Touristy Riet: Holy shit! Look at all these museums! The Chopin Museum, the Museum of Caricature and Cartoon, the National Museum..we have to at least visit them.
Hungry Riet: I haven't eaten since 8 this morning. Fuck you guys.
History Major Riet: One, it's already 4 pm. Two, we're going to the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
Touristy Riet: Come on! You said you wanted to use your time efficiently and see as much as possible. The Uprising is way out of the way. Let's just go here. It's closer.
History Major Riet: NO. You will learn what the combined armies of Germany and the USSR did to this city. Have you ever wondered why all the buildings are less than 65 years old?
Hungry Riet: I SMELL DÖNER KEBAB!
Touristy Riet: But...but there will be anti-nazi cartoons! You like that. And Punch! Don't forget Punch! Come on!
I pass a plaque.
(Plaque: on this spot, the Nazis executed 120 people.)
Warsaw is positively riddled with these memorials. I'm talking literally every street corner. It's s huge city.
History Major Riet: See? Why are you here? You are here to remember.
(I pass an inscription in the sidewalk tracing the Warsaw Ghetto wall)
History Major Riet: Look. Look at that. There is NOTHING left. Warsaw was literally a pile of burning rubble before they built these shitty apartment blocks. And do you know why? Because the Soviets SAT THERE and let it happen. We're going to the Uprising Museum.
Hungry Riet: OH GOD IS THAT BORSCHT? IT IS OH GOD
Tourist Riet: You're going to a concentration camp tomorrow. Isn't that enough?
History Major Riet: Look, we went on this goddamn trip to-
This is ill-concealed neo-Nazi graffiti. It also riddles the city. This picture was taken smack in the middle of the former Warsaw Ghetto. I would have taken more pictures of such things had I not been horrified to stop and snap a photo in front of other people.
Touristy Riet: …
Hungry Riet: ...
History Major Riet: Let's go.
Hungry Riet: Can we go to the Umschlagplatz afterward?
Touristy Riet: Yes, do that. And get a rock. You're going to carry it to Treblinka.
This is the Bridge of Locks. There's an imitator in Krakow, but the original is apparently in Wroclaw.
Young couples (there are A LOT of them in the student ghetto north of the Oder) will buy a lock if they think they're serious enough, attach it to the bridge, and throw the key in the river. Their love is supposed to last as long as the lock remains on the bridge.
Most people just use ordinary padlocks and carve their names into them...
but others go the extra mile with the foof and the glitter glue.
This one looks like someone made it in metal shop.
Apparently you can buy special locks intended specifically for this purpose. Here is an embarrassingly elaborate one.
If you're cheap as fuck, you can use your bike lock.
Break from Poland! I have massive writers' block about the first day, so I've done the whole second week and can't post a thing :(
This is the story of how my grandparents came by their house on Beaver Island.
Their previous renter decided that she wanted to live on the Island permanently and so Amai and Atate would have to look elsewhere.
True to their nature, they wandered off down the worst road on Beaver Island on their bikes, which leads to the Eagle Hill neighborhood.
When they biked down a particular steep two-track, they heard a grumpy “'Allo!”
Striding toward them down through the forested dunes was a man wearing goggles and wielding a chainsaw.
While slightly disconcerting, this image would not be altogether surprising if he were not also clad in immaculate toothpaste-green hospital scrubs.
Dr. Murder informed my grandparents, in faintly German-accented English and in no uncertain terms, that they were on private property and had better take their tourist posteriors elsewhere.
“Is there a house for sale in this neighborhood?”
“No. No houses.”
“All right then. Thank you.”
They turned to bike, or rather walk, back up the sizable hill that marks the center of Eagle Bay.
“But!”
Another 180-degree rotation.
“But I am thinking of selling my house.”
“You are?”
“I could show you now, if you would like.”
“Oh, we don't want to bother you any m-”
“Come with me.”
So they did.
This man's name, they learned, was Jurgen Siebacher. He was an anaesthesiologist who had moved to this country some years previously and began to parcel out his bales of money upon retirement. He owned a yacht in Florida among other scattered properties. He lived alone. And he was getting restless again.
His house was kept, as Amai later said, exactly how you would expect a German anaesthesiologist to keep it—blindingly immaculate. He walked in the door, hung his coat on a hanger in the otherwise deserted closet, put each of his boots on a spotless rubber mat, and showed them around his custom-designed hexagonal house.
