HERMAPHRODITUS AND SALMACIS IN POMPEII

 

Fresco depicting two figures, identified as Hermaphroditus and Salmacis (and Cupid in the middle). From Room 10 of the House of Venus in the Shell, Pompeii. 1st Century CE.

These old acquaintances from Olympus wish you all from all of us: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! 🏳️‍🌈🌈

TEN DONUTS OR FIVE APPLES?

 

For an equal sum of money, you can get ten donuts, but only five apples (half as many). If you opt for the donuts, you get a lot more calories.

But not all calories are created equal. Apples, a fresh fruit, contain fibre and vitamins, while donuts, an ultra-processed food, are full of saturated fats and chemically processed ingredients.

Even though apples are healthier for you, you'll have to eat more of them (three apples) to get the same number of calories as one donut. And it will cost you about half the price more.

The same goes for fresh strawberries, which by the way are usually more expensive out of season (springtime or early summer, depending on the climate), and ultra-processed strawberry jams and preserves (which are way cheaper than fresh strawberries all year round). Not to mention that genuine handmade strawberry preserves cost way more than ultra-processed ones.

Which means the cost-effective choice is not usually the nutritionally-sound one.

Then, why are fresh ingredients and fresh products (like meats, fish, seafood, eggs, fruit, veg, dairy) more expensive? Is it because they have a shorter shelf life? Because they take more effort to produce? For both of these reasons?

Government subsidies also play a role in this price difference; governments do not subsidize leafy greens in the same (huge) way that they subsidize wheat, soy, and corn; three crops that make up a lot of ultra-processed food, so products full of high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil have an unfair advantage. When it comes to cost, the less nutritious foods will win out.

There's also the time factor: cooking at home with fresh ingredients takes more time than purchasing or making ultra-processed food (think cup noodles or canned soup, Knorr risotto...), which is done in up to five minutes.

Cream o' Galloway vanilla ice cream appears to be made from the same ingredients that you might use at home: milk, cream, sugar, skimmed milk powder, egg yolk, vanilla essence. 

That's great, but the result is that the product can't be sold nationwide. Real ice cream is less tolerant of all that transporting around.

The ingredients used in Cream o' Galloway vanilla ice cream are also reflected in the price: £3.60 for 500ml. That's about 14 times more expensive than, for example, Ms Molly's Vanilla, exclusive to Tesco, which is sold nationwide and £1 for two litres. 

Unsurprisingly, Ms Molly uses very different ingredients: reconstituted skimmed milk concentrate, partially reconstituted whey powder (milk), glucose syrup, sugar, dextrose, palm stearin, palm oil, palm kernel oil, emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), stabilisers (guar gum, sodium alginate), flavouring, colours (carotenes).

According to Paul, many of these – palm stearin, palm kernel oil, the reconstituted milks, the emulsifiers – are simply mimicking real and expensive ingredients such as milk, cream, and eggs. This molecular replacement is key to all UPF (ultra-processed food).

Curiosidad del día: el aceite de palma que hay en la Nutella/Nocilla, en la crema de cacahuete, en las galletas... ha sido procesado (refinado, blanqueado, hidrogenado, privado de su sabor) para que dure mucho más y pueda ser usado en más alimentos. En resumen, lo han desnaturalizado.

Palm oil is an interesting example because you’ll see that on many ingredient lists and of course, it is a traditional food. I’ve worked a lot in West and Central Africa, and if you crush a palm nut and eat it, you get this extraordinary spicy bright red oil.

The palm oil that’s in our chocolate spreads, in our peanut butter, in our bread and biscuits is refined, bleached, deodorized, hydrogenated and inter-esterified, in order to take it from that spicy red flavourful oil that spoils quite quickly into an absolutely solid commodity fat that’s interchangeable with anything from chicken fat to beef, soy to butter to any of the other solid fats that we can make out of palm oils. So, yes, we don’t label food accurately. I think that’s fair to say.

So when you’re in these Big Food companies, many of the people at the companies want to do things differently. And I give an example of Emmanuel Faber at Danone who I believe sincerely wanted to make Danone a company that was better for the environment and better for people’s health. He was removed very rapidly by activist investors.

So there’s this trap, this loop of kind of late capitalism, where huge asset funds own these companies and drive these behaviors that generate profit at the expense of everything else. The people who can make a choice aren’t the people in the food companies, they’re not in control. Governments can and doctors can choose. We have signed up to obligations to our patients and the population in general, we’re very clear, we are paid not by those people. I make good money working as a doctor, I can pay all my bills, and so we do have the freedom to say, “I’m not actually going to take money from tobacco, alcohol, food or Pharma” and yet we do.

Ultra-processed food is part of a financialised food system whose purpose is profit. For example, it incentivises squeezing every last sellable ingredient out of things that aren’t even grown for human consumption: soy protein isolate, corn syrup and modified starches all come from crops farmed at vast scale.

UPF dominates our food landscape by winning the global race for money. It harnesses factory farming, industrially fractionates whole foods into substances that are modified and reassembled, produces edible products that are low-cost, convenient, very tasty, and have a long shelf life. These are distributed through the global supply chain, elbowing out less processed and less profitable foods from people’s diets.

“How UPF hacks our brains.” Some of the highlights: since UPF is soft, calorie-dense, and convenient, we eat more of it than we would of other foods.

Having evolved in a competition for market share, UPF mismatches taste signals and nutrition content in ways that drive excessive consumption. The additives in UPF affect our satiety system directly and, for some people UPF is addictive, resulting in unavoidable binges. Healthy or unhealthy eating isn’t about sugar, exercise or willpower, it’s largely about a food system.

So processing is fine and if we eat processed food, most of us should be pretty good at regulating our nutritional intake without an instruction manual. The difficulty that’s been reported since the 1920s is if we eat ultra-processed food, it has been designed in a way that gets around our satiety mechanisms particularly.

There followed, after the Great War, a new era of synthetic food chemistry, in which such ingredients helped to make mass-produced food cheaper and more appealing to the palate, as well as longer-lasting and easier to transport. For cost-conscious, time-poor consumers, these innovations were a godsend. But processed foods, we now know, also seem to drive excessive consumption.

The food industry — by recruiting compliant scientists, funding studies, pushing clever marketing messages and influencing policy — has been able to cook up a self-serving narrative that shifts the blame for the harm their products cause. It is not crisps and fizzy drinks that make us fat, we are deceived into believing, but our own shortcomings in the form of sedentary lifestyles and feeble willpower.

The problem of UPF is systemic, and that the most important solutions must come from governments, scientists, and doctors holding the food industry to account.

