rymenhild

While hunting for an English translation of the lyrics to Manau's bizarrely awesome French Celtic rap La Tribu de Dana, I learned that the Breton musician Alan Stivell sued Manau for borrowing the chorus to his 1970s song "Tri Martolod".

( You want links to nationalist Breton folk-rock, don't you? )

Enjoy!

Nostre Chaucer is back, and he senses an opportunity in the writers' strike! Check out the shows he's planning to pitch, like Sectes in the Borough (This hot and explicit showe wil handle religious dissent yn a more free and open way than evere bifor) and Doctor Hwaet (Thys showe doth chronicle the aventures of a solitarye one who must wander the wayes of water on the rime-cold waves, mindful of miseries, yn a large device ycleped the TOWAERDES...)

Chaucer, if you write the shows, I swear I'll watch them.

From The Onion, as many awesome things are:

Roomba Violates All Three Laws of Roombotics.

Courtesy of some brilliant and anonymous parodist: Bob Dylan does not like green eggs and ham.

Thanks for the link, shirei_shibolim!

Apologies for the prolongued hiatus, people. I haven't had much interesting to say. Today, though, I have new music to gush about.

The first time I listened to "Emily", the first 12-minute song on Joanna Newsom's new album Ys, I was really confused. I couldn't guess where Newsom's voice (which everyone compares to Bjork, but I'm sure I hear something in it that reminds me of the best early jazz musicians) was going to swoop next, or when and why she and the lush orchestra behind her were going to dance off in separate directions. By the tenth or eleventh minute of the song, I gave it grudging approval.

How can I describe the second listen? I felt like Mary Lennox, standing in the drab walkway and then pushing open the door to the secret garden, in a sudden blaze of sunlight on wild roses. Yes, that's a twee and overly cheesy analogy, but Newsom is always just on the near end of twee and overly cheesy herself. That is, unless she's gone all the way through and come out the other side.

The thing about writing a twelve-minute song, with lyrics that may just be the richest and most besotted with language I've ever heard set to music*, is that Newsom doesn't have to resolve her thoughts right away. Newsom can muse slowly, focusing on small details of what she sees ("the bones of the birches, and the spires of the churches, jutting out from the shadows; / the yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks, and the bale, and the barrow") and what she remembers ("Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water / You taught me the names of the stars overhead, that I wrote down in my ledger"). She can raise tension almost unnoticeably, so that one doesn't recognize the bitterness of "Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor / The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever" until the fourth listen. After all this, the song's final redemptive move comes as a gift, more valuable and meaningful for the ten minutes of journey.

We could stand for a century,
staring,
with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:

Joy,
Landlocked in bodies that don't keep--
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
till we don't be.

*And I listen to Leonard Cohen quite a lot.

For the last two weeks, my cell phone has been failing to transmit my voice to callers. Therefore, I just went to the Sprint store and bought myself a new phone.

Much to my delight, when I went to purchase a ringtone for this phone, I found out that I could choose from a whole collection of songs from movies, TV shows and musicals, including dozens of Monty Python songs. If someone calls me now, my phone will begin a rousing chorus of "We're knights of the Round Table, we dance whene'er we're able!"

(They don't have the Veronica Mars theme song, though. It's a shame, really. How better for your phone to tell you, "You don't want to talk to that person" than by playing the Dandy Warhols' "We Used To Be Friends"?)

nuqotw does Rapunzel, the yeshiva way. There's a glossary this time.

In hopes of improving my week, I have links.

From cataptromancer: Yes, Virginia, there are ninjas.

( Not believe in ninjas! You might as well not believe in fairies. )

From The Onion: We Must Expand Our Nuclear Power Program...

( ...If We're to Realize Our Dream of Superhero Mutants )

From the_gentleman: The Princes in the Tower were not murdered by Richard III, but were instead whisked off to Hogwarts.

This is not a real update, I am afraid.

I am thankful for lots and lots of things, including (but not limited to) my studies, my friends, my family, my life in general, and my sister. (Yes, she's part of my family, but she gets a special mention anyway.)

Also, I have a meme, courtesy of deborah_judge.

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one/a lot of reasons why I like/love/adore you. Then post this in your LJ and share the love.

Sire Thopas drow abak ful faste;
This geant at him stones caste,
...Out of a fel staf-slinge.
But faire escapeth Child Thopas,
And al it was thurgh Goddes gras,
...And thurgh his fair beringe.

[Sir Thopas drew back quickly;
The giant cast stones at him,
from a fell sling-staff.
But Child Thopas escaped fairly,
and it was all because of God's grace,
and because of his fair bearing.]

-Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas, lines 827-832

Thopas is totally a literary ancestor of Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Launcelot. I love Thopas dearly. I want to take him home and feed him well and sing to him: "He was not afraid to die, oh brave sir Thopas!"

I do not think that expressing my deep and passionate love for Sir Thopas, The Slightly-Braver-Than-Sir-Robin, is necessarily the best way to impress my orals examiners, though.

ETA: ( Has anyone ever noticed that Tolkien's poem 'Errantry' seems to be related to 'Sir Thopas'? )