Ugh, hear that echo in the first part? That’s what happens when you record in an empty, bare-walled room you just moved into, rather than in a closet. Ah well, it wasn’t a fiction episode so I’m not really concerned about the quality, as long as it’s listenable.
Anyway, during my recent move I discovered a number of old cassette tapes my parents bought me as a child. These are children’s stories in audio format, so sorta like the seeds of the HPMoR Podcast. :) I went and got a crappy old cassette player and ripped them to .mp3, and now I’ve put ‘em up on YouTube if y’all are interested. However I spent the first four years of my life in Germany, so they’re all in German. I tried listening to them again, and I realized just how little German has stayed with me over the past 30 years, I couldn’t understand a lot of it. They probably aren’t that interesting even if you do know German, but here’s a few things that jumped out at me when I listened to them:
Bibi Heals The Mayor – An entirely enjoyable story about secret witches hiding their powers from the muggles, that comes with the reassurance that if everything goes to shit, you can count on your mother to save you. Good children’s fare!
The Sheepish Lion – This was trying to be a good children’s story, and I remember loving it as a kid. But now that I look back on it, I think the main message it conveys is that if everyone torments and picks on you, what you really need to do is publicly murder one of your peers. Then you’ll finally get the respect you deserve. Not sure they thought this one through…
Lost in the Infinte – I… I don’t think this was intended for children. Maybe my parents should have screened my listening material? I’m glad they didn’t, because this was easily my favorite story, and I would listen to it over and over. But at 29:11 you can hear the mad scientist throw himself into the thresher maw of an alien war machine and scream as he’s torn apart. Fuckin’ awesome!! Yet I doubt my parents would have approved if they’d known. I actually didn’t remember this, or perhaps I didn’t quite understand what was happening, because it took me by surprise when I heard it last month. This was in my formative fiction? Damn!
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When I saw on my YT subsribtions feed that you uploaded a bunch of German children stories, I was a bit confused. I listened to “Bibi Heals The Mayor” as a kid once.
“Eene meene” doesn’t mean “my little”, it’s just one of those things you say when you do magic (like abracadabra, hocuspocus, kazam. Actually it’s used in a counting-out rhyme “Eene meene muh und rauß bist du”. Since there seems to be an english rhyme that goes “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe”, the correct translation of “Eeene Meene Hexerei” would probably be “Eeny, meeny, witchcraft”, but that doesn’t rhyme. No Idea why I’m explaining all that).
Oh! I’ll change the description today. And thank you, that was an enlightening explanation. :)