Policymakers, doctors and scientists need to see themselves as regulators, and the rules of the road have to be set by governments. Yet, surprisingly, the aim of policy should not be for people to eat less UPF, but rather to have a better set of food choices.

MUERTE POR COCOS / DEATH BY COCONUTS

La Wikipedia tiene un artículo dedicado a las varias formas en las que los cocos puede causar la muerte de los seres humanos:

1. Al caerte un coco desde la copa del cocotero en la cabeza.

2. Al caerte tú desde una gran pila de cocos apilados.

3. Al rodar muy rápido sobre unos cocos rodantes que no pueden detenerse.

4. Por exceso de ingesta de leche, de carne, o de agua de coco, que causa hiperpotasemia (el coco es rico en potasio, y el potasio en exceso es tan letal como el arsénico, el uranio o incluso el sodio: como todo elemento químico en general. Es la dosis lo que hace el veneno.)

El artículo (en inglés) de la Wikipedia sobre las varias formas en las que los cocos pueden matar a los seres humanos es éste: 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_coconut

HÉRCULES - TRECE COSAS PENDIENTES

 HÉRCULES

COSAS PENDIENTES

1. Matar al León de Nemea (Nota bene: su piel no puede ser atravesada por ningún arma blanca, debo estrangularlo.) 10 días. Finalmente fueron 30. Volver a organizar la agenda.
2. Acabar con la Hidra, la serpiente marina de muchas cabezas (su guarida se encuentra en un pantano cerca de Lerna, en el Peloponeso.) 10 días. Finalmente me lleva 30. Volver a organizar la agenda.
3. Cazar a la Cierva de Cerinea (la mascota sagrada de Artemisa) y entregársela viva al rey Euristeo en Micenas. 1 mes. Volver a organizar todo desde cero. ¡Este trabajo me lleva un año entero!
4. Capturar al Jabalí de Erimanto y entregárselo también vivo al rey E. (Es realmente feroz, me refiero al Jabalí de Erimanto, NO al rey E.: darle un toque a mi antiguo maestro Quirón y pedirle consejo).
5. Limpiar las cuadras de Augías **EN UN DÍA DE SOL A SOL**. Tener sumo cuidado de no manchar la piel de león (la limpieza en seco es carísima).
6. Acabar con las malvadas aves del Lago Estínfalo (Nota bene: probar si las flechas envenenadas con la sangre de la Hidra aún funcionan.) Confirmado: funcionan perfectamente (...). Tengo que enviarle a Quirón una tarjeta para animarle y desearle que se recupere pronto (aún le duele mucho la rodilla)... Asegurarme de que sabe que lo hice sin querer.
7. Ir a Creta y encargarme de no sé qué toro blanco (algo del rey Minos que, por lo visto, no lo sacrificó en honor a Poseidón y su mujer dio a luz a su hijo, el Minotauro).
8. Capturar a las yeguas carnívoras del rey Diómedes de Tracia.
9. Arrebatar el bello cinturón de Hipólita, la reina de las amazonas, para entregárselo a Admeta, la hija del rey E.
10. Robar el ganado vacuno de Gerión (monstruo de tres cabezas que vive en Eritia, una isla del Extremo Occidente, más allá del océano, donde se pone el sol).

DOS TRABAJOS ADICIONALES, CORTESÍA DEL REY E.

(El muy mentiroso se ha desdicho completamente, dejó claro que sólo serían diez trabajos).

11. Robar las manzanas de oro del Jardín de las Hespérides en el monte Atlas. Posibles problemas:

a) El lugar es secreto. Nadie sabe dónde está...

b) Lo protege un dragón gigantesco llamado Ladón y que está enroscado al tronco del árbol. ¿Usar el garrote?

12, Traer a Cerbero del más allá. ¿CÓMO? (es un perro guardián de tres cabezas con cola de dragón y el lomo cubierto de serpientes, que devora a todos los que quieren escapar de las puertas del inframundo).

URGENTE: Hacerme un seguro de vida.

RENÉ DESCARTES - KROPP OCH STJÄL

Kropp och Stjäl

(René Descartes, drottning Kristina och hovfröken Ebba Sparre)

Kan en av världens största tänkare

tänka sej att flytta hit?

Mais oui, vilken invit 

Drottning Kristinas favorit 

René Descartes filosofen

ser inte katastrofen

Landet är kallt 

Han får bronkit och mår skit

Trots att han får en svit 

vid Kornhamstorg

i von der Lindeska Huset

När han väcks mitt i natten 

är vattenkruset fruset

Han gnuggar gruset ur blicken 

Gryningsljuset är svart

och när Kristina vill ha svar

svarar Descartes:

Tvivla aldrig 

på ditt tvivel min Drottning 

Försök att söka efter sökandet

En kvinna kan hinna mera

än det regerande förökandet

Det cogito ergo summerar allt

Men merde vad det är kallt

och tyvärr smyger nån där

En tjuvlyssnande gestalt

Så René får sin supé 

med en douche av arsenik

För som lömsk katolik 

gör man sej bäst som kall och lik 

tycker Axel Oxenstierna 

som mer än gärna lägger filosofen i jord

Men Kristina minns hans odödliga ord:

Tvivla aldrig på ditt tvivel

Fortsätt söka efter sökandet

Under en mustig blå augustimåne 

16 år senare

När Kristina abdikonverterat 

och blivit italienare

Ska filosofens kropp grävas upp 

och skickas till sitt hemland

En mardröm för en Planström 

som får uppdraget med fem man

I skymundan på den rundan 

stuvar Planström girigt undan

filosofens skalle och medger

är det är värt viss begrundan

Att först se skäl att ha ihjäl 

en kropp och därmed dess själ

och sen stjäls huvudskälet av en själ 

som därmed stjäl ihjäl ett skäl

Men 160 år går och en vår i Paris

där kemisten Berzelius 

vankar med tankar av is

och har precis fått höra kacklet

om det Descarteska skalldebaclet

Han finner kraniet och återbördar

men tacket blir det franska nejtacket

En bortvänd blick 

De tycker skallen ser för slemmig ut

Men René Descartes 

Han ser nog att det är ett lämpligt slut

För han tänker inte längre sen länge 

ändå finns han

och är man skeptiskt till det 

desto bättre minns man:

Tvivla aldrig på ditt tvivel

Fortsätt söka efter sökandet

#renédescartes #renedescartes #1600-tal #1600tal #arsenik #stockholm #drottningkristina #axeloxenstierna 

EL TANGO DE LA MUERTE

This film El Tango de la Muerte, a whole-plot reference to Strictly Ballroom featured in the Simpsons episode "Last Tap Dance in Springfield", is produced and set in a non-existant and stereotypical "Spexigentina", ie the Hollywood view of fusing Spain, Mexico, and Argentina into a strange amalgam of their most general stereotypes; and therefore also the dialogue is peppered with gratuitous Spanish:

EL TANGO DE LA MUERTE

SCENE 1: THE DARK HORSE

(Eduardo, a dashing young tango dancer who looks like Levi Ackerman, and his older dance coach, at a soirée, before the great dance contest).

