Posted in Portuguese

A Guerra de 1908

I put up this video with the transcript from Planta Carnivóra the other day, with the idea that I could go back over it and tune into what he was saying with the aid of the text, because his accent is very different from what I’m used to and it seemed like a good exercise as part of my exam plan. However, it quickly became obvious that the transcipt doesn’t match. There’s no reason why that should be surprising of course; it’s an old sketch and I’m sure it’s been performed hundreds of times in many different variants. So, for the challenge, I’ve set about trying to change it to what I think he’s really saying. The altered bits are in red. There are probably a few errors because I don’t really understand the sentence structure in a few places, but hopefully it’s an improvement at least… Interested to note that the aunt and the mum seem to have swapped places…

Update 20/4/19 – yes, there were plenty of errors still and I have had help from Sophia. Mainly, they were mistakes in the original that I had missed rather than new errors I’d introduced. Like “Meu tio Gustavo”, which should have read “Meu tio que estava…” for example. Embarrassing.

 

Eu vou-lhes contar a história da minha ida à Guerra de 1908.

Eu trabalhava numa fábrica de produtos farmacêuticos. Um dia sem querer, deixei cair um comprimido e despediram-me. Fui lá para casa sentar-me numa cadeira que nós temos lá em casa para quando somos despedidos. Estava-me a balançar, entrou o meu tio que estava com o jornal que trazia o anúncio da guerra, que rezava assim

“Precisa-se Soldado que mate depressa!”

E disse a minha mãe,

Olha, tu é que podias responder a esse anúncio.”

E disse a minha tia,

Pois, mas é preciso levar cavalo!”

E disse a minha mãe,

“Mas eles na guerra dão cavalos.”

E disse a tia,

“Pois, e o meu sobrinho vai agora montar na guerra num cavalo que os outros já montaram. Sei lá quem é que já montou naqueles cavalos!”

Fomos à feira de gado para comprar o cavalo, mas vendiam uns cavalos com as carroças e com as moscas, e a minha mãe disse,

“O meu filho não vai agora para a guerra encher a guerra de moscas… O meu filho, vai a pé mas vai limpo.”

Então fomos para casa. A minha mãe preparou me umas papas de sarrabulho, tomei um táxi e fui para a guerra. Cheguei à guerra eram sete horas da manhã, estava a guerra ainda fechada. E estava uma senhora que vendia castanhas à porta da guerra e eu perguntei,

“Minha senhora, faz favor, aqui é que é a guerra de 1908?”

E ela disse,

“Não senhor! Aqui é a guerra de 1906, a guerra de 1908 é mais acima.

“Muito obrigado”

E subi dois anos. Cheguei lá cima, e  estavam a abrir as portas da guerra, que eram nove e tal e ‘tava o sentinela que me perguntou,

“Vens ao anúncio?”

“Sim, venho.”

E ele disse,

“E matas depressa?”

E eu disse,

“Por enquanto ainda mato assim-assim… preciso de treinos.”

Então ele levou-me ao meu capitão, e o capitão perguntou-me se eu trazia a espingarda e eu disse que Não trazia, que até pensava que a ferramenta davam lá eles. E disse

Eu trago é uma bala, que um vizinho meu guardou de recordação da guerra dos cem anos”

E diz o capitão,

“Como é que tu vais matar só com uma bala?”

E eu disse então,

Eu disparo a espingarda, e depois, vou lá buscar a bala”,

Aí disse o tenente,

Pois e a guerra pois vai parar de dois em dois minutos por sua causa!?”

Até o sargento disse

“Olha, a gente podia era atar uma guita à bala e depois puxava-se a bala!”

E disse o capitão,

“Pois, depois parte-se a guita, perde-se a guita, perde-se a bala. É tudo prejuízo não é?”

Então eles fizeram uma conferência e deram-me seis balas e mandaram-me matar. Estava eu, a matar, muito contente, chego ao pé do meu capitão e mandou-me ir de espia. Vestiram-me um vestido de organdi com uns laços cor-de-rosa, e fui para a guerra do inimigo, cheguei lá, bati à porta e o sentinela abriu frincha e disse,

“Quem é?”

