The Vineyards

On May 7th, 2003, I wrote a post that began by explaining why I had the idea of writing it - which is usual. I mentioned I was looking for the few pieces I could remember from the lyrics of a song, and the search had led me somewhere completely unexpected.

"She's feeling cynical, tired, the city lights can really, really blow your mind" was what I could remember. I was very sure those were the words. Yet there was no mention of it on the internet. I tried Altavista years ago; I tried Lycos and Infoseek back then; and on that day I tried Yahoo and Google. And Google found nothing.

When the Vineyards were moved to this domain, last year, I finally had access to some statistics I always wondered about - one of them being what search strings had led to this blog. At first I noticed some "she's feeling cynical" pointing here. Eventually, someone commented on that post, stating that song was "Don't Walk Away From Love", by Gregory Gray - a fact I had found out some time before, but which did not help me find lyrics or mp3.

Fact is, once those comments were in place, something most wondrous happened: the statistics began to show an increasing number of people reaching the Vineyards by searching for "Don't Walk Away From Love" and the singer's name (because other artists have songs of similar name). Curious, I went to Google again and gave it a try. Go ahead, try it yourself. The Vineyards hold the eighth position in the search results; when I first tried, it was the sixth. Among fifty-one results, most of them Brazilian online stores; nothing too big, but none of those have the lyrics.

Looking at my statistics today, I see about 3 in each 10 search results that wind up here were searches for this song's lyrics. So again I went after an mp3, and this time I found it. Poor quality, but it would have to do. Earphones, years of fast typing experience, notepad. A difficult battle of about an hour ensued, but I had a satisfactory result. I am breaking a number of my own rules by doing this, but I believe it is a valid purpose.

As this was taken from a sub-par recording and I am quite untrained in my understanding of spoken English, I leave it open for debate: anyone who disagrees with words or verses is free to say so. I believe all is right, but looking at it now, in all honesty, it makes little sense. So, if you hear something I do not, let me know.

Without further ado, I now present to the internet the lyrics to Gregory Gray's "Don't Walk Away From Love".

This will not make the world a better place, but a few people will not walk out of the Vineyards disappointed for not finding the lyrics here - or anywhere else.

At some point many years ago I noticed jazz was quite a complex musical genre, with constructions often improvised that sounded strange, absurd, even wrong to those who did not know what all that was about. Some time later I realized I was actually thinking about blues, but it still applies.

That belief led me to formulate the idea that jazz was the "last phase" of music, that normal musicians would become jazz musicians when they reached the apex of musical proficiency and became too good for other genres.

As I took my first music lessons, I wondered if someday I would be good enough to play jazz. I imagined I would not be allowed to if I were not, and the teacher would scold me if I tried. Sometimes I would close the door, lower the volume, set the auto-chord to some pre-programmed jazz rhythm, and try to play something with that.

One day I heard New Orleans was the capital of jazz, and it stuck. And I heard a song from which the only verse I remember is "down in New Orleans", and it talked about something nice - and it also stuck. So New Orleans is a nice city filled with jazz players, who are all the ultimate level a musician can reach. Visiting New Orleans became something to do when I could understand jazz better.

Gabriel Knight then appeared. A great game, which I regretfully was never able to finish due to faulty copies. Most of it happens in New Orleans, and he visits places I believe are real. The local fauna is explored a bit, most likely in a very stereotypical manner, but I grew quite fond of it none the less. Mardi Gras, above-ground cemetery, voodoo, many genres of music (not only jazz, who would have known). All that in the beautiful ambiance created by the game. I began to like New Orleans for the city itself, not for any relation I had created from my idea of jazz.

(Near my house there are many streets with names based on locations in the United States. If I come from one direction, there are three streets I can turn at to get home: California, Hollywood and New Orleans. California is too wide, so it is almost an avenue, too many cars; Hollywood is too near a commerce intense street, so it has cars parked everywhere and it is troublesome to go through, especially when someone comes from the other way; New Orleans is great. Just to add to my taste.)

The Knight family in this game was from Germany. Gabriel's grandfather leaves some poems in German explaining his background; at some point, Gabriel learns of his family's past and goes to Germany. At the time I thought that was just quite strange, as I read all those words with a mix of Italian, French, English and Portuguese pronunciation. I doubt I had ever heard any German at all.

Although, I now realize, I had seen some German before. In Star Trek: Judgement Rites there is a mission featuring Trelane. Anyone who has seen the original series remembers him - for those who have not, he is a godlike entity, very similar to Q from the other series, who was fascinated by the Napoleonic era at that episode, and tried to recreate it and play games in his recreation with the crew of the Enterprise; in the game, he is fascinated with World War I, and creates a similar scenario. Kirk and company are taken to what looks like a German city. There are German words thrown here and there, and everyone treats each other by "Herr" and "Frau". It just sounded strange back then, and extremely frustrating - I spent a good three weeks at that mission.

