This will be a short one, but I just wanted to tell you something neato.
So I was pondering the word "disgusting" the other day. There are three parts to the word: "dis," "gust," and "ing," two of which we know the meaning of. "Dis-" means something along the same lines as "un-" or "not." "-ing" turns a word into an adjective or gerund (or a verb if you want to get less technical.) Basically, the word tells us that the thing we're describing is not...whatever "gust" means. Which means "gust" meant something at some point in our language's history, probably something to do with taste.
At this point in my thought process, the very similarly-sounding French word "dégoûtant" (pronounced day-goot-on) popped into my head--it's the French word for "disgusting," and if you recall my post about the accent circonflexe, the accent circonflexe, seen here above the 'u,' indicates pretty reliably that there used to be an s right there. AND, the cool thing about the word "dégoûtant" is that "goût" means "taste" in French.
So, if you followed all of that, you may decide to hypothesize along with me that there used to be a word in English, "gust," that meant "taste."
Having brought my thought process that far, it occurred to me that I should, like, test this theory. So I consulted our best friend the Oxford English Dictionary and found this:
Lillah, something happened in my Teaching Literature class today that made me question myself.
This is a good thing, I suppose, since we should always question our most dearly held assumptions when striving for more education. But still, I feel extremely uncomfortable in thinking that I may not be as awesome a reader as I thought I was.
Namely, I don't visualize while reading. There is no movie playing in my head. We've been talking a lot in class about how to teach various "reading strategies"--stuff like predicting, making inferences, activating background knowledge, and visualizing. I am ready to accept that visualizing can indeed be a useful strategy while reading, but personally I don't find it terribly useful.
Now, this is strange, because in other areas I'm an extremely visual person. I like photography and art. I draw comics to help me make sense of hard concepts. My notes in class usually look something like this:
When I write in books it looks like this:
And when I plan out essays it looks like this:
So, I have no idea why I don't visualize what I'm reading--it's not something I ever did, or considered necessary for understanding or enjoying a book. When I admitted this to a couple classmates, one of them asked, "Wait, so what IS going on in your head?" Well, other stuff. It's not that I'm not engaged with the text, it's just that the visual details aren't terribly important to me in the face of things like emotions, relationships between characters, and the craft of the words themselves.
It seems to be this very closely-held tenant of teaching literature that students MUST LEARN HOW TO VISUALIZE THE TEXT, and I'm rather questioning that. Am I just weird, or are there other people out there that find visualization not only unnecessary, but distracting?
Because seriously, having a movie playing in my head while reading sounds terribly distracting.
So, do you visualize? Is it really like a movie constantly playing in your head? I just can't even imagine that....
Lillah, I'm thinking about pets. What does it mean to be domesticated? Easy answer: an animal is domesticated if it can't survive without humans. But there seems to be a grey area there. I'm thinking especially about food. Are they domesticated when their body literally doesn't function right without a human there to take care of them and do things like regulate their food intake?
I'll look at our family's pets for examples. This hypothesis is prompted by Benvolio Fish:
I left for the weekend, and when I came home, Benvolio was, like, horrifyingly fat. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell one roommate that the other roommate was feeding him, so he got fed twice a day. And I think the one roommate, whom I did not instruct on how to feed him, fed him rather a lot. AND HE ATE ALL OF IT. This led me to a realization: Benvolio can't tell when he's eaten enough, or too much, so I have to regulate that for him. My hypothesis is based on the fact that bettas are ridiculously overbred. Soooo many health problems can result from the slightest change in water temperature, or pH, or food intake, or stress level. He wouldn't last a week in the wild. I think that somewhere along the line of single-trait breeding for longer fins and specific colors, the instinct to regulate their own diet got bred out of bettas. Weird crap like that can happen when you breed for one or two specific traits. (Ask me for more on this if you want, cuz it's interesting but kind of a tangent.)
In contrast, Spats:
She is a growing kitty, and she eats SO MUCH. When we first got her, she ate more than Smudge and Bubblegum combined, and she hasn't really slowed down since. But she knows what she's doing: she's perfectly healthy, not overweight at all. For the enormous amount of energy she spends playing all day and not sleeping 18 hours a day like a normal cat, she knows that she needs a lot of food.
