BellGab.com Archive

Quote from: albrecht on May 19, 2019, 08:58:10 PM
I got an AMAZING thing that is a Rubic's Cube celebrating some Dutch royal marrying a daughter of a SA despot. Amazing. You can manipulate the cube to see stages of their courtship, no pun intended (?) and the grand event. So weird, so when I saw had to buy. It was a big deal, with some controversy- though, come on the queen at the time had an ex-NAZI as consort, as I recall. I could be wrong the Royalty stuff gets weird.

Oh you should post a pic I would love to see!  But the Nazi stuff must be wrong; there were no German Nazis left after WWII 

Quote from: albrecht on May 19, 2019, 03:15:33 PM
Far from being some fairy tale she was a Spencer (important family that also included Churchill by extension but most importantly Duke of Marbourgh and lots of real estate) and marrying into the latest German house ruling the UK- who changed their name lest the Kraut name offend British sensibilities.  I seem to vaguely recall some even more Masonic-Joose-Satanic-VenetianFamily-SumerianCult theories along with, of course, the whole Roman Diana and various date/astrological issues     related to Spencer but can't place them now. Maybe Springmier's stuff? Or vintage Russell Pine aka Jordan Maxwell? I forget it was many a SW radio broadcast ago....

We should ask Shreddie about those theories.  They'd be fun to hear, and he would know all about them since he has the commemorative plate.



And no one got my Xanadu joke.  Oh well.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 11:57:53 AM
OK, I see what you mean, it's a kind of bridge. Otherwise it would involve a bit more effort to separate the words.

Yeah some of you glottal-stop it but that's not what I hear the most.  And man is it ugly.

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on May 19, 2019, 11:55:43 AM
Could be worse.  He could be saddled with the intrusive R and drop a "Wershington D.C." burger on you.

Ugh now I gotta warsh my ears out with soap.  He just needs to say "Diana and I" three times fast.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 11:44:28 AM
I've never heard anyone here say Diana like that. Sounds like something they might say over there on the East coast.

It's called epenthetic r, and you probably don't even hear it.  It usually happens when the next word starts with a vowel or a schwa.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 05:08:03 AM
Weirdly, people over here who naturally drop their aitches aspirate the letter aitch, pronouncing it 'haitch'. It's the only time they ever do it.

It is like how you can only say a terminal r where it doesn't belong.  I felt sorry for Princess Dianer the same way I feel sorry for the poor Pilipinos, stuck in a country they can't pronounce.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 10:44:55 AM
Interesting. Of all the barbs I've thrown at you, that one got under your skin, eh? Of course, now I know it annoys you I'll NEVER use it again. This is why the Vikings ultimately came to grief, you people lack tactical know-how. While you're clambering out of your longships, waving your axes around, we have our caltrops ready on the beach and a piquet of bowmen waiting to push you creatures back in the sea. You're like Siegfried; he might have thought he was safe, but wait till his backs turned and WALLOP, Hagen sticks his spear right through his coat of mail.

You can stop right there:  it's Sigurd.  None of your debased southern variants for me.

There's a lot of cool stuff in the saga he didn't put in, like the hair-washing scene where Brynhild and Gudrun are washing their hair in a stream and Gudrun tells Brynhild she must wash her hair downstream because her husband is not as brave.  Brynhild says no one can be braver than the man who rode through the fire, and that is how she finds out.  As a sketch of the Nordic female, it's spot on.  The old-lady frenemies who visit each other and talk behind their hands about how much thinner they can roll their lefse are just reenacting.

I just thought you would think "skaldfifl" was a cool word, that's all.  Bleat about poetasters all you want.

Also, you keep trotting out "poetaster" like a cat with a dead bird.  If you must abuse, use the culturally appropriate "skaldfifl" (poet-fool), which is right out of Snorri.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:02:32 AM
You idiots don't pronounce the aspirate in 'herb' either. How can these people be trusted?

This is actually a very interesting case.  Nearly all Anglo-American disputes over pronunciation can be broken down thus:  you tell us we sound uneducated and rustic while say you sound overly fastidious, i. e. gay.  Here it is the other way 'round.  I can't think of another like it.  I suspect it is the fear of sounding like Eliza Doolittle that preserves your h here.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 04:08:24 AM
You're the IKEA of poetry. It's cheap and reasonably pleasant at first glance, but on closer inspection none of it fits together and it's basically rather nasty.

This isn't the first time you've made opprobrious remarks about my marvellous limericks. I don't know whether you ate some dodgy gravlax and it upset your judgement, but they have been widely praised by discerning judges. I don't expect simpering poetasters to appreciate the finer points. I write for the cream not the scum (tosses head disdainfully).

