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The Worst Thing I Ever Saw On Public Access TV

"Stop ironing my head": famous foreign idiotisms

Introduction. I don't know how to introduce this. It's a stumble-upon, found late at night, so that the next morning I wondered if I had dreamed it.

Some of my favorite idiotisms/idia include the Cheyenne and Italian phrases, but I won't mention spoilers here. I like to illustrate my posts with images which may or may not be relevant, and these are definitely not, but neither are the phrases. The Jon Hamm gifs are vaguely relevant, but they're here mainly because Jon Hamm is such a fox, and Mad Men is nearly over. The links  to other idiotisms are worth pursuing, as I didn't have space for all them here. Jesus, people are weird!

Idioms and sayings in various languages

Idioms are expressions that don't mean what they appear to mean. For example, when you say 'it's raining cats and dogs', you don't mean that cats and dogs are falling out of sky, but rather that it's raining heavily. Idioms provide interesting insights into languages and thought processes of their speakers.

Arabic, Armenian, Aromanian, Cheyenne, Chinese, Cornish, Czech, Dutch,Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic),Italian, Japanese, Kashmiri, Klingon, Korean, Maltese, Mongolian, Norwegian,Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh, Yiddish

More idioms

It's all Greek to me | It's raining cats and dogs | As easy as falling off a log | A sandwich short of a picnic | It's small world | When pigs fly | Out of sight, out of mind

Idioms in individual languages

Czech | French | Russian | Slovak | Spanish

---

Armenian

Գլուխս մի՛ արդուկեր: (Klookhys mee artooger)
Stop ironing my head! = Stop annoying me! (as in repetitively asking or talking about something)

Cheyenne
Mónésó'táhoenôtse kosa?
Are you still riding the goat? = separated from your spouse

Énêhpoése ma'eno.
The turtle is shrouded = it's foggy.

Étaomêhótsenôhtóvenestse napâhpóneehéhame.
My tapeworm can almost talk by itself = my stomach is growling.

Chinese (Mandarin / Cantonese)

一鼻孔出气 (yī bíkǒng chūqì / yāt beihhúng chēuthei)
breathing through the same nostril = singing from the same hymn sheet

杯弓蛇影 (bēi gōng shé yǐng / būi gōng sèh yíng)
seeing the reflection of a bow in a cup and thinking it's a snake = worring about things that aren't there

Czech
chodit kolem horké kaše
to walk around hot porridge = to beat about the bush

More idioms in Czech

Dutch

Ik zweet peentjes
I sweat carrots = I'm sweating like a pig

IJsberen
'to polar bear' (i.e. to pace up and down)

Estonian

Puust ja punaseks ette tegema
to make something out of wood and paint it red - to make something really clear

Finnish

pitkin hampain
with long teeth - (to do something) unwillingly

kiertää kuin kissa kuumaa puuroa
to pace around hot porridge like a cat = to beat about the bush

French

avoir les dents qui rayent le parquet
to have teeth that scratch the floor = to be extemely ambitious

J'ai d'autres chats à fouetter !
I have other cats to whip! = I have other fish to fry! - I have other things to do.

pédaler dans la choucroute
to pedal in the sauerkraut = to spin your wheels - to go nowhere

More idioms in French

Hindi

अंग-अंग ढीला होना
losing of all body parts = to get very tired

अंगारे उगलना
to excrete embers - to get very angry

खून सूखना
parching of blood = to become afraid

एक अनार सौ बीमार (ek anar sau biimar)
One fruit, one hundred ill

जंगल मेँ मोर नाचा किसने देखा? (jangal mein mor naca kisne dekha)
Peacock danced in the forest, who saw?

