Tea With Tarvos - Tarvos' Log 2019

[tarvos]

I've finished Chonkin. It was pretty great, and it had a cute ending, so I'm satisfied.

I haven't done much over the past days because I caught some kind of virus and have been sick for most of the past days. Sort of feeling up to something today, but instead of spending it reading or studying languages, I've spent it composing (something that I do besides studying languages! Miracle of miracles!) And by composing I really mean jamming around on my acoustic guitar trying to find vocal lines that fit the dissonant sounds I want to produce while singing the lyrics. This isn't musical composition in the classical sense, although there is a bit of that in there in the fact that I am deliberately ignoring key and harmony.

But the reason I am really mentioning it is because the text I am singing is in Swedish, rather than English (and I've already fixed a few grammatical errors with the text.) The composition is titled "Gudens onda barn", or in English "God's evil child".

Gudens onda barn

Djupt i skogen sitter ett barn. Hon skriker åt allting, och skogen skall dö.
En kraxande korp sitter i ett träd. Det sägs att den berättar om världens öde.

Vi väntar medan vinden blåser. Vattnet lägger sig ned i sjön.
Barnet reser sig från stumpen. Hon skriker att hon hatar snön.

Fall nu, snö, på gudens onda barn. Fall nu, och täck oss med vit.
Fall nu, regn, på gudens onda barn. Fall nu, och spola oss till sjön. Ta oss dit.

Solen har gömt sig bakom träd och moln. Ändå skall skogen dö.
Solen har gömt sig, aldrig att komma ut. Och kvar stannar sjön.

Isen täcker vatten och jord. Ändå skall skogen dö.
Barnet sätter sig på stumpen, och täcker sig med snö.

Fall nu, snö, på gudens onda barn. Fall nu, och täck oss med vit.
Fall nu, regn, på gudens onda barn. Fall nu, och spola oss till sjön. Ta oss dit.

En kraxande korp berättar om världens öde. Det sägs att döden kommer nu hem...
Och vi skall aldrig se solen gå ned igen.

Now I won't show you the full composition (including my voice and guitars) yet, because I don't have very good audio equipment here and the composition of some of the parts isn't finished (I don't like the way I am covering the "Ta oss dit" part and the final ending needs a twist that's satisfactory). Note that the composition is very simplistic on purpose (I am no great musician), so don't expect a ten-minute epic, but rather something based on soft, dissonant chords and a voice singing the evil lyrics over it.

I'll leave the central story of the poem for you to figure out, but I'll give you a hint: think of a dark, dark forest with a child inside.

[tarvos]

The more I become depressed, the more I realize I should just go back to my roots and find a forest somewhere to live in. I've spent most of my life in the Netherlands, far away from the mountains (but close to the sea). However, my first memories are of the Rocky Mountains, and I've spent my adult life travelling to the mountains and living there (I lived in the Cantabrian mountains, in Transylvania, in the mountains around Chengde, and of course in Canada). No mountains where I live

Now if anyone would like to gift me tea and incense, that would be funny too.

And in honor of this, I will be returning to the Scandi languages, and try to improve my Danish pronunciation.

[tarvos]

Excepting yesterday, the misery continues, and so yesterday I did manage to continue with my Italian book of short stories by Salvatore di Giacomo. I hope today will not be as fucked up as the weekend because if so... well. Then it won't end well.

[tarvos]

Ok, so my parents gave me that Salvatore di Giacomo book, which is a collection of short stories. Now, I actually like short stories as a prose form (I find them much more concise and to the point than long novels, which sometimes meander endlessly with descriptions of places you totally didn't need to know about, or enter plot parts that are just... I don't know what it's doing there). My parents did it with one purpose: to annoy the shit out of me by giving me something immensely old and complicated in Italian just so I'd break my neck over it for once (because everyone knows that I don't read trashy romance novels. Unless you find me one that is full of lesbian lust... no, even then I probably wouldn't read it.

But the problem with turn of the century Italian literature is that it is exactly that; turn of the century Italian literature, with a dollop of Neapolitan left over for dessert. That makes even this normally strong girl tremble on her feet because not even I can decipher some of that stuff, and anyway, I am no expert on Italian. (I think I'd rate my Italian as B2 somewhere). I'm going to be happy when I am rid of this book so I can read something else... perhaps a 900-page historical novel in Spanish? Or Moby Dick? That's the type of tome waiting for me right now. I think I need to borrow something for some light reading.

[Lawyer&Mom]

The more I become depressed, the more I realize I should just go back to my roots and find a forest somewhere to live in. I've spent most of my life in the Netherlands, far away from the mountains (but close to the sea). However, my first memories are of the Rocky Mountains, and I've spent my adult life travelling to the mountains and living there (I lived in the Cantabrian mountains, in Transylvania, in the mountains around Chengde, and of course in Canada). No mountains where I live

Now if anyone would like to gift me tea and incense, that would be funny too.

And in honor of this, I will be returning to the Scandi languages, and try to improve my Danish pronunciation.

Ooh! Let me play relocation fairy! I have an idea. Goslar in the Harz Mountains! It’s a UNESCO World heritage site, with a wonderful old town from the Middle Ages. The Harz mountains aren’t huge, but they have proper European forests, the kind where you would find Little Red Riding-Hood. It’s not that far from the Netherlands and the sea, and an easy trip to Göttingen and the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, which should be able to meet all your language needs. Problem solved!

[tarvos]

Maybe I would consider the Harz if I were forty years older and grey-haired with my partner.

[BalancingAct]

My parents did it with one purpose: to annoy the shit out of me by giving me something immensely old and complicated in Italian just so I'd break my neck over it for once (because everyone knows that I don't read trashy romance novels. Unless you find me one that is full of lesbian lust... no, even then I probably wouldn't read it.

But the problem with turn of the century Italian literature is that it is exactly that; turn of the century Italian literature, with a dollop of Neapolitan left over for dessert. That makes even this normally strong girl tremble on her feet because not even I can decipher some of that stuff, and anyway, I am no expert on Italian. (I think I'd rate my Italian as B2 somewhere). I'm going to be happy when I am rid of this book so I can read something else... perhaps a 900-page historical novel in Spanish? Or Moby Dick? That's the type of tome waiting for me right now. I think I need to borrow something for some light reading.

Why don't you read "Chiamarmi col tuo nome". You will like it. It is a bit different than the film, which deals with only the first half of the novel. It is also easy to read because of the author's simple and charming style (though this more obvious in the original English version). The Chinese simplified version (《以你的名字呼唤我》) is also good, meaning elegant enough; I recommended it to my student of intermediate Chinese and he is reading it.

[tarvos]

I'd rather read it in Chinese, to be honest; but my Chinese isn't very good when it comes to reading, so I have to work on that first

[Lawyer&Mom]

Maybe I would consider the Harz if I were forty years older and grey-haired with my partner.

Totally fair point, and true of almost all the mountains I can think of.

[tarvos]

Not for me, I do like most mountains, but the Harz definitely has a reputation for slightly greying Dutch seniors holidaying there (so much that it made my parents feel old when they went there a few years ago). But I am used to the Rockies...