Translation

Just a funny thought...funny to me, anyway. This past weekend, I drove down to Emory University in Atlanta to watch a couple of movies for the term paper in my German Film class, Der Untertan (The Kaiser's Lackey) and Die Rotation (The Rotation). They were both done by director Wolfgang Staudte (who wrote 'em, too), and are part of a trilogy of Vergangenheitsbewältigung films (coming to terms with the past, namely the recent Nazi past) which also included Die Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers Are among Us). They're all interesting movies, and Der Untertan is even pretty funny.

The one thing I find funny about Der Untertan when I saw it this time around had nothing to with the story, or characters, or any particular scenes. It was with the translation. It's a wonderful translation, done, I believe, by those wonderfully fluent people up at the University of Minnesota. In one scene, Diedrich Heßling has just joined the Neo-Teutons. He's at a drinking party, and all the other Neo-Teutons are asking him to toast with them. He feels socially pressured to say all sorts of things praising the Neo-Teutons. In the translation, one of those phrases of praise was translated into "Rootin' shootin' Teutons!" Man, if only there were some situation in life where I could just bust out with that phrase, my life would be nearly complete.

Actually, I'm writing the aforementioned term paper right now. Well, taking a little-needed break from it, I guess, to share with everyone what I found funny about the movie. I honestly believe that many, many funny things are going to die with me and never make it into anyone else's head. That's why I feel compelled to publish them here. Or something like that. Whatever. It's justified for me to waste ten minutes from my paper to tell you that "Rootin' shootin' Teutons!" is the funniest thing since sliced bread's stand-up comedy tour. But listen. I've got a paper to write. Go read someone else's blog now, why don't you.

Speaking of life being more complete, I finally got the third album Firesign Theatre ever put out today. It's titled Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand me the Pliers, and I believe that the first four albums are more inter-connected than any of the other ones, so I'm pretty dang happy. Not to mention, also, that tomorrow is my last day of classes at Berry College FOR FRIGGING EVER. Oops, I guess I did just mention it. I don't know what to think about that, though, really. Anyways. Back to the paper again! Hoohah!