This is what makes me wonder: are cats fully domesticated? They still know how to take care of themselves. I don't know, though, whether they would be able to survive without humans. Even feral cats still eat out of humans' garbage. They still have the instinct to hunt, but would they be able to catch enough food to live off of?
I've heard that dogs (wolves) started being domesticated (several thousand years ago) when they started following humans around and eating their scraps. Eventually, they started being friendly enough to form a symbiotic relationship with humans, helping them hunt and then sharing the meat. And then we got these things:
I don't think this is a symbiotic relationship anymore...
What do you think? You quite possibly know more about this than me.
Hello, sister mine! It's been rather long since I've posted, and for that I apologize. I've been meaning to bust out an epic piece on the subject of early humans, to incorporate some of the fragmented bits of hypotheses that have been floatin' around in my mind as of late. I'm super excited because I've finally stumbled across the perfect article to tie it all together!
National Geographic published this article back in '06, entitled "Dikka Baby." It's about a fossil discovery made by an Ethiopian scientist, Zeresenay Alemseged, in Africa's Great Rift Valley (a place where a goodly number of hominin fossils have been found -- our early ancestors liked to hang out there, as it's a well-sheltered and fertile river valley. And, luckily for us future folk, tends to preserve remains quite nicely). What's totally spectacular about this fossil is that it consists of a nearly complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton -- that of a three year old child, dubbed the Dikka baby.
A. afarensis was one of our very early ancestors, and lived more than three MILLION years ago. I know you're somewhat familiar with H. habilis and H. erectus on, so here's a handy timeline for reference:
The most famous example we have of A. afarensis is "Lucy," a partial skeleton found in 1974. Much of what we know about this species comes from the largely (somewhat dubiously) reconstructed parts of Lucy's skull and body, so having a complete skeleton is fantastic. Also, Lucy was an adult when she died, so with the Dikka baby we have some insight into what this species was like as a child.
What's particularly special about this stage in human evolution is that it marks a transition into one of our most distinct trademarks: a relatively long span of time between birth and self-sufficiency, known as the infant-dependency period.
For some background:
Primates have some of the longest infant-dependency periods of all mammals, and among primates, humans have the longest. There are a few likely reasons for this; the foremost being our large brains. We actually can't stay in our mothers' wombs for long enough for our brains to completely develop, because if we did our heads would be too big to fit through the birth canal! So instead of coming out all chop-chop-ready-to-go like a baby deer, we have this period following birth in which we are totally dependent upon our mothers and the larger group so that we can mature to the point that some animals are just born at.
The Dikka baby's brain case (yes, that is a scientific term for the skull) is not quite modern human- sized, but still rather larger than a chimp's. This is indicative of a prolonged childhood. Now, this is where things start to get interesting. A. afarensis was bipedal, meaning they walked on two feet. While their upper bodies were still fairly ape-like, their hips and spine were positioned to allow upright walking, and instead of the grasping toes of their cousins, they had flatter feet and shorter toes to help propel the body forward in a walking motion. Without grasping feet, a baby can't cling to her mother like a chimp, and so has to be carried. This would have inhibited the mother's ability to provide for herself, and in turn caused her to depend more upon the larger group than her earlier ancestors would have. This dependency served to strengthen family bonds, and is the predecessor to the family structure that we modern humans identify by.
Now, the reason for which humans developed bipedalism has been the subject of great speculation among anthropologists. Some say it was to allow endurance; it expends less energy than "knuckle-walking," and while we can't move as fast as our knuckle-walking ancestors, we can go for longer distances. Some say a higher vantage point was beneficial in the sub-Saharan grasslands where we originated. All agree that freeing up our hands to be able to carry things was a really great idea. But to carry what? What could be so important for us to be able to carry that our entire physiology would rearrange itself in order to accommodate? Well, babies of course. But if you think about the way evolution works, this theory doesn't make much sense. People have to reproduce in order to have babies to carry, and if they're surviving long enough to have babies then obviously their physiology isn't going to have much incentive to change. However, try thinking about it like this: what if the only babies who are surviving are the ones whose mothers are able to carry them? These mothers must have the inclination towards bipedalism in order to do so, and therefore their progeny are going to have a higher chance than the last generation to carry this mutation as well. So in this way, the traits that allow bipedal walking have the advantage; it's like evolution in reverse!
