User:Famine/Do some work

If there's one thing that routinely pisses me off here it's that most people don't actually do any work on articles. Most of the folks who are running around this website are doing the equivalent of graffiti tagging - they slap a 20 second mark on an article and move on. Not too many people are painting entire subway cars, and making murals under bridges.

So if you want me to respect you, Do some work.

If you're still confused:

Work is not

Adding a template to an article.

Adding a quote to an article.

Adding an image to an article.

Adding a joke to an article.

Adding a comment to a talk page.

Adding a forum post.

Adding mindless banter on user_talk pages.

Work is

Researching a subject in detail on the internet, wikipedia, an encyclopedia, etc.

Crafting an article from that research, using appropriate formatting, spelling, grammar, tone, etc.

Creating/finding images which support your written page, adding useful/witty captions, and properly spacing them so that they add to the look of the article, rather than make it hard to read.

Reading and re-reading your article, to make sure it makes sense, flows, emphasizes the important bits.

Polishing your article so that it shines.

When I work

To be fair, I don't "work" much, because I'm saddled with the crap job of being an admin. But on occasion, when I have the time, or I feel obliged to work in order to make those who don't work look bad, I work. Now, I don't know exactly how much any of you know about how I or anyone else works, so I've decided to give you an example.

The Beginning

I saved Accordion from VFD because I thought it had promise. At this moment, it looks like this. Over the next few hours/days, I'm going to transform it into a useful article, keeping the same premise as it currently has. And I'll walk you through the steps.

The Idea

The premise of this article is that "The Accordion is a book in the Bible located in the Old Testament, just after Job but before Deuteronomy. It is the third longest book of the Bible, after Psalms and Finnegan's Wake."

Is this a funny idea? Well, it has at least some chuckle-value. Psalms are actually in the bible, and many have been sung for the last 3000 years or so. Finnegan's Wake is a traditional Irish song. However, while used somewhat in Irish music, the Accordion is more well-known for Polka, but also used in some traditional Jewish music.

That being said, I think I can spin "The Accordion" as a book in the Old Testament.

The Starting Research

To do this, I'm going to need some research. I need to know the following things:

1. The history of the Accordion.
2. Some famous Polka songs which feature it.
3. Books of the Old Testament which have themes which would fit re-labeling them "The Book of Accordion".
4. More about the Book of Psalms
5. The use of the accordion in traditional Jewish music, as Judaism strongly intersects with the Old Testament.

Rather than use authoritative sources, I'm going to just skim off Wikipedia.

The History of the Accordion

(From Wikipedia:Accordion)

The accordion's basic form was invented in Berlin in 1822 by Friedrich Buschmann. The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that used free reeds driven by a bellows...

This does not necessarily help me.

An accordion is a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as squeezeboxes. The accordion is played by compression and expansion of a bellows, which generates air flow across reeds; a keyboard or buttons control which reeds receive air flow and therefore the tones produced.

Aaaah, this is more promising. I'd bet you $20 that The Book Of Accordion was first written on a sheet of "free reed aerophone" by a Jewish scribe in....well, when was the book of Psalms written?

The Biblical Research

(From Wikipedia:Psalms)

Jewish tradition maintains that the Psalms are the work of David (seventy-three Psalms are with David's name)...

This places the Psalms being written around 1000 BCE. For our book, how about a bit later...945 BCE. Obviously they were written by F. Buschmann, a Jewish scholar in the ..... Klezmer tradition, it seems.

I also probably need a few sample Psalms to mess with...born-again christan websites, here I come....

Kickass. I can totally bastardize this:

Help Lord, for the godly man ceases to be, For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

They speak falsehood to one another; With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak

May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaks great things.

Who have said, With our tongue we will prevail; Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?

Jewish Music

Since I'm a culturally illiterate hick, I need some quick info.

(From Wikipedia:Klezmer)

כּלי־זמיר, etymologically from Hebrew k'li zemer כלי זמר, "musical instrument") is a musical tradition which parallels Hasidic and Ashkenazic Judaism. Around the 15th century, a tradition of secular (non-liturgical) Jewish music was developed by musicians called kleyzmorim or kleyzmerim. They draw on devotional traditions extending back into Biblical times, and their musical legacy of klezmer continues to evolve today. The repertoire is largely dance songs for weddings and other celebrations. Due to the Ashkenazi lineage of this music, the lyrics, terminology and song titles are typically in Yiddish...

• The hora or zhok is a Moldavian (Romanian) -style dance in a hobbling 3/8 time with beats on 1 and 3, and is even more embellished. The Israeli hora derives its roots from the Moldavian or Bessarabian hora.
• The mazurka and polka, Polish and Czech dances, respectively, were often played for both Jews and Gentiles.

Aaah, that's good stuff. I bet the Book of Accordion is used to celebrate The Hora in the Klezmer tradition.

Now I need a "false idol" in the form of a Jewish pop-star. Google: jewish pop star. Result: Ofra Haza. Wikipedia says:

Ofra Haza (Hebrew: עפרה חזה, IPA [ʕofrɑːh ħazzɑːh]) November 19, 1957 – February 23, 2000) was a popular Israeli singer, actress and international recording artist who died of organ failure or pneumonia, arising from AIDS.

Looks like she was struck down by god for seducing the chosen people away from the teachings of the Book of Accordion. That will do nicely.

Non-English is always good

...gotta find an english to yiddish translation website. Humm...after 5 minutes of poking around, I don't see one that has the translation in it. Will go to Hebrew instead....that was easy apparently Accordion = אכורדיון

Good to know.

Something to work with

Ok, time to put the first bits of this in. Here's what it looks like:

first bits added

What is it missing?

Looking at the above version, I see that it's lacking all the templates smeared over the Wikipedia articles about the Old Testament books. I'll add some...hey - {{scripture}} works well here. I'd add {{jew}} but it is too long and messes up the page.

We also need some more plot...and an ending of sorts. Let me add some.

I think I need a happy Psalm to end this...born-again websites, back I come for Psalms of Thanks.

Now, once again, looking at the Wikipedia articles, they have "Interpretations" and "Trivia" sections. I probably need those.

Interpretations: Well, this is just going to be silly. I think i need to quit after this.

Ok, done for now.

Time So far

Looks like I managed to hack that out in about 3 hours. It still needs work, but it's passable now. Now I need to go and link to it from things like Bible and Old Testament.

Update

Since I started writing about a subject which I was completely ignorant about, I decided to ask someone with some knowledge of the Jewry whether or not I was making any sense. His view was that I was making a moderate amount of sense.

So there you have it, boy and girls. It is possible to write something sarcastic and misinformative about something you are completely ignorant of, provided you have the ambition to spend a little time researching what you're writing about.

That's right - it's not easy, it's not like a blowjob, it's like work. And that's what you need to do. So stop dicking around with templates, and start doing some useful work.