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What are some good examples of music videos subverting their songs?
OP, I’ll go first.
Kostas Makedonas, a fine Laïko (bouzouki pop) singer (Κώστας Μακεδόνας). One of his biggest hits was Μαργαριτάρια, “Pearls” (1994), which he duets the chorus of with Alkistis Protopsalti.
It’s a great Zeibekiko, stern and catchy and melancholy, as all great zeibekikos should be. And the verse sings of the splendid arrogance of the stern, melancholy, macho Greek man:
Τα ωραιότερα θα σου ’χα αγορασμένα
μαργαριτάρια στο βυθό που είναι κρυμμένα
πάνω στον άσπρο σου λαιμό να τα φορέσεις
γιατί μ’ αρέσεις, κούκλα μου, πολύ μ’ αρέσεις.
Κι αν είσαι εσύ γυναίκα άστατη και ψεύτρα
κι αν έχεις γίνει της καρδιάς μου τώρα η κλέφτρα
τα ωραιότερα θα σου ’χα αγορασμένα
μαργαριτάρια στο βυθό που είναι κρυμμένα.
Κι αν είσαι εσύ γυναίκα έξυπνη κι ωραία
μ’ εφτά πτυχία και πατέρα εισαγγελέα
μάθε να ξέρεις στη ζωή ο κερδισμένος
είναι ο άντρας ο από μόνος του φτιαγμένος.
Κι αν είσαι εσύ γυναίκα άστατη και ψεύτρα…
I would have bought you the finest
pearls hidden in the deep
for you to wear on your white neck,
because I like you, doll, I like you a lot.
And even if you’re a faithless, lying woman,
even if you’ve become now the thief of my heart,
I would have bought you the finest
pearls hidden in the deep.
You might be a brilliant and beautiful woman,
with seven degrees and a DA father;
but you should know that the winner in life
is the man who’s self-made.
And even if you’re a faithless, lying woman…
All fits the cultural tropes, all very familiar, all very You’re Not The Boss Of Me.
But notice the slight creak in the foundations there: I would have bought you the finest pearls. Something’s gone wrong. The songwriter has used a more marked perfect tense construction, for the sake of rhyme (θα σου ’χα αγορασμένα); so the “would have” is even more emphatic in the original.
The music video takes that doubt, and drives a truck through it.
She’s the thief of his heart? He’s a literal thief. The winner in life? He’s lost the gamble. He’s burgled the pearls, he’s in prison now, singing along with his prison buddies; and he’s smuggling the pearls out via his faithless rich brilliant girlfriend (played of course by Protopsalti herself).
And what does she do with those finest pearls hidden in the deep?
Well, what else would she do?
Watch it:
Why do many heterosexual men want to have anal sex with their female spouses, girlfriends, or lovers? Is it because of increased access to porn? Is it a dominance thing, fetish, or a bucket list item?
An A2A on subject matter I have no personal experience of, from Mary Gignilliat.
This is going to be another one of those “only because you A2A’d me and I like you” questions. If you keep them coming though, I’m going to have to start calling you Mezza.
(Mezza is, believe it or not, the Australian slang form of Mary. We’re a weird mob.)
The answer is not going to break new ground over what everyone else has said; it’s a synthesis. I’m going to take the same approach to it I take to other questions I have no personal experience of, like say Will the Norn language see a successful revival in Orkney and Shetland? I’ll try to work from first principles.
Why do heterosexual men express interest in anal sex?
Is it because of increased access to porn due to the internet? Is it a dominance thing? Is it a latent homosexual issue? Fetish? Is it a bucket list item? Is it the position?
- For some men and women, the fact that it is pleasurable is in itself enough. It is, to be blunt, an accessible orifice, and one that is amenable to sexual stimulation. For other people, it is too painful, or too gross.
- But the pleasure or lack of it is not the only principle at play. If it was, then porn, dominance, latent homosexuality, fetish, bucket list, and for that matter grossness—they would all be irrelevant, if the only consideration were up to nerve endings and pain vs pleasure. Obviously there are cultural considerations at play. Obviously there is a cultural semiotics of anal sex.
- One consideration: it’s non-procreative penetration. Its use in cultures as a non-procreative alternative for heterosexuals is longstanding. That means that its availability as an option is culturally long-standing.
- There are taboos around anal sex. One reason for it is the propinquity of excretion, which would have led to both concerns about hygiene (a concern readily mitigated, I am informed), and more diffuse cultural barriers.