Of course, no anthropological study is complete without input from the linguists. And they have hypothesized this big-brain-induced lengthy dependency period actually prompted the development of speech itself! Think about the way a mother coos and comforts her baby, and the way the baby makes noises in response. Combined with the group dependency I mentioned earlier, this could very well be where the forms of communication that led to speech really got started! I'm very interested in what you think of this model, as well.
The point all of this leads up to is really quite profound; that the very logistics of having a physically large brain are responsible for such staple human characteristics as bipedalism, social bonds, and speech, rather than our intelligence per se. It opens up the possibility of our earlier ancestors being much much smarter than we have assumed. All that was needed was the ability to pass on information, and the mental incentive to actually share knowledge with our peers, to point us in the direction that led to where we are today.
I discovered this song a few years ago, and it's fascinated me ever since. Listen:
When I heard this song the first time, I was getting ready for school and it came up on shuffle or something on my iPod. I listened and I was like "...wait what?" It immediately struck me as odd: for one thing, it was so clear. I could understand every word, and the melody was so straightforward. And...I had no idea what it was about. I thought vaguely that perhaps it was referencing something I wasn't familiar with. For example, I had just finished the book Glass by Ellen Hopkins, and armed with my new knowledge that glass is a term for crystal meth, I thought maybe this song was about someone's struggle with drug addiction, hence the "monster made out of glass."
Then I left it alone for a while. A while later, I came across it again, and decided to see what the internet thought about it. I found out that this song was originally supposed to go on the album The Definitive Act, but was pulled at the last minute.I found some forum somewhere were someone posted a statement by Agent M (the lead singer) that it was about the issues the band was having with their record company at the time. Think "4 Robots and an Evil Scientist" style. Furthermore, that person quoted Agent M as saying "I think the song makes it obvious who wins the fight." I tried really really hard to find that forum again, or maybe the original quote from Agent M, but no luck. So...take my hazy memory with a grain of salt?
A year or so later, I was on the bus back to Mom's house from Boise, staring out the dark window with my iPod on shuffle. This song came on. I thought some more, and realized that this is a totally open metaphor. It can literally be applied to nearly any situation where someone is struggling against an adversary. I thought it interesting that the band, if what I found on that forum is true, narrowed down their intention to something so specific when they made the song so open.
So I wonder, was the band so focused on their own issues that they didn't realize their song could be applied elsewhere? Also, I thought the quote from Agent M was interesting because I don't think the winner is clear at all. If the song is about their issues with their record company, they lost that battle and broke up soon after, I think, in which case TB lost the fight in the song. The last instrumental has a feel of a battle to it, and it also ends on a kind of melancholy couple of notes. But that's very subtle, and I don't think it makes the winner at all "clear."
...So those are my musings, sister. Seeing as how you have a much fresher perspective on this than me, what do you think?
Love, Dory
Edit:
It occurs to me that this post might benefit from me posting lyrics for easy reference...
Thought that you would be our guide Through this big jungle-- I'm wondering why Your teeth are sharp and you have hungry eyes... Where did you take us?
Your family honor is weak-- Balloon of loyalty has got a leak. How can I trust you when I know you'll sell me?
You're not more than a monster made out of glass; We see the truth. And since you're not more than a, A monster made out of glass, We'll shatter you! We'll shatter you!
I have so many friends who deserve so much more. By helping each other, we gain the force Of a wrecking ball, Smashing up all your teeth... Soon you'll be helpless, and We'll be free!
I know that we disagree, Because I believe in integrity. That word is omit from your library Of quarterly proceeds!
Your not more than a monster made out of glass; We see the truth. And since you're not more than a, A monster made out of glass, We'll shatter you! We'll shatter you!
Love, Dory (take 2)
...also, p.s.: Don't you just love that bass line? :D
So, I stumbled upon something pretty awesome today, and thought I would share.
Apparently, there's a term in French that is used to describe the substitution of French words to form nonsensical sentences in order to imitate the sound of English (in a comical or mocking tone). It's called, "faire du yaourt" - "making yogurt."
Here's an example:
Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?
