From: bilh@pd.jaring.my   
      
   On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 12:24:01 PM UTC, Piper wrote:   
   > What does this mean "eat my starch"?   
   >    
   > Someone enlighten me, please.   
      
   Zappa is the one who added "join the march" to a long pre-existing "eat my   
   starch" phrase. FZ did that to match the rhyme and rhythm.   
      
   "Eat my starch" is a phrase etched into the minds of American kiddies of a   
   certain generation or two.   
      
   Apparently comes from a playscript, written for kiddies, from 1946. And that   
   play in turn was based on a story for kiddies (a 'fairy tale', as they are   
   called in some cultures; a 'morality tale' or 'moral tale' as they are called   
   in others) from 1935.   
      
   The 1935 morality tale has as characters an elderly dame, a wood cutter, and a   
   sparrow. To cut a long story short, the wood cutter goes out to chop wood   
   during daylight hours. The dame does domestic chores. And she interacts with   
   the sparrow. One day she    
   is doing a chore with starch (I take it to be commercially retailed starch   
   flakes, the stuff bought at a store to make up a solution to stiffen cotton   
   clothes; note the importance of the Great Depression, which focused the   
   attention of people on their    
   pocketbook when it came to paying for the necessities of life). And the   
   sparrow cannot resist eating some flakes of starch. The old dame says: '"From   
   now on you shall never be able to eat my starch again!" And she drew out her   
   sewing scissors and quickly    
   clipped the bird's tongue. The bird swiftly flew out of the house, and into   
   the depths of the forest, fearful of his life.'   
      
   For impressionable youth of the day, the slicing of the tongue with scissors   
   was quite something. Especially when delivered by a school teacher or other   
   figure of authority.   
      
   Source 1: Journal of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. Volume 6.   
   1935. published by the American Association for Health, Physical Education,   
   and Recreation.     
      
   In 1946, that morality tale was turned into a play for kiddies. The play had   
   much the same three characters. But 10 years later, no kiddy was familiar with   
   wood cutters. So the characters were the Old Man, the Old Lady, and the   
   Sparrow. The Old Man    
   gained a lot of comfort from interacting with Sparrow. But Sparrow made the   
   social blunder of eating the Old Duck's starch.   
      
   Sparrow: 'I am so hungry. If I could only ...'.    
      
   - the inevitable eating of starch to deal with hunger -   
      
   Old Lady: Did you eat my starch? (She goes to the cage and drags out the   
   Sparrow.) Come here, you ungrateful bird. Did you eat the starch? (She shakes   
   the Sparrow until the feathers fly.)    
      
   Sparrow (Very much frightened): W-w-well, y-yes, I did.   
      
   Then of course the snip of the scissors.   
      
   Source 2: Plays: The Drama Magazine for Young People. Volume 6. 1946.   
      
   Now - apart from the coincidence that both sources are Volume 6 (which leads   
   some people to think of 666 the Mark of the Beast and all that), Frank Vincent   
   Zappa was born in December 1940. So he would have been an impressionable 6 or   
   7 years old when    
   Volume 6 of Plays was published. Or perhaps he'd stumbled upon a copy of the   
   1935 Journal of Health etc.   
      
   None of that is documented and we've missed the chance to ask FZ in an   
   interview.   
      
   There you go. Just another case of vivid literary images flooding the minds of   
   concerned youth of today.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)