The Singing Organ Grinder’s tweet archive for February 2018

Another abundance of redundance. Featuring Russian, German and Italian puppetry, organ-grinding, and other nonsense.

A Dutch Polichinel on a buffalo in 1856 (2018-02-01 18:10).

Bio: Kazoo Academy & Barrel Organ Disco/Yorkshire Almanac/translator Romance & Germanic languages & Russian/old-style jazz trombone & vocals/brass bands/allotmenteer

Thu Feb 01 18:10 The localization of Pulcinella in Dutch children's books: Polichinel on a buffalo in 1856, and Jan Klaassen kicking his wife & all in 1864: which name is a Dutch child more likely to remember? Dump the signifier, keep the signified
Thu Feb 01 19:20 Exhibits re proverbial obsession of British adults with toys: just saw the wonderful Psychoville, & now this French story about English collectors battling for a princely Pulcinella following the 1848 Revolution
Thu Feb 01 19:24 Comment: @ibexsalad At least we're not looking at the economic & human chaos created by the last Southern European populist to lose at Waterloo
Thu Feb 01 21:19 Miss Barcelona says that getting rid of F1 grid girls is machista. Time for another Stuart Restoration?
Thu Feb 01 21:33 Comment: I'd forgotten Oak Apple Day "An Act for a Perpetual Anniversary Thanksgiving on the Nine and Twentieth Day of May"
Fri Feb 02 05:58 Beautiful image from Juan Carlos Monedero, co-founder of Podemos: the sewers of politics have long tentacles / las cloacas de la política tienen largos tentáculos. Cartoon, anyone?
Fri Feb 02 06:11 The accordionist is a blind intellectual carrying an enormous typewriter whose keys grow wings as the instrument expands into a tall horizontal hat that collapses with a tubercular wheeze. But apparently the accordionist is not blind at all
Fri Feb 02 07:45 Afaik I know only one victim of the Bitcoin scam, & I don't think he's bothered, but curious to know the full damage - see e.g. stuff like
Fri Feb 02 09:18 Another commissioned translation. Incoming! And an alien poet, like aliens from space, Will enter your atmosphere, space-suit on fire, And land as a crib on your desk in your face.
Fri Feb 02 09:26 Thread re the removal of a print of Goya's Nude Maja from a shop window on the orders of the Francoist authorities in Cáceres 43 years ago.
Fri Feb 02 09:29 Comment: See also the persecution of Goya and the painting's first owner by the Inquisition and the mob in 1808
Fri Feb 02 17:39 Comment: @gortizmichel @ITESO Mi Nokia 100 es una maravilla: a pesar de sus escasos 8 MB tiene una feature de seguridad que significa que la CIA no sabe encontrarme a mí, y que yo ando absolutamente contento (y perdido) desde hace años. ¿Quieres uno?
Fri Feb 02 18:19 Lovely engraving by Gustave Doré of Maese Pedro's puppet show in Quixote. One problem: Cervantes doesn't mention a 2nd puppeteer. If you stage & string em right, then you can manage two at once, so I guess, Punch & Judy style, you kill off one character & introduce another one
Sat Feb 03 08:44 Comment: @CrapLocalNews Fake news
Sat Feb 03 08:47 What happens if you deconstruct & criticise children's rhymes: Here's the church, and here's the spire. Here's a ticket to hellfire: Wasn't there a parody involving houses and (a man without his) trouses?
Sat Feb 03 11:54 Town mice vs country mice: Catalonia
Sat Feb 03 13:47 Comment: @ibexsalad Sherlock Holmes: It is my belief, Watson, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. Look at these lonely houses filled with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law.
Sat Feb 03 14:59 Jorge drinking out of a wineskin while singing. Bar "Cangas del Narcea", Palermo, Buenos Aires
Sat Feb 03 15:01 Comment: El toro enamorado de la luna
Sat Feb 03 19:42 Comment: @gratisfadoel @WellStMarket @hackneycouncil @NuDawnLDN @JoanneP82737477 I was just wondering the same...