Eduardo: Now that my severed foot has been reattached... I must win back the coveted dance title- Loco Legs.

Coach: As your wise but alcoholic dance coach... I know that somewhere your father is looking down on you and smiling. (Beat.) Oh, there he is. (Eduardo's father waves from the balcony.)

Eduardo: And now, I must choose a beautiful partner for the big dance contest. (Eduardo passes review by the attractive female tango dancers, spurning each of them in turn.) Hmm. [ Grunts, thrusts his hips ] Hmm-hmm. [ Grunts, thrusts his hips ] No! [ Gasps, thrusts his hips ] Hmm. (Eduardo reaches Lisabella, a socially awkward, flat-chested girl with glasses and her hair in a bun, reading a book sitting in a chair).

Lisa Simpson (across the fourth wall): Oh, he'll never dance with her. She'll have to settle for some Mexican Milhouse. 

Eduardo: I demand to know your name. 

Lisabella: My name is... (Beat.) Lisabella. 

Lisa Simpson (across the fourth wall): [ Gasps ] That's my name with "bella" on the end of it. Ask her. Oh, God. Please ask her to dance. 

Eduardo: I shall dance... (Beat.) with her. 

Mexican Milhouse (to himself): Ooh! Qué malo. Once again, I must sugar my own churro. 

Lisabella: But I am just a simple librarian. I have only read about dancing in books. 

Eduardo: [ Chuckles ] I will show you something that is in no book. (He takes Lisabella by the hand and twirls her around; as she twirls, her bun comes undone, her spectacles drop off, her chest swells under her blouse to reveal far more bosom; a real "ugly duckling" transformation)

Crowd: [ Gasping ]

Lisabella: [ Gasps ] Ooh! Mmm. Ohh! Mmm. 

Lisa Simpson (across the fourth wall): She's not plain. She's beautiful!

SCENE 2: THE TANGO OF DEATH

(The ballroom where the great dance contest is held; a grand estate with spotlights in the gardens.)

[A sign outside says:

TONIGHT:

CONTESTO DE LA DANCE!

TOMORROW: REVOLUCION]

♪ [Tango Music] [Applause] (A couple of attractive tango dancers in green perform before Eduardo and Lisabella's turn; Eduardo wears a light brown jacket, a shirt that reveals the hair on his chest, and black trousers, while Lisabella wears a sexy red two-piece ensemble, a red flower in her hair, and her hair down).

Eduardo: There is just one dance that will beat them: the Tango de la Muerte. 

Lisabella: [ Gasps ] Only one man was crazy enough to dance that dance, and he is dead. 

Eduardo: My twin brother, Freduardo. But where he died, I shall live- in his apartment.

(Eduardo and Lisabella dance the Tango de la Muerte: they first dance, hand in hand, eight or nine tango steps forwards. Then they dance past one another four or five steps back and forth. Then Lisabella spreads her arms and Eduardo lifts her in the air and carries her back and forth. Finally, he loops her like an oversized donut around his shoulders, then he loops her on the ground, until he stops.)

Crowd: [ Gasping ]

Eduardo: You are now carrying my child. 

Lisabella: But how?

Eduardo: It is the mystery of the dance.

*********************************************************

The Castilian (European Spanish) dub of the episode is far better and did justice to the scene: in its version of El Tango de la Muerte, the setting (and film's country of production) was changed to real-life Argentina, and all the characters in the film (except Eduardo's dance coach) spoke in Rioplatense (Buenos Aires dialect). Es más porteño que el Papa:

EL TANGO DE LA MUERTE

ESCENA PRIMERA: LA PAREJA INESPERADA

(Eduardo, un joven y apuesto bailarín de tango que se parece a Levi Ackerman, y su entrenador personal, un señor mayor, en un sarao la víspera del gran concurso de baile).

Eduardo: Ahora que me han vuelto a plantar el pie, haré lo posible por recuperar mi ansiado título, "el Piernas Locas".

Entrenador: Como tu sabio pero alcohólico entrenador, sé que tu padre te estará mirando y sonriendo desde alguna parte... (Pausa.) (Con acento de España) ¡Allí está! (El padre de Eduardo les saluda desde el balcón.)

Eduardo: Ahora debo elegir una hermosa piba para el gran concurso de baile. (Pasando revista ante las atractivas bailarinas de tango, les da calabazas a cada una de ellas). Ejem... (contonea las caderas) Ejem... (contonea las caderas...) No. (Contonea las caderas). Ejem... (Eduardo llega a donde está Lisabella, una joven con aspecto de "empollona" con gafas, un moño y el pecho plano, sentada leyendo un libro).

Lisa Simpson (al otro lado de la cuarta pared): Oh, no, jamás bailará con ella. Tendrá que conformarse con algún Milhouse argentino.

Eduardo: ¿Che, cómo te "shamas?"

Lisabella: Me llamo... (Pausa.) Lisabella.

Lisa Simpson (al otro lado de la cuarta pared): ¡Oh! ¡Es mi nombre acabado en "bel-la"! ¡Por favor, sácala a bailar...!"

Eduardo: Bailaré... (Pausa.) con "esha."

Milhouse argentino (a sí mismo): ¡Qué rabia! ¡Otra vez más deberé "asucararme" "sho" solo el churro!

Lisabella: ¡Pero si soy una simple bibliotecaria! Sé de bailar lo poco que he leído en los libros...

Eduardo: (Risita.) "Sho" te enseñaré algo que no "aparese" en los libros... (Coge a Lisabella de la mano y le da un par de vueltas: mientras ella da vueltas, se le deshace el moño, se le caen las gafas y se le hinchan los senos bajo la blusa: toda una transformación de "patito feo".)

Multitud: Oooooh (Sorpresa)

Lisabella: Oooooh (Sorpresa)

Lisa Simpson (al otro lado de la cuarta pared): No está plana, ¡es guapísima!

ESCENA SEGUNDA: EL MISTERIO DEL TANGO

(El pabellón de baile donde se celebra el gran concurso de tango: una gran mansión con reflectores en el jardín.)

