One of the most interesting sides – at home, as well as here in Peru – about having the flu are the many – very kind – tips and special recipes one gets by the folks around you. Imagine a standard dialogue: “Hi, anthronaut, how’s it going?” – “Honestly, quite bad, I’ve got a bad flu…”, bet something like If I was you, I would do this and that or You should do this and that will follow- And you can also bet your grandmother’s false teeth that your flu will puff away like a bad joke on a family dinner.
I made a list of the best ones:
“If I was in your place, I would:
- Go and take a warm shower – not too hot – got to bed and afterwards you’re a newborn man.”
- Cut some eucalyptus and make yourself an inhalation.”
- Make a tea out from eucalyptus leaves. Take some sugar, pour alcohole on it and burn it up. Mix all and drink it hot. Go to bed.”
- Make a tea from eucalyptus leaves, add some lemon and drink it hot. Go to bed.”
- Take a glass of Pisco, mix with lemon juice, garlic juice and onion juice. Drink it, got to bed. [And probably die in agony.]
- Dress up real warm, with a sweater and a coat and go for a run. Then take a shower and put on dry clothes. Afterwards you’re completely restored.”
Running packed up in winter clothes at 30 centigrades with your entire respiratory apparatus hanging out of your mouth is not what really I would like to do, eucalyptus tea with lemon was my choice. Makes you sweat more than all hot chicken soups of the world could dream about.
February 6, 2007 at 3:37 pm
“I made a list of the best ones”
What were the ones you dropped out?
February 6, 2007 at 4:07 pm
The ones I’ve simply forgotten
This morning I got another great tip: Pour pure alcohole in a glass, mix with lemon juice and take it in a shot. Then go to bed, covered up in a warm blanket.
I don’t know, I’m still suspicious toward the strong liqour treatment in case of a flu..
[edit:] Though I’m not completely hostile towards it, neither.
February 6, 2007 at 8:05 pm
“The ones I’ve simply forgotten”
February 6, 2007 at 8:08 pm
btw have you told them in germany tip no 1 is drinking warm (means heated) beer ?
February 6, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Another session? Anytime you like, just tell me how do you link my amnesia with playing guitars
About the beer: Yes I heard it in Bavaria and I’ve been puzzled to hear about this atrocity in a land of notorious purists, not only concerning the brew.
February 6, 2007 at 10:28 pm
how about paint it black polka style until it hurts me? no glue? *g
the beer thing is weird. I’ve never tried it. My theory is the hot beer just makes you terribly drunken quickly so that you fall into a deep and long sleep and recover meanwhile.
February 7, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I think I got it: You accused me of having ruined Jumpin’ Jack Flash, if I’m not wrong. And I still strongly object.
February 7, 2007 at 3:09 pm
No it was Paint it Black. Respectless youth. A parody is a parody is a parody and nothing else.
But talking seriously, actually your nice interpretation–which was good–made me think a lot about my generation afterwards. I tried to find out what it is that is different in my relationship with that song in comparison to the one that was expressed by your play. And where that mixed emotion came from that I experienced after you just didn’t stop your polka on Keith Richards’ back. Nothing against polka. I love polka. Also I do love parodies.
ok. Next time we do Child in Time merengue style.
February 7, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Respectless youth… You barely meet 30+ people nowadays who so fervently insist of their being older. Even if Keith Richards easily could be their father.
Anyway, I thought about the “generations” stuff, you were writing in your reply. I suppose you we’re in your early twens in the mid-nineties, when your fellow twens might have had Massive Attack, Alice in Chains or The Backstreet Boys on heavy rotation in their brand new and not quite cheap compact disc changer. I don’t think they had a more intense relationship to the Rolling Stones, the Sixties and their whole creative output than “my generation”, who’s now carrying the 30st lukewarm remake of NY Rock’n'Roll (aka Strokes and White Stripes) in the iPods. One could even argue that the now en vogue Rock’n'Roll shows of an even bigger reception of this kind of music – My argument is nevertheless, that each one of us two, being in their early thirties or early twenties can’t have another relationship towards these songs than simply a remote one and one removed of their original scenery. I’ve always been a very big aficionado of music from then, so might be you and many others. But it’s in my eyes not a generational thing.
