From the Devil to Colonol Klink to Goethe to Schubert to Glasgow and back again

My mind works in mysterious ways at times and the internet only encourages it more! I end up going on some whacky and wild circuitous rides sometimes.

I was reading my sister's blog today as she was discussing the whole June 6, 2006 or 6-6-6, devil, Satan,evil business. While reading her blog, I was distracted by someone sending me an SMS asking me what the score is in the Stanley Cup play off hockey game. Then someone else SMS'd me to ask if I was busy at work today...I wanted to reply "yes, i have to catch up on all my paperwork as lately our department has become anal about documentation and I feel like a clerk in the Third Riech" but employers have the ability to check SMS.

My Third Reich comment then got me thinking about a funny joke that someone sent me years ago about how the English language was going to be slowly changed and we would all start speaking English with a German accent similar to Colonol Klink. As I found the joke so amusing at the time I thought I would do a search on google to see if I could find it again but I couldn't remember the exact title of the joke. I vaguely remember the words Konsens English or Konsenz English. Determined, I kept typing variations I typed in Konig by accident which then took me to a page about the mythical Erlkönig(the evil Elf King who appears to people before they die). The website included the famous poem by Goethe called "Der Erlkönig" the Erl King...

Reading "Der Erlkönig" again got me thinking about my Mother and Grandfather. My Grandfather was a great singer who sometimes sang with the Glasgow Opera back in the 1940's and 1950's. He was a wonderful,bass baritone who sounded similar to the baritone of today Bryn Terfel. My Grandfather specialized in Schubert Leider and I loved to hear him sing "Die Forelle" a famous Goethe poem set to Schubert music about a trout.

My Mother, who was also an excellent singer,would have loads of recordings of Baritones singing Schubert Leider as I am sure it helped her not miss Grandpa so much as we lived in Canada and my Grandparents lived in Glasgow their entire lives. I would grow up listening to recordings of all the great Baritones singing Schubert, Verdi, Mozart. When we would visit my Grandparents, in Glasgow, my Grandfather would burst into song at any time of the day and I would always ask him to sing "Die Forelle" (the trout) and "Der Erlkönig" which were my two favorite Schubert Leider recordings.

Now, "Der Erlkönig", is regarded as extremely challenging to perform due to the vocal characterization required of the vocalist as well as due to its difficult accompaniment, involving the playing of rapidly repeated chords and octaves to create the effect of drama and urgency indicated in the poetry. The way the singer has to change his voice to represent the different characters in the poem make it very entertaining but exciting and terrifying for a child.

The poem is about a father riding on his horse with his sick, dying, child in his arms, riding like the wind to get the child help and the child begins to see the Erlkönig riding along with them. The Erlkönig begins to taunt and try and entice the child "You lovely child, come, go with me! So many lovely games I will play with you. Some colorful flowers are by the shore." My Grandfather used to change his voice to sound more sinister when singing the lines for the Erlkönig. With the piano rapidly playing octaves in triplets to simulate the horse's galloping, as a kid I would hope against hope that this poor man would get this kid help and get him out of the evil clutches of the Erlkönig. My heart would be racing at the lines sung in German "Now father, now father, he's seizing my arm. Elf-king has done me a cruel harm." Near the very end of the piece the music slows down and the piano stops before the finale, "In seinen Armen das Kind war tot." or "In his arms, the child was dead." The piece then ends with two dramatic chords at which point I would be balling my eyes out as yet again this poor child had died. When I gew up my Mother told me that she used to find it amusing that I would be so emotional about the song. She told me that she used to have the same reaction when she was small and would scream at my Grandfather "why is the ErlKing taking away the little boy, why can't his father save him" This of course would interrupt my Grandfather who was practising this song while his cousin Joe would be playing the piano accompaniment.

It's just so weird how you start out thinking about one thing, get on the internet and end up having a vivid flashback about a very specific memory from your childhood.


Now for something truly bizarre...see what two men in lab coats, 500 Mentos and 200 litres of diet coke can produce... Mentos and Coke Experiment

See, there goes my mind wandering again.......