]

:-) Thank you! But please stop encouraging me before I die of earworm.

[lilacsigil]

That song/video makes me proud to be an Australian!

[liv]

Yay, Aussie pride. It makes me a little bit proud to be a netizen, too.