E eu disse

“Sou a Maria Albertina”, malandrice!

E ele perguntou-me,

Tu já trabalhas de espia há muito tempo?”

E eu disse,

“Não, só trabalho desde as 11!”

E que é que tu queres?”

“Eu venho cá buscar os planos da pólvora”

E ele disse

“Não te dou os planos da pólvora, não te dou os planos da pólvora, não te dou os planos da pólvora”

E fui fazer queixa ao capitão dele. E eu disse-lhe,

Capitão, mas ele é um burro

Deixa lá, almoça cá com a gente!”

Então, almocei na guerra do inimigo. Comemos uma cabeça de pescada muita grande e depois fui para a minha guerra. E quando eu cheguei lá ia estava a contar ao meu capitão, entra um soldado a correr, a correr

Meu capitão, meu capitão, fizemos um prisioneiro!

Diz

“Sim, onde é que ele está?”

“Não quis vir.”

Porque cá há prisioneiros que são teimosos, a gente puxa, puxa e eles não vêm. Feitios.

Então o meu capitão disse,

Então, se eles não dão os planos da pólvora vai lá buscar o avião, pronto

Porque como a gente se dava muito bem com o inimigo, nós tínhamos um avião que dava para todos. Eles bombardeavam às Segundas, Quartas e Sextas, e a gente bombardeava às Terças, Quintas e Sábados, e lá íamos morrendo.

Mas o capitão disse que não podia dar o avião, porque estavam a adaptar uma torneira para andar a jacto”

Fui-me embora para a minha guerra e quando cheguei estava o meu capitão à porta da guerra e disse-me,

“Olha, podes-te ir embora porque a guerra acabou-se!”

Disse

“Acabou-se??”

“Acabou-se. Veio cá o fiscal, a gente não tinha licença de porte de arma. Levaram as metralhadoras, as pistolas, as bazucas”

E foi assim que… ai ai ai ai ai

 

Here are the vocabulary words I didn’t already know:

Carroça = Cart

Sarrabulho = Coagulated pigs blood. Er… yum?

Guita = Wire

Organdi = Organdy

Frincha = A small opening – I’m picturing the little window the guard looks through at the gates of the Emerald City when Dorothy arrives.

Pescada = Hake

Pólvora = gunpowder

Jacto = jet… and I assume “torneira” can mean “propeller” too, although I only know it as “tap” and that’s the only definition give in my dictionary too…

Feitios = shapes (which I knew) but seems to mean “it takes all sorts” here.

Feira de gado = livestock market

Posted in English

Latest Musical Obsession

I’ve got obsessed with this song by Márcia (she’s the one in the video I posted a couple of weeks back). I don’t like this one as much, but it has a hidden secret: it has a Spanish pronoun (“Usted”) in it for no reason I can fathom. It isn’t needed for a rhyme, and no other Spanish words appear in it. She uses a more conventional “você” in a different verse. It’s well random. It’s as if an anglophone singer just decided to say… Oh I don’t know – “Though I put you on a pedastal, they put vous on the pill”

Anyway I made a translation (not a good one, I think) to try and get to grips with it to understand why, but I’m none the wiser.

Posted in English

Conan Osíris – Telemóveis

Well, this Eurovision semifinalist is definitely bonkers. It reminds me of António Variações, the cosmic electro-beardie from the eighties, reading out the warranty redemption for a damaged iPhone. Anyway, I don’t know if he’ll be picked but he seems like a strong contender: stronger, anyway, than the unbearably tedious, over-earnest drivel by DAMA that was controversially beaten out on a tie-breaker,and better than last year’s too, but it’s still no Salvador Sobral.

Posted in English

P-Pop

Off-the-cuff reactions to Portuguese bands I was recommended by a friend of mine.