बंदर क्या जाने अदरक का स्वाद? (bandar kya jane adrak ka swad?)
A monkey doesn't knows the taste of ginger

डूबते को तिनके का सहारा (doobte ko tinke ka sahara)
A straw supports a drowning man

Indonesian

kuman di seberang lautan tampak, gajah di pelupuk mata tak tampak
the bacterium across the sea is seen, but the elephant on eyelid is not seen

Italian

avere gli occhi foderati di prosciutto
to have one's eyes lined with ham = can't see the wood for the trees - to be unable to see what is distinctly in sight


avere le orecchie foderate di prosciutto
to have one's ears lined with ham = to be unable to hear what can be clearly heard

Japanese

尻が重い (shiri ga omoi)
heavy ass/arse - used for someone who is the opposite of a go-getter; a real slacker

Maltese

Iddur mal-lewża
Going round the almond = beat about the bush

Mongolian

бурхан оршоо бутын чинээ сахал урга (burkhan orshoo butin chinee sakhal urga)
God bless you and may your moustache grow like brushwood
(said when someone sneezes)

Norwegian

å være midt i smørøyet (bokmål) / å vere midt i smørauget (nynorsk)
to be in the middle of the butter melting in the porridge - to be in a very favourable place or situation

Russian

Вешать лапшу на уши (Vešat' lapšu na ušy)
To hang noodles on one's ears = to tell lies / talk nonsense

Serbian

Nosom para oblake
He's ripping clouds with his nose = He's conceited, puffed up

Spanish

me estoy comiendo el coco
I'm eating the head = I'm trying to think

Turkish

Kafa ütüleme
Don't iron my head = Used when somebody repetitively talks about something.

Yiddish

Hak mir nisht kin chaynik
don't chop my teakettle = stop annoying me

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Do you sweat when you're horny?

Can you imagine, when you're going at it hot and heavy, suddenly whipping out your Arrid with Perstop to deodorize your "sex perspiration"? This product supposedly nukes the "most offensive odor" (sex sweat), not unlike the Lysol douche which disinfects away all signs that you've had sex.  All these ads talk about how doctors recommend the product, though they don't say WHICH doctors and how they managed to solicit their medical opinions. 

This is yet another of the ubiquitous ads of the era (1950s) which convey the message that women stink, but here they are saying women particularly stink when they are sexually excited, an odor so foul and offensive that it must be stamped out at once or it will knock your partner on his ass.  The only good thing about it is the acknowledgement that women feel sexual "excitement" at all, though of course, if and when they do,  all signs of it must be immediately eradicated.

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Finally. . . Google does something right!

"Take my advice, I'm not using it"

Another journal entry. I get inspired in the morning and run off at the keyboard with my personal philosophy.

May 9/15

Saturday again; beautiful again. I don’t know. I keep telling myself I should be more unhappy, or not happy with what I have. All these people who continually exhort you to be happy with what you have: do they need to say it to you, or to themselves? And even if it’s to you, why are they so compelled to say it? What business is it of theirs what another person does? Are they so affronted by people who AREN’T happy with what they have? Do they have to be checked and corrected by someone with an obviously superior world view?

Why are we constantly being told how we should feel, how we should think? In the trivializing age of Facebook, etc., it’s even worse, with memes and other spiritual sound bites abounding, most of them patently untrue. It’s never “This is what I believe” or even “this is what I think you should do”, it’s “DO THIS”, as if the words are being passed down on high from Mount Olympus.

For God’s sake, don’t ask for anything beyond what you have already! At the same time, you can have absolutely anything you want in life if you try hard enough! (OK then, my order is in: 5 million dollars and a palomino pony.) And how about this one: never quit! Never quit! This is one of the most self-limiting things a person can practice, because sometimes quitting is the most liberating thing a person can do. It can release you from the shackles of trying, and trying, and trying, and feeling like a miserable failure because you “can’t succeed”, and what’s the matter with you anyway, shouldn’t you be able to have anything you want if you just try hard enough (and keep trying, and keep trying)?

I’ve known people who’ve gotten divorced, and when they tell their friends and relatives, it’s either “Oh NO!” (as in, a tornado just destroyed my house), or ‘Oh, nooooo. . . “ as in “my cat just got run over”, or – it’s harder to describe this “oh no”, but it’s a combination of grief, disappointment and bewildered judgement, as in “how in hell could YOU have let this happen?” These people, and that means most people, see it as a failure and even an unmitigated tragedy.