My grandparents interacted with Jurgen for two days: this one and the day they signed the papers.
The day after that, Jurgen literally walked out of his house with a suitcase and the clothes on his back. He left his peanut butter in the cupboard and his sheets on the beds. He left his shirts on the hangers, his socks in the dresser, and his scrubs in the garage. He left cans of beer, pasta, prodigious amounts of tuna, tools, dishes, soap, everything. He also left an exquisitely prepared and exhaustive set of instructions for the house he had so lovingly designed and then abandoned.
We use the surgical drapes as dish towels. Grandpapa mows the lawn in scrubs and a mask. And no one has seen Jurgen since.
We are set free for the evening to walk to the Rynek (market square) and get dinner.
It's effing beautiful.
I stride off silently and boldly in a randomly picked direction, as is my wont, intending to find a place that translates its menu into English and dine alone. Jesse, however, is suddenly walking next to me. I am not sure what to make of this, but am flattered by her company. We end up at a Georgian restaurant full of spicy meat and copious amounts of flatbread.
Coca-Cola appears to have bought the city. Nearly every chain restaurant has the same Coke promotion going, complete with huge logo signs on the iron fence that marks each establishment's territory. I am most displeased by this. But the food is very good, so I decide to put my rose-colored goggles back on.
We are walking back along Ulica Swidnicka when we encounter a pair of men with pamphlets. This is an incredibly common sight; on practically every street corner someone has been hired to pass out adverts for new apartments, concerts, banks, etc. People normally just flow around them or take a flyer out of kindness when one is thrust in their direction.
However, there were three fatal things I failed to notice about these two:
They were smiling, which people never do to strangers on the street.
They were wearing short sleeves and ties.
There was an unusually large space bubble around them.
We're on a collision course and are already in their sphere of evangelization. It's too late. One of them peels off to us and starts striding alongside us, chattering in Polish. We realize, too late, that our non-knowledge of Polish is actually our worst possible asset as he launches into his English tirade instead. We are walking rather quickly and almost rudely down the street, but he easily keeps pace. Augh! Small talk is even worse when you know there's an agenda.
I really, desperately want to respond "Thanks, but I've read what the Mormon church thinks of a few minor issues like women and race and, oh, everything." And although Jesse is awesome I don't know her yet so we can't do the whole hold-hands-and-pretend-to-be-dating trick.
I finally shake him off with “Thank you for talking to us, but we're both very attached to our respective religions.”
Hah. They see me trollin'. We had just been discussing how she was about as Jewish as I am Catholic.
On May 7 I began the most intense trip of my life in terms of emotional range. I don't think I've ever felt that happy, nor do I think I've ever been that terrified. The first half was Albion's Holocaust Studies Service Learning Program and the second left me free to wander about Poland, with the only constraints being my suitcase, my wallet, and the great language barrier--I can't speak Polish apart from several polite and apologetic phrases.
I dragged my protesting feet, which would have screamed if they could talk, down every likely alley (and several unlikely alleys) in Wroclaw, Krakow, and Warsaw. It was glorious and frightening and infuriating and lovely.
Here is the first day.
_______________
Über den Atlantik, Lufthansa Flight 442, 9:00 PM EST
I am lodged in literally the very back of the plane, listening to the attendants pleasantly hissing to each other. The kitchen is in the back, too, something I find confusing. They have to tow the Black Label and cigars all the way through economy class on the way to the bourgeoisie in the front. Agh! We haven't even crossed the Iron Curtain and look what's happening to me.
Anyway, I am seated next to an old woman of unknown origin who appears to speak only Arabic but hasn't the foggiest how to operate the screen (even when it's in Arabic). She ends up watching hours of Pakistani cricket with no audio (she didn't like the headphones) and later the Green Hornet in Portuguese. Across from her is a well-meaning German with his wife and daughter. He attempts to show her how the screen works through gestures but after a few polite and awkward smiles he gives up, except to turn it off when she finally falls asleep.
Jesse and I are the only Albionites on our connecting flight to Wroclaw. It has propellers.
The loud group of Wisconsinites behind us finds this very amusing.
