Who sings the nation state?

If you haven't already heard the rendition of the South African National Anthem currently getting a lot of online attention, listen to the video below. But be warned: your ears may bleed.
I am currently working on a paper on the musical marketing of the upcoming soccer world cup in South Africa, and while this incident isn't directly related, I think I may try to find some way to work it in there. Funny and scary all at once.



Here is the Mail and Guardian report on current responses

Excuse me, madam. Did you forget something?

So after that last vaguely apologetic post, blog topics (and time) are falling into my lap. let's see how long this lasts....
Last night, NYChoirgirl and I went to the Lincoln Center for a New York Philharmonic concert. We have a subscription, and didn't want to waste the tickets, but the snow that was still falling was making us waver. We decided to toss a coin. I like to think of coin tosses as an opportunity for the universe to weigh in. Last night, the universe told us to go. So we went.
The concert was up and down. I was baffled by the decision to program a Mozart Piano Concerto between the premier of a (1980) work by Tristan Murail and Messiaen's Exotic Bird Song composition, and the pianist's making a complete hash of the Mozart didn't help (his tempos and phrasings were eratic and his finger work was downright inaccurate!). But the Debussy, as ever, was sublime!
But it was on the way home, I'm convinced, that the universes motivation for sending us out into the snow was revealed. On the N train from Times Square, we encountered five people participating in the annual pantsless subway ride. At 10:30 at night. On the way to Queens. In the snow. It was utterly surreal.

Something sounds a little fishy

When I was in high school, my music teacher kept me in stitches with his "mishearings" of song lyrics. My favourite was the "elephant ear song", though God's invitation for a cuppa ("come for tea, my people") is also pretty funny. I didn't ever think it could go this far, though! Thanks, Lou, for passing this link on.

Accented

This past weekend was the super bowl (American football, for my South African readers), and while the very exciting win by the New York Giants made for pretty good viewing anyway, NYChoirgirl explained that she usually only watches this for the ads. Seems the super bowl is the big night for ad agencies here. I only saw the second half of the game, and must admit that I found the game (which I only partially understand) more entertaining than the ads. I was, however, fascinated to read in today's New York Times that one ad featuring pandas talking in Asian accents and broken English, was withdrawn.


I remembered seeing this ad, and not paying much attention to it at the time. It is long, and rather boring. The flood of objections on the New York Times site, however, are much more interesting. Notice, in particular,
no. 8 "Once one puts an "ethnic" accent on an animated character, one raises the spectre of stereotyping and beyond. Ever watched "Finding Nemo"? I got the same queasy feeling - why does this fish talk like, in my opinion, an inner city "African American"?"
no. 13 "I was offended by the ad using Cavemen. I have many Cavemen friends myself, and I find them very intelligent, well-spoken people. Hey, they invented the wheel. Sure they can be a little bit on the hairy side, and they don't take advantage of the dental plan offered at work, but media's constant protrayal of these men as perpetual abusive grunters goes way over the line. I'm surprised Neanderthal-Americans have not spoken up on this issue."
no. 14 "I thought sales genie made a nod to acknowledging the real world when they made a fellow named Chakrabarty the successful salesman in the ad. He did have a south Asian accent, but a real one rather than a caricature."
no. 15 "Had they given the Pandas accents that were non-stereotypical, say British, or California Valley Girl dialects, the commercial would have been more memorable, funnier, and offended far fewer people."

So it's good to represent diversity in ads, so long as everyone sounds alike? British or California Valley Girl accents are less offensive than Chinese or African American? Nemo sounds African American?

I admit I can see how these things could be offensive. The broken English is not good. But sometimes I miss South African senses of humour.




on the other hand, SA banned this priceless gem

The Great Hat Chase

I had a Pickwickian moment tonight. New York has been beseiged by quite a storm for most of today, and while it had tapered off a little by the time I left church, the wind was still doing its thing, roaring up the avenues. I have an enormous shapeless orange rubber poncho that was given to me when I was working at the New York Marathon last November, and as hideous as it is, it is just too serviceable for me to justify spending money on something prettier as long as it lasts. Tonight, in the dark, with the Manhattan streets about as empty as Manhattan streets are ever likely to be, I decided that it was time to brave the humiliation, and wear the poncho. I was glad I had when I saw how wet the part of my trousers that stuck out the bottom was when I got home, but I did feel rather self-conscious. Anyway, for all its practicality, the one thing the poncho is lacking is a decent hood. It has a little tent-like flap that zips into the collar, but try as I may I can't get that to stay on my head when the wind blows, and the amount of rain that ran down my sleeve when I tried to hold it in place convinced me that my usual courdroy rain hat and my umbrella were in order. Of course, if you have ever tried to hold onto a hat and umbrella when the tall buildings turn the avenues into howling wind tunnels, you will have an idea of how successful that endeavor was. I was just about to cross Madison avenue at the top end of Union Square tonight, when one of those screeching gusts whipped down the street, turned my umbrella inside out, and tossed my hat into the air, and onto the street behind me. I can only speculate at what I must have looked like waddling down the street like an overstuffed orange teddybear, fighting my umbrella, and grabbing futilely at the hat that would stay just out of my reach. It was a rather large puddle that finally came to my rescue, swallowing my hat and regurgitating it, limp and too sodden to fly any further, on a sidewalk grating at my feet. I gave up trying to keep my already dripping hair from getting any wetter after that, and was just grateful for the bits of me that stayed dry under the much maligned poncho. In certain circumstances, dignity is something only other people have, and you just have to learn to laugh at yourself.

more Zapiro

Another great Zapiro cartoon mentioning De La Rey. This one is even better than the last

UPDATE:

The link isn't working, and try as I might, I can't seem to get it right. So here, instead, is a screen-cap of the cartoon that appeared in the Mail and Guardian on the 30th of March 2007.

UPDATE:

This is an article in News 24 that describes, at least in part, what this cartoon is responding to.

Comic relief

Today's Zapiro cartoon in the Mail and Guardian is such a classic, I just had to link to it. And please note the De La Rey reference.