A more-circumspect person might conclude, from the fact that the end-rhymes of my first four sonnets feature (in order) poo, pee, shit, and piss, that nastiness and I are old friends.  And please, I am not one of your sighing garret-bound poets in an open collar; I am a dread skald -- the similarity to "scold" is not coincidental -- at whose words princes tremble:

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His bloodshot eyes, his unkempt hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice
And tie him up before he leaves;
That shot of mead went to his head,
You won't believe the things he's said;
His honeydew was overripe,
We're not quite sure what's in his pipe.
Go fetch the coat with longish sleeves;
He might write something that's not nice.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:49:48 AM

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It sounds like your clock is missing a spring or two. You're supposed to be Norwegian not Swiss. Comparing his verses to machinery. Sniff! How velly velly vulgar.

I am demonstrating competence, not creating high art.  Don't make me dig up that metrically adventurous limerick of yours.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:28:31 AM


I suppose you think that's a trochee too. Frightful feller doesn't know his iambs from his trochees. Which explains why he makes such an anapest of himself with his poetry.

Ha!  I seem to remember you were whining the other day about how my meter was too conservative.  I. e., correct.  It is; it runs like a clock.  I point an accusing dactyl at you for a prevaricating jackanapes.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:16:43 AM
Someone who tries to keep our language pristine. Not like some people who drag it through the gutter.

Would that be gut-taire, M. LePew?

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:09:56 AM
They sound more like spondees to me.

You give both syllables of "apple" equal weight?  What kind of monster are you?

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 19, 2019, 02:06:01 AM
And 'solder' comes out as 'sawdah'. Bloody fools. When we got rid of you (don't fall for this revisionist nonsense about winning your independence) it was a great relief.

Maybe when you say it.  Most of us can sound the terminal r.

Quote from: Taaroa on May 19, 2019, 01:19:08 AM
What is the deal with how Americans pronounce caramel incorrectly?

I have a theory that it comes from "caramel apple" which is probably how most of the country first learned the (suspiciously foreign-sounding and vaguely effete) word a hundred years ago.  Heard with its natural mate the idiosyncratic pronunciation actually manages to sound more euphonious than the standard.  In metrical terms, they are matching trochees.

Or maybe through association with Mount Carmel in the Bible where the prophets of Baal were



caramelized. 

A couple of skips and they're missing the single timpani roll in the Andante Festivo but the last piece is fun.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s23n3oOyRk

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 18, 2019, 01:40:54 PM
The first time I heard of brown cheese was when I was wading through the My Struggle books by Karl Ove Knaussgaard. Christ, you Norsks eat some crap, with your open sandwiches and obsession with fish. It just seems like one culinary horror story after another.

And don't diss Marmite.

Marmite is the pickings of the Devil's own navel.  I am sure it is some industrial waste product some enterprising capitalist determined to foist on the unsuspecting populace in that first frenzy of modern advertising.

It's funny, it seems like the rest of the world knows all about the savory/salty/sweet magic that happens when you reduce milk with sugar.  From Russia to Argentina they are happily bubbling away their cans of sweetened condensed milk to make the stuff.  The latest taste fad here is salted caramel which ticks two of the boxes but when you know what they're aiming at, it's just insipid.

I think you guys call it toffee but yours is pretty sweet stuff, but it is on the spectrum -- we like to taste the farmyard in all its goaty goodness.  It would probably help if you thought of the brown cheese as savory, sliceable toffee.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 17, 2019, 12:12:48 PM
I thought I was supposed to be from Bangladesh or Somalia or something. Thanks for pointing out that a lot of my ancestors were raped by these bastards. Don't expect me to participate in Cuddle-a-Norsk day. How can you call a nation civilised that eats brown cheese?

It is not really cheese; it is just milk that is evaporated down to a near-solid consistency.  There are lots of kinds, cow or goat or both, enriched with cream and/or sugar, and a particularly joyless variety made with whey.  I've made it before -- you get a fist-sized lump from a couple gallons of goat milk.

Mexicans make a near-identical thing called cajeta with goat milk and sugar not too far from what we call prim but sweeter.  Good to spread on toast.  Put the Marmite down.

I made a couple things early this morning for our lunch: sweet cardamom buns with currants (both zante and dried blackcurrants) and citron with Shreddie's favorite brown cheese (hveteboller med gjetost), and a famous Norwegian cake called (with characteristic modesty) the World's Best Cake (verdensbestekake) or Kvæfjord Cake after the town way up north where it got its start.  I don't know if it's the world's best but it's good and simple to make:  a buttery sheet cake spread thin over parchment and topped with meringue and sliced almonds, sandwiching a filling of rum-flavored pastry cream lightened with a little whipped (Diplomat Cream).  The effect is greater than the sum of its parts, resembling a fancy airy cream-filled pastry.  I put cardamom in the cake and almond flavor in the meringue to make it a little more complex.