Apparently there is free wine? Fuck yes! I am presented with far too much of a dry red concoction which leaves me rather verbose, as I haven't slept in 24 hours. I regale Jesse with tales of Gulag until she falls asleep, probably so she doesn't have to listen. I am supremely content.
When you're planning a party, you think, "Hey, party! You know what lends a festive air to every event? BALLOONS!" And you fill up five hundred million of them, after which point your lungs resemble the balloons before you blew them up. Then, hoarse-voiced, you get your party started. You've spent so much effort on the damn things that you're already beginning to resent them. They sit there in a pile on the floor, cheerfully mocking you.
"Whee! Balloons!" Everyone is very glad to see the buoyant spheres. People start playing the universally acknowledged "poke balloon in air" game. Then, as they become increasingly intoxicated, they start tripping on the balloons. This is not what you had planned. Balloons are supposed to provide atmosphere, not the sole focus of the party. Here you are in the corner, trying to discuss the Austrian School of Economics, and everyone is spending all their time gaping at balloons.
Fuck balloons.
Look at them, smugly underfoot. They need to die now. This is your fucking party.
You stomp on one.
BANG.
Everyone looks at you like you've just murdered a kitten.
Thanks to Aaron and Lauren, who put on their best "You've just murdered a kitten!"
faces for the occasion.
You decide that you can't be the douche who goes around stomping on balloons in front of everyone. You'll look unstable. There must be an easier way, an efficient way...
Enough of this shit. "These things are getting in the way, I'm just going to move them, all right?" You gather all the balloons and herd them out the door and a ways away from the house.
Then you go insane.
You jump up and down, bursting several balloons with each leap. The balloons pop like gunshots, but the trees muffle the sound. You show those balloons. The ungrateful bastards. You spend all that time on them and they steal your party. You'll show them.
After the killing spree, you return to the party, looking fresh-faced and cheerful. Everyone has to engage in your conversation now. Ha.
As they leave, no one notices the tiny shreds of rubber that are the remains of your five hundred million balloons.
And yet, weeks after the party, you keep finding partially deflated balloons. They're hideous and squishy. They've taken to hiding in the strangest places. But you can never fully eradicate them.
The balloons will always be there. They've taken your breath and turned it into bitterness, but their sheer tenacity renders them immortal. You have to cut them apart individually with scissors; stomping just doesn't do it anymore. They die at last under your blade with a resigned hiss.
As per very insistent request, here is Nice Looking Men, minus the men!
This is Renate Müller, the original Viktor/Viktoria (1933). In other news, it was 1933. Things were happening. Josef Goebbels went slavering after her like a dog after cheeseburgers because of her facial structure or something. Müller gave in and acted in an incredibly racist film. She then apparently suffered a breakdown and died under extremely suspicious circumstances in 1937 (several Gestapo were seen entering the hotel she was staying at shortly before her death). Things were happening.
Aghhhhh. k.d. lang, can you happen more, please? I am not a fan of the genre you sing, but damn, you and your voice are beautiful.
Dita von Teese knows what she has. She also knows what many people would like to do to what she has, preferably on the sofa. And the table. And the stairs. And a cigarette-hazy dressing room, a heavy curtain shoved aside to reveal a recently occupied cot, too recently, and the sharp smell of
...sorry, where was I? *turns unscrupulous-movie-director-imagination off*
I don't normally put up the LOOK BOOBS pictures, but a good 40% of her career orbits around them, and they are indeed of a sufficient size to have their own gravitational field. Some of you might appreciate that.
Gladys Bentley is mildly amused at your racist homophobic bullshit. She will sing the ever living hell out of the blues and sleep with whomever she wants and presumably beat up the entire nightclub with her hat and a cocktail stirrer and you can bloody well deal with that. It's 1926. She does what she wants.
I have no idea who this is, but she rocks that suit. You go, mystery woman.
Ella Fitzgerald. What more do you want?
What's that, you say?
The only thing better than Ella Fitzgerald is Ella Fitzgerald and a Yiddish song?
You just might be right, Convenient Suggestion Provider.
It's been...almost a month since last post. I suck at this blogging thing.
But I promised I wouldn't post emo things, and the past three weeks have been like that. I was rather abruptly jolted out of emoness by the actions of someone who was a lot farther down the road. So now it's just back to manic cheerfulness interrupted every eight seconds with morbid observations.