Sun Feb 04 00:40 What organs are these, London 1700? "the Fair, where the harsh sound of untunable Trumpets, the Catterwauling Scrapes of Thrashing Fidlers, the Grumbling of beaten Calves-skin, and the discording Toots of broken Organs set my Teeth on Edge, like the Filing of a Hand-Saw"
Sun Feb 04 00:49 Comment: London May-Fair: ’Tis a sad Rendezvous of the Wickedest of Wretches, / Poor Rogues without Money, and Whores without Patches, / A Sodom for Sin, where the worst Jack of Dandy, / May Shag the Fair for a Gallon of Brandy.
Sun Feb 04 13:55 Blog re Cervantes' Don Quixote: How to perform El retablo de Maese Pedro/de la libertad de Melisendra with one puppeteer and a narrator
Sun Feb 04 19:44 Upsqueak (< upspeak?) 100 years ago in N France with the 52nd Lowland Division: Our guns give it them very hot - big ones booming heavily night & day & industrious little ones "upsqueaking" perseveringly all night.
Mon Feb 05 12:26 Favourite bitcoin meme: I've been kicked out my room for non-payment of rent. Can I legally sleep in my Ferrari in the street?
Mon Feb 05 14:36 So who wants to invest their BTC winnings in a farm in Surrey where for 20 quid you can cuddle giant rats used to detect landmines on the London borders?
Mon Feb 05 14:36 Comment: Still v popular in Africa, but need to reduce risk & travel costs
Mon Feb 05 14:41 Punch and Punch. Judy's in another scene
Mon Feb 05 17:41 @CanalRiverTrust Just walked along Regent's Canal from the Narrowboat Pub to Regent's Row. Of boats moored to the path, 25 displayed a valid licence, 39 didn't. Can't pay or won't pay?
Mon Feb 05 18:27 Comment: @ibexsalad What does it mean?
Mon Feb 05 18:50 Comment: @ibexsalad No one's ever called me that! From postcolonialista or what?
Mon Feb 05 19:37 Mubarak, Persian blackface Punch puppet voiced with swazzle. Presumably a relative of the Dutch Zwarte Piet/Black Peter & Spanish Moorish stock characters
Mon Feb 05 19:39 Comment: More of the Iranian Pulcinella in a good Italian doc with subtitles
Mon Feb 05 21:39 Swazzle dimensions: 0.4 x 3.0 x 1.8 or 0.4 x 2.6 x 1.4 cm in the @V_and_A
Mon Feb 05 21:40 Comment: I'm DIYing with plastic cards first
Mon Feb 05 21:43 Comment: So, a hair dryer will be needed
Mon Feb 05 21:59 Evangelist: "Off-chain transactions seem to be the best option for Bitcoin scaling" No, wait...
Tue Feb 06 08:43 N France, May 1918, to his mum: 'Get The Pretty Lady by Arnold Bennett, read it & send it to me.' Not really what the #100years people have in mind, but brilliant portrait of a different kind of woman making her way midst war of several kinds
Tue Feb 06 12:59 WFMU DJ plays a bit of National Brotherhood Week by mistake and (28:30) implies that Tom Lehrer is a racist. Wait till she hears his other stuff #DeathOfSatire
Tue Feb 06 17:58 yo soy las pulgas del infierno, la chisme, el enredo, la usura, la mohatra; yo traje al mundo la zarabanda, el déligo, la chacona, el bullicuzcuz, las cosquillas de la capona, el guiriguirigay, el zambapalo, la mariona, el avilipinti, el pollo, la carretería, el hermano Bartolo..