And there’s an even worse one, a sort of appalled, horrified silence, sort of like “my son was caught masturbating in class”. They just don’t know what to say.

So what of the people who have been in a miserable relationship for years and years, have felt alienated and alone, have fought bitterly and without hope of resolution, have endured infidelities and physical and emotional abuse from their partners? I’m afraid it’s still “nooooooo” from most people, because they have no idea what was going on, OR, they had full knowledge of what was going on and felt they should still stay together for the sake of the children. Or maybe they just weren’t trying hard enough.

Walking away from anything is a failure, even if, after walking away, you find the love of your life and are happy for the first time in your life. No, stay stuck, it’s more noble, and for God's sake keep your problems to yourself because talking about them, or even admitting you have them and couldn’t tolerate them any more, makes your friends and relatives deeply uncomfortable.

And that brings me to this point: gratuitous advice. Why are we supposed to be so grateful when someone throws buckets of unsolicited advice at us, when we either haven’t asked for it or have maybe asked them one small, simple question? This demonstrates several things. One, the advice-giver believes their view of things is far superior to yours, and by extension, you’re pretty incompetent at what you do and need to be set straight. Two, that you should be grateful for these stone tablets, even if you’re being  hit over the head with them. Three, that your obvious failure is an affront to them and, yes, makes them very uncomfortable. Buckets of advice douse this ineffectual, smoldering fire. Or so they think.

Advice-giving and homilies are a great way to shut someone up, usually someone suffering grief and pain. Here, have this, it’ll solve everything. You may go away now. Your grief and pain has just been corrected. I should know; I have never experienced anything like that! “Hmm, well, I'm glad that never happens to me. Here’s what you should do.”

It is the very rare person who can receive your pain, and do you know what? We usually have to pay them. Even then, real help is a dicey proposition because most therapists go by the book and say very trite things so they can congratulate THEMSELVES on what a great job they’re doing. And if your dismay and even anger persist, well then, you just have a lousy attitude and should correct yourself and adjust to the therapeutic environment. I'm giving you all this help, and you’re not “co-operating”, which means you're just innately self-destructive.  Sorry, I can’t treat you any more if you’re not willing to change.

I won’t get into such trite crap as “everything happens for a reason” (a baby dying of leukemia? School shootings? Al-Qaeda? The Third Reich? I could go on.) It’s almost as bad as "it's all part of God’s plan” (something someone said to me when my son’s roommate was murdered, his head kicked in in a parking lot by two "friends" after a bar fight). Or, worst of all, “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

Oh yes? Have you ever heard of suicide, or are “those people” outside the human pale?  I knew a lady who liked to say, “Our prisons and psychiatric hospitals are full of people who had more than they could handle.”

But hey.  I never have more than I can handle, so I can inflict this philosophy on you with impugnity. In fact, having “helped” you this way, I can dust off my hands and carry on, free from having to stare into the grief-stricken eyes of a fellow human being in genuine human pain.

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Bullshit advice to writers

Today's journal entry. It's nothing I haven't said before, but maybe I need to say it again.

 May 8/15

I keep deleting what I’ve written, then starting again. Just as well, because some of it makes me sick. It’s pretty sad stuff that is only useful for giving me something to do, and to show myself, "see, I'm still writing".

Part of me wanted to keep all of it, but I don’t read back much anyway. I just get tired of it, of myself, of Facebook and its emptiness. People saying “just concentrate on the joy of the writing, and you WILL be a bestseller.” It will just happen by some magic. It’s like “do what you love and the money will follow”. People really do believe that. If you don’t, your karma is off, your vibes are too negative, and you don’t really deserve to be a bestseller anyway because you are committing the unpardonable sin of WANTING to be, to have a decent readership for your books.