- Let’s recall the second reason for the taboo, though, which is probably more pervasive. Sodomy was enjoined against in many societies, and the enjoinder had legal effect in some states of the US up until Lawrence v. Texas. Recall that sodomy includes not just anal sex, but oral sex. The taboo was precisely the fact that both are non-procreative.
- Many people are attracted to taboo activity around sexuality. The word for that is kink. Of the sundry flavours of kink, anal sex is presumably one of the more benign. Hence the not actually apocryphal at all “Where’s the most exotic place you’ve had sex?—That’d be in the butt, Bob”: ‘Up the Butt, Bob’
- The position and pain threshold may well have associations with dominance. I don’t know enough to pass opinion on that. I’m less convinced there’s been porousness from homosexual anal sex as a practice; the pervasiveness of homophobia in Western society seems to me an argument against.
- As to porn: it’s as much effect as cause; I’d argue it’s even more. Yes, porn has raised awareness of all sorts of kink in the general community; but I hardly think anal sex was in the same category as, say, bukkake, as an activity that has propagated primarily via porn. There was a lot of anal sex around pre-porn. Especially in traditional societies, as non-procreative sex.
- It is true, as Jeremy Markeith Thompson has noted, that anal sex is a focus of porn and is glamourised. But that’s part and parcel of the taboo nature of anal sex; and porn trades on kink. At any rate, kink in porn is subject to acute inflation. Yes, bulletin boards can excitedly comment about starlet X’s first anal scene. But then it’s her first threesome. Or interracial. Or bukkake. Or BDSM. Or whatever they come up with next.
OK, here endeth the lesson.
Should Greeks have white guilt about American colonial times?
This is an answer that a Ukrainian friend of mine came up with for Australia; it applies just fine to this scenario too.
Actually, what the hell: I’ll link to her since she has a Wikipedia entry: Maria Tumarkin.
No, Maria’s Ukrainian Jewish ancestors were not directly involved in the genociding, literal and cultural, of Australian Aboriginals. Just like my Greek Orthodox ancestors weren’t.
But she, and I, are beneficiaries of it. And we should acknowledge it.
And (to add my own 0.02 AUD): guilt is not the point. The point is not to contribute to making it even worse.
What are your 3 worst mistakes? Would you fix any of them if you could go back in time?
A2A Habib le toubib qui demande les questions difficiles.
I’m in a kind of strange place with Quora lately; I’m going to talk about it in another queued up A2A. As part of that, I’m going to be talking more personal stuff; and I’m going to resent myself for not talking enough sciencey stuff. Anyone with questions with the words Greek or linguistics in them, please A2A them to alleviate my guilt.
Mistakes? I’m going to skirt close to McKayla’s answer on this one. I wouldn’t redo them, because here I am. I’m not really happy about where I am, but they were all difficult situations that I could only make the best choice I was equipped to at the time, knowing that I’d have regrets either way.
I can second guess my past self about them, but I choose not to. I’m hard enough on myself already. A Hungarian saying I picked up via Esperanto has stuck with me, from the time of the first set of choices: bedaŭroj estas hundaj pensoj. Regrets are a dog’s thoughts.
(No, it doesn’t make sense in Esperanto either. It just means regrets are pointless.)
Or as Cavafy put it: C.P. Cavafy – Poems – The Canon
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes forward in honor and self-assurance.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he would still say no. Yet that no—the right no—
undermines him all his life.
1. Asking my parents for permission for things, way past puberty.
I was sheltered. My parents felt under siege in a strange land with strange mores. I was a good kid, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I was brought up in filial piety; I smarted at it and kicked back at it plenty, and I’ve had twenty years of extended (though rather sedate) teenage rebellion to compensate for it. My mistake wasn’t getting my rebellion done, when it could have done the most good for my personal development.
Asking if I could go to Madagascar for the World Esperanto Youth Congress: no, you’re fifteen, what nonsense is this. Asking if I could be a composer when I grew up: no, we’ve seen films, they all died paupers. Asking if I could date at 15: no, you have your studies to attend to.
I don’t blame them: they were doing the best they knew how to in a strange land with strange mores. I don’t blame them for wanting to pass on their mores, and I don’t blame them for looking out for my interests the way they knew best. I don’t blame me for acceding; I didn’t see a real alternative. Not the way I understood the world.
But yeah, it stunted me. Lastingly, I guess. Yeah, it was a mistake.
