Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta read between the lines. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta read between the lines. Mostrar todas las entradas

viernes, 14 de agosto de 2015

FUN DERMARK WAYS TO DIE

FUN DERMARK WAYS TO DIE

My own filk version of the Dumb Ways to Die meme...

WARNING: Some of these activities are hazardous to health, or even to life itself.


14th of August 2015

Defenestrate yourself,
get on your head a book-filled shelf.
Play a game of Russian roulette,
be as self-indulgent as Marie Antoinette...

Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...
Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...

Play Antigonus with a live brown bear,
put on tight Victorian corset underwear.
Be a Protestant in Philip II's Spain.
Start up a fight against Ser Gregor Clegane.

Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...
Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...

Get your heart run through with a spear,
thrust a skewer through from ear to ear.
Try a home-made parachute from the Eiffel Tower...
And a mutant poison spider will give you no super-power.

Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...
Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...

Get kissed thrice by the Snow Queen,
stage a too realistic action scene,
get lockjaw from a wound you didn't care for though it hurt,
have fourteen semla buns in a row for dessert...

Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...
Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...

Drink liquor until it takes away your reason...
Accuse Lieutenant Edmond Dantès of treason...
Inhale a ludicrous amount of helium...
Come out of the closet in the Third Reich...
Try to capture a Komodo dragon...
They may not rhyme, but they're quite possibly...

Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...
Fun Dermark ways to die,
such fun Dermark ways to die...


BE SAFE AROUND LIFE.
A message from Sandra Dermark

jueves, 23 de abril de 2015

CHRONICLES OF A USURPATION

CHRONICLES OF A USURPATION
The Shakespeare Day story 2015
by Sandra Dermark


Dearest Elisabeth, Astrid, and Rainer:
Had I not found this story during my pursuit of forgotten tales, these Shakespeare Day celebrations would have been as tiresome as a rainy Good Friday.
Ever since I started this Erasmus, I have been looking for more forgotten stories than ever before. And I hoped with all my heart that the quest would not be an unfruitful one. Roaming the streets of old pre-industrial Leipzig, where Bach and Goethe have walked before, and having at least learned to understand that challenging curse known as the Saxon dialect (my greatest hurdle to fit in and reach what I sought). One day, I entered one of those quaint bookstores when a little thin leaflet of a book caught my eye. "Chronicles of a Usurpation" was written on the cover, in French, in lovely Art Nouveau letters. "CHRONIQUES D'UNE USURPATION", printed in Paris in 1899. Honeysuckle motifs lined the covers. Mesmerized, I caught the booklet and opened it, and then started reading. I was struck. An irresistible urge to read the book took hold of me by surprise.
At dusk, I returned home to the tiresome GDR-era Plattenbau, so different from my usual daytime hangouts (the sacrifice one has to make to study at the Leipzig Uni), with the little pale green book in my contented hands. How much did it cost? Thirty euros. You may call it a bloodletting, but I call it a sacrifice.
So now I'm sitting before my laptop, in this Leipzig Plattenbau, as the April rains pitter-patter restlessly against the window-panes. In my hands, the little Francophone booklet. On my mind, the idea of translating it into English, into which I have found no translation. So I have decided to do it (after all, a story from those days is in the public domain).
Hope you enjoy the story as much as I have!


CHRONICLES OF A USURPATION

I.