You should completely ignore your ambition to be published (because it's kind of stinky anyway, like being a whore), put it aside, write for the pure joy of writing, and THEN, voila!, your work will suddenly, magically sell like mad! A contract will drop into your lap, a Fifty Shades-size one, with no effort, just as New York agents will bust down your door before they even read your stuff. I see this naïve belief everywhere, and if you try to counter it with reality and experience, you’re treated like a sour old thing who has no optimism or faith and who DOESN’T believe success is guaranteed if only you stop wanting it.

To me, that's pretty dishonest, because it's a hidden agenda. The "advice" or imperative is "write only for the joy of it", though beneath that, unacknowledged, unadmitted, lurks this sense that being so pure of heart will cause the Great God Publishing to bring his/her wand down on your head and grant your every bestselling wish. In other words, you will succeed so lavishly BECAUSE you stopped caring about such crass, unworthy things as having a readership for your work.

This whole thing about publishing, readership, etc. is highly stigmatized and causes so much embarrassment that people will do just about anything to cover it up. The LAST thing you should want is to have people buy your books. “Stop thinking about the market and start thinking about the joy of what you do!” one of those meme-y things says, and I see a lot of them. “The market” reminds me of “meat market” or an inert commodity that is bought and sold.

A book IS that, yes it is. A commodity that is bought and sold. What else can it be?I say this over and over again: we don’t expect a concert pianist to play in an empty hall. It would be completely humiliating, not to mention a huge waste of training, practice, time, money, and the cost of a Steinway. And we don't tell the pianist, "Oh, just play for the joy of playing, even if nobody ever hears it. " And yet, for writers it's a completely different thing. 

Human language and communication began to seriously evolve with the storyteller who sat by the fire, a circle of tribespeople sitting around and avidly listening. The first thing he or she probably talked about was that day’s hunt, probably exaggerating its glories and downplaying its failures. Gradually it evolved into more elaborate storytelling, exploits. People listened and learned what a human being is, even if in distorted form. It was one of the main building blocks of culture, and it defined humanity as an animal different from any other.

What if no one had sat around the fire? I think we might still be conducting our business with sticks and stones.

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Dead Mouse Theatre - Leprechaun

Like a peacock on fire: By Strauss!

It suddenly occurs to me that my last post probably made no sense to anyone but me. I think - I hope - I was trying to draw parallels between the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau, and George and Ira Gershwin. Sounds silly? Maybe. But it seemed oh-so-significant at the time. My Gershwin exploration is a dreamlike experience, and you know how hard it is to explain or even describe a dream to someone else, if you can even remember it. And somehow it falls apart on remembering.

But meanwhile! Here is a fabulous recording of one of the GG brothers' most charming songs. It has a killer lyric that is very hard to get your tongue around, and a fast, sassy, brilliant tune. Maureen McGovern, an underrated singer with an incredible range, gets around this very handily, and with operatic precision. And for all that, she still has fun with it.  By Jove, by jing, by Strauss is the thing!

(P. S. Kiri te Kanawa does a bizarre version of this in a thick Yiddish accent - wtf?? - and does not sing the high-altitude coloratura solo which McGovern knocks off with such aplomb. Now, it could be that the arrangement was written especially for her. At any rate, like this song that flames up like a peacock on fire, it's killer.)

Away with the music of Broadway

Be off with your Irving Berlin

Oh I give no quarter to Kern or Cole Porter

And Gershwin keeps pounding on tin

How can I be civil when hearing this drivel

It's only for nightclubbin' souses

Oh give me the free 'n' easy waltz that is Vienneasy and

Go tell the band 

If they want a hand

The waltz must be Strauss's

Ya, ya ya, give me oom-pa-pah

When I want a melody

Lilting through the house

Then I want a melody

By Strauss

It laughs, it sings, the world is in rhyme

Swinging to three-quarter time

Let the Danube flow along

And the Fledermauss

Keep the wine and give me song

By Strauss

By Jove, by Jing, by Strauss is the thing

So I say to ha-cha-cha, heraus!

Just give me your oom-pa-pah, by Strauss!