2. Not following all the way through with academia.
I sleepwalked through my undergrad in engineering, spent at least a year on Internet Relay Chat (yes, I am that old), and then stumbled on linguistics. There weren’t enough movies out about linguists, let alone them dying paupers; so I didn’t get critical mass of objections about enrolling. I finally had something that gave my life purpose. I finally had something I could invest in and dedicate myself to. I finally had a community around me; in fact, I finally had friends. I also finally ran off to join the circus.
I got the PhD, and then I got the heartbreak.
I’ve posted about some of the heartbreak at What is your personal experience with obtaining a linguistics degree? The mistake was, I loved linguistics, but I made the choice not to continue it as a profession.
Was it a mistake? Well, not really. I saw people being strung along as Teaching Assistants for decades. I saw that my earlier mistake, studying what I cared about rather than what was fashionable, guaranteed I was unemployable. (Yet that was no mistake either: I wasn’t going to give up four years of my life to follow some other bastard’s passion.) I saw that the academics all around me were miserable, treating research as drudgery, had no life and little passion, and were looking for a way to get out.
And, perhaps most critically, I wasn’t prepared to leave Australia and spend the rest of my life hunting for the next tenure-track gig, like some modern day wandering minstrel. I knew myself—not just what I’d been brainwashed to be: what I actually was. I needed to lay down roots. I needed a sense of place.
That broke my heart. That delayed me entering into something like a career by a decade, and it took maybe another decade for me to make peace with it. (By which time half the peers that stuck with it either got out or were kicked out.)
That Cavafy poem? He titled it Che fece… il gran rifiuto.
He left out two critical words in the Dante verse he was quoting. Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto. He who made the grand refusal—through cowardice.
Was I a coward? Yeah. But I was also being me.
3. Standing on principle, and losing everything.
I have not really spoken publicly on this much yet, out of a vanishing hope it might yet be reversed. It doesn’t look like it, but I’ll still be a little cryptic. Those who know me know exactly what I’m talking about.
I did the grand refusal, but I kept going on the side with something related, that maintained a sense of mission for me. It made me a world expert, though few knew about it, because of the circumstances. It gave me a body of work to take pride in. It gave me meaning.
But it was work for hire, and work for hire is always at the discretion of the hirer.
After close to two decades, I was unhired a few months ago. I relinquished the body of work, and my body of work is now being unravelled, strand by meticulous strand.
I was unhired, so far as I can tell, because I stood up for myself for a change, and wasn’t a coward, and produced charts and worksheets to defend myself. And escalated my complaint as far as I could. Which never is that far.
Was it a mistake to not be a coward? Yes. There’s a gaping hole there, 17 years’ worth scooped out of my chest. I’ve been malingering here on Quora to make up for it, but that’s not how you make up for it.
And yet again, no, it wasn’t a mistake. I made, again, an impossible choice, and made the best choice I could. I chose 14 years ago that I’d rather have my heart smashed into pieces, than be someone’s bitch. I chose this year that I’d rather have my heart hollowed out, than be falsely terrorised.
But spare your slaps on the back, guys. No, I don’t feel happy about it. That poet from Alexandria was right, even if he messed around with Dante to say it.
Yet that no—the right no—
undermines him all his life.
What are your most controversial or unpopular opinions?
No, I’m not going to read 111 answers to see if someone has already said this.
We live in an age where stirring controversy seems to be require you to be a Circumcellion: you have to actively provoke people for them to get mad at you.
Here’s an exception.
Smokers.
Yeah, yeah, I don’t smoke, I have a history of bronchitis, disclaimer disclaimer, whatever.
Smokers are not vermin.
Smokers are not my enemy.
Smokers are not hitting me with a club, yelling LAUDATE DEUM and begging me to martyr them.
I rather enjoy passive smoking with my European mates. In theory, because in practice they’ve all scattered, and it’s actually rather difficult for me to get passive smoking anywhere in Melbourne.
And yes, that’s an acutely controversial statement in most circles I know.
—MJM, this one’s for you.
What is the photo on your lock screen?
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, tuning up. From the best seats I’ve ever had in a concert: choir stalls.
This was the performance of Mahler’s 6th during which my wife, somehow, fell asleep. Much to Victoria Weaver’s merriment.
What is the meaning of your name? Does it have a story behind it? Why did your parents name you that? What do you like about it? Do you share it with a celebrity?
Nick. From Greek Nikolaos, Victory of the People. The name shows up in antiquity, in its Attic variant Nikoleōs, and got enshrined among Greeks via Saint Nicholas. Too vernacular for the late Byzantine historian Chalkokondyles, who flipped his first name around to Laonikos.