[El cartel de fuera dice:

TONIGHT:

CONTESTO DE LA DANCE!

TOMORROW: REVOLUCION (sic, sin acento)]

(Música de tango. Aplausos. Una pareja de bailarines de tango atractivos, vestidos de verde, preceden a Eduardo, con chaqueta marrón, una camisa que deja ver el pelo de su pecho y pantalones negros, y a su pareja Lisabella, con un traje rojo sexy de dos piezas y la cabellera suelta con una flor roja.)

Eduardo: Solamente con un baile se puede ganar: el Tango de la Muerte...

Lisabella: ¡No! Sólo hubo un hombre lo bastante loco que lo bailó, y está muerto.

Eduardo: Mi hermano gemelo, Freduardo. Y donde él murió viviré "sho": en su apartamento.

(Eduardo y Lisabella bailan el Tango de la Muerte: primero, bailan ocho o nueve pasos de tango cogidos de la mano; luego, bailan de lado hacia adelante y atrás/una y otra vez cinco o seis veces; seguido de esto, Lisabella pone los brazos en cruz, Eduardo la levanta por los aires y la lleva adelante y atrás; finalmente, él la pasa velozmente por encima de sus hombros, y luego la gira por el suelo, hasta que se detiene.)

Multitud: Oooooh (Sorpresa)

Eduardo: Ahora esperás un hijo mío.

Lisabella: Pero, ¿cómo?

Eduardo: Es el misterio del tango.

DRAGONS' DEN, LIONS' DEN, SHARK TANK

This was originally a Japanese reality show format. Entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. These are the names by which the show is known in different countries, and the name of the show usually contains the sobriquet given to the venture capitalists, comparing them to fierce predators: "tigers" (tora 虎) in the original Japanese, "dragons" in the Commonwealth (excluding Australia) and Sweden, "lions" in most of Europe, "sharks" in Hungary, Portugal, the Ukraine, Australia and the United States. In some countries like Austria, France, Russia, or Trinidad and Tobago, the name of the show does not contain the sobriquet for the venture capitalists:

JP: Money no Tora マネーの虎 🐯

UK: Dragons' Den 🐲

IE: Dragons' Den 🐲

NZ: Dragons' Den 🐲

CAN (Anglophone): Dragons' Den 🐲

CAN (Québec): Dans l'Œil du Dragon 🐲

SE: Draknästet 🐲

DE: Die Höhle der Löwen 🦁

BE (Flanders): Leeuwenkuil 🦁

DK: Løvens Hule 🦁

FI: Leijonan Luola 🦁

RO: Arena Leilor 🦁 / Imperiul Leilor 🦁

HU: Cápák Között 🦈

PT: Shark Tank 🦈

US: Shark Tank 🦈

AUS: Shark Tank 🦈

UA: Акули бізнесу 🦈 (Акули: 🦈🦈🦈)

AT: 2 Minuten 2 Millionen

FR: Qui Veut Être mon Associé?

RU: Kапитал

Trinidad and Tobago: Planting Seeds

SYMBOLISM IN GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO FILM

SYMBOLISM IN GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO FILM

• Long noses are associated with lies, hence why Pinocchio's nose grows when he does so. Conte Volpe's (Count Fox's, the Ringmaster's) nose is very long, signifying that he's a major liar throughout.
• While Pleasure Island is adapted out in favor of a Fascist Ghostapo/cadet camp, when Allied war planes arrives to bomb the camp, the child soldiers and cadets including Candlewick (Lampwick) are forced to wear gas-masks, that give them a donkey-like face.
• The Podestà's (Candlewick's father's, village Fascist leader's) Karmic Death sees him tangled in a net during the bombing of his camp, which causes him to resemble a marionette tangled in its strings - a demonstration that the iron-fisted control he tried to exert over Pinocchio and the child soldiers and cadets has come back to bite him.
• At the beginning of the film, Geppetto's Jesus Christ sculpture/crucifix in the village church is unfinished, missing its left arm. When Pinocchio comes back to life at the end, he's missing his left arm as well.
• The Blue Fairy that brings Pinocchio to life is replaced with a Biblically-accurate angel with six wings full of eyeballs, but it is still heavenly blue.
• Death is portrayed as a black winged sphinx, with countless eyeballs on its wings like a Biblically-accurate angel and a forked tail like some depictions of Cerberus, voiced by the same actress as the Blue Angel (Tilda Swinton).
• Death is assisted in the afterlife by four (number of death in Asian cultures) psychopomps, portrayed as skeletal pallbearer anthropomorphic black rabbits with exposed ribcages.

En la película de Guillermo del Toro de Pinocho, Cate Blanchett le pone la voz al mono. 🐒 Ya que el mono es macho y tan feo y sólo hace sonidos de mono, quién lo diría?

Ewan McGregor es Sebastián Grillo 🦗

Christoph Waltz es el Conte Volpe (conde Zorro 🦊, el dueño del circo)

Tilda Swinton es tanto el Ángel Azul como la Muerte, que aparece como una esfinge negra. Tilda Swinton interpreta ambos papeles.

Pinocho de Guillermo del Toro... La ambientación italiana fascista recuerda a que este cineasta suele ambientar sus mejores películas en dictaduras fascistas / totalitarismos e introducir elementos mágicos. Como la España franquista del Laberinto del Fauno o (sustituyendo fascismo por maccarthyismo) la Florida de La Forma del Agua - es realismo mágico

UNA ADVERTENCIA Y UNA RECETA

 CANCIÓN DEL GARBANZO PELIGROSO

Si un garbanzo se pone
a hacer preguntas
y lo cierto se hace más dudoso,
es mejor mirarlo desde lejos,
¿Por qué?
Porque es un garbanzo peligroso.

Laura Devetach


SONG OF THE DANGEROUS CHICKPEA
(Translated by Sandra Dermark)

If a chickpea begins
to ask questions
and each certainty becomes a doubtful stranger,
it's best to look at it all from a distance,
And why?
Because it's a chickpea fraught with danger.

...............................

PARA LAS LLUVIAS, SOLES

Se necesita:
Un día de lluvia.
1/2 kg de harina de trigo.
Una pizca de sal.
Una cucharada de grasa o manteca.
Agua para formar una masa tierna.
Empezar a cantar.
Hacer una corona de harina sobre la mesa.
Desatar un chaparrón con una taza de agua.
Dejar caer como un trueno la cucharada de manteca.
Amasar todo moviendo los dedos como relámpagos.
¡Que la masa sea un nubarrón gordo!
Amasar un pedazo y hacer un sol pequeño y chato.
Hacerle al sol un agujero en el medio.
Hacer varios soles.
Calentar aceite en una sartén honda.
Poner a dorar los soles, llueva o no llueva.
¡Esas son las tortas fritas!