Let the Danube flow along

And the Fledermauss

Keep the wine and give me song

By Strauss

By Jove, by Jing, by Strauss is the thing

So I say to ha-cha-cha, heraus!

Just give me your oom-pa-pah,

By Strauss!

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Gershwin's Ghost: conversation

May 7/15

I should I guess try to slow this down or stop it or spread it out or something.

Why?

I’m getting greedy.

For what, we don’t know. But I am here on the line

Does it matter how much things have changed since –

Does it seem to?

No, it doesn’t. This is a timeless time. Are you appearing to people still?

I haven’t for a while because I was not sure they would know me.

Oh they would. For some reason I am thinking of Jacob and Esau

What brought THAT to your mind?

Something about birthright – you and Ira – I don’t know.

“The hands are the hands of Esau.” You know how it goes?

I need to be reminded!

Jacob stole Esau’s birthright, or he sold it for a bowl of soup. Great deal, eh? Did you ever pay attention to what my real name is?

Jacob.

Esau being the eldest, so he’d get the caboodle, all of it.

I just found the reference, here it is:

21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The

Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
23 The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.
25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment;so they named him Esau.
26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents.
28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.
30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.
31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”
33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.
So Esau despised his birthright.

Rings true in a way.

I don’t think he despised his birthright but some things do ring true in it, including your own cleverness and the way your personalities contrast. I just looked up the rest of it and Jacob fools his father twice! His father seems unable to go back on it, so poor Esau. . . in a way, he’s cursed, or certainly not blessed. But who on earth could outfox Jacob?

Nobody. He looks after his own. Yet Esau loves him, maybe too much.

He’s beholden to him?

It should be the other way around, but it isn’t. George ends up being the genius.

You have no trouble saying that, do you.

No. I have no trouble saying that. Ira would have no trouble saying that. He was the favored son, but look what happened, I jumped on the piano stool and was off. And it was Ira’s piano. He was supposed to take lessons. You could say the piano was his birthright, and I stole it. At least I had no trouble taking it.

But it really was.

It really was. Did he feel left behind? Then he wrote these incredible lyrics, and it became evident we really were “twins”, with the words and music intertwining.

That is absolutely fantastic! “The hands are hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.” Pulling a switch, there, and a clever one. It’s almost like you/he stole Esau’s hands!

Esau’s hands were hairy. Jacob’s hands were smooth. Boy they sure got it backwards there.

Yeah I’ve seen pictures.  Wow. I’m just resonating from this

Go away and chew on it for a while.

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For nothing now can ever come to any good

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But the age of miracles hadn't passed

The "one neglect" that wrecks romance

"I was a 'single' wife      How a young married woman overcame the "one neglect" that often wrecks romance

1. Ours was the perfect marriage. . . at first. But slowly, gradually, a strangeness grew up between us. I couldn't believe Jim's love had cooled so fast!

2. One day, Miss R., a nurse from my home town, found me crying and wormed the whole thing out of me.  "Don't be offended, darling," she began, shyly. "I've seen this happen before. Many wives have lost their husbands' love through their neglect of feminine hygiene (intimate personal cleanliness).

3. Then she told me what she'd heard a doctor advise: Lysol Disinfectant. "You see," she went on, "Lysol won't harm sensitive vaginal tissues - just follow the easy directions. Lysol cleanses thoroughly and deodorizes. No wonder this famous germicide is the mainstay of thousands of women for feminine hygiene."

4. Ever since, I've used Lysol. It's so economical, so easy to use, gives me such a wonderful feeling of personal daintiness. And - here's the most wonderful thing - Jim and I are once again happy as doves."

Check this with your doctor

Lysol is NON-CAUSTIC - gentle and efficient in proper dilution. Contains no  free alkali. It is not carbolic acid. EFFECTIVE - a powerful germicide, active in presence of organic matter (such as mucus, serum, etc.) SPREADING - Lysol solutions spread and thus virtually search out germs in deep crevices. ECONOMICAL - small bottle makes almost a gallon of solution for feminine hygiene.