I am not sure when I first heard German, instead of only reading it. It most likely was when cable TV first appeared in the country and brougth along the Deutsche Welle channel. Awful! Before that I had only seen satires of the accent, never the actual language. It sounded terrible, as it actually hurts me - the analogy I always use is that it feels like running through a dense forest filled with thorns and tripping at the irregular terrain and the tree roots all the time and falling and getting hurt even more. Yes, it feels like that for me. Honestly. Go do some googling (*ahem*, researching) for synesthesia if you like.

Many seasons came, many seasons went ("Painters", by Jewel Kilcher), along came ruby, who had been cursed with being put at a German school since earliest childhood and only leaving when it was over, and whenever she would mention the language or say one word or mock me when I tried to say one I would get angry, both at her and at myself, for hating German so much because of all the thorns. Blasted thorns. But still, why do they speak such a thorny language?

Another few seasons came and went (if you count in São Paulo, though, you have an average of three seasons per day) and Ode to Joy came along this time. I was terrified: I would be in the middle of a hundred people singing in German, and I would have to sing in it, too! With right pronunciation! I had surges of despair and attempted suicide twice, and very often I was found on the sidewalks of bars in the morning, tears in my eyes, a bottle of French wine in my hand, singing in full voice "Let's all sing a song of joy for love and understanding", the awful American version of Ode to Joy, in an attempt at reaching the ears of some deity who would turn the original song into that.

Most of that is not true, but when we were given the lyrics and told how to pronounce each word I did feel some tears coming down. Luckily that day we did not sing, so I had time to deal with that (and be prevented from quitting).

It was a surprise when we went to sing it the next week when the teacher told us not to sing with the German "r", because it would probably kill us and no one would hear it. "Use the Italian 'r' instead. Even German choirs do that." And the world was a beautiful place again when I noticed what that meant. There were still many words I had plenty of trouble pronouncing, but I knew it would not hurt me anymore, in any sense (whichever sense "sense" has).

Frustrating, then, it became: although it did not hurt anymore, I still had trouble singing or even saying many words, and it bugged me a lot to sing and not have the slightest idea what I was saying. And I was tired of being angry at ruby and myself as mentioned before, and that was happening a lot more frequently at this point.

One night, then, I walked the eighty meters to the language school where I once tried to teach English but was prevented from by stupid circumstances, and asked their prices for extra intensive courses. I had less than two months until the presentation, to learn how to say those words and what they meant, and I wanted to surprise ruby before that, too.

Unfortunately, it took about three weeks until it started. Much to my delight, the teacher is a Japanese girl (mid twenties, descendent, alright). "Only Japanese girls should be allowed to speak German", I said about Asuka (Evangelion) many posts ago, because she sounds very cute when she does. A shame, then, that I know more Japanese than my teacher, even if it sounds a bit cute when she says it - and it surely is a lot better than a late thirties bearded native German man, by the gods.

I am still not at all good, even though I am taking six months worth of classes in two, and it was not even halfway done when the presentation came, but I had learned enough of the structures to have some idea, aided by the translation, of what I was talking about. I got a lot more help from ruby with the pronunciation, though.

Still, with all this, assuming I can find the absurd amount of money this kind of class requires, I may consider taking the rest of the modules once I am done with the basic one. As long as I keep away from Deutsche Welle and any natives I should not have a problem with German. Simple.

(With this post I tried to tackle the New Orleans promise and explain the German issue. Two in one hit is great, no? So I will make it even better and add a third one: I am not sure if the last post was the first time I used the word "sucked"; here, perhaps. I used it because I wanted to signify, in one word, that the year was not good at some points. Saying "2004 was great and was not good" sounded awful, so "was great and sucked" was my choice. I doubt there is any other word I could have used. Alright, three. And I will let it be known that I started writing this post 27 hours ago - but total writing time is only about two hours.)

Gabriel Knight is a great game of which I need to find a working copy someday, and hopefully play the two sequels. Interesting to notice it had a much bigger effect in my life than I originally thought, probably being at par with Loom and King's Quest VII. I assume I never realized it because I only played it years later.

Here we start year two. Second anniversary post - this I did not expect to write, back in January 1st, 2003. On April 1st, 2004, however, the Vineyards got their own domain. At that point I more or less imagined I would be writing this later. Still, I am impressed.

Of course, 2004 saw about half as many posts of 2003, which is regretful. In actuality, however, 2004 saw about half of everything there was in 2003. Very unusual year, starting from the obvious fact it was my first year with a girlfriend.