Nicolaus in Latin, Nicolas in French and Middle English, as featured in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale. When the Renaissance came, English scribes realised French had taken out a few Greek h’s. So they put h’s in everywhere. Including Nicholas.
Uri Granta informs me that the Hebrew equivalent is Amichai: If you were to Hebraize your surname, what would you choose? A blessing upon his house: it’s certainly a cooler name than Victor.
Nick Nicholas. See Nick Nicholas’ answer to How did your parents decide on your name? for the story there.
For an added bonus, the surnames of my four grandparents.
Father’s Father: Hadjimarcou. Of Mark the Pilgrim
FM: Haralambous. Of Haralambos, “Shining with Joy” (a saint’s name)
MF: Lykakis. Wolf-son. -akis is the now obligatory Cretan patronymic suffix.
MM: Sfendourakis. Slingshot-son.
What are some upbeat songs with seriously sad or depressing lyrics?
Originally Answered:
Can you mention an upbeat and happy-sounding song that has a sad/depressing meaning?
Australian anthems: Cold Chisel – Khe Sanh
Rollicking strophic, jolly country rock song—about a Vietnam Vet adrift and addicted back home. A song dear to the heart of all Australians my age and up.
Have you already had your “15 minutes of fame?” and if yes, would you tell us what was it?
Originally Answered:
What was your “15 minutes of fame”?
Oh, that’s easy.
Hamlet – Klingon Language Wiki
translators: Nick Nicholas and Andrew Strader
Good to know someone read the footnotes: Klingon <i>Hamlet</i> Revisited
Until I googled the pic, I had no idea about the 2015 German edition. Which looks way cooler:
Hope it’s the Schlegel & Tieck translation. Eh, I mean Crude Federation Parody. Of course.
For a few years afterwards, I’d get these vague filtered distortions of me coming through the Interwebs. “Did you hear about some nutjob linguist who translated the whole Bible into Klingon? And all of Shakespeare? And he taught his kid to speak Klingon? And then he demanded that the government provide him a Klingon translator? What a loser! What a legend! What a loser!”
The pinnacle was when Michael Dorn himself, visiting Australia, muttered, “Some guy has even translated Shakespeare. I don’t know why these guys aren’t curing cancer instead or something.”
That job, Mr wI’orv, I leave to Habib Fanny.
(All medical researchers, and for that matter all doctors, are working on curing cancer. Aren’t they?)
How is Melbourne today different from in the past?
Melbourne in the 80s, when I was in high school:
- Very Suburban. High density living did not happen: the Great Australian Dream was a large suburban home with a garden, and only the indigent lived in apartment blocks. Seeing apartments spring up everywhere remains a shock to me.
- Renting happened, but was something to get away from; the notion of renting long-term is still alien to many Australians, which is why they are so disillusioned about housing affordability.
- There was nothing, nothing going on in the CBD past 6 o’clock. Nothing. Noone lived in the CBD. At all. Minimal presence of restaurants. Very little in the way of cultural stuff. (I’m not counting the Arts Centre.) Tumbleweeds.
- In fact, Chapel St South Yarra was the only strip where there was some partying all night.
- People did go in to the CBD to shop, particularly at department stores like Myer. Local shopping malls already existed, but they did not have the exclusive hold on shoppers that they do now.
- Swanston St was still open to traffic, and not a mall. Bourke St Mall was already a mall, and was even more blah back then.
- Southbank was wasted, as warehouses. Just like Docklands should have been. (Snobbery towards Docklands is also a very Melbourne thing.)
- The inner suburbs were not yet gentrified, and were still gritty working class places.
- Nowhere near the foodie culture Melbourne has now, and certainly none of the food snobbery. Places like Mietta’s (1974–1995), the restaurant of Mietta O’Donnell, were still pioneers of good food, not what you’d routinely expect. And the fusion and innovation that Melbourne hipsters now expect as a default just didn’t exist.
- No coffee culture outside of Lygon St (Little Italy). I had my first latte in ’90. And for a long time, they couldn’t work out how to prevent the glass from overheating: they’d serve it with a napkin holder.
- Much bigger pub culture. Especially around universities. In the ’80s, still featuring the 6 o’clock swill: people getting blind drunk because pubs would shut as 6. Again: no boutique beers back then.
- Not that I experienced it at all, but the snobbish Anglican establishment of Melbourne was likely more prominent. You really have to dig to notice it now. And Real Housewives of Melbourne is not the place to find it.