Laura Devetach


FOR RAINY DAYS, SUNS
(Translated by Sandra Dermark)

You will need:
A rainy day.
Half a kilo of wheat flour.
A pinch of salt.
A spoonful of butter or margarine.
Water to make a soft dough.
Begin to sing.
Make a wreath of flour on the table.
Let a downpour loose with a cupful of water.
Let fall, like thunder, the spoonful of butter.
Knead it all with fingers fast as lightning.
The dough should be a big fat storm cloud!
Knead a chunk and make a little flat sun.
Punch a hole into the middle of the sun.
Make several suns.
Heat up oil in a deep frying pan.
Fry the suns golden, in rain or shine.
These are donuts!

CANCIÓN DEL MATE DE LECHE - Song of Milk Tea

 CANCIÓN DEL MATE DE LECHE

En el pozo del mate

llueve

y en la yerba

la leche

se pone bien verde.

Canta la pava en llamas

alborotada

saltan chisporroteos

en tu mirada.

En el pozo del mate

llueven tus chispas

y no puedo tomarlo

de pura risa.

Laura Devetach

SONG OF MILK TEA

(Translated by Sandra Dermark)

(Translation revised by Sandra Dermark on the 19th of June 2023)

On the well of the teacup

the rain

is preening,

and on the leaves

the milk

is quite well greening.

Ablaze and in a hurry,

the kettle cries;

sparks pop, crackle, and sizzle

within your eyes.

On the well of the teacup,

your sparks rain after,

and I can't even drink it

out of sheer laughter.

SI UNA ESTRELLA VES BRILLAR

 

Llegará Si una estrella ⭐ ves brillar (When You Wish Upon a Star ⭐) de la serie de novelas Disney Un giro inesperado (Twisted Tales/A Twisted Tale) a España este mes de agosto. Otro giro inesperado/Twisted Tale que se suma a mis bibliotecas este verano. Por la ambientación decimonónica. Por las adorables mascotas de Geppetto 🐈🐠🥰 (echaba de menos al gatito Fígaro y a la pececilla Cleo en la película de Guillermo del Toro). Porque habrán óperas líricas y porque la villana de turno será un Hada Verde 💚 (me hace pensar en la absenta, en Grantaire y en la bohemia decimonónica). Todo eso me atrae y me encanta. Este libro promete mantenerme muy ocupada en agosto...

MORCILLA EMPANADA (More Misheard Lyrics!)

That's right; here come more misheard lyrics from my childhood and adolescence! It always makes me laugh to read these lyrics as an adult in my thirties while thinking of how I once thought those lyrics were - because, honestly, misheard lyrics can be quite funny compared to the real, official ones!

Morcilla empanada (Breaded Black Pudding)

Sabor de amor, Danza Invisible 

Sabor de amor,
espuma del mar,
piel de melocotón, 

orgía del paladar,

sabor de amor

Misheard as:

Sabor de amor,
espuma del mar,
piel de melocotón, 

morcilla empanada,

sabor de amor

Why?

A different singer signs the verse in italics in a less intelligible way for a child; plus, the word "orgía" (orgy) is too erotic for a child listener to understand, and the song in general is about enjoying one's love interests like one enjoys good food. Plus, there is a tapa (finger food) in Spanish cuisine made from deep-fried slices of Spanish-style black pudding. In a song where melons, popcorn, mussels, passion fruits, grapes... are lusciously described, such a tapa of deep-fried black pudding (and some cured ham, deep-fried squid rings, deep-fried baby squid, croquettes, all served with some sparkling cava...) would never be out of place.

Tortilla de patatas (Spanish Potato Omelet)

Sabor de amor, Danza Invisible

Sabor de amor,
espuma del mar,
piel de melocotón, 

orgía del paladar,

sabor de amor

Misheard as:

Sabor de amor,
espuma del mar,
piel de melocotón, 

tortilla de patatas,

sabor de amor

Why?

A different singer signs the verse in italics in a less intelligible way for a child; plus, the word "orgía" (orgy) is too erotic for a child listener to understand, and the song in general is about enjoying one's love interests like one enjoys good food. Plus, in a song where melons, popcorn, mussels, passion fruits, grapes... are lusciously described, a tapa of diced traditional Spanish-style potato omelet (and some cured ham, deep-fried squid rings, deep-fried baby squid, croquettes, all served with some sparkling cava...) would never be out of place. I am myself very finicky about my Spanish-style potato omelet; it must ALWAYS be WITHOUT ONIONS due to my sensory issues; the smell, taste, and mouthfeel of onions have a nauseating and even emetic effect upon me (long story short, due to my sensory issues, onions make me throw up!).

Si siempre hay nueve formas de pasarlo bien (If there are always nine ways to have fun)

Estoy por ti, Amistades Peligrosas

LOS DOS:

Mezclé el amor 

con la amistad

ALBERTO:

Son juegos peligrosos, siempre acaban mal
Un hombre solo 

una mujer

CRISTINA:

Sesenta y nueve formas de pasarlo bien

Misheard as:

LOS DOS:

Mezclé el amor 

con la amistad

ALBERTO:

Son juegos peligrosos, siempre acaban mal
Un hombre solo 

una mujer

CRISTINA:

Si siempre hay nueve formas de pasarlo bien

Misheard as:

Why?

I did not have access to the lyrics as a child or as a teen, and Cristina was not singing the lyrics that clearly to me when I listened as a child or as a teen. Moreover, Cristina mentions the 69 sex position ("Sixty-nine ways to have fun") and I was pretty innocent in those stages of my life... The entirety of the lyrics of this song is full of erotica, that flew completely over my head and over my radar, obviously, when I was underage, until now when I have read the song in my thirties!