I also promised not to mention Nazi Germany in this post, even though it appears to be the only thing I can blog about without burying myself in research. (Is that sad? Yes. Do I care? No.)
Instead, here is a story.
In 5th grade, we were herded to church for what we had been vaguely told was a “music presentation”. This turned out to be a woman and her guitar, alone in the front of the dark cave-like monstrosity that was St. Jude. She started to blather about how she was going to praise God with her music.
I was supremely bored. We already had to sit in the church twice a week—once for Mass, once to listen to Father Tom lecture at length about the nuts and bolts of Catholicism to supplement the watered-down tripe we learned in religion class. (I liked this time. In third grade I distinctly recall asking "If science says that the dinosaurs came first, and the Bible says that Adam and Eve came first, isn't it like science and religion are fighting?" He was silent for a bit and then started talking about Thomas Aquinas.)
Finally, it looked like she was going to play something. I perked up. The woman crossed to the piano and plunked out the melody line of a hymn on the piano, singing along with it. She mentioned that it was written in 1793, using the sort of tone that nine-year-olds use to say "Is that a booger?"
She then hoisted her guitar and sang the same melody, only syncopated and set to the idiotic acoustic strumming of non-committal chords.
I was horrified. You weren’t supposed to do that to hymns. You just weren’t. It was like taking the Duke of Wellington and making him wear a trucker hat and a shirt that said "bros before hoes". It was like putting ketchup on lobster.
I faintly recall hissing to my neighbor on the pew “I liked it better in 1793”. This was the first moment I had been exposed to Contemporary Christian Music, and I've never stopped hating it.
You'd think that someone who is normally so repulsed by overblown ritual, so horrified by oppressive obscurantism, would welcome this sort of thing. At least they weren't chanting Latin like they did only a short while ago. Maybe this was just the thing to drag Catholicism kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.
Why, then, was I sickened?
In the Christian tradition there has always been a fairly consistent boundary between what you did and did not sing in church. God lived there, and you respected that. When the more progressive branches decided "Hey, maybe we should try to bring the average age of our congregation below 276!" they began to incorporate 'contemporary' services into their schedules, with many churches choosing to only offer contemporary fare. I felt (and feel) that the incorporation of Christian pop into church services cheapens the message.
The creation of new music should be welcomed, but the form used in worship should be sacred. By sacred I mean "not worldly". Who am I to decide what is sacred and what is worldly? Well, no one. Perhaps a good litmus test would be to decide whether the music would sound out of place in a grocery store. If it does, great. If it doesn't, it panders too much to the lowest common denominator.
It may seem like I am clinging to this one arbitrary and even backward tradition while rejecting many others. That is true. A huge part of my religious sense hinges weirdly on the existence of music, and I was raised on classical music alongside the horrible post-Vatican-II songs of our parish. So it's out of self-interest that I rail against Christian pop.
My opinion still stands, though:
When you have gone out of your way to go to a place of worship, you should know that you're dealing with a being beyond human comprehension. You should not be coddled. You should not try to make your god relatable to you. You should try to relate to your god.
Please do not think I am opposed to all modern religious music. There are literally thousands of horribly shitty hymns, just as there are truly talented modern religious musicians that don't feel constrained by a commercial formula that works. (maybe. somewhere.) That's fine. By all means, make pop-style music that fits your morality. Just don't bring it to church.
Alas, all the other opponents of modernized Christian music seem to be fundies who would probably hang me for wearing pants to church. (In the name of the Lord God Jesus Christ and his Great, Just Plan for Us In His Word.) They appear to think that anything with a beat is an instrument (har) of Lilith and her harlots, who spend their time alternately providing Satan with sexual favors and seducing The Youth.
And, I mean, I don't even go to church and am honestly not interested in places of worship except out of religious curiosity. So this doesn't really apply to me except when I am dragged into church by my hoodie strings. For now I will jealously guard my collection of polyphonic chanting and classical sacred music.
P.S. Imho, if you want to hear the sound of God, go listen to the Valaam Institute Choir or 'Et In Terra Pax' from Vivaldi's Gloria. When I first heard Valaam, I honestly said "Oh. My. God." without breaking the second commandment.
As I write this, there is a girl in my parent’s house. Mom is teaching her a violin lesson. The product of their combined efforts will be $16, a wasted half-hour, and a horribly angry Riet.
