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yakalskovich) wrote2003-12-23 12:34 am
yakalskovich) wrote2003-12-23 12:34 am
Entry tags:
Pirates at Christmas
You remember me mentioning the little lady, my niece, Sophia? Just now, she made me almost fall off my bed with laughter. I totally adore the way she innocently asks the weirdest questions or says the most astonishing things out of the blue.
Take today. Today, we were having a nice long bath with a real Lush bath bomb, and a propos of nothing (or perhaps the water), the little lady asked me about pirates.
"There are no more pirates today, are there?", she asked.
I don't really believe in lies-to-children, and so I said, "Yes, there are."
"Yes, really?"
"Of course. There are still pirates in South East Asia, Malaysia and so. They stop ships and rob them."
"What do they take? Treasure? Gold?" Phia was totally fascinated.
"Nah, there's no more treasure today. At least not on ships."
She was disappointed.
"I guess they just take whatever the ship might be carrying. Just ordinary stuff."
"Like what?"
That's how it is with such small persons: at the drop of a hat, you find yourself faced with the challenge of specifying modern-day pirate loot.
"Crude oil", I ventured. "Car parts. Computers. Guns. Food. Bananas. Ahm - tinned corn, perhaps."
You can see I was getting a bit desparate under her growing curiosity.
Phia was totally spellbound, and I managed to get her out of the tub and dried by going into details how some pirates in the Malacca straits might take a loot of toys made in China, tinned corn and vegetable oil off some unlucky merchant captain.
"Some of the little twisty things you need for shooting your gun?", she suggested.
"Bullets, you mean? Ammunition?"
She nodded eagerly. Bloodthirsty little thing. My niece truly, through and through.
I managed to get her into her pajamas, but then she wanted to go to my room for a while and listen to some music. So we flopped on my bed, and of course I put the "Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtrack on and told her it was from a pirate movie.
Phia was fascinated and listened very closely.
This is Phia - the poor abductee is her new little brother
"Why don't the pirates sing?", she asked after a while.
"You should be glad they don't, little lady", I answered. "I am sure it would sound totally dreadful if pirates tried to sing."
I remembered a scene from the movie with some drunken staggering around a fire, involving a pirate and a lot of rum, and I added: "I think they sang, once or twice, in that movie, but it sounded horrible."
"But they do sing, listen!", she suddenly protested.
And really, the composer of the POTC score, Klaus Badelt, had chosen just that moment to ruin my credibility by adding a male chorus to the music that went "HO!" softly but with deep bathos in the background.
So we were quiet for a while, Phia and me, and listened for the pirates to reappear in the music, singing "Ho!", and they did, several times.
"Listen, there's the pirates again - can you hear them?", we told each other, and listened raptly.
Phia is very attentive to detail; she can see black horses in the dark, and they're really there, too. Of course she had to hear the singing voices I had never noticed.
"The music is quite different from what I thought, but I like it - really", she continues, all the while paying close attention.
She kept thinking, too.
"But I'm sure Father Christmas doesn't come to any pirates!", she announced firmly after meditating on it for a while.
My eyes must have popped out of my head.
"Yes", she clarified. "Pirates don't get Christmas presents, I'm sure they don't."
While spluttering with laughter, I confessed to her that this question had never ever even remotely entered my mind, and that I really couldn't say anything about it.
"I'm sure pirates don't know about Christmas" she declared, something like compassion creeping into her voice.
Suddenly, Phia seemed not so convinced any more that "the pirate's life's for her".
"Listen, there they sing again", she said, quietly.-
Take today. Today, we were having a nice long bath with a real Lush bath bomb, and a propos of nothing (or perhaps the water), the little lady asked me about pirates.
"There are no more pirates today, are there?", she asked.
I don't really believe in lies-to-children, and so I said, "Yes, there are."
"Yes, really?"
"Of course. There are still pirates in South East Asia, Malaysia and so. They stop ships and rob them."
"What do they take? Treasure? Gold?" Phia was totally fascinated.
"Nah, there's no more treasure today. At least not on ships."
She was disappointed.
"I guess they just take whatever the ship might be carrying. Just ordinary stuff."
"Like what?"
That's how it is with such small persons: at the drop of a hat, you find yourself faced with the challenge of specifying modern-day pirate loot.
"Crude oil", I ventured. "Car parts. Computers. Guns. Food. Bananas. Ahm - tinned corn, perhaps."
You can see I was getting a bit desparate under her growing curiosity.
Phia was totally spellbound, and I managed to get her out of the tub and dried by going into details how some pirates in the Malacca straits might take a loot of toys made in China, tinned corn and vegetable oil off some unlucky merchant captain.
"Some of the little twisty things you need for shooting your gun?", she suggested.
"Bullets, you mean? Ammunition?"
She nodded eagerly. Bloodthirsty little thing. My niece truly, through and through.
I managed to get her into her pajamas, but then she wanted to go to my room for a while and listen to some music. So we flopped on my bed, and of course I put the "Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtrack on and told her it was from a pirate movie.
Phia was fascinated and listened very closely.
This is Phia - the poor abductee is her new little brother
"Why don't the pirates sing?", she asked after a while.
"You should be glad they don't, little lady", I answered. "I am sure it would sound totally dreadful if pirates tried to sing."
I remembered a scene from the movie with some drunken staggering around a fire, involving a pirate and a lot of rum, and I added: "I think they sang, once or twice, in that movie, but it sounded horrible."
"But they do sing, listen!", she suddenly protested.
And really, the composer of the POTC score, Klaus Badelt, had chosen just that moment to ruin my credibility by adding a male chorus to the music that went "HO!" softly but with deep bathos in the background.
So we were quiet for a while, Phia and me, and listened for the pirates to reappear in the music, singing "Ho!", and they did, several times.
"Listen, there's the pirates again - can you hear them?", we told each other, and listened raptly.
Phia is very attentive to detail; she can see black horses in the dark, and they're really there, too. Of course she had to hear the singing voices I had never noticed.
"The music is quite different from what I thought, but I like it - really", she continues, all the while paying close attention.
She kept thinking, too.
"But I'm sure Father Christmas doesn't come to any pirates!", she announced firmly after meditating on it for a while.
My eyes must have popped out of my head.
"Yes", she clarified. "Pirates don't get Christmas presents, I'm sure they don't."
While spluttering with laughter, I confessed to her that this question had never ever even remotely entered my mind, and that I really couldn't say anything about it.
"I'm sure pirates don't know about Christmas" she declared, something like compassion creeping into her voice.
Suddenly, Phia seemed not so convinced any more that "the pirate's life's for her".
"Listen, there they sing again", she said, quietly.-
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