BROMELIAD TRILOGY - THE MARK OF THE DRAGON

Sir Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy about the wainscot society of mouse-sized littlepeople called Nomes includes the earth-moving machine the Nomes have hijacked and operate on their quarry (which they see as a dragon, and themselves as dragon riders - logical; if you were the size of a mouse, construction vehicles would be kaiju-sized to you!), a JCB called Jekub by the Nomes in the original UK version but a Caterpillar called Cat/CAT by the Nomes in the US editions and a Fiat Fiatallis called Fiat Allis by the Nomes in the Italian editions ("Trilogia del Piccolo popolo", where Nomes are "niomi"), which localise the European portions (ie most) of the saga's plot as taking place in an ambiguous country, implied to be Italy, instead of the UK (much like the Western releases of Ace Attorney games takes place in the US instead of Japan like the source material did). The literate Nomes from the Stationaire (the bookshop and stationary section of the Nomes' old departament store home, where the only literate Nomes in the county lived - reading and writing was what they did the most) call the brand name printed on the construction vehicle "the Mark of the Dragon," and it becomes the "Dragon's" proper name to all the Nomes in the quarry - ie the Mark of the Dragon is Jekub (JCB) in the original UK edition, Cat/CAT (Caterpillar) in the US edition, and Fiat Allis (FIATALLIS) in the Italian translation. Here's some visual reference for each version:

"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Jekub." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)

"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Cat." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)

(Reverse translated from the Italian) "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Fiat Allis." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)

(Reverse translated from the Italian) "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Fiat Allis." (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome.)

"iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was upon it. iv. And the Mark was Jekub (original UK edition.)" (Verses from the Nomes' sacred text, the Book of Nome, which reoccurs being quoted throughout the Bromeliad Trilogy as pastiche of the style of the King James Bible - just like Monty Python have done upon introducing the Holy Hand Grenade, or in at the start of The Meaning of Life's Part II: Growth and Learning). To continue playing with the associations of this, a literate Nome from the Stationaire (the bookshop and stationary section of the Nomes' old departament store home, where the only literate Nomes in the county lived - reading and writing was what they did the most) asks:

"'JCB? Jcb (pronounced phonetically)? Jekub? It's got no vowels in it. What sort of name is that?'" Also "Jekub" sounds like "Jacob," the westernised form of "Ya'akov" (יַעֲקֹב‎‎), one of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament.

This is a play on 'YHWH', the classical Hebrew spelling of Yahweh (the Judaeo-Christian God), and of the fact that Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, is written without vowels. Of course this quip had to be removed in non-British editions, since both "Cat/CAT" and "Fiat Allis" (and other words used by translators who localise their editions, like the Italians) have vowels in them. Fiat Allis, from the Italian editions, is a Latin expression, so our Stationaire Nome in that translation would have mentioned the antiquity and prestige of Latin.

'Jekub' was the Nomes' attempted pronunciation of JCB, the name of a well-known manufacturer of tractors, diggers (earth-moving machines), and other construction vehicles, whose logo of course appears on all its products. The Nomes' Jekub, incidentally, appears to be a thing called a 'back-hoe loader'. In the US edition of the Nomes trilogy 'Jekub' standing for 'JCB' was changed to 'CAT', standing for 'Caterpillar'. In the Italian translation ("Trilogia del Piccolo popolo", where Nomes are "niomi") it was changed to 'Fiat Allis', standing for 'FIATALLIS', because the Italian translation localises the European portions (ie most) of the trilogy's plot as taking place in an ambiguous country, implied to be Italy, instead of the UK (much like the Western releases of Ace Attorney games takes place in the US instead of Japan like the source material did).

ODE TO JOY - AN DIE FREUDE - MY OWN TRANSLATION

 ODE TO JOY (An die Freude)

Anthem of the European Union

Melody by Ludwig van Beethoven

Original Lyrics in German by Friedrich Schiller

New English Lyrics (Unofficial) by Sandra Dermark

15 of June, MMXXIII

Joy of beauty, fair, elated,

offspring of Elysian wine,

we enter intoxicated

on you into your holy shrine.

Cast magic spells that tie what was

once split by custom's strict decree;

everyone under your soft wings

in cosmic fraternity.

Cast magic spells that tie what was

once split by custom's strict decree;

everyone under your soft wings

in cosmic fraternity.

EL DULCE SABOR DEL RACISMO

Hubo una época no muy lejana (los años noventa, para más señas), cuando no había Conguitos blancos en absoluto, y todos los oscuros Conguitos que existían eran más tribales y guerreros, ataviados con faldas de flecos, armados con lanzas de sílex y provistos de marcados labios rojos:

Gracias a algo llamado "corrección política", esos Conguitos de antaño son historia. Desde que surgieron los Conguitos blancos en la primera década del nuevo milenio, se ha dado un giro copernicano a la marca: ahora todos los Conguitos vienen en son de paz (sin lanzas), carecen de labios rojos y van al parecer desnudos, sin las faldas de flecos:

La publicidad de chocolate y de cacao, tanto por su color como por tratarse de un producto históricamente colonial, se ha prestado en el siglo pasado a anuncios que en la actualidad tildaríamos de racistas, ya ligeramente, ya totalmente desarrollando estereotipos racistas. Preguntadles a vuestros padres o madres por la canción del negrito del Cola-Cao que salía en la tele en su niñez (y, si son demasiado jóvenes, a vuestros abuelos):

A pesar de que el negrito desapareció de la tele, siguió apareciendo en el tarro de Cola-Cao durante décadas, más estilizado...

... hasta la primera década del nuevo milenio, cuando, en aras de la corrección política, fue reemplazado por los alienígenas Kao-Kao, que personificaban los nutrientes del producto (Ferki, el hierro; Fosfik, el fósforo; Akinha, la vitamina A... ).

El discurso racista puede limitarse también a un único ingrediente del producto. Entre "nata Made in Vaca" y "fresas del bosque de Caperucita" muy inocentes que atraen a toda la familia, la agencia publicitaria que introdujo el helado de palo italiano Doctor Strabik en España para Frigo (de su marca hermana en Italia Algida, bajo el sello Eldorado) a principios de los noventa (como el Frigurón, sólo duró un par de veranos) describió su cobertura de chocolate de una forma que hoy en día sería totalmente inaceptable; "De crrrrrrrujiente chocolate negro Bwana". Negro BWANA. "Bwana" es un vocativo en suajili que literalmente quiere decir "amo" o "señor". La palabreja de marras ganó tracción en Occidente con las películas de aventuras en la selva, tipo Mogambo o las de Tarzán, donde los sirvientes africanos suelen tratar de "bwana" a sus amos blancos constantemente.

Pero no está confinada a nuestro país de Sagitario esta costumbre de la publicidad de chocolate histórica racista. En alemán "Mohr" es literalmente tanto "moro" como "negro" (se dice, por ejemplo, del Otelo de Shakespeare). La marca alemana de chocolate Sarotti tuvo clásicamente a un pequeño moro negro, con turbante, babuchas y los labios muy rojos ("der Sarotti-Mohr"), como mascota y para atraer a los niños, en anuncios animados, como muñeco, etcétera...