"And why should I?", Charles inquired, shiftily looking down.
"Why? The war is over, and we have won! And our general has just married for love!", he received for a reply. "Why else celebrate this evening? The other officers think so."
"The other officers." Charles lifted his face and looked at his second-in-command. A freshly-baked lieutenant aged eighteen (and, previously, a student expelled from university for being a freethinker), who had arrived at this distant fortress shortly before the end of the war, Charles had finally managed to find a place where he could fit in. He was most certainly dashing, tall and lean, and broad-shouldered, with a shade of golden peach-fuzz on his upper lip, a cascade of golden locks tied up with a satin ribbon, and lovely eyes the light green colour of peridots. His looks certainly fit the uniform like those of none other: the breeches were scarlet and tightly-fitting, the doublet was the lovely colour of his eyes, and the coat was white as snow, lined with silver lace and crowned with glittering epaulets. Shiny black knee-high boots with silvered spurs, a cockaded tricorn hat, a sharp rapier of piercing steel, and a couple of pistols engraved with flower motifs completed his attire. No surprise than the few local ladies, his own men, and every other officer from the colonel to his fellow lieutenants, loved him completely.
The sun had already set beyond the bastions, over a night sky lit by blazing fireworks. There was a marquee in the middle of the courtyard, and there is where we lay our scene. Other lieutenants were sitting at their tables, with little steel cups full of the region's best fruit and flower liquor in hand. Yet Charles was not allowed to indulge in such pleasures. He was on guard duty that evening, for his commanding officers had decided that he had proved himself worthy of such a responsibility. This was the first time in his life he had been entrusted with an assignment of such degree, one that, ironically, distanced him from the other lieutenants. Should he take the orders or revel with the others?
The decision that Charles would make would change two worlds, the one within him and the one around him, at the same time, shaping his destiny and making history as well.

It was a realm among many others, a young realm, which had been created less than two decades before. A modest realm, yet prosperous and in peace, filled with hopes and expectations of becoming a great power. Nothing had troubled it during its brief history, save a couple of foreign invasions the decade before, and each one of them had been successfully expelled after a few skirmishes.
The ruler was a queen as young as the realm, who kept her court on the fortified northernmost and highest peak in the lands, in what appeared to be a grand palace, even a little ostentatious, from without, yet was a fortress, and a nigh inexpicable one, within. Those walls had withstood many a collision, though the front during the war was in the provinces while the Queen remained at her court, and there, she sat upon her throne since early childhood, having become exceedingly clever and knowledgeable about the history and the lore of all the realms on that continent, as well as the best and most righteous way in which the State should be ruled, from the council of regents and tutors that had hitherto always reared her within those walls, and whose purpose to guide their Liege would soon come to an end, for now Her Grace would be able to put the knowledge she had acquired to a good use. And, though the throne was uncomfortable and the crown weighed heavy upon her, she had resolved to carry out her reign the best way she could, with the aid of a young boy, the son of the regents' leader, who was destined to marry her: a lad her age, wise beyond his years, who had often found it hard to rein her in until those says, when it was crystal clear that both of them were pleased with each other, and their reign would be a glorious and lasting one. Little did they know of what soon would happen to both of them. 
The young ruler was called Reason, and her prince's name was Conscience.
Still she saw, through the twin windows on the front façade of her hold, the development of the other realms beyond her own, and she heard the words of their rulers through a device that had been installed in the throne room, and all that with a curious touch of wistfulness. 
However, she would soon unleash a chain of events that would bring a tragic misfortune upon both the realm and herself, not to mention her fiancé as well.
It all began with a lack of water, both for the court and the smallfolk, but it would end in a far more catastrophic way than anyone would expect...


II.

The sun had already set beyond the bastions, over a night sky lit by blazing fireworks. There was a marquee in the middle of the courtyard, and there is where we lay our scene. Other lieutenants were sitting at their tables, with little steel cups full of the region's best fruit and flower liquor in hand. Yet Charles was not allowed to indulge in such pleasures. He was on guard duty that evening, for his commanding officers had decided that he had proved himself worthy of such a responsibility. This was the first time in his life he had been entrusted with an assignment of such degree, one that, ironically, distanced him from the other lieutenants. Should he take the orders or revel with the others?
"Why? The war is over, and we have won! And our general has just married for love! Why else celebrate this evening? The other officers think so." He still reflected upon Jamie's words. The ten year older sergeant was a veteran of the wars, about as tall as his commanding officer, dark and sunburned, with a scar from his forehead to his left collarbone. Everything that the Fates had given to Charles (nobility, good looks, education, innocence, confidence...) had they either denied to Jamie, or had been killed within him by the horrors of war. Thus do the powers that be ruin the lives of us smallfolk, and such is the power of that harrowing experience. It came as no surprise that the scarred sergeant admired, but also envied, the still untouched lieutenant, for not having been struck by such suffering, and sought his commanding officer's undoing. Therefore, if anyone should bear the weight of the cross for all of the events that now unfurl, it should not be Charles, but rather Jamie, whose insinuations opened the curtain on these cathartic scenes.

martes, 14 de abril de 2015

LYRICS WITH DOUBLE ENTENDRES

"Worthless", Brave Little Toaster (woodie's part, recalling those revolutionary sixties)
There were bikinis and buns, there were weenies
Fellini just couldn't forget

LATENT CONTENT:
"Buns" can refer to breasts or buttocks/glutei
"Weenies" can refer to penises
Federico Fellini, Italian filmmaker well-known for the erotic (and surreal) plots of his films

ANALYSIS
With the image of sunsets, surfers, and mention of Fellini, further west into the West – that frontier that is either California or Imaginary, where dreams become reality.  in full force, with hot dogs, bikinis, and surf culture, but it is a certain out-dated mode that begs for nostalgia but also recalls the anxieties surrounding this idyllic beach parties (wars, changing gender roles). 

"La puerta de Alcalá", Ana Belén (more on those revolutionary sixties)
Todos los tiranos se abrazan como hermanos 
exhibiendo a la gente sus calvas indecentes 
manadas de mangantes, doscientos estudiantes 
inician la revuelta, son los años 60. 



LATENT CONTENT:

This stanza may be referring to the Cold War and the youth movement at once... The analysis speaks of "una alusión a las primeras revueltas estudiantiles de los años 1960", so it is definitely the youth movement. University students roaring on the streets. 200 or maybe more of them.


ANALYSIS
la cuarta estrofa es una alusión a la dictadura franquista y las primeras revueltas estudiantiles de los años 1960;


"El hombre de los caramelos", Orquesta Mondragón

Él va muy compuesto,
usa sombrero,
el hombre de los caramelos,
envuelto
en un abrigo gris.
En la puerta del colegio,
con su bolsa de caramelos,
espera para hacerte feliz.
Y si deseas con él disfrutar,
no te debes, niñ@, asustar
el tiene siempre lo que te hara
gozaaaaaaaaar 
Uaaaaaaaaalove
Tu mamá te dice no debes mirar
debajo del abrigo lo que te va a enseñar
el hombre embozado en gris.
Él va muy puesto,
usa sombrero
el hombre de los caramelos,
envuelto
en un abrigo gris.
envuelto
en un abrigo gris.

LATENT CONTENT
This affably evil fellow is definitely a drug dealer (and probably a sexual predator).


"El onanista de la caja de sorpresas", Tam Tam Go

Y mira como a un caimán, le gusta tomar cerveza 
A coro con dos ranitas, por debajo de las mesas 
LATENT CONTENT
Can this be a prediction of Louis, Naveen, and Tiana a decade before P&tF... or something more erotic?
The verses refer most likely to the Budweiser advert in which some frogs ride an alligator into a swampland bar to drink beer.

Y mira como unos niños, en Denver, Colorado, 
celebran aniversarios, con cien tiros de regalo 
LATENT CONTENT
This is definitely the Columbine massacre.

Y mira que en los Balcanes 
un loco sueña con gloria 
pensando que por la paz 
limpia su tierra de escoria 

LATENT CONTENT
These verses refer to the ethnic cleansing in Croatia during the Balkan Wars.


"Manuel Raquel", Tam Tam Go

Cuando llegó
era un niño delicado 
no quería mancharse 
jugando en el descampado 
era un tipo legal, 
un amigo, un aliado 
Había vivido arrogante 
aquel error inocente 
llevar en cuerpo de hombre 
una mujer en su mente 
él un hombre tranquilo 
ella una dama valiente 
oh, Manuel Raquel 

Manuel Raquel 
no aguantó siquiera el primer invierno 
volando sobre un tacón 
de las redadas huyendo 

La última vez que le vi 
nos fuimos a emborrachar 
debajo del maquillaje no pudo disimular 
un cierto pudor antiguo 
al fin un poco de paz 

Quiso volar y salto 
no pude llegar a tiempo 
las lágrimas sin dolor 
me las ha arrancado el viento 
se fue sin decir adiós 
sin un grito, ni un lamento 
creo que iba contento 

Manuel Raquel 
no aguantó siquiera el primer invierno 
la detuvieron mil veces 
la pobre se fue rompiendo 
es muy difícil pasear 
de incógnito en el infierno 

