Here's what I plan on reading and watching in vague order the rest of the summer and into the fall and winter.

TV Series (1969–1974) - S2.E2 ∙ The Rock Collector

Bagpuss, oh, Bagpuss

Oh, fat, furry cat puss,

Wake up and look at the thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright, be golden and light.

If you don't know, Bagpuss is a kids' show from the 70s (?) about a toy cat and his chums who keep finding Objects and being like "tf is this brah" and Bagpuss is like "this is the foolish fluffy fiddlestick from Finland you flibbertigibbets" and then tells them all about the foolish fluffy fiddlestick from Finland. And then the woodpecker (chum #1) goes like nyehhh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nonsense (direct quote btw) and the rag doll and frögge (chums #2 and #3) are like ACKSHUALLY it's a fly swatter but nice try bozo. And then they sing a song. There are some mice sometimes too :3

ANYWAY one episode starts with them finding a weird tartan rat thing (fig. A) and they're like "🤔" and then Bagpuss gets his Thinking Cap and clocks that it's a "small soft Hamish" and tells the story of Tavish McTavish, a Scottish fella who lived in the mountains because every other human being fucking hated him cause he was bad at playing the bagpipes. And then one day he hears someone else being really shit at bagging the pipes and he's like "Crikey!!! It must be my long-lost brother Hamish McTavish!" And then it walks up and it's actually this weird tartan creature??? And it's small and soft and he dubs it the Hamish (Fig. B) because its call sounds like his brother playing the bagpipes. And by the way it also has a long-lost brother. And then it fucks off cause its family show up and Tavish is all alonesome :( so he moves BACK down the mountain to civilisation and just never plays the bagpipes again. Cause everyone hates it. And he never finds his brother ever again, too bad so sad, the end.

But not really the end cause then the woodpecker goes like "Bagpuss you dopey twat it's a porcupine just without any spines" and Bagpuss goes like "bull fucking shit there ain't no thing" and the frögge and the rag doll sing a song to try motivate the porcupine to grow some spines? But the song is about a porcupine "sailing" a hot air balloon around the world and then its spines pop the balloon and it falls? And they realise at the end that that was a fairly fucking stupid choice of song to motivate it to grow MORE spines and anyway guys false alarm it's actually just a pincushion. So then the mice chant while dancing in circles and ritualistically stabbing it with dozens of pins like it's Julius fucking Caesar (Fig. C) and THEN the episode ends. Fucking WILD.

But seriously you should watch Bagpuss it's so good

Fig. A: The porcupine pre-ritualistic murder

Fig. B: The small soft Hamish engages in intimate relations with Tavish McTavish

Fig. C: The mice dance around the perforated corpse of the porcupine