CLEANLY ODOR disappears after use. LASTING - Lysol keeps full strength indefinitely, no matter how often it is uncorked.

LYSOL DISINFECTANT      FOR FEMININE HYGIENE

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George Meets Frida: a Mexican adventure

Jan. 23, 1936
One Thirty-Two East Seventy-Second Street
New York

Dear Elizabeth -
     After much patient waiting I finally was rewarded with an epistle (a very well typed epistle I may add) from you. I find its a very good idea to write letters so seldomly as it works up a been desire, almost amounting to pain in the receiving person, and its a swell idea unless of course the person happens to die waiting.
     It's nice that things whizz for you out where beauties play my music. On the 9th February I'm playing the same frogs with the Washington Sym. - your mother has asked If she could give me a party in Wash. on that evening and I answered a quick "yes". I wish you were there.
     Ira's Follies opens in town next week & it reminds me of a year ago when you had that lovely dress on & we went to the opening of 8:40.
     Hope now you are in the pink, physically, mentally & professionally & affectionately & that you'll write soon to
     George

& talents go to earn an honest dollar. When life whizzes by, one is really living, so drink it in, honey.
     The Mexican trip was fun & educational. No, I didn't fight with Eddie or even the Doc. We all got along 'splendid'. Much sightseeing, travelling for 10 days at an average height of about 7500 ft., seeing all the churches (but no synagogues) looking, but in vain, for the Mexican beauties one hears about, listening to the music but finding difficult to get anyone to play anything away from 6/8 time. Spent a great deal of time with charming fat Diego Rivera & charming lovely Mrs. Diego Rivera.  Made color pencil portraits of them both.
     Here I am back in old New York again, freezing cold. It's 10 above zero today. Night before last I played in Philly with the Philadelphia Symphony, the concerto & a suite from Porgy. It was a major thrill to hear that band

OK, Gershwinites: and are there any of you actually out there? Never mind, nobody reads my blog anyway, or hardly anyone, so I may as well pursue my current obsession (as usual!). One of these days I'm going to change the title of it to Gershwin's Ghost. You see, George himself is beginning to wonder if I am in fact working up to another book, which would be OK if it appears after my death and somebody else does all the slamming-headlong-into-the-cement-wall/humilating failure for me.

It's pretty easy to find samples of GG's handwriting, and the  most interesting thing about these samples is his reference to meeting "charming fat Diego Rivera & charming lovely Mrs. Diego Rivera", the latter now celebrated as an artist in her own right by her real name, Frida Kahlo.

I have to confess that some of this was a little hard to transcribe. That reference to "playing the same frogs" must, surely, be "songs", unless one of the songs was "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal". I am not sure who Elizabeth is, or was, and the Mexican letter consists of only page 2 and 3. What interests me - and maybe this was as casual then as an email, who knows - is how open he is about handwriting/answering letters from interested people and "fans". It must have been a thrill to get a handwritten note, not just from a secretary but from the great man himself.

By the way, he refers to playing with the Washington  Symphony on February 9. No coincidence, is it, that the date happens to be my birthday?

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Who could ask for anything George?

Gershwin's Ghost: the return

 “George even passed the most acid of tests for great leadership by remaining a presence to his followers even after he’d left the planet. Ann ‘Willow Weep for Me’ Ronell told me some half century after his death that she still ‘saw’ Gershwin regularly in the crowds of the Upper West Side, looking as if he’d just walked out the door. And on that same day, Burton ‘How About You’ Lane testified to an even more precise epiphany. Lane had recently been to a concert of Gershwin’s newly-refurbished piano rolls being played on a baby grand pianola in a pool of spotlight. And as the notes began to go mechanically down and up, ‘There was George for a moment,’ he exclaimed, ‘playing away. I almost passed out.’”

- The House that George Built, Wilfrid Shed

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"IT!. . . COULD!. . . WORK!" - famous movie quotes #387