Quote from: albrecht on May 17, 2019, 10:51:58 AM
King Billy and Cromwell would be proud of us!   Agree with you on A-Ha though.

Qvisling!  I used to attempt that frightful yodel in the shower.

Quote from: SredniVashtar on May 17, 2019, 10:44:54 AM
There's a sign near me on the river commemorating the day, a thousand years ago, a bunch of your delightful ancestors rowed to a nearby abbey, burned it down and slaughtered all the monks.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say Fuck Norway! Munch, Grieg, Hamsun, Ibsen, A-HA. They can all go fuck themselves. You know what you can do with your lutefisk too! Don't be swayed by the propaganda, give them the slightest encouragement and these bloody berserkers will go on the rampage again.

That's it; no more Christmas trees for you, bucko.

Quote from: albrecht on May 17, 2019, 10:11:58 AM
Nice. Kappy Constitution Day!  May it be filled with akevitt and parading.

Thanks!  Gratulerer med dagen, as they say back there.  Hopefully the Norwegian Seamen's Chorus can agree on a song to sing this year; they usually march silently for want of agreement.

Which is probably the most Norwegian thing ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idswJQxsRl8

The last refrain in a rather free (since rhymes for "Norway" don't exactly grow on trees) poetical translation:

Let it ring from each window and doorway
Through the land of the northmen so true:
You are ours, you are ours, ancient Norway;
We will drape you in red, white, and blue.

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on May 16, 2019, 08:29:24 PM

Ulysses?  What about Finnegan's Wake.  I got thru that book only through shear determination and liberal use of alcohol.  It wasn't so much the stream of consciousness acrobatics as it was the dialect.  That's one I won't be rereading.  My liver couldn't take it.

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.  I never made it.

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on May 16, 2019, 07:41:14 PM
So, what's union scale for a lyre player nowadays?  Do you get a lot of out-of-town gigs.  Which do you prefer--acoustic or electric?  Can you play Foggy Mountain Breakdown?

Acoustic only, of course.  I am paid in good mead from the lord's own mead-bowl lest I write scurrilous lyrics that are remembered long after he is dead.

Quote from: albrecht on May 16, 2019, 07:20:51 PM
This is a good point. It is also a sad one, however. Because in these times everyone is paranoid and one, almost immediately, suspects people- who might be honestly trying to be good or to help people: the male elementary teacher, the scout master, the male nurse, the person who stops to help someone change a tire, people who foster children, or whatever.

Yeah it is shitty because with everyone so scared it robs kids of the natural affection I think they are due from the adults around them.  I don't know where I'd be without the handful of mentors (though I hate that word) who probably gave me more attention than they'd be allowed to nowadays.  Helps you break out of narrow family influence and not turn into your father hahaha

Quote from: albrecht on May 16, 2019, 07:11:18 PM
A stoner built a bong. A friend of mine (short kid) got his foot put in a vice as a prank. Cranked pretty good but nothing broken. Some of us would just drill holes stuff for the hell of it, others would go outside for a cigarette. Not much supervision. I think the guy drank or was just waiting on whatever pension; or both.

Like a certain gym coach who always had some brown-water in his 'coffee' mug. Good times. Though as I mentioned the class scoliosis test and his odd way of happening to be walking around the locker room was suspect.

Yeah we had scoliosis tests, too.  And looking back, the girls' PE teacher and the Bible teacher were obvious lesbians.  In some ways it's easier to hide in a religious environment where people don't want to acknowledge you exist.

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on May 16, 2019, 07:03:06 PM
Hells yeah.  Bring back Metal Shop.  I made a positively evil Pike Head.  Just had no Knights in Shining Armor to hook and cut up like a Lobster.
Once again - born too late.   

Oh man we were not allowed to make anything resembling a weapon or we'd have to beat it into a plowshare.

Quote from: albrecht on May 16, 2019, 06:55:52 PM
I feel weird. Learned Helplessness, how hazing escalates/survives generations, cycle of abuse in a family? But I find myself saying to kids how good 'real' books are- and cursive, grammar, teaching simple logic and even 'home' economics, shop class, and bitching about the "no winners" crap. I'm thinking of advocating even wanting to bring simple after-school fighting and recess bullying back in the schools to help solve the school shootings, suicides, and crazy stuff, etc. Haha.

Sounds like you need to find your local private evangelical school that is none too strict on credentials and start writing your own textbooks hahaha