UPDATE: “Fans” tag added. Click through to the comments for a classic example of the pathology.

From the department of WTF comes these step-by-step instructions for making your own finger cymbal covers for the pampered, crocheting bellydancer that lives deep in your soul.

Now, it may surprise you to know that I have bellydanced; I would not characterize myself as a bellydancer any more than as a toothbrusher, but I’m better than a beginner even if that damn reverse camel still throws my back out (and I defy anyone to maintain a good seat on a reversing camel without damaging one vertebra, or at least snapping the elastic on it).

And I have zills. From Saudi Arabia. Smuggled in my mother’s luggage (I wish I could claim it was sewn into the lining of her fur coat, but what the hell would she be doing in Riyadh in a fur coat unless it was protecting herself from the omnipresent aggressive, Antarctic airconditioning, or even perhaps wrapped in her silken unmentionables, but my mother, glam though her latter years were, preferred unmentionables of practical and sturdy 100% cotton or sometimes even nylon, and all the colours of the beige Canadian rainbow, so yeah, maybe wrapped in a pair of buttercup yellow size L granny panties, woohoo, James Bond eat your heart out) or was it in a box marked “Sand” so the customs inspectors didn’t open it up? Yeah, either they have very stupid export customs inspectors in Saudi Arabia or the CIA is using “Sand” as a code word, and given the company my mother kept in Riyadh, I’m betting the latter and the customs inspectors have been told to lay off.

Zills. It’s a blog post about zill covers.

In any case, whether you’re a bellydancer or not, good or bad, the first thing you notice about zills is: they make a lot of noise.

It’s sort of what they’re for.

So we at the ol’ raincoaster blog were somewhat nonplussed and even subtractussed to see instructions for crocheting home-made zill mufflers, it being said that, lo, they were like, so way noisy.

Or maybe that’s just me.

In any case, the covers themselves are pretty enough, and in a nice, sparkly yarn might even add a tantalizing “you can glimpse the zill, but you cannot touch it” piquance to the zill-dancing experience, or perhaps that is only for those who identify too closely with inanimate brass objects, not that we know anyone like that around here.

In any case, the zills generally sound quite pretty even if you don’t know what you’re doing. We at the ol’ raincoaster blog can only pray that this twisted genius turns her attention next to something of more practical utility, such as:

• violin mufflers
• clarinet covers
• accordion muffs
• cymbal socks

Your suggestions?

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