Ornatos Violeta

Funk/punk in the style of fishbone, maybe chilli peppers at a push, or some of the more grungey elements from the same eta (STP, Blind Melon). Definitely going on my Spotify library anyway.

Mão Morta

Some kind of Doom Metal, I think… Er… Well, see for yourself.

Belle Chase Hotel

Trilingual combo whose name is based on a Jim Jarmusch movie. Musically pretty good and playing in a variety of styles (so much so that at first I wondered if maybe there was more than one band that shared the name) but frustrating if, like me, you only want to hear PT lyrics, because they don’t seem to have many. One of the members is JP Simões who is also a solo artist who sings in Portuguese.

Sean Riley & the Slowriders

What? Dudes, do you even speak Portuguese?

Wray Gunn

Er… Again, struggling to find any Portuguese titles here. Rock ‘n’ Roll of the school of Link Wray. I had a look at the first one in the list and it seems to be about sleeping with his sister. No thank you. Do not want.

Minta & the Brook Trout

Really, really good but disappointingly anglophone

Jerónimo

I can only find three one songs by this lot and all English too

First Breath After Coma

Remind me of the Durutti Column or some of those post-rock bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor. The tracks I listened to were largely instrumentals with maybe some samples voices but not in Portuguese. Interesting and I’ll listen again but not really what I was after…

X-wife

Pretty decent indie dance band but again, not singing in Portuguese

Legendary Tigerman

Rock. Pretty good but English lyrics again.

Dead Combo

I really like this music. It’s quirky and energetic. They have a collab with Marc Ribot, who’s worked with Tom Waits, which should give an idea of the genre. A lot of the track titles are in Portuguese, but they’re not very loquacious and it’s mainly instrumental stuff.

Ornatos Violeta are my pick of the bunch here, being eminently listenable and with Portuguese lyrics, but they’re in no danger of displacing Deolinda in my affections!

Posted in English

Mais Chico-Espertice!

It often happens that when I learn a new phrase I suddenly notice it popping up everywhere – in videos or in song lyrics that, previously, I had mentally marked as indecipherable. After I wrote the post about Chico-Espertice the other day I spotted it in a Deolinda song (have I mentioned I like Deolinda? I have? Oh!) called Manta Para Dois (“Blanket for two”). I wondered how it had been translated, to see if I’d understood it right.

I found the english lyrics here. They’ve translated

Às vezes és parvo
Gabarola, mal-criado
É preciso muita pachorra para ti
Cromo, chico-esperto
Preguiçoso e incerto
Mas é certo que és perfeito para mim

as

Sometimes you’re stupid
You brag, you have no manners
I need a lot of calmness to deal with you
Silly, fancy and smart
Lazy and uncertain
But it’s obvious you’re perfect for me

Well, that’s not what I was expecting. I think this must be wrong though. I think the translator must live in a region where the expression isn’t used. Everything else in that paragraph is a list of faults the person has, in spite of which she loves the guy anyway, so throwing a couple of compliments in makes no sense, especially if they’re joined together with a hyphen instead of a comma. I think it should say

Sometimes you’re stupid
You brag, you have no manners
I need a lot of patience to deal with you
Silly, a smartarse
Lazy and uncertain
But it’s obvious you’re perfect for me

Or maybe “a pisstaker” or “too clever by half” or something like that.

Video here

By the way, that word “Cromo” is interesting too. It’s translated as “Silly” and Priberam gives it as

Diz-se de ou pessoa que tem um comportamento considerado estranho excêntrico ou ridículo .
“cromo”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa [em linha], 2008-2013,  https://dicionario.priberam.org/cromo [consultado em 24-09-2018].

but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it used to mean “nerd” or “geek”

Posted in English, Portuguese

Raul With It

One of the chapters in Reaccionário Com Dois Cês is an obituary for Raul Solnado, who I’d never heard of. He died in 2009 and was recognised as one of the greats of portuguese comedy. Here he is in front of an audience in the sixties or seventies, telling a rambling story of the war of 1908. Top quality R-rolling.