And it was Jumpin’ Jack Flash (I can’t remember how to play ‘Paint it Black’, which is, in fact, a Polka).
February 7, 2007 at 7:16 pm
No it was Paint it Black and you picked it from my playing.
And no, it factually is no polka. A polka is a 2/4 rythm while Paint it Black is in 4/4.
“I suppose you we’re in your early twens in the mid-nineties, when your fellow twens might have had Massive Attack, Alice in Chains or The Backstreet Boys on heavy rotation in their brand new and not quite cheap compact disc changer..”
I was sixteen in 1989. I moved away from home that year and since then I am working. The time I was thinking of, when I got in touch with Rolling Stones and alike and especially paint it black was still a couple of years earlier. And for everybody, mean everybody I knew, at that time it still was a hit. The seventies were only ten years old and very vivid in the middle eighties, you know. Now it’s an oldie.
The middle nineties? First of all I remember Cop Killer being played in the clubs in summer 92 and tornadolike becoming a hit in Bremen–before it got indexed and replaced by Freedom of Speech.
Remarkable about that song is that it united all kinds of people on the dancefloor, crossing over the many different scenes and groups that made up Bremen nightlife clubscene in that time.
Actually I can’t remember knowing anyone ever having bought a backstreet boys album. I think this is because when those had their breakthrough the targetted public already was younger than the people I was with.
You might not be totally wrong and it may not be a matter of generation solely, but one of milieus, scenes and groups. Nevertheless I argue that certain milieus have their place in time and are historical.
“You barely meet 30+ people nowadays who so fervently insist of their being older.”
Fellow students and I conducted interviews this semester on biographical experiences of the system change in germany after 1989. During our supervision with the prof she remarked, my interview had been the only one in which the interviewer had not been “explained” the GDR by the contemporary witness interviewed. I think this was because I am a contemporary witness, too. If not, it was my personality. Or the interviewee’s personality. Où le hazard, peut-être.
February 7, 2007 at 11:37 pm
You might not be totally wrong
Why, thank you
You might not be totally wrong and it may not be a matter of generation solely, but one of milieus, scenes and groups. Nevertheless I argue that certain milieus have their place in time and are historical.
No objections to that.
The Backstreet Boys thing was a cheeky joke
February 8, 2007 at 12:55 pm
“certain milieus have their place in time and are historical”
Fine. If you agree with me here, you’ll agree too to the conclusion that people who have been part of a historical milieu can have a different relationship to its elements than those who have not contemporarily witnessed it. And that having been part of a certain milieu or not depends on various factors, but especially on age as necessary condition.
My use of term ‘generation’ was unsharp by purpose, perhaps. Mannheim’s concept e.g. states that there was no “generation 1″ in the GDR. Also it says there is no “Nachkriegsgeneration” in western germany which is ridiculous facing the fact that people do identify themselves as such–for whatever reasons.
February 8, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Compare:
Yours: part of a historical milieu can have a different relationship to its elements than those who have not contemporarily witnessed it.
Mine: My argument is nevertheless, that each one of us two, being in their early thirties or early twenties can’t have another relationship towards these songs than simply a remote one and one removed of their original scenery.
Paint it Black was first published in 1966, 1989 was 23 years after, the song already being an oldie then. We’re talking about the same stuff here.
February 9, 2007 at 9:16 am
No. We are talking past each other.
February 9, 2007 at 9:47 am
“Compare:
Yours: part of a historical milieu can have a different relationship to its elements than those who have not contemporarily witnessed it.”
The historical milieu I was referring to was not in middle sixties but in the middle eighties.
“Mine: My argument is nevertheless, that each one of us two, being in their early thirties or early twenties can’t have another relationship towards these songs than simply a remote one and one removed of their original scenery.”
That surely is true, but misses the point as from teh beginning I was reflecting the difference in our relationships to that song that came to expression by our different interpretations.
I never claimed one was “more original” than the other.
Do you argue as much with informants in the field ?
February 9, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Alright, alright, alright, we’re both right, because we never contradicted.
Do you argue as much with informants in the field ?
No, I only argue about topics I know about.