For although I can’t hear it, I know she’s making something I love into something filthy and obscene.
(You may recognize this as the beginning of Lady Gaga's Alejandro video.) A Czardas is actually a type of dance as opposed to a specific melody. Vittorio Monti wrote this one, despite the fact that he's not Hungarian or a gypsy. His became the most famous Czardas, often mistaken for folk music despite its bastard origins. It is simplistic and sappy. I adore it.
Flashback time!
The first really good student my mother ever had was named Andye. She was in 10th grade and played in the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony. (9-year-old translation: VIOLIN GODDESS) One day, I was upstairs when she started playing the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
The violin pieces I had experienced up until that point were neatly organized and rather bland classical tunes, minuets and the like. Czardas was earth-shattering. It didn’t give a shit about your metronome. It spit on your tidy divisions between notes.
I was in love. Now that I think about it, hearing Czardas was the very beginning of my borderline obsession with Eastern European music.
All complaints resulting from excessive Red Army Chorus fangirling may be directed to Vittorio Monti. Or you can just hit me. That too.
I started to secretly learn it when alone in the house; even at the brash age of ten I somehow had the sense not to be appallingly jumped-up for once in my life. I had heard a violin cry, laugh, and dance all at once, and damned if I wasn’t going to learn how.
I was never allowed to play it. By the time I had enough technical ability and courage to mention it to my teacher, I still couldn’t summon enough anger on command and translate it into music. (I don’t know where that Riet went either.) Now I only play it in angsty solitude.
...Anyway! This student—let’s call her Laura—is in high school and reluctantly taking violin lessons because her mother thinks it makes her well-rounded.
And.
She.
Is.
Abominable.
Basic rhythm and intonation are complete mysteries to her. She pays no attention to even the most basic key signature; apparently we have to write out every single note exactly as it is, complete with color coding and encouraging arrows. When Laura starts drivers’ ed, she’ll have to arrange for all the roads to be painted bright orange so she doesn’t constantly plow into 7-11s and small children. She probably has warning stickers on all knives, outlets, and open flames in her house that say “THESE MAKE OUCHIES” and depict expressions of horrible pain.
She is allowed to play Czardas. She is allowed to play CONCERTOS. She should be playing pieces with names like “I Have A Little Moo Cow” and “Spring Is Here, Hooray!”. But no.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing my mother’s teaching methods. Throwing someone off the deep end is a great way to force him or her to learn. In an individual setting, the difficulty of the piece is so humiliating that the fear of defeat drives the student above laziness. In a group setting, the student is inspired by the talent of those surrounding her and will be motivated to rise above the bottom of the barrel. The individual approach might not work if the student is an arrogant princess type. (there’s the rub…)
My problem is with the song. You can completely slaughter melodramatic pseudo-gypsy music and not draw my wrath. God knows I do it all the time. In fact, it's probably more authentic that way. But you have to mean it.
The absolute worst way to treat a melodramatic piece is to slog through it apathetically like a hipster through a mall. Much worse than wrong notes. Much worse than erratic rhythm. I know feigning enthusiasm is horrifying to a teenager, but then why did she pick that song? Ugh! She makes me want to smash her violin onto her oh-so-breakable fingers, just so she'll feel something.
Augh! Ok...ok. Calming down.
Dear Czardas, I will always love you. Those horrible things Laura did to you are not your fault. Let’s run away together to an island where there are lots of klezmer bands and magical violins. On second thought, I think that island is Manhattan. Oh well. We'll find you an accordion player and live happily ever after.
Damned if I'm qualified to tell you whether you count as a legit asexual. Like any other queer category, it's a self-identified group.
Honestly, though, liking foreplay but not sex would seem to fall squarely into the asexual category unless you are motivated by sexual attraction to engage in foreplay.
I don't know what sexual attraction feels like; that's between you and your junk. I assume that different people value parts of a sexual experience more than others. If you happen to value one more than the other but still consider your motivation to be sexual attraction, then I would consider that to be sexuality. If you value foreplay more than sex because of your lack of sexual attraction to others and because you've got a different reason for enjoying foreplay, then welcome to the monochrome mob, comrade.
Having as much experience of sexual attraction as a rutabaga has of calligraphy, I cannot comment on or empathize with it. Go lust after a lamppost if it floats your boat. Look at it standing there, all steely and curvaceous and RAVISHING. If you can get along fine without sex, feel that your complete expression of love is not bound to sex, and/or want to embrace the label, go for it.