I did not see much anime in 2004 (Inuyasha, Utena and part of Last Exile come to mind, but nothing else), but I read many, many, many manga. I went to the theater very rarely (sorry, Flines!), played very few games (The Sims 1 & 2 and Neopets are exceptions). Forgot if I read any books other than the one I am about to publish (no, no, it is not mine). Now I know why there are so few otakus and geeks in general with girlfriends: it is nearly impossible to have both things.

School was also particularly unusual, starting with the long strike at the end of the first term (I will spit on the face of each and every unionist I see in Hell on my way to the Seventh Circle), which resulted in three months of having one or two classes a week (which is very stressing, in spite of all "you are nearly on vacation" comments), no mid-year vacation (got one week off in September, a week we would have off by default), and second term going non-stop until late February (classes until December 23rd, afternoon; classes again on January 3rd, morning). Other than that, there was the book, which is almost printed (still is not because I need the ISBN, and the people who issue it are on strike); there was choir, which was amazing; there were many old documents to decypher (lots of fun); there still are three very big papers to write, one demanding extensive research. Oh gods I forgot the papers. One is due on the 5th.

There was a mysterious entity governing my actions an thoughts for a couple of months in 2004. I will not talk about it.

There were stupid losses. I will not talk further about it either, because Flines said I was too cruel (to the readers) on my last post. And I do not feel like bringing up the subjects again, anyway.

So, as with most years, 2004 had ups and downs, sucked and was great, and everything that happened before October already seems like 2003 and I do not remember very well. No news there.

Now, because I did not do it yesterday (woke up late, talked to sister too much, solved issues with ruby, forgot), I will do it now: the summary of all quotes, as done last year. It is fun to do, even if it takes forever. Ahead, men!

Jan 1st - "That still only counts as one!"
Obvious. Gimli, son of Gloin, in "Return of the King", which I had watched a week before, when Legolas kills the oliphant after many maneuvers. Because 2003 had been so full of different events that it seemed like more than just one year - but it still was only one, just big.

Feb 13th - "That would be the French."
Captain Jack Sparrow, "Pirates of the Caribbean", explaining to an enemy pirate who had come up with the stupid idea of parlée, the rule in the Code of the Brethren that allowed a captured pirated (if captured by another pirate) to talk with the enemy captain and have his life spared until then. They use this rule a number of times in the movie, even though "it's more like a guideline".
This quote explains where the name "Etienne Suarven Lorneau" came from. And it is a French name. So, that would be the French. He could be as annoying as the rule of parlée, too.

Mar 22nd - "Take it easy!"
Terry Bogard, "King of Fighters 2002" (and "Garou - Mark of the Wolves"). Because I had not written in a long time, but no one should think I had abandoned the Journal - I was actually moving everything to lorneau.net. Fun, no?

Apr 1st - "Aahh, beautiful. I will miss it... when it is gone."
Kosh, "Babylon 5" (you know that already), looking out of a window, seeing the stars, if I remember correctly. Nobody was sure what he meant by that (or by anything else he said throughout the series). It was a good quote to make it seem the Vineyards would end there, but actually would not (notice how he says "I will miss it, when it is gone"?). Woo.

Apr 1st - "Ii tenki desu ne!"
First quote not in English is in Japanese! I should had written it with Japanese characters, but I have no idea how to make those work without screwing up the page encoding. That is a common expression in Japan, used all the time by Shippou, in "Inuyasha". The worldly famous elevator-talk, "Nice weather, isn't it?". He uses it all the time to sound innocent, such as when trying to diverge attention from something he did. Cute, after I made people think the Vineyards were over, no? Yes, some people actually thought so, they never followed the link in the post before this one.

Apr 8th - "Thank you, naive human. Now I can finish taking over the world!"
Purple Tentacle, "Day of the Tentacle", when Bernard frees him and Green Tentacle from Dr. Fred's secret laboratory. "Oh, yeah, now I remember. He's incredibly evil, isn't he?", says Bernard after that. This post is where I thank Justin for many things. I should do that more often, in fact (especially because I did not pay for hosting the last two months). Thanks, Justin. Even though you are not in New Zealand.

Apr 18th - "Three days now. She's been undergoing the Ritual of Purification for three days."
Ephiny, in "The Bitter Suite", one of my favorite Xena episodes (the first musical episode, in fact). An there is a mistake in that quote: it is "Purification Ritual", not "Ritual of Purification". But I will not change it now. Maybe in the printed version. Quote used because I like it, and because I said I would write often but did not, so I needed something to signify "long time". The funny thing is that I never posted about any of the things I mentioned in this post. In fact, I think I never did with any of the other posts. Awful.