Tue Feb 06 17:58 Comment: ... el carcañal, el guineo, el colorín colorado; yo inventé las pandorgas, las jácaras, las papalatas, los comos, las mortecinas, los títeres, los volatines, los saltambancos, los maesecorales y, al fin, yo me llamo el Diablo Cojuelo
Tue Feb 06 19:14 14th century proto-Punch & Judy by Jehan de Grise: 54v & 76r in pseudo-Macedonian epic "Li romans du boin roi Alixandre", 1344
Wed Feb 07 08:13 Churchill songs from Rol
Wed Feb 07 22:39 Are there any German between wars films that don't open with a barrel organ? Gerhard Lamprecht, Unter der Laterne (1928)
Wed Feb 07 22:48 Comment: Wind-up bird & pantomime horse action from 24:00
Thu Feb 08 08:28 Apparently I have the potential to be a moderately useful person
Thu Feb 08 10:45 Why do washing machines turn women's knickers inside out? Physics or a perverted robot? No photos @Zanussi_UK
Thu Feb 08 14:57 Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk's 1932 trial for attempting to publish a poem called "Lament for Sir John Penis" - he got 6 months in the Scrubs. The D'Arcy Cresswell lampoon is also good
Thu Feb 08 15:14 Comment: I have already said in many rimes that Maoriland’s sunblest and lovely climes bring forth a race of men that’s coarse and brutal- that, though the Claxon horns of Packards tootle
Thu Feb 08 15:14 Comment: among the lace-like tree-ferns of the hills, and ten per cent. Of pens are poet’s quills in that sweet land, yet nevertheless I saw hard hearts that native loveliness betray.
Thu Feb 08 16:38 Hackney police catch Uber driver with knife hidden between his buttocks
Fri Feb 09 08:48 Comment: @justinjerez hahaha ... mij doodkrij is min
Fri Feb 09 08:55 Dutch & Afrikaans puppet expressions: (1) Nu zijn de poppen aan het dansen - Now the puppets are dancing - Now we're in for it; (2) Jy is vol draadwerk - You're full of wires - You're complicated; (3) Um.
Fri Feb 09 08:57 Comment: (1) equivalent in Twents (Low Saxon): Noe hej't schoap an't driet'n - Now you've got the sheep a-$hitting
Sat Feb 10 09:10 One and one's monkey are also struggling with the Jordan Peterson thing
Sat Feb 10 09:20 Bit of irony always good, but most disappointed that Flinders Petrie's head's not actually there alongside Jeremy Corbyn's in the exhibit in Wilkins at UCL
Sat Feb 10 09:34 Greetings to Monsieur Coprolalia + beard c/o the 476 stop at Kings X: verse "facking hell, $hitting hell, kanting hell", chorus "i'm a bar$tard, i'm a kant", patter re Billy Fury & Big Daddy, then heartbreaking smile & wave as bus draws away: "moi, you're waving at moi, really?!"
Sat Feb 10 10:03 Pedro Salinas In order to live I don't want for palaces, islands, or castles. What greater joy exists than a life in personal pronouns! [ Para vivir no quiero islas, palacios, torres. ¡Qué alegría más alta: vivir en los pronombres! ]
Sat Feb 10 13:07 Royal Welch Fusiliers, Poets Regiment, dahdahdah, but then in memoirs there they are: Messrs. Grave & Sassoon. Particularly enjoyed Frank Richards, Old Soldiers Never Die which was brought out by Faber, & Emlyn Davies, Taffy Went to War, which should be published - POD at least
Sat Feb 10 14:16 Karel van 't Reve re Ministries of Truth: Al is de Pravda nog zo snel, de waarheid achterhaalt 'm wel (< Al is de leugen nog zo snel...). Freely: Pravda may be awfully quick, but truth will catch the Bolshevik
Sat Feb 10 16:30 Re Ivan/Vanya/etc: England had no imagination when it came to male Christian names. Nearly everyone was called John, Thomas, Robert or Richard. But mostly John. Not only did Johns call their first sons John, they named many of their other sons John too
Sat Feb 10 21:30 Comment: @george_szirtes I wonder how close in the Magyar line 1 is to Ruth 2:8 - another warning against going into that other guy's field
Sun Feb 11 11:09 My ancient Spanish-Andalusian "machine translation" page (actually a phonetic transformation algorithm) is back The problem was changes in PHP 5 to the way you pass a variable by reference to a function so the function can modify the variable, and laziness
Mon Feb 12 13:04 Comment: @BennettSoc Dated 27/5/18, and everything else makes sense for that date. I guess oral transmission of London literary news worked better than the army's postal service. It's a very good novel.
