I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TARRUS RILEY-Tiny Desk Concert #59 (May 11, 2010).

Tarrus Riley is a reggae singer with a delicate voice.  His accompanists are a guitarist and a sax player (on a cheesey sounding alto sax–although somehow it works).  And while the music is still quite reggae in style, it doesn’t sound too much like reggae–perhaps the light guitar strumming removes the backbeat?

So these three songs feel a bit more like pop.

“It Will Come (A Musician’s Life Story)” is a funny, but serious song from a woman to her musician boyfriend.  She has lots of complaints “Why don’t you get a job” “do you mind telling your plans to the landlord?” and he tries to explain how music is his work,

“Lion’s Paw” is not so much about the strength of his belief in Jah as it is about the strength of Jah’s belief in him.  He seems very happy and joyful during the song (sometimes drifting away from the mic while dancing).

“She’s Royal” is a pro-women song.  It’s the most pop sounding of the three.

I’m not a huge fan of reggae, but this is a good collection of sweet, positive songs.

[READ: August 30, 2015] The Mad World of Sign Language

This is a goofy collection of bad English on signs across the world.  It turns out that this is the fourth collection of said signs all generated by readers of the British newspaper The Telegraph.

This book is set up geographically.  They begin in The Americas, then on to UK & Ireland, The Mediterranean, Africa, Middle East, India, China, and end in South East Asia and Australasia.

Now I love this kind of thing, but there were a lot of pictures in this book that were mildly amusing at best.  (Could the fourth collection mean diminishing returns?).  Since this is a UK book there is a lot of mirth at British slang which other countries wouldn’t know anything about–which is kind of unfair, right?).  Anyhow, the signs are funny in a very limited way.

I was under the impression at first that it was just signs that were improperly worded or just weird and nonsensical (which I love).  So I was a little bummed that there things like “Village of Pratts” which is sort of funny, but there’s funny town names (that don’t mean the same thing in other places) like that everywhere. Or “Pants Shop” which is only funny if you call underwear “pants.”

But I will say that there are some very funny signs out there.  And I’ll focus on the very funny ones.  Like what could this even mean: “Slow Death in Block” (in the US, mind you).

There are ones that are intentionally funny like: “There is nothing that separates [sic] you from death except this wall.  Do not sit on wall.”(Jamaica).  Or this very funny one: “Cars parked here will be crushed while you dine & shop for stuff” (USA).

Or ones that are real, but also funny: “Caution Dung Beetles Have Right of Way” (South Africa).

But the funnier things to me are the misunderstood English which go beyond typos into something else entirely like
“Whale Washing Eco Tours”   Or how about the store “After Noah” with the sign on the door that says “We’ve Been Flooded Back Soon.”

Or this unintentionally funny sign “Christ’s Home Entrance Closed Follow Detour.” Or this “Flood Defense Structure Please keep clear” which was hung on a fence.

And then there’s just funny signs for fun: “Please Do Not Throw Stones at this sign  Thank you.”

When you get to the Middle East and Asia is where you find the weirdest, most mangled English.  So there’s weird stuff like “Stars & Bucks Cafe” (a hilarious rip off).  Or a product called Colon (with a kid with a soccer ball on it–is it a snack or laundry detergent or what?).  Or the “Wine and Bear Shop.” Or this one in Chinese (with this English underneath): Do not get on or off.

I’ll end with this puzzling Chinese meal: “The car hit cheese bacon mushroom face.”

This book was good for a chuckle, but I think I’d like to track down the earlier books to see if the better stuff came first.