De Meuses raines, houp! de cloques.
Anyway, the writer of the post in which I found this couldn't think of an equivalent English term. Given that it's somewhat of an American tradition to imitate foreign languages for comedic purposes, it seems odd that we don't have a specific word or phrase that describes doing so. Why do you think that is?
Love, Lilly
Edit: I've been thinking on this some more, and I've realized that this "yaourt" thing is actually very different than simple mockery. If you look at the above example (which, hopefully you've noticed by now that it's meant to imitate the pronunciation of "Hickory Dickory Dock"), it obviously took a considerable amount of skill to construct. I'm not sure of the actual French translation, but I'm thinking it's probably just a bunch of words arranged to sound like something else. If that's the case, it can be compared to something like misheard lyrics:
Pro tip: DO NOT watch this video in a public place unless you are totally unembarrassed by uncontrollable fits of laughter.
However, if the French translation actually has a coherent construction and meaning, I can see how it could be used as an even deeper level of satire; something totally worthy of an identifying term.
Recently, a certain phenomenon has come to my attention. But first, let me give background info. When writing French, accent marks are very important: they tell you how to pronounce the letter they're over, and/or they can change the meaning of a word. (For example, "a" means "has" as in "he has," and "à" means "to" as in "I went to the circus.") There are several accent marks that come up in French.
The accent aigue: é
The accent grave: è
The accent cedille: ç
The accent trema: ï
And the accent circonflexe: ê, ô, î, â
The accent circonflexe is the wierd one, because it doesn't actually change anything about the word. There's no point to it being there. An i with an accent circonflexe is pronounced exactly the same as one without it. That has always bothered me.
Until my professer threw something out in class about it. She has a habit of throwing out tasty linguistic tidbits. The accent circonflexe shows where, historically, there was an s sound. There are certain words in English that are cognates of French words with the circonflexe that still retain that s. For example:
vestments, vest --- vêtements (clothes)
hostel --- hôtel (hotel)
coast--- côte (coast, side)
island, isle --- île (island)
forest --- forêt (forest)
ass --- âne (donkey)
That last one makes me chuckle.
Seriously, though. Consistently, French words with the accent circonflexe have a related English word that has an s there instead.
So, if these words are related, then the accent circonflexe-ing happened after English got its French influence. What I can't figure out is why. How did an s get turned into an accent that doesn't change the sound of the word at all?
In the words of Amélie's father when presented with pictures of his traveling garden gnome: Je ne comprends pas!
Well, it's 11:25 at night and instead of being a normal person that is asleep at this hour, my mind is quite awake at the moment. So I was watching an episode of "Supernatural" until I realized that it was going to be one of those ones with the heartbreakingly sad endings, so then I stopped. And I started listening to music.
And it occured to me that I haven't listened to "I Don't Want Solidarity If It Means Holding Hands With You" (by Defiance, OH) for a very long time. So I tuned it in and promptly started wandering around the internet. Who knows how long later, I realized my computer wasn't playing music anymore and then realized that I hadn't payed attention to any of the song except that excellent intro. Not cool, Dory. So I turned it on again, but you know me and my distractions, and the same thing happened AGAIN. This wasn't good, because this song rocks. And then I started thinking about the lyrics and how profound they are, and then I promptly got out my lovely felt-tipped pen and appropriated some paper from my printer and started writing out the lyrics. This is how I think about songs, btw. I don't know if I've ever told you that, actually. I process things well by writing them, so when I want to really analyze a song I write down the lyrics and process as I go.
Anyways, as I was writing it occurred to me that this song is remarkably similar to "Baby, I'm an Anarchist" by Against Me! I don't know why I haven't realized this before.
But before I go into that, here, for your convenience, are those two songs and their lyrics:
I Don't Want Solidarity if it Means Holding Hands With You
by Defiance, OH
Let's stop this talk of privilege because the songs that we sing
are as much a product of our privilege
As the clothes on my back or the phone call I made to my mom last night.
And let's stop this talk of action because action comes easy;
It's the moments just before that are hard,
When I've got to get my voice and my fist on the same page as my heart,
As my heart.
And let's stop this talk of them because the things we find deplorable in politicians, CEOs and cops
Are the same things that will tear ourselves apart.