Oh Manuel, oh Raquel 
se marchó 
es sólo una baja más 
Oh Manuel, oh Raquel 
se marchó 
por fin podrá descansar 
Manuel, oh Raquel 
se marchó 
es sólo una baja más 

Y se fue sin señalar 
y se fue sin simular 
y se fue sin molestar 
oh Manuel Raquel 
y se fue sin acusar 
y se fue sin apuntar 
y se fue sin disparar 
y se fue sin sin 

Y hasta la leña del monte 
tiene su separación 
de la gorda se hacen santos 
de la menuda carbón 

Y si vas al paraíso 
guardame un trozo de cielo 
que yo te llevo la tierra 
enrrollada en mi pañuelo.

LATENT CONTENT
Though it can appear to be a simple plot about a split personality... The whole song is about a male-to-female transsexual, who commits suicide due to the pressures of society within a dictatorship. It was tough to be queer in olden-day Spain.


"El peón del rey de negras", Mecano (allegory on social hypocrisy)

El problema es que mi señor,
que culea de estribor
pretende enrocarse con el alfil.

Y la reina, que es liberal,
no lo ve del todo mal
si a ella la dejan irse a Estoril.


LATENT CONTENT:
The expression "culear de estribor", "to lean towards starboard", can refer to sexual deviance. So the narrator sings that "my liege leans towards starboard" and has got a significant other of the same gender, yet "the queen is liberal and doesn't see anything wrong." This is a ménage à trois scenario reminiscent of Renly Baratheon, Loras Tyrell, and Margaery Tyrell! (Though this song was written decades before ASoIaF, it reminds me of the Reach Threesome/Team Highgarden soooo much!)


"Mil maneras de olvidar a un chulo", Joaquín Sabina, sung by Caco Senante (Spanish cover of Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover):


A una lumi de postín,
mi brother Paul Simón
con tremendo swing 
después de un rico making love,
dicen que le dijo 
que el cianuro y el daikiri
son más differents 
que un cordobés y un guiri
Palabrita del niño Jesús, 
"me no understand"
que un sex symbol como tú 
se encoñe de un gañán,
tan canchera, tan de luxe 
y tan tonta del culo,
habiendo mil maneras 
de olvidar a un chulo.
Abre los ojos, 
echa el cerrojo,
juega tus cartas,
hazte un favor,
prueba la tarta, 
vive la vida,
venda la herida 
del corazón.
No limpies babas 
del enemigo,
cuenta contigo, 
recíclate,
pela la pava 
con quien te quiera,
toca madera, 
ponte de pie.
En spanglish a un francés 
le llaman "sixty-nine",
si la dama es amateur,
apúntate compay,
pero pisa el freno
 que la teta de novicia
es como una dieta 
de veneno con caricias.
Con la farlopita 
que se traga esa nariz
cuántas fatiguitas, 
¿quién se paga un benjamín?
tan canchera, tan de luxe 
y tan tonta del culo,
habiendo mil maneras 
de olvidar a un chulo.
Búscate un menda 
que no te venda,
suéltate el pelo, 
cámbiate el chip
que el dormitorio 
no es un velorio,
que no hay más cielo 
que éste de aquí.
Cómete el coco, 
mímate un poco,
no compres trapos 
de todo a cien,
pierde las llaves, 
quema las naves,
sobran los guapos, 
¿no te das cuén?
Dile a Domingo 
que atraque un bingo,
que cante misa 
y que aprenda inglés,
que tus caderas 
siguen solteras,
que sus camisas 
las planche él.
Tira complejos 
por la ventana,
con lo que ganas 
monta un tablao,
pasa de viejos, 
corta con Guille
y a quien te humille, 
la cuenta ¡y chao!
Dale a Josele 
donde le duele,
marca una fecha, 
baja el telón
y si amenaza, 
ponle dos tazas
de la cosecha 
de don Simón.
¡Oye Felipe!
que tengo gripe,
que folle Rita 
con mister Frank
y si te altera 
la primavera,
ven mamacita 
con tu papá.

LATENT CONTENT:
This song makes references to sex, Spanglish, and drugs like ethanol or cocaine.