El personaje existe hoy en día aún, salvo que es un pequeño mago oriental de tez dorada, con el mismo traje islámico ("der Sarotti-Magier"), que está presente en todas las estrategias publicitarias ya existentes además de en Internet y en los medios sociales. Simplemente le han cambiado el color de la piel y el grosor de los labios:

En la vecina Austria existe un postre conocido como "Mohr im Hemd" ("moro encamisado"), un pudin de chocolate y almendras cocinado al baño María (como un pudin navideño británico). En el 2009, la empresa heladera austríaca Eskimo, que forma parte de Heartbrand junto con Frigo (y Algida en Italia [también en Hungría, Croacia, Serbia, Grecia, Chipre y otros países], Langnese en Alemania, GB Glace en Suecia, Olá en Portugal, Frisko en Dinamarca, Wall's en Reino Unido [también en Corea, Japón y otros países], Streets en Australia y Nueva Zelanda, y otras heladeras) lanzó un helado en pinta Cremissimo con sabor Mohr im Hemd con el eslógan "I will Mohr" (juego de palabras con el inglés "I will/want more," "quiero más", dado que "more" ["más"] se pronuncia igual que "Mohr"). Los medios austríacos tacharon enseguida el eslógan de racista. Por cierto, el nombre del pudin se está convirtiendo en un arcaísmo, puesto que cada vez menos restaurantes lo ponen como "Mohr im Hemd" en el menú y, en cambio, describen el postre, por ejemplo, como "Schoko-Nuss-Kuchen mit Schlag" (literalmente: pastel de chocolate y frutos secos con nata montada).

Pudin "Schoko-Nuss-Kuchen mit Schlag", antes "Mohr im Hemd"

"I will Mohr!" Helado Cremissimo de Eskimo sabor Mohr im Hemd

Un dulce que no muchos españoles aprecian pero que muchos adoran en Alemania y en los países nórdicos es el regaliz. No hace falta salir de Europa para conseguirlo, pero su color ya da una buena pista de que también su publicidad ha conllevado polémicas racistas. GB Glace, la empresa heladera sueca de Heartbrand (hermana de Frigo y de otras muchas heladeras internacionales que ya se han mencionado aquí arriba), lanzó en exclusiva para Suecia en 2005 un helado de palo con cobertura y relleno de regaliz salado (una delicia en Suecia), y encima mediante una campaña publicitaria con una estética "callejera", con rap en los anuncios y tipografía similar al grafiti. La gota que colmó el vaso era el nombre del helado en cuestión: Nogger Black. NOGGER BLACK, a una letra de Nigger Black. El helado sólo duró dos veranos y se retiró del mercado en 2007, tras protestas del Centro Sueco contra el Racismo.

Pero los suecos tampoco estaban en contra del chocolate racista antes de la corrección política. Estas delicias esféricas del tamaño de pelotas de ping-pong se llamaron en su día "negerbollar" (bolas de negro"); en la actualidad, son conocidas como "chokladbollar" (bolas de chocolate) o "kokosbollar" (bolas de coco). Ay, la corrección política...

Para finalizar este recorrido por la historia racista de los dulces y de los helados, volvamos a la España de los años noventa. Allí, la marca Camy lanzó un helado mucho, mucho más blanco... De hecho, color blanco HUESO y con una forma acorde. Este sorbete de limón con aspecto de fémur estaba atravesado por el palo en sentido longitudinal y se comía agarrándolo con una mano por cada extremo. Igual que lo haría un bárbaro, un vikingo o un caníbal royendo un hueso de verdad. El problema yace en que la refrescante delicia se llamaba KANÍBAL, escrito con K para parecer más salvaje, y encima en una tipografía de fémures, y en el envoltorio se veía a un africano con gruesos labios rojos, un húmero en la coleta y desnudo excepto por una falda de flecos (vamos, semidesnudo).

Hoy en día, esta helada delicia no podría, a diferencia del Frigurón, resucitar en un verano del futuro. Aunque cabe admitir que la canción del anuncio era pegadiza:

"KANÍBAL es de Camy...

...y se come así..."

"Jarl!" (Sí, Chiquito de la Calzada decía "jarl", o eso parecía, al final de los anuncios de Camy)

THE COLOURS OF THE SPRINGTIME OF THE EYE

The Tooth Fairy's Country in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather is, for a good reason, similar to toddlers' crayon drawings/paintings. Because it has been created from the minds of toddlers. That is also why Death is powerless there, because toddlers cannot grasp the concept of death.

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett (TV Tropes)

Stock Object Colours: Discussed when Susan and the Oh God of Hangovers end up in the Tooth Fairy's country, which resembles a child's (toddler's) drawing. Susan realises what it is because (among other simplifications) the water in the creek is blue, the fish in the creek are bright orange, the treetrunks are plain brown, and the apples are bright red... even though creeks are usually transparent, freshwater fish are most often silver, treetrunks have a whole range of colors from brown to grey to green, and only some apples are red. But children (ie toddlers) draw brown treetrunks, orange fish, blue water, and red apples, green grass, and a buttercup-yellow sun, because that's what they "know" they're supposed to be. Terry Pratchett calls these Stock Object Colours the colours of the springtime of the eye. The phenomenon occurs because, according to Terry Pratchett, when you are a toddler or young child "everyone tells you grass is green and water is blue."

The Tooth Fairy Country has been created from the minds of young children (toddlers), and looks like a child's (toddler's) painting (think crayons). The sky is bright blue, the ground is bright green (grass sketched with bright green crayons, hills with slightly tremulous contours) the trunks of the trees are all plain brown, all those trees are lollipop-shaped with round blob-shaped tops and slender stick-shaped trunks, all apples on those trees are oversized and bright red, and the river is a block of deep blue liquid (when picking up some of the liquid, Susan realises the "water" is blue instead of transparent) through which orange cartoon fish swim. There are no bushes, neither any other fauna besides those stylized goldfish, and flowers similar to daisies, each one with two leaves, grow dotted across the bright green grass. The Sun is bright buttercup yellow with clearly visible rays. The clouds are all fluffy white cumulus. There are no variations in colour, or hues, or textures; everything is one colour. The sky does not extend as far as the horizon; in between the ground and the sky is an empty void, not occupied by black starry space or anything else. It is easy to see why the criminals hate it so much.

By a bend of the stream is the Tooth Fairy's tower, which on the outside looks like a stock one-family house with white walls and a red shingled roof, a single floor, four windows and a single front door, and gray smoke curling out the chimney like a curlicue or corkscrew. There is always a house like that in a crayon drawing or painting made by a toddler. (On the inside, however, the Tooth Fairy's tower looks way higher and bigger.)

