Today’s scan yielded a surfeit of SHOW TUNES WEEK!! possibilities. “Sister Golden Hair” led me to Hair, which led to of course that time they performed Hair on Head of the Class. But you know, without the nudity, since it was a prime-time sitcom and all. And a high school! In fact, I think there was probably a debate about the nudity. It might have even been a Very Special Episode. The ’80s were full of VSEs … OK, then a joyous “mazel tov!” in that insipid Black Eyed Peas song led me to Fiddler on the Roof, which TGOTS and my mom and I watched from the balcony at the local music hall, but off on the side, so you just saw the players in profile the whole time, yidle deedle deedle dee … OK, then a discussion of baseball even led me to Damn Yankees, ohhh Damn Yankees, with its young strong handsome men and its rollicking Devil and Lola’s mambo.

BUT. Then I happened upon “Gypsy” (yes, Stevie again). And it became so immediately clear that there was one thing and one thing only to discuss today: Ethel Merman.

Was there ever such brass, such belting out, such belligerence, such brilliance? She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t thin, her voice was … unusual. But damn, she was Ethel Merman, and that was enough.

I almost can’t write about her, I love her so much. Stomping her way through Annie Get Your Gun. Carousing her way through Anything Goes. Masterminding her way through Gypsy. Always with that voice. Blow, Gabriel, blow!

One of my favorite apocryphal stories about Ethel: She goes to a party and encounters someone with a “swear jar,” in which you were supposed to deposit a quarter or fifty cents each time you cussed. Ethel took one look and threw in a twenty-dollar bill.

A few years ago, TGOTS gave me Ethel’s “autobiography,” which was fairly clearly her rambling to a ghostwriter. It was everything you might imagine — the heartbreaks, the triumphs, the tough talk, the namedropping — and It. Was. Awesome.

Sometimes when I’m heading into an especially challenging situation — a job interview, say, or a cocktail party where I know no one — I pretend I’m Ethel. May she rest in peace. Or, more likely, in glorious discord.