Mon Feb 12 15:50 Comment: @BennettSoc Ha ha. I wonder if granddad's mum actually bought it for him - June letters may tell. AB: Curious that such an indecent man went on to shape taste via the Standard - just read accounts of him from that period by D'Arcy Cresswell which make him sound v kind & wise
Mon Feb 12 15:55 Comment: @tombcn ¡Vivan los Borbones!
Mon Feb 12 15:59 Never a bad day to post these old photos of the Anís del Mono (Monkey's Anisette) factory at Badalona, Spain
Mon Feb 12 17:17 Comment: @BennettSoc As an organ-grinder, though, I note with alarm his use of Miss Ingate & barrel organ as a running gag in The Lion's Share! Perhaps fortunate I didn't notice your 2017 jubilee, or I'd have tried to sell you a programme of Bennett barrel organ songs on one of my Staffs trips...
Mon Feb 12 19:54 Anti-communist lyrics by Jean Moscopol (1903-80), Greek-Romanian banker, aphorist, vendor of bel canto, hotel porter: "Comrade minister, everything's perfect, there's just one little defect." I prefer his lovey dovey stuff, but he was where he was
Mon Feb 12 21:08 Maths of transport map colour palettes
Mon Feb 12 21:57 Quincy Jones is God. 'We were in the studio with George Martin, & Ringo had taken three hours for four bars. We said, “Mate, get some lager & lime, some shepherd’s pie, & take an hour-&-a-half & relax a bit.” So he did, & we called Ronnie Verrell'
Mon Feb 12 22:37 An itinerant French pig-gelder is about to go to work on an adulterous priest in fancy dress in Golden Age Spain: Sacristán: Dí, demonio de muger, qué haré yo sin pelendengues, si me quitan el joyel? Mujer: Calla, que Dios proveerá.
Tue Feb 13 06:59 men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders
Tue Feb 13 06:59 Comment:
Tue Feb 13 07:05 English punch ≈ Alemannic Putsch, blow/buffet, so punchinello ≈ Putschenelle
Tue Feb 13 07:28 Is the Schwerin Petermännchen a localization of Pedrolino/Pierolino/Pierrot?
Tue Feb 13 08:49 Comment: @Transblawg Haven't seen one there or elsewhere, nor in the Putz- variants
Tue Feb 13 08:55 British Library reinvented as a Harry Potter giftshop with free WiFi. (There's also a rather large book depository.)
Tue Feb 13 09:02 Comment: @Transblawg Nice one of Hamburg Lämmermarket ca. 1820 from Rabe, Kasper Putschenelle
Tue Feb 13 09:45 Comment: @Transblawg Classic giveaway that a trap is being prepared: "Of course, I'm just an amateur." Punch kills his wife all over the place, but I'll bet someone's written a thesis saying that Judy is der Jude (who also gets killed a bit in German versions, as the gypsy does in Russia)
Tue Feb 13 11:10 Ragtime organ-grinder by WK Haselden at Two Temple Place's excellent jazz age / Rhythm & Reaction exhibition. I've got my eye on a couple of banjos @TwoTemplePlace
Tue Feb 13 16:13 Resulta que se hizo un documental sobre Juan Antonio Canta: Patuchas, el hombre de los mil limones Las traducciones de Copla del viudo del submarino y Te quiero no me han salido bien, así que las sigo cantando con el organillo en castellano
Tue Feb 13 20:03 C17th Viennese street dentists put on Pulcinella (Punch) puppet shows featuring assault & battery to attract custom. Yup. My old dentist in The Hague was smarter: porn on an overhead monitor.
Tue Feb 13 20:48 Underwater solution for London housing crisis?
Wed Feb 14 07:08 Some nice post-cartographic map design from Air Cairo
Wed Feb 14 18:01 Comment: @ibexsalad I obviously hope that Barcelona isn't losing business to your lot. I think.
