Cellar Door by deadlockvictim

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Cellar Door

POSTED BY: DEADLOCKVICTIM
UPDATED: Friday, February 16, 2007 18:53
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Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:49 AM

Cellar Door…the most beautiful words in the English language, or vague pop-culture reference?

This phrase keeps popping up. I’ve heard it in more than one movie, and in Our Mrs. Reynolds – Yosafbridge tells Wash, “for years I’ve seen nothing but roofs and steeples and the cellar door…”

Can there be vast cellar door conspiracy being perpetrated upon an unsuspecting populace by unscrupulous hardware salesmen… what gives?

A reference in the film Donnie Darko, as well.

Anyone else? Or am I simply hearing things that aren’t there…?

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:13 PM

PENGUIN

Dark things happen behind the celler door...

King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:37 PM

DAYVE

I have wondered about this myself.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cellar door is a combination of words in the English language once characterized by J. R. R. Tolkien to have an especially beautiful sound. In his 1955 essay "English and Welsh", commenting on his affection towards the Welsh language, Tolkien wrote:

"Most English-speaking people...will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant."
Tolkien also once used the phrase to illustrate a point about his writing process during an interview.

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:38 PM

MSG

Cellar opposite of attic or roof and most commonly missed antonym in the entire test I give my students. Most of them do not know what a cellar is"_ Go figure

"I'm not all that interested in the mental health of people who want to kill me. "- Leroy Jethro Gibbs

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:44 PM

RMMC

It's a conspiracy perpetrated by......

Cellar Door Productions!!!

Beware, they're everywhere. Here, take this tin foil hat to protect yourself.

*****
RMMC

When we're down, don't frown. Come join the camp-out at serenitymovie.org.

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:46 PM

MSG

but but I have this cunning knitted one. Isn't that enough?

"I'm not all that interested in the mental health of people who want to kill me. "- Leroy Jethro Gibbs

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Thursday, February 15, 2007 5:34 PM

SCHOONER

I don't have the references to back this up, so please take it with a healthy dose of salt, ok.

In the early 20th century there was a poetry movement to divorce the pure sound of language from its meaning. Advocates of this school spoke about the impossibility of combinging the most artistic sounding poetry within the limitations of the English language, and still have it make sense. Their most famous quote was that the most beautiful sounding phrase was "Cellar Door"

The members of this school produced poetry that consisted either of words strung together purely for how they sounded, or just phonemes that had no relation to any language at all. The movement never quite caught on. To quote Jayne, "saw that coming"

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Friday, February 16, 2007 4:24 AM

DEADLOCKVICTIM

Sorry, I can’t seem to let this go. So, cellar door or celador or selador holds a literary meaning simply because of the way it sounds? Is that the only reason we see it used so often? And I wonder if by using the phrase in Firefly, Joss was giving a shout out to Tolkien. Is it really just a cheap trick or a meaningful part of our culture? I am scratching my head as we speak. Once again, I apologize… stuff like this bugs me for days on end.
- I found some more about cellar door on Wikipedia. (if you are interested)….
-
References in literature
In Larry Niven's A World Out of Time, the city that the protagonist wakes up in, after 240 years of cryogenic sleep, is called Selerdor.
The cover of Stephen King's On Writing is a photograph of a cellar door.
In the comic book series Ultimate Spider-Man, Norman Osborn uses "cellar door" as a codeword to trigger his son's hypnosis.
An island in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series is named Selidor.

References in film and television

Monty Python's Woody and Tinny Words sketch finds humor in the pure sounds of English words.
The phrase is mentioned in the 2001 film Donnie Darko during a conversation between Donnie, the film's protagonist, and his English teacher. The English teacher states, "A famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that cellar door is the most beautiful." In the director's commentary Richard Kelly mistakenly attributes the phrase to Edgar Allan Poe. It was actually J.R.R. Tolkien.
Celador is the name of the British entertainment production company that produced the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and the 2002 dramatic film entitled Dirty Pretty Things.

References in music
The Cellar Door was a club on 34th Street in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. that operated in the 1960s and 70s. It was one of the premier music spots in Washington and many important artists of the era played there. The Danny Gatton "Redneck Jazz Explosion" live performance recordings were made here on New Year's Eve 1978
A 1970 Miles Davis album is entitled The Cellar Door Sessions, also featuring Keith Jarrett. It was recorded on December 16-19 at the Washington, DC club mentioned above.
Cellar Door is the name of the 2004 album by musician John Vanderslice.
The phrase appears in Neil Young's "The Needle and the Damage Done".
The phrase is also used in the song "Angelsea" by Cat Stevens.
Holly Brook's debut album, Like Blood Like Honey, features the song "Cellar Door" as the closing track.
Death metal band Glass casket have a song titled "Cellar Door" on the album We Are Gathered Here Today.
Cellardoor is an independent electro-acoustic Brooklyn, NY-based pop band.
The phrase appears in the song "The House That Dripped Blood" by The Mountain Goats.
The Lemonheads' hit "It's A Shame About Ray" includes the lyric "the cellar door was open, I could never stay away."
The hardcore/screamo band Escape The Fate has a song titled "Cellar Door" on their album "Dying Is Your Latest Fashion" (Epitaph Records, 2006)
American power metal band Cellador acquired their name from a combination of the two words.
"Cellar Doors, Donnie!" is a song title by the screamo band Mozart Season.
The phrase appears repeatedly in Pearls Before Swine's song "Playmate."
"Lock the cellar door" is a lyric in the song Talk Dirty to Me by Poison.

Other
The phrase "Cellar door" is also used to refer to the point where tourism meets winemaking — a shop at a winery that allows visitors to taste and buy the wine made there or using grapes from that area.
The phrase is referenced in online game Kingdom of Loathing, as you must enter a bar cellar to fight rats. "The bartender shows you where the cellar door is (you pause a moment to admire the phrase) and you descend into the darkness."
There is a Cellar Door Drive in Bristow, Virginia.
The Cellar Door is a resale shop known as "Cedar Rapids' #2 Tourist Attraction." ( wwww.thecellardoor.net)
There is a reference to "cellar door" in the monologue "Alby" by Emo Phillips
There is song named "CellarDoor" by Nicolas Kuecken
Cellar Door is an Icelandic band www.myspace.com/cellardooriceland.

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Friday, February 16, 2007 6:53 PM

RMMC

And earlier joking aside, there really is a Cellar Door Productions in Canada which makes movies and TV shows. http://www.cellardoor.tv/

*****
RMMC

When we're down, don't frown. Come join the camp-out at serenitymovie.org.

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