Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ in Yiddish, by klezmer musician Daniel Kahn
can I just say, I love this version so much not just because it’s beautiful in its own right (it is), but because it’s such a good translation? it’s by no means an exact translation, but a lot of times when I see translated music, people strive to be as close to exact as possible, and what’s so great is that Daniel Kahn doesn’t do that. he doesn’t have to–he’s coming from the same background as Leonard Cohen, he understands all of the religious allusions as well as the uniquely Jewish viewpoint behind them. so he allows himself to stray from the literal words, and having that freedom actually makes his translation (and re-translation) more authentic because it has the same nuance and underlying meaning as the original.
which I think is especially poignant for Hallelujah, because a lot of Christian artists have covered this song and totally changed or eliminated the most explicitly Jewish verse–the one that references “the name”–in favor of one that describes the explicitly Christian “holy dove/ghost/spirit.” which sucks because and it’s a really powerful verse, and I think putting it back into its original context, and then translating it into and then back from Yiddish makes it even more powerful.
A lot of pets will ignore you, but only a cat will follow you from room to room and check your lines of vision to make absolutely certain that you can see them ignoring you.
theyre not ignoring you! this is actually just a cats way of saying they want to keep you company without infringing on your personal space. its the equivalent of going to a friends house while you both separately scroll through tumblr, even though youre glad to be together. alternatively the cat could be curious about what you are doing, but shy to make its presence known. either way the cat is paying very close attention to you!
this made me feel better
😺
I don’t understand why cats will have everything they do demonized no matter how innocent it is
It’s because they are hypersensitive introverts, and humans are mostly social extroverts.
Hypersensitive, introverted humans are often mistaken for antisocial, and as a species, we are myopic and anthropomorphize EVERYTHING.
Semi-social animals are not naturally intuitive to humans.
Dog packs very closely mirror a nuclear human family, made up of a mother and father and their pups, who leave to find their own mates and start their own packs as they mature beyond young adult hood.
Pigeon flocks are like a villiage comprized of one big, extended family, where children mostly stay close and new birds marry in.
Cats don’t work that way. There is no firmly set social structure for more social domestic cats to fall back on. None of the species they are thought to come from are naturally social. They mate, have kittens, and those families disperse to the four winds as soon as the young become self sufficient.
We have selected for higher tolerance to crowding and confinement, but that does not a social structure make.
A group of cats is more like random collage dorm or house mates. Whether or not they get along and how many the group can support long term depends on how well their individual personalities mesh, regardless of blood relation.
Kittens are more out going and have more energy than adult cats, but as they age, being playful and taking the risk of being friendly takes more energy than they have, so they go from being willing to play with every one to prefering the company of favorite familiar entities that have taken the time to learn about that individuals needs and preferences.
Humans, who naturally form close knit pack bonds, are generally out going, and do their very damnedest to form life long bonds of friendship see a cat’s intense curiosity and wary shyness of approach as stalkerish, and its need for quiet solitude when overstimulated (coupled with just *how* fast they become overstimulated) as fickleness, and are completely heartbroken when a friendly, out going kitten grows into a relatively shy, reserved cat.
With no effort to understand, what the average human sees is a sly, untrustwothy animal that is friendly one second, and warninglessly aggressive the next, not because there actually was no warning, but because feline body language is very subtle.
Once again, due to a cat’s sensitivity.
To a cat, humans are VERY loud, over the top dramatic, and socially dense as a fucking brick.
They have to scream EVERYTHING to get across to most of us, and that shit is exhausting.
The fact that they do make that stressful and exhausting effort proves that the ones who like us actually love us VERY much! Just not in a way that big, loud, oblivious drama queens easily pick up on.
Reblogging to the pet blog because animal behavior.
shoutout to the time my mom was hammered and i heard her trying to tell my dad that she murdered her first husband years ago and my dad very patiently said “i saw glenn in an elevator last week”
Why they never talk about no magic home ec class in Hogwarts.
Clearly they have spells for it.
