jueves, 30 de marzo de 2017

WHAT LITTLE SANDRA MISTOOK

Here are a few slightly foolish mistakes I commonly made as a Baby-Spice-twintailed kid, even as a toddler, and some of them in my nerdy tomboy short-haired adolescence, because of similarities between these concepts' names or shapes! You wouldn't believe it, seriously!

1) Pulp Fiction is Full Monty.
CAUSE: Lexical similarity between "Pulp" and "Full" (four-letter English words with -UL- in the middle), in popular 1990s Anglophone comedies with a full-English title written in condensed bold all caps in the same red-and-yellow colour scheme, and whose highlight was the leading cast performing a catchy signature dance.
DEBUNKED: By reading reviews and watching footage from both films, I came to realise that, in spite of the ostensible similarities between the words Pulp and Full, and between the respective poster titles, both films are essentially as different as chalk is from cheese: the former is a snarky and blood-spluttering Tarantino flick noir; the latter a socially critical British comedy about stripteasing former steelworkers.
2) Black Lagoon is Gurren Lagann.
CAUSE: Lexical similarity between "Lagoon" and "Lagann," and between a few characters' hair colour (especially the respective female leads') across series.
DEBUNKED: By reading anime reviews and watching footage from both anime series, I came to realise that, in spite of the ostensible similarities between the words Lagoon and Lagann, and between the heroines Revy and Yoko, both series are essentially as different as chalk is from cheese: one of them (Gurren Lagann) being a light and soft sci-fi epic, the other (Black Lagoon) a dark and edgy realistic series noir.
3) The left of others equals my left; ditto for the right.
CAUSE: "The left is your writing hand, also the arm with the birthmarks" was how my Spanish- and Swedish-speaking elders helped me clear my left-right confusion, unfortunately and unwittingly creating a further bungle. If I were facing someone else, even my mirror image or a fictional character, I would say that their eye facing my left side is their left eye.
DEBUNKED: The gunshot on Lord Nelson's left shoulder at Trafalgar proved the most influential clue in this aspect: from looking at depictions of the wounded and dying admiral, I realized that my right faced and still faces Horatio's (and everyone else's) left.
4) Woodsorrels are real clovers.
CAUSE: Clovers on screen and in storybooks look exactly like woodsorrels (Oxalis stricta) with heart-shaped (instead of circular) leaves.
DEBUNKED: Elsa Beskow's The Flower Festival (Blomsterfesten) set the record straight in my mind by featuring woodsorrels and clovers personified in the same illustration; the former with heart-shaped leaves and yellow star-shaped flowers, the latter with circular leaves and red or white pompom flowers.
5) Littlefinger is the bald eunuch... another name for Varys/the Spider, right?
CAUSE: I was 15 when I began the first GoT novel, and it turns out that I had a limit back then (add that I was constantly on an uphill struggle with Maths and bullies!) for holding up all the names and relationships! I had already got to make enough of an effort to tell Jaime and Cersei from Visy and Dany, remembering that the Targs were a lighter shade of blond than the Lannisters and (Targs) had violet eyes instead of green! Add the Stark children, the Baratheon brothers, and the other Lannisters, aside from Drogo, Jorah, and the handmaids across the pond, and the ensuing relationship grid was a good-sized mind map the kind I have and then had for a Shakespearean play or mythological pantheon... when we got to court, to the Red Keep, it came as no surprise that I messed up with Varys and Petyr!!
DEBUNKED: Reading the graphic novels and watching the TV series helped me get the characters right in my mind's eye and have a clear, non-confusing picture of who each and one of them was. Again, these two proved as different as chalk is from cheese... or maybe the Spider and the Mockingbird are not that different at heart?

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