...
I feel like there are about sixty layers of sophistication that completely went over my head like a V-2 rocket on the way to destroy everything I have ever known. Well, the awesome thing about the sexuality spectrum, or sphere, or camel, or bassoon, or where was I? Oh yes. --is that people love to debate it with infinitely more skill than I could dream of. May the world listen.
P.S. Little thing that bothers me: Asexuality--as a queer category--doesn't mean "weighing your options". (I'm looking at you, mom.) It doesn't mean that you are sexually attracted to people regardless of their gender, although there are panromantic asexuals out there. That's called pansexuality. Asexuality is a bit of a clunky word because it can be literally defined in several ways. *grumble, crosses arms*
P.P.S. Ooooh! For the very best in asexual debate and camaraderie, wander over to the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN). They will answer questions you have, questions you don't have, and questions you never want to have.
A friend pointed out to me that the term “asexual” is actually a misnomer for some people who might identify with the label. I had hinted on several occasions that graphic sexual imagery or verbally described sexual situations squicked me out a bit, as did the prospect of having sex. She called me on it to confront my identification as asexual.
In order to be a-something, one must be absolutely indifferent to it. A dislike or disgust would turn one’s position into an anti-.
I maintain that it is possible for someone to be truly indifferent to sex and yet still shun it or situations that lead to it.
Here’s my logic. Sex requires both participants to hurdle several social taboos (such as touch and sight of genitalia), rendering each person quite vulnerable. You don’t just go from sitting on the couch to full-on banging unless you’re trapped in a comedically cut porn film. Romance-minded people might recognize the hurdling as “intimacy”. Anyway, would-be lovers cross these boundaries to achieve the end goal of intercourse.
Going the distance with a partner who doesn’t really see what the huge deal is about inserting tab A into slot B, or any combination thereof, gets tricky.
One can dislike foreplay and still be indifferent to sex, because the whole point of foreplay is that it is arousing in and of itself while leading to something perceived as inherently desirable and enjoyable. If only one partner is attracted and/or aroused, the other partner may see foreplay as needless excess that encroaches upon their social boundaries, even with a romantic partner. If the asexual partner values their relationship enough, he or she might consent to foreplay, but as a sort of chore. Who wants to do chores? That's right. Liars.
Therefore, if one experiences no revulsion towards intercourse itself, yet is distressed by the situations, activities, and actions that often accompany intercourse, then one can still truthfully adhere to the asexual label.
Damn, I tried to explain that clearly and it sort of failed. Ugh. It may seem like I type with pretentious words to make myself seem more intelligent, but truthfully I've forgotten how to write any other way. To compound the problem, I write more formally and with more periodic sentences whenever I feel that something is at stake. Please forgive.
Christmas lasts TWELVE DAYS when you're Catholic, dammit! *clings to convenient aspects of religion like any modern pseudo-Catholic*
I have a pathological hatred of Christmas music written after 1900. It’s twinned with my utter disdain for any attempt to drag religious music into the 20th or 21st centuries and it gets pretty unhealthy; I tend to go slightly insane when exposed to the Christmas radio station for longer than ten seconds.
You will note that none of the wassail songs are included here, as they have their origins in non-religious things and would therefore not qualify as Christmas carols per se. Don't get me wrong--I love them a lot. Especially the ones that get into thinly veiled extortion in the third verse or so. The Somerset Wassail is especially awesome.
Anyway, I was raised on the Vienna Boys’ Choir and medieval English carols, and I'm going to bloody well stay that way. I feel no shame in calling these carols really beautiful. When I talk about music being the thin and unbreakable link between me and religion, this is partially what I'm referring to. Here is a list of lovely things to bring you tidings of comfort and joy.
A La Nanita Nana
A Spanish song. When we were kids, especially if Doña Chencha was over, Grandpapa liked to play this on the guitar.
WHY DID THE CHEETAH GIRLS COVER THIS SONG? RAGE. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: RUINING RIET'S CHILDHOOD.
Es Hat Sich Halt Eröffnet
I have no idea what this is about. Something about gates opening and angels singing. It's Austrian. It's cheerful (surprise). It wins. This is the Vienna Boys Choir.