And let's stop this talk of words because words like "dishonesty," "selfishness" and "laziness" and "greed"
Aren't as distant to us as we'd like to believe,
To believe.
So please, the next time you're smashing the state, don't go breaking my heart.
But I know that when you pick up the pieces,
The only thing left will be the same empty rubble
That's made up every revolution that I've ever known.
To make me believe and lose faith in humanity
In the same empty breath of hot air.
And they say that the beauty's in the streets
But when I look around, it seems more like defeat.
And I'm afraid that this fight that we're all caught up in
Will leave us the same as that which we oppose.
So please, the next time you're smashing the state, don't go breaking my heart
But I know that we can pick up the pieces and build something new, something different!
That's not like every revolution that I've ever known,
That can make me believe and have faith in humanity
And we'll all breath a breath of fresh air.
Baby, I'm an Anarchist
by Against Me!
Sidenote: the little Anarchy A on this video makes me giggle.
Through the best of times, Through the worst of times, Through Nixon and through Bush, Do you remember '36? We went our seperate ways. You fought for Stalin. I fought for freedom. You believe in authority. I believe in myself. I'm a Molotov cocktail. You're Dom Perignon. Baby, what's that confused look in your eyes? What I'm trying to say is that I burn down buildings While you sit on a shelf inside of them. You call the cops On the looters and piethrowers. They call it class war, I call it co-conspirators. 'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist, You're a spineless liberal. We marched together for the eight-hour day And held hands in the streets of Seattle, But when it came time to throw bricks Through that Starbucks window, You left me all alone, all alone. You watched in awe At the red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July. While those fireworks were exploding, I was burning that fucker And stringing my black flag high! Eating the peanuts That the parties have tossed you In the back seat of your father's new Ford. You believe in the ballot, Believe in reform. You have faith in the elephant and jackass, And to you, solidarity's a four-letter word. We're all hypocrites, But you're a patriot. You thought I was only joking When I screamed "Kill Whitey!" At the top of my lungs At the cops in their cars And the men in their suits. No, I won't take your hand And marry the State. 'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist, You're a spineless liberal. We marched together for the eight-hour day And held hands in the streets of Seattle, But when it came time to throw bricks Through that Starbucks window, You left me all alone, All alone.
The thing I love about both of these songs is their whole metaphor. In "Baby, I'm an Anarchist," the relationship between the two ideologies of anarchists and liberals is presented as a romantic relationship between two people: they get along sometimes, but when it comes down to it their most fundamental ideas are just really different. "Solidarity" brings up the same sort of metaphor, although I won't venture to say that the two sides of the issue in that song are as clear-cut as they are in "Anarchist." On the contrary, the song itself says, "let's stop this talk of "them.""
The more I think about it, the more I start to consider "Solidarity" almost as the response to "Baby, I'm an Anarchist." Perhaps the girlfriend's perspective on the whole thing.
I identify more with the ideas presented in "Solidarity," so consider me profoundly biased when I say that I think that those ideas are more mature, more realistic instead of radical. In many ways, the ideologies in these two songs are opposites, which is interesting because they use the same sort of metaphor.
For instance, compare these two lines:
Cuz baby, I'm an anarchist, and you're a spineless liberal We marched together for the 8-hour day And held hands in the streets of Seattle But when it came time to throw bricks through that Starbucks window, You left me all alone, all alone.
vs.
So please, the next time you're smashing the state, Don't go breaking my heart But I know that when you pick up the pieces, The only thing left will be the same empty rubble That's made up every revolution that I've ever known. To make me believe and lose faith in humanity In the same empty breath of hot air.
I mean seriously, they're even using some of the same imagery.
So what do you think about these two songs? Have you ever thought about them in relation to each other before?
That's quite the post title. Anyways, we were talking about the Jacobite rebellion in my British Lit class because a couple of the novels we're reading came out of that time and have some politics in them. The Jacobite uprisings are really complicated to understand and explain, but I shall try to understand them so I can sort of explain them. Here's a timeline for historical context:
1: Queen Elizabeth I died without an heir, so the English throne passed to her closest relative, James I of Scotland (Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots's son), who was Catholic. This was a problem because Elizabeth was Protestant, the queen before her (Mary, known as "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of Protestants) was Catholic, and their father Henry VIII was the one that formed the Church of England. Basically, the British didn't know what religion to be anymore after all the persecution.