Wed Feb 14 19:45 Beautiful: 'Labour MP Tells Voter: "P*ss Off"'
Wed Feb 14 20:41 Asda apologises after its Frome petrol station closed five minutes earlier than advertised
Wed Feb 14 22:18 One of the pleasures at the Two Temple Place exhibition: photo of balladeer trombonist Lawrence Brown with the Duke Ellington band (& Jack Hylton) at Southampton Docks in late 1963 - inspiration to so many
Thu Feb 15 09:08 The Regent's Canal is a splendidly Gillrayian dystopia, pitting feral (associated) cyclists, runners, walkers, mindfulnessers, muggers and generally unlicensed & occasionally sinking boaters agin one another. But the Canal & River Trust is focusing on its 2nd rebrand in 10 years
Thu Feb 15 10:44 New query at Mudcat Café re the history of St Peter / Pearly Gates jokes, with ref to the appearance of Petrushka at the end of the Pulcinella play in Grigorovich's Petersburg Organ-Grinders
Thu Feb 15 13:19 The Furby Organ
Thu Feb 15 16:03 Jew swims from Hamburg to America. Main news: designation of Hamburg as Mokum, albeit in a Kasper/Punch show.
Thu Feb 15 16:44 Before you had Sunday drivers you had Sunday riders, at least in 1840s Hamburg
Fri Feb 16 08:46 Guy has face of fugitive Catalan president tattooed on his bum. Anywhere else and you'd say fake news
Fri Feb 16 09:10 The reality of the sport called skeleton will never be as exciting as my mental image of it, so I don't want to know
Sun Feb 18 07:56 BBC Mundo on Konstantinos Kotsanas' exhibit of "the robots and cinemas of Ancient Greece"
Sun Feb 18 08:57 Stroh violinist at Club Row animal market in the late 1970s by Dragan Novaković I know the arguments against animal markets, but I do miss them, here and in Spain @thegentleauthor
Sun Feb 18 08:57 Off down @chatsworthroad with the organ in a moment
Sun Feb 18 21:31 Shrovetide fire
Sun Feb 18 21:32 Apparently this is brilliant
Sun Feb 18 23:36 Kazoos are out
Mon Feb 19 09:47 Even where promotional coupons from Bing Ads aren't a 3rd party scam, Microsoft's system is such total poo that you won't experience any real benefit
Tue Feb 20 08:48 Council employee of the month: market inspector who gets in touch afterwards to say how much he enjoyed the singing/organ-grinding.
Tue Feb 20 10:49 Nice one. Now for the circular saw
Tue Feb 20 10:57 Lindengracht / Lijnbaansgracht before the Jordaan & Amsterdam became a tourist hellhole #VirtualTourism
Tue Feb 20 11:14 Comment: That's me in the skirt
Wed Feb 21 08:12 Spanish religious bodies (C/M/J) say carnival is sinful & immoral & a hate (i.e. thought) crime
Wed Feb 21 08:25 One midst many golden moments in L'ultima spiaggia, brilliant old-Mediterranean-folks-on-the-beach doc from Trieste: tube of basting oil labelled senza fattore solare, no solar protection. Last UCL Italian film club event this season: @c_massaccesi
Wed Feb 21 09:49 Althusser gives the example of a friend who knocks on a door. The person inside asks “Who is there?” & only opens the door once the “It’s me” sounds familiar. By doing so, the person inside partakes in “a material ritual practice of ideological recognition in everyday life”
Wed Feb 21 09:49 Comment: Just trying to find out why an architect thinks their monstrosity interpellates...
Wed Feb 21 11:06 Thread
Wed Feb 21 12:36 Another neighbour missing
Wed Feb 21 18:42 Greensleeves parodies: My darling you look a bit of a mess When you wipe your nose on the sleeve of your dress It's most unhygenic you must confess It's no wonder the boys call you Greensleeves
Wed Feb 21 21:24 Words needed in English: zaytan: one who moves his shoulders in walking from abundance of flesh
Thu Feb 22 08:54 Best search string on the website last month: PROPUEHTA+TRABAHO+Lah+normah+gráfikah They were looking for the Castellano - Andaluz "translator"
Fri Feb 23 08:49 Jongleurs imprisoned in Barcelona for endangering the struggle of Our Lady against Turks and Plague
Fri Feb 23 08:53 That's what I call a writer
Fri Feb 23 10:14 Definite arbitrage opportunities for anyone prepared to import Italian-/Spanish-style stove cafetières to London
Fri Feb 23 10:20 Comment: @PolemicTMM Colleague: "Depends whether he's using the Urban Dictionary leading def of GDP"
Fri Feb 23 20:19 At least it wasn't a barrel organ
Fri Feb 23 20:26 Comment: It's about the headline "Former Freemason, 51, found drunk and naked inside a huge pipe organ with a toy gun and remote-controlled police car says he got lost while trying to hand out cheeseburgers to the homeless"
Fri Feb 23 20:50 @LittleStormDes
Sat Feb 24 08:05 Regularly exceeded by Hindu witch doctors in the Hague, but still impressive
Sat Feb 24 08:08 Into The Woods 2014 film is excellent, but loses the fairytale symbolism of the stage play. Ideal version would be with marionettes, obv
Sat Feb 24 08:33 Comment: @HousesVictorian @Transblawg Too much of a good thing?