Molly Weasley has knitting needles going, and while house elves do the cooking at Hogwarts presumably they use some magic there to keep up with the giant work load, and iirc, Molly uses magic to cook.
So, where the home ec class at. Where the muggleborns with dread in their eyes thinking it’ll be a normal like, cooking class, [Harry all excited thinking he’s gonna ace this class or at least do alright, since he cooked for the Dursley’s], and then the first half the first class is a lesson about how you’ve got to earn the respect of your measuring spoons. Otherwise they’ll argue with you on how much has to go into a recipe. Harry has a kind of tentative conversation with his and they work with him after he realized they were an older set used to students forcing them to work for them. Talks to them gently and asks if they think a little more or little less should go into a recipe, or if they think he should add an ingredient now and then because they’ve made the same thing over, and over. Harry trying to make Molly a sweater in return for the one he got because he doesn’t know what to do with having gotten gifts, and only really managing a rather lengthy and oddly tensioned scarf made from the best yarn he could find out of a catalog he found on the shelf in the classroom. The professor was just delighted he’d decided to keep at knitting and crocheting [he may have… mixed the two] after they’d finished the unit, to make a gift.
Where’s Hermione having a long drawn out conversation with the home ec professor about how it’s ridiculous to devote magic to knitting when you can do it by hand, and the professor countering about the time saved by simply using enchanted needles or a charm. The conversation takes up the entire period but a teacher actually takes Hermione seriously for once because effective division of effort/time is a very important skill to learn and it’s what they’re there to teach. Wheres Ron answering all the questions like a fucking CHAMP because managing in his family has basically made his ass a pro at everything– budgeting a vault? On it. Spelling how many cauldrons to feed how many people with how much food? On lock like it’s fucking Azkaban. Best herbs and plants to grow for general– he has already finished the worksheet/in-class essay that was on the board and is fucking around with his quill. He gets called on, his string bean ass gonna have the answer while kinda being shocked at himself that he actually does, because– like many poor ass people– we manage resources really damn well when we know what we have. And we very rarely let it get away from us.
Where’s the rich-ass purebloods that know finances and shit because they’re taking over family blood-line affairs when their older and their parents drilled that into their heads, but can’t cook/sew/anything else to save their life till they learn. Where was Oliver Wood trying to make Healthy Food Things for the quidditch team for Extra Energy and just making a mess. The Twins making a totally harmless banana pudding and selling it in their store and NO ONE KNOWING WHAT IT DOES, everyone panicking because they’re SURE they did something.
So back in the 1780′s when our country was still figuring crap out and ol’ George Washington was just elected president, G.W. decided to send a letter to Congress along the lines of ‘Looking forward to working with you all, this will be exciting!” Congress, not wanting to slight the president and also trying to express their own enthusiasm, sent back a letter along the lines of “Glad you’re excited, we are also looking forward to working with you!”
Then George sends another letter back saying something like “Cool cool bros, glad you’re just as excited as I am,” and Congress, again not wanting to be awkward or just ignore the PRESIDENT, sent back ANOTHER letter saying some dumb crap that was probably along the lines of “Glad you’re excited that we’re excited that you’re excited.”
Democracy at its finest.
And while this in itself is funny, that is not even the best part.
George Washington, while being powerful, was not extremely eloquent, and at this point was also aging, busy, and overall very stressed about his new position (which he did not want in the first place). So he asked his old friend James Madison, who had a much better way with words, to write the first note to Congress. Good old James Madison, wanting to oblige his friend, did just that and composed the note to Congress. Now, J-Mads was himself a member of Congress, so when the note arrived, he was in session to hear “Washington’s” letter read.
Congress got nervous and worried about who could possibly compose a formal and acceptable letter back to Washington. Who better than his old friend, James Madison? So Jimmy, being obliging, wrote the response. When Washington received the reply, he once again asked his friend to write the response.
And who did Congress choose to write their final letter? That’s right….none other than Jimmy-James-Madison himself.
So James Madison, future 4th president of the United States, wrote himself 4 letters under the guise of George Washington and the first Congress of the U.S. And he was too embarrassed to admit it.