Apr 29th - "April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."
First verse in "The Waste Land", by T. S. Eliot, from which I also borrowed "Go, go, go, said the bird, human kind / cannot bear very much reality.", my e-mail signature for a long time. Because those last ten days of April sucked majorly, and because Waste Land is my place of birth and residence.

May 5th - "Lukion dwells in the saddest prison of all: a prison without walls."
Spoken by Dungeon Master in "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon, episode "Prison Without Walls". Anyone who read the post understood, even without knowing where it is from.

May 7th - "Nothing. There is nothing after Ragnarok."
That is said by Odin to Hercules in an episode probably called "Ragnarok" in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys". Used because I could not remember any other quote about Asgaard (except from Saint Seiya, which I was ashamed at the time to admit played a very big part in the naming of the computer). Ragnarok is how I refer to any big problem in the computer, too. The first power supply got that status. The other sixty-three did not.

May 7th - "What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world!"
That is Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act III, scene 1. It was not a maid, but that was the best quote I found. Indeed, what a merit were in death?

June 1st - "I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good."
Bertrand Russel. Credits needed, explanations not.

June 30th - "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."
Old tagline from the days of Blue Wave, the most used mailer program in the age of BBS (I already explained what BBS were, use the search box). Taglines were one-liners that most people put at the end of their messages. We would copy other people's, add them to our own files, create some ourselves. It was lots of fun.
I used that tagline for that post because I wrote two posts before, and got rid of them (or rather, wrote two, kept one as draft, posted the other, made it draft an hour later). Interesting fact I only realized now: squidi.net, about which the removed post was, is two years old today as well.
There was a variation to that tagline. "If at first you don't succeed, give up on parachuting."

Jul 10th - "*points to her halo*"
One day, Etienne, Kedian, Chloe, Cliona, Rookerin and... whoever Rookerin was with at the time (there were three throughout history, I dot not remember which) were standing at the first level of the sewers of Piet (Piet? That one just north of Loures... Yes, Piet), where there were anemones and frogs. The anemones brought a direct reference to tentacle rape, while the frogs, which attacked with their long tongues, got a made-up explanation of their origins told by Cliona. Etienne was barely listening, because he was very weak at the time and thus afraid of the animals, and because he was blushing too much from the deliberate actions of Rookerin and his mate to need any more redness on his face from the people's talk. Chloe merely excused herself of everything that got thrown at her, regarding the exposing cut of her gown (standard for all priestesses at the time) and a number of similar things. She did so a bit cynically, but I always believed it was more to cause some giggling - I had faith in Chloe's purity. At one moment, to show how pure and good she was, she "pointed to her halo" in the way Dark Ages characters did: putting the action between asterisks. So, "*points to her halo*" was what she did/said.
Chloe was Courtney's character. It was Courtney's birthday.

Aug 15th - "We just find the heart of the dungeon, the dragon that speaks without walls, and we’re home free! Simple."
Eric the Knight, in the same "Prison without walls" episode of D&D cartoon. The post explains it.

Aug 18th - "You there! Could this little prank be of your doing? Yes!?"
Loom! A quote from Loom in 2004! I did not use them all up in 2003, after all.
That is said by Bishop Mandible when Bobbin twists the final sword ("The Blade of Reckoning", Mandible was so unoriginal) when Edgewise was almost done forging it. Someone, something screwed up my hard drive. I wish I knew who.

Oct 2nd - "Ah, it's our friendly stranger again!"
Loom again! Edgewise himself now, when Bobbin calls at the gate of the Guild of Blacksmiths for the second time. The first time, when asked who he was, Bobbin says he is "a friendly stranger" (which does not get him inside, of course).
One of those "because I was gone for a while" posts. I could never simply write a stupid "I am not dead", now, could I? Oh, really, that is offensive.

Nov 13th - "Go, Planet!"
Captain Planet, of course!

Nov 21st - "Delete SSRI Virtual Reality Set?"
In The Sims (the first), with the moveobjects cheat turned on, it is possible to move and delete cockroaches and flies. When deleting it asks for confirmation, and that is what it asks. I thought it quite interesting to create a story where there is a virtual pest attack to explain that event. Got the idea? Virtual, pest, cockroaches, flies, spammers...

Dec 14th - "He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, / For nothing else with his proud sight agrees."
Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis", same poem from which came the quote used on Nov 16th, 2003.

Dec 30th - "What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world!"
You know this one already. Used again on purpose.

Finally, this post's, just so no one is kept in doubt for a full year (oh, twelve months of insomnia!), is from here.

By the way, in November I started taking German classes.

Alright, that is all! Happy New Year, everyone.