Sat Feb 24 08:58 Kasperl/Punc: vs the Ottomans, vs Mrs & the Cook, vs Death
Sun Feb 25 10:21 Bleach fix for autism Beats even the Shifke Parkinson's cure
Sun Feb 25 11:25 Wolfgang Buttass' Hive at Kew is a masterly satire on simian delusion: underdressed idealist monkeys stand upstairs imagining themselves part of bee fascism, while pervert realist monkeys take photos up their skirts from down below
Sun Feb 25 11:27 Comment: Also satirises artist-patron-consumer relationship: crucial part of installation is the interactive LED lighting, which is only meaningful after dark when paying public has left. (Picture cred previous tweet:
Sun Feb 25 13:00 Good stuff by Froghole on Taylor Review re sustainability of English churches: state to take over pre-1830 buildings & large sweetener from Commissioners Then fill one with medieval/Early Modern puppets & automata
Mon Feb 26 07:59 "Foucault writing his late works"
Mon Feb 26 14:54 1805, S Germany. The dark figure is wearing a ruff, but what's Kasperl/Punch using to keep his neck warm / robe clean?
Mon Feb 26 15:44 Credit says 1850 Italy, but, though it's a Catholic area, Pulcinella is playing outside Grüngasse Nr. 146. Not Vienna - too early. Zürich?
Mon Feb 26 21:53 I dunno
Mon Feb 26 22:32 Steve Pemberton beautiful as German scientist Jörg in La Couchette #InsideNo9
Tue Feb 27 08:33 It is snowing and I made biscuits using a snowman cookie cutter. How can people think that they are representations of male genitalia?
Tue Feb 27 09:10 Traditional Mayfair sport of walking over Ferraris to be legalised?
Tue Feb 27 14:35 Brilliant world weather map showing that London's #beastfromtheeast is coming from Hengelo, Netherlands Fred van de Ven, Hengeler Weend: Wat weait onmeunig um de klös zo koald dat oe de neus bevrös, wat maakt oen oogn stekebleend dat is de oostnweend
Tue Feb 27 16:28 The southern German Britschənəllə' (Schmeller's Bavarian Dictionary) = phonetic borrowing of the Italian Pulcinello + existing word Pritsch, slapstick, just as the English Punchinello = phonetic borrowing of Pulcinello + existing word Punch, punch...
Tue Feb 27 16:50 Money for new rope
Tue Feb 27 17:34 Uber etc congesting cities
Wed Feb 28 06:54 RT @Malboury: We moved into new offices, but this wall has been left open for a few weeks now. I knew what I had to do.
Wed Feb 28 07:17 Were Tolkien a newspaper editor he'd definitely have got a (live) tree to do the ent-ertainment supplement
Wed Feb 28 09:00 Comment: @Transblawg I wonder if there isn't actually a trend away from adverbial "good," except in old-school American dialects.
Wed Feb 28 10:49 Comment: @Lillie_Langtry @Transblawg "If I was" is just a return to fine pre-Victorian ways
Wed Feb 28 18:50 Comment: @ibexsalad New Holland
Wed Feb 28 19:20 First Russian flasher's mac on record, 1634: Sorry officer, I was just showing them my puppets
Wed Feb 28 19:36 Jeff Warner with a busker's puppet/jig doll
Wed Feb 28 19:37 Comment: Relative of the knee-operated the older marionette à la planchette, here by Jody Kruskal