Patapan
This one is originally French, and urges children to pick up various musical instruments (hence pa-ta-pa-ta-pan for the drum and tu-re-lu-re-lu for the flute) and celebrate Christmas. I may just like it because of the fife. Oh well.
Riu Riu Chiu
The awesomeness of this Spanish carol is offset only slightly by its fiendishly difficult rhythm. Some arrangements are harder than others. For some reason we have a ridiculous one.
Still, Still, Still (weils Kindlein schlafen will)
Last Christmas morning, our dog turned out to have frozen to death in the neighbor's driveway. Not exactly the happiest of times, but damn it, we were going to play Christmas carols if it was the last thing we did. It was Tradition, and you don't run away from improperly capitalized words. As we'd already been through the standards ad nauseam, we turned to the endless fountain of Christmas music that my grandparents seem to have.
We sang this song. Only one person there spoke German, but we decided we had the right to be bigots about it.
So we took it down an octave, turned the gutturals up to eleven, and sang like we were going to straight up murder everyone if they didn't STFU so Jesus could sleep.
This is referred to as A Jolly Good Time in our family.
Sorry about the stupid picture.
(edit: I was going to link to a stereotypical German marching song, so as to give you a lulzy idea of our interpretation, but most of them are by white supremacist dickwads and I will not give their videos one more hit than is necessary.)
Gaudete
Huzzah for Latin carols!
Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born from the Virgin Mary, rejoice!
Personent Hodie
Ahhhhh, this is what Catholicism should be like--grave, monumental, ancient, and completely unintelligible to the common man! (I jest! I jest! Well, only a little.)
Coventry Carol
I've always loved this song for its unearthly sorrow, but I learned a new history fact that makes it more interesting...
December 28 was the Feast of the Holy Innocents. King Herod supposedly got wind of the birth of a new King of the Jews from the wise men (awful wise of you, wise men) and ordered all young male children in Bethlehem to be cut into bits, effective immediately. The victims of this brilliant PR tactic are remembered as the first apocryphal martyrs.
Anyway, the most famous song about Herod's baby-killing spree is the Coventry Carol.
Herod the King in his raging
chargéd he hath this day
his men of might in his own sight
all young children to slay
It's named for a highly industrial city in England. On November 14, 1940, Coventry was the target of a Luftwaffe operation known as 'Moonlight Sonata'. Hundreds of people were killed and over a thousand were injured. If you want to read about the mutually awkward implications of broadly-targeted bombing, you can get your jollies here.
Anyway, I see interesting things in this song. It's about a cruel king ordering the deaths of civilians to cement his own power. Sound familiar?
I'll bet my nose that the Coventry Carol was sung quite often during Christmas 1940.
I'll be Home for Christmas
I actually hate this song a lot, so I'm not going to link to it, but something pretty hilarious just struck me...
I'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.
We know these things:
1.The song was written during the war, so it’s implied that the singer is in the service.
2.He won’t be home for Christmas.
3.On Christmas Eve, however, he’ll be “where the love-light gleams”.
4.He will dream about being home for Christmas.
I don’t know about you, but when I heard “love-light” I immediately thought of this:
…which transforms this into the least romantic Christmas carol ever.
To give him a little credit, he gets honesty points for telling his girl that he’s going holiday whoring, and that he’ll be home “if only in his dreams”, so he’ll regret it a little afterward.
Stille Nacht
Saved this one for last, because I didn't want to deal with it.
If you play Silent Night around me (and it’s not a commercial version that will just make me rage), I’ll be seeing ghosts by the second verse. They will be staring out of holes in the ground and squinting between twisted trees.
Silent Night is one of the few carols that are immensely popular in both the German and English languages. In several accounts (of both world wars), this song came drifting down the lines in both languages. In the very few locations where the (in)famous and much-mythologized Christmas Truce of 1914 took place, this song was there.
Not on my list of favorites, but maybe the one with the most emotional impact. Silent Night is not healthy for someone with a dangerously overactive imagination.
:D I found Vladimir Miller singing it! He's an AMAZING basso profundo. I was looking for a version with a male chorus and hadn't realized that St. Petersburg had done it.
That is all for today. Probably going to move to smaller posts from now on because these larger ones have a tendency to sit around unfinished for weeks as I hem and haw over their content. Blargh.