2: After he died, the throne passed to his son, James II. He was also Catholic.
3: James II was overthrown by Parliament in what is called the "Glorious Revolution," and they put his Protestant relative Queen Mary on the throne.
Why WOULDN'T you depose this guy? Look at that smirk.
4: Queen Mary's heir was Queen Anne, and Anne died without an heir. We have now arrived in 1714, and the new king is George I, a Protestant. Sound familiar?
People didn't much like King George, and this is one of many songs criticizing him. This is in pretty thick Scottish dialect and a riddle besides, but I'm not going to explain it all right now for our dear readers, because someone else has already done that quite well.
This breed of folk song is known as a Jacobite Song, which means that the people who wrote and sang it (putting themselves in danger of being accused of treason) were part of the Jacobite movement. They were about sick of George, who did just about everything other than rule England competently (refer to the song). The movement wanted to put James VII of Scotland ("Jacobus" in Latin, hence the name of the rebellion) and his descendants, the line that was deposed in the Glorious Revolution, back on the throne of England.
Mixed up in all of this turmoil is some new philosophy, questioning whether kings ruled by divine right or should rule by the consent of the people. The idea of Social Contract Theory came up, where the people do not only have a responsibility to accept the rule of the government, but that the government also has a responsibility to take care of its people.
I always wonder about these political philosophies that come up in history--are they dominant among all the people of the country, or just the philosophers and learned people of the time? Social Contract Theory also came up in the American Revolution, and I wonder of the common people were really worried about fancy ideas like "consent of the governed," or if they were just pissed of at being taxed by England, which pretty much ignored them except when it took taxes from the colonies. Maybe the founding fathers just leaned on John Locke's philosophy as a justification for a rebellion that happened for different reasons?
So, sister mine, what do you think? Did the common people of England and Scotland worry about political philosophies, or were the Scots just being patriotic and wanting a Scottish king on the English throne, and English people just sick of incompetent rulers? Do you find any hint of consent of the governed, or Social Contract Theory, in "Cam Ye O'er Frae France?" I'm worried I'm just being cynical here. o_0
I'm a big fan of music. Having made that giant understatement, I'd like to mention I'm also quite a fan of poetry. They are very similar, in fact, I often feel like music is poetry but with what I like to think of as an extra "dimension;" that is, the meaning that the actual music can portray aside from the words themselves, and their ability to work together to create something that is colorful and tangible. This is not to downplay poetry, of course, poetry can communicate just as well. Music simply does it in a different, and often remarkable, way.
This post is concerning one of the most poetic songs I've ever heard, and is a wonderful example of what I mean by this added dimension that music brings to poetry. It's less of a hypothesis, and more of an observation, really. And a curiosity with what you think, as well.
So, the song is "There's no 'I' in Team" by Taking Back Sunday. I know, I know, you're probably asking "do you mean to say there's intellectual discussion to be had concerning this pseudo-emo pop-punk played by fully grown men with the seemingly quite contrary accessory choices such as full beards and plaid flannel shirts?"
Well, yes... there is. And if you're in the right mood, they will seriously rock your socks off.
Observe:
As you may have noticed, the two singers alternate back and forth with each line. If you pay attention to the lyrics, the meaning for this becomes quite clear. It is a conversation between two friends, well, an argument to be more specific. I'm going to attempt to write out the lyrics here in a way that shows the distinction between the two singers' parts. I'll put Adam Lazzara in plain text, John Nolan in bold, the parts they sing together in italics, and the part that is spoken over the both of them towards the end by a second recording of John Nolan in ((double parentheses)):
I can't regret it. Can't you just forget it?
I started something I couldn't finish. If we go down we go down together,
Best friends means... Best friends means....
Well I've got a $20 bill that says you're up late nights starting fist fights Vs. fences in your back yard.
Wearing your black eye like a badge of honor, Soaking up sympathy from friends who never loved you Nearly half as much as me.
Broken down in bars and bathrooms, All I did was what I had to. Don't believe me when I tell youit's just what anyone would do.