The childlike quality of the Tooth Fairy Country is beginning to affect the criminals, and they begin to revert further into infantile mindsets (fear of Poorly-Lit Pareidolia for Chickenwire, fear of the dark and claustrophobia for Catseye, fear of bullying at boarding school for his feminine-looking curly hair for Sideney, Oedipus complex for the Lilywhite brothers).

It is impossible to die in the Tooth Fairy Country-a little child (toddler) believes that dead people have just "gone away". Therefore, when someone dies, they disappear back to the Discworld. People who die in the Tooth Fairy's castle or tower get teleported away. This is because the place is based on the imagination of children (toddlers), who do not really grasp the concept of death or what happens after you die.

Adaptation Distillation: The adaptation shows all the events as they happen chronologically, even those that Susan (and through her, the readers) does not learn about until almost the very end of the book (most notable are the relation between the Tooth Fairy's realm and children's ie toddlers' crayon drawings, how death is treated in the Tooth Fairy's realm, the outright spelling-out of Teatime's plan for the teeth starting with punching Banjo, and the no-longer-behind-the-scenes nature of Death's decision to impersonate the Hogfather).

The Discworld Wiki has no article for the Tooth Fairy Country but refers to it in the Hogfather article as "a world created by children's imagination." (No reference to Stock Object Colours or the colours of the springtime of the eye!)

Discworld Wiki: Anthropomorphic Personifications article 

The Tooth Fairy lives in an unreal place shaped by the idea of a child's painting. (No reference to Stock Object Colours or the colours of the springtime of the eye!)

Quoting the source material:

Susan slid off, trying to keep her gaze low. That meant she was looking at the vivid blue of the water. There were orange fish in it. They didn't look quite right, as if they'd been created by someone who really did think a fish was two curved lines and a dot and a triangular tail. They reminded her of the skeletal fish in Death's quiet pool. Fish that were... appropriate to their surroundings. And she could see them, even though the water was just a block of colour which part of her insisted ought to be opaque... 

She knelt down and dipped her hand in. It felt like water, but what poured through her fingers was liquid blue. And now she knew where she was. The last piece clicked into place and the knowledge bloomed inside her. She knew if she saw a house just how its windows would be placed, and just how the smoke would come out of the chimney. There would almost certainly be apples on the trees. And they would be red, because everyone knew that apples were red. And the sun was yellow. And the sky was blue. And the grass was green. 

But there was another world, called the real world by the people who believed in it, where the sky could be anything from off-white to sunset red to thunderstorm yellow. And the trees would be anything from bare branches, mere scribbles against the sky, to red flames before the frost. And the sun was white or yellow or orange. And water was brown and grey and green... 

The colours here were springtime colours, and not the springtime of the world. They were the colours of the springtime of the eye. 

'This is a child's painting,' she said.

The oh god slumped onto the green. 'Every time I look at the gap my eyes water,' he mumbled. 'I feel awful.'

'I said this is a child's painting,' said Susan. 'I've seen dozens of pictures of it,' said Susan, ignoring him. 'You put the sky overhead because the sky's above you and when you are a couple of feet high there's not a lot of sideways to the sky in any case. And everyone tells you grass is green and water is blue. This is the landscape you paint. Twyla (a little girl Susan tutors) paints like that. I painted like that. Grandfather (Death, for Susan) saved some of-' She stopped. 'All children do it, anyway,' she muttered. 'Come on, let's find the house.'

'What house?' the oh god moaned. 'And can you speak quieter, please?'

'There'll be a house,' said Susan, standing up. 'There's always a house. With four windows. And the smoke coming out of the chimney all curly like a spring. Look, this is a place like ... Death's country. It's not really geography.' 

The oh god walked over to the nearest tree and banged his head on it as if he hoped it was going to hurt. 'Feels like geo'fy,' he muttered. 

'But have you ever seen a tree like that? A big green blob on a brown stick? It looks like a lollipop!' said Susan, pulling him along. 

'Dunno. Firs' time I ever saw a tree. Arrgh. Somethin' dropped on m'head.' He blinked owlishly at the ground. '

's red.'

'It's an apple,' she said. She sighed. 'Everyone knows apples are red.' There were no bushes. But there were flowers, each with a couple of green leaves. They grew individually, dotted around the rolling green. And then they were out of the trees and there, by a bend in the river, was the house. It didn't look very big. There were four windows and a door. Corkscrew smoke curled out of the chimney. 

'You know, it's a funny thing,' said Susan, staring at it. 'Twyla draws houses like that. And she practically lives in a mansion. I drew houses like that. And I was born in a palace. Why?'

'P'raps it's all this house,' muttered the oh god miserably.

'What? You really think so? Kids' paintings are all of this place? It's in our heads?'

'Don't ask me, I was just making conversation,' said the oh god. 

Susan hesitated. The words What Now? loomed. Should she just go and knock? And she realized that was normal thinking... 

From Zahnturm in the German thediscworld wiki:

Die Welt, in der der Zahnturm steht, sieht wie ein Kindergemälde aus. Die Landschaft besteht aus mit Buntstiften gestricheltem Gras, die Hügel und Berge haben leicht zittrige Umrisse und am Himmel ziehen kringelige Wolken und eine knallgelbe Sonne mit deutlich sichtbarem Strahlenkranz. Im kleinen Bach aus tiefblauem Wasser springen die Fische und an den Bäumen hängen überdimensionale rote Äpfel.

Tor.com

Terry Pratchett Book Club: Hogfather, Part III

Emmet Asher-Perrin

Fri Aug 5, 2022 11:00am

Meanwhile, back at the main plot, Binky takes Susan and the Oh God to Violet’s location which turns out to be a children’s painting complete with a children’s drawing of a house.

Susan and Bilious arrive at the land where Violet is being held, and she finally realizes where this place is: It’s a child’s painting. She wonders why all children seem to draw things exactly like this, and Bilious (whose potion has worn off so that he’s feeling incredibly hungover again) suggests that perhaps children are all painting this place specifically.

Susan goes into the children’s drawing house with Bilious and finds a large mound of teeth on the floor, with a chalk circle indicating where it’s meant to go.

• There’s a fairly large aside to be made here about the psychology of children’s drawings because they really are a fascinating subject that still confuses psychologists, as far as I understand it. It’s being used here as a kind of chicken-or-egg scenario because do children really draw this place, or is it children’s innate understanding of this place that makes it real? But honestly, all I want to do is talk about perspective and how kids decide to make certain objects/subjects gigantic and others not. That would have changed that nature of this place a great deal.