istanbul or constantinople

some impish fun for the remarkably foolish

Last night a neighbour was visiting.

She told us that he son was traveling. He was in Turkey.

I asked here where.

She said ‘Istanbul’

I replied with ‘not Constantinople?’

She said, ‘No, Istanbul,’

Me: ‘Not Constantinople?’

By now, she didn’t get what I was doing.

Laura did.

She was sitting in the next room, mouth gaping, eyes wide, vigorously nodding encouragement.

I continued: “Even old New York was once New Amsterdam”

Still clueless, she replied: “Really”

Me: “Why they changed it, I can’t say”

The next part blew me away. Completely without prompting and utterly unaware, she finished the lyric: “I guess people like it better that way.”

Laura, listening from the other room was barely keeping quite. Her fist pumps and head nodding had energy rivaling that at an AC/DC concert.

I’m not sure what psychographic line I was crossing - Gen x vs boomer? Maybe weirdo theatre geek vs non weirdo theatre geek? I dunno. Together we had a conversation where my side of the conversation was prewritten by ‘They Might Be Giants.”

But if you’re still not on the bus, check out this song.

Or this video.

Then?

Try to find a way today to get someone to play the ‘Istanbul (not Constantinople) game.’

That is: Try to work song lyrics into your daily conversations. See how much of the song you can use and still have your conversation make sense.

How weird can you make it?

Let me know how it goes.