Take the time to talk about it, Think a lot and live without it, Don't believe me when I tell youit's something unforgivable.
Well I can't regret it, can't you just forget it?
I started something I couldn't finish. If we go down we go down together, best friends means... Best friends means?
You never knew (well I never told you),
Everything I know about breaking hearts I learned from you, it's true.
I've never done it with the style and grace you have,
But I've made long-term plans based on these mistakes.
Broken down in bars and bathrooms, All I did was what I had to. Don't believe me when I tell youit's just what anyone would do!
Take the time to talk about it, Think and learn to live without it. Don't believe me when I tell you... It's something unforgivable.
Is this what you call tact?
You're about as subtle as a brick in the small of my back.
((Have another drink and drive yourself home))
So let's end this call, and end this conversation. There's nothing worse! I swear you have no idea
((I hope there's ice on all the roads))
That's right, he said...
((And you can think of me when you forget your seat belt))
That's right, he said it. Of the jealousy that got me thinking
((And again when your head goes through the windshield))
That's right, he said, That you always had it way too easy!
Broken down in bars and bathrooms, All I did was what I had to. Don't believe me when I tell youit's just what anyone would do.
Take the time to talk about it, Think a lot and live without it, Don't believe me when I tell youit's something unforgivable.
Best friends means I pull the trigger, Best friends means you get what you deserve.
Best friends means I pull the trigger, best friends means you get what you deserve!
So, there's some dissecting to do here. The situation described is one almost everyone can relate to; the difficult decision that is doing something for a friend that you feel is in that friend's better interest, knowing that it may appear to your friend as a betrayal of their trust. Whichever end of that you're on, it can stir up all sorts of angry hurt feelings, and in this case, a couple of black eyes and each wondering what the meaning of friendship really is. This song, through the emotion in the singers' voices and the dark, turbulent atmosphere of the music, captures those feelings which would be difficult to portray in a visual sense alone; it's important to hear the back-and-forth exchange between the two voices, and the way they bend the phrases upon repetition to mean something entirely different from what they meant the first time it was said. It becomes clear that though the two friends interrupt each other with almost every line, they are both metaphorically and literally, trying to say the same thing. And, as only good friends can, they are finishing each others sentences.
Love,
Lilly
PS - A note on intertextuality: This song was written in response to a song by the band Brand New called "Seventy times Seven." The two lead singers are childhood friends, and the songs interrelate as each friend's take on a real fight they had. In response to "There's no 'I' in Team," Brand New wrote ANOTHER song, "Mix Tape." These songs will boggle your mind with the way they share lines and twist and interpret them in different ways! If you're wondering, the pair did eventually make up. I actually saw them perform this song together when I saw TBS and Brand New back in 2005!
One of mine and Lilly's favorite films is a French one called Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, or just Amélie for short. The long title translates as "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain." It is fantastic, and if you haven't seen it you need to.
One thing that always bothered me about the title of this movie, though, is that the adjective fabuleux "fabulous" is in the wrong place to be grammatically correct. See, in French the adjective usually goes after the noun (the noun here being destin), except in very specific circumstances. Mainly, there are about 10 adjectives that go before the noun, and then about 6 more that change meaning depending on whether you put them before or after the noun (confusing, right? Tell that to the French.). And darnit, fabuleux isn't in either of these categories.
So what's up, Jean-Paul Jeunet? This is the question I have been plagued with for a couple years. This isn't just a stupid grammatical thing like a missing apostrophe or something; this is like the equivalent of a fluent English speaker messing up the order of their words and then thinking normal it is.
AND THEN I LEARNED SOMETHING TODAY.
In my French class, someone accidentally said "la triste vie" (literal: the sad life) instead of "la vie triste" (The life sad), like is correct in French. And my professor corrected him, and then made this offhand comment that actually, this weird phenomenon that happens in French poetry and eloquent speech is that putting the adjective on the opposite side of the noun that it's supposed to go adds emphasis. So "la triste vie," should technically be "la vie triste," but if someone switches it on purpose, it means that life is extra sad.
So, what this all adds up to is that in Le Fabeleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain the writer wasn't being dumb, he was being poetic. And as you know if you've seen this movie, Amélie's destiny is indeed extra fabulous.
