Media today 58

Listening: Ich weiß was, "Albert E. erklärt die Umwelt," 37:00-44:16 (end); Otfried Preußler, Die kleine Hexe, 59:30-1.50.

At 1.25 of Die kleine Hexe (the book chapter is called "Wollen wir wetten"), the little witch gets involved with a group of kids in the nearby town who are dressed up in costumes for Carnival/Fastnacht. This section does not come across well today, since the among the costumes are "an African," "a Chinamen," "various Orientals," and "an Indian," all hanging out with ... "a cannibal." 

The first time we read the story and listened to the Hörspiel, I made no comment, but this time I paused the story and explained at some length that these kinds of costumes are mostly not—and in my view should not be—worn anymore today because people from Africa and China and Asia, as well as Native Americans, find them offensive. When the author wrote the book more than 50 years ago (1957), there were not many people from these countries living in Germany, and so the Germans didn't know them very well and didn't realize they might be insulted, but that's not the case anymore.

The illustrations in the modern edition of the book does avoid the most offensive figures:

Germans' strange—and from my perspective rather distasteful—fascination with Native Americans is also something we've run into on numerous occasions. There's a Kokosnuss story with an Indian main character, the only one we haven't read. There's been a good bit of press about this lately.

Total audio 2015: 10:08

Total video 2015: 13:18

Age 5.3.24 

Media today 35

Roger Hargreaves, Mister Weihnachten. 

J loved the joke Was ist braun und klebrig und läuft durch die Wüste? — ein Karamel! and wanted to hear it four times.

Age 5.1.29

Puppetry today 2

The two hours this morning before J's school were a whirl of puppetry. First, he wanted a reprise of the Tannenbaum game from last night. This time we got through all three stanzas. I even managed to work in a bit of literary criticism by having the piggies ask what the last stanza means:

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Mut und Kraft zu jeder Zeit!
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren.

I told them it's about how the tree means two things at the same time. First and most importantly, the tree just means itself, but secondly, it's also a symbol for something else which is a little harder to explain. Then I elucidated a bit what the connection is between the evergreen needles and hope and constancy. 

The puppets are great way of introducing such things, by the way. J himself, of course, is not at the point of asking such questions himself. Nor is he much interested in hearing lectures from me out of the blue. But he pays very close attention when the puppets ask me questions. We have been through some version of the above scenario probably some half-dozen times in the past year, and by now J will volunteer things like "Das ist ein Symbol für ________" and "Das ist ein Zeichen von _________". 

After this J wanted to do some drawing and coloring. He opened his coloring book to some peafowl, which he is very interested in. So he went and got Percy, our resident peacock (also from Folksmanis), and the three of us sat around the table while J colored, I read out loud about peafowl, and Percy commented.  

All the while J was humming O Tannenbaum, so then, as we often do with songs, we tried to come up with new lyrics. Here is what we worked out with Percy, then with Ulli (mouse) and Franziska (gliding squirrel). Lines and words J came up with by himself are marked in green. 

O Vogelpfau, O Vogelpfau,
wie schön sind deine Federn!
Sie leuchten durch das ganze Jahr,
besonders wenn es draußen klar,
O Vogelpfau, O Vogelpfau,
wie schön sind deine Federn.

O Gleithörnchen, O Gleithörnchen,
Du bist ein guter Gleiter!
Du gleitest schön von Baum zu Baum,
Du gleitest über Schaum und Pflaum.
O Gleithörnchen, O Gleithörnchen,
Du bist ein guter Gleiter!

(Scansion of the first line doesn't quite work, but we make it work.)

O Mäuseli, O Mäuseli,
Du bist ein guter Renner!
Du huschst im ganzen Haus herum ...

Then something about cheese as we arrived at school... 

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, wie treu sind deine ...

This evening as we were decorating the Christmas tree, Friedel and Thusnelda broke into O Tannenbaum. 

When they sang "Wie treu sind deine Blätter," J corrected them and said that Christmas trees don't have Blätter (leaves), but rather Nadeln (needles) and that it should be "Wie treu sind deine Nadeln." The piggies insisted that the words were right and sang it in his face, whereupon he squished their mouths shut. There followed about 10 minutes of horseplay where the piggies sang things like O Jamiebaum, O Jamiebaum, wie grün sind deine Ohren whenever he let their mouths out of his grip. He finally had to sit on them.

Thusnelda told J that people first started decorating Christmas trees in Germany a long time ago. She also told him that the custom was actually started by wild pigs, not humans. According to her, they would use their tusks to hook the ornaments and hang them up on the trees. "Das ist völliger Quatsch" (complete nonsense) J said.

I also read to J a bit about Christmas trees on Wikipedia, including a few sentences each from the Allemanic and Bavarian entries. I told him these were different kinds of German people spoke in certain areas of Germany and Switzerland. When I asked him if he could understand any of it, he said no.

Saint Martin's Day

Yesterday we celebrated Saint Martin's Day (Nov. 11) with the Germanophone kiddies at the apartment complex of one of our group.

After some twilight tennis, playground horseplay, and dinner, we fired up the homemade lanterns, I strapped on my guitar, and the twelve of us (four adults and eight kids) put on a very respectable little Laternenlaufen for the neighborhood. We sang "Ich geh mit meiner Laterne" and "Sankt Martin ritt durch Schnee und Wind" numerous times, and in numerous keys. We got a lot of funny looks from passing drivers! Then we all went back to the house and had tasty homemade Weckmänner.

J was excited for days beforehand. In preparation we watched and talked about this lovely video from Sendung mit der Maus: