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23007. judithathome - 11/26/2007 9:06:37 PM We watched The 3 Penny Opera this weekend and I discovered the answer to the lapel pin that Donald Sutherland wears in Dirty Sexy Money
! It's a watch chain pin...the chain hooks to the back of the pin behind the lapel and the watch is slipped into the breast pocket of the jacket. Mack the Knife wore one in the film...it was a story told at the time of Queen Victoria's coronation.
The day after discovering this, my friend who is the authority on i everything called after his daughter had described the pin to him and he told me the same thing...that it was a watch chain pin.
Have never seen Sutherland use the watch but that's what the pin is for, anyhow. 23008. David Ehrenstein - 11/26/2007 11:31:17 PM "Now those among you full of pious teaching
Who teach us to renounce the major sins
should know before you do your heavy preaching
our middle's empty
there it all begins
Your vices and our virtues are so dear to you
So learn the simple truth from this our song
wherever you aspire
whatever you may do
first feed the face
and then talk right and wrong
For even honest folk
May act like sinners
unless they've had their customary dinners.
What keeps a man alive?
What keeps a man alive
He lives on others
He likes to taste them first then eat them whole if he can
Forgets that they're supposed to be his brothers
That he himself
Was ever called a man
Remember if you wish to stay alive
For once do something bad and you'll survive
You warn us with appropriate caresses
That virtue humble virtue always wins
Now please before your moral verve oppresses
Our middle's empty there it all begins
Oh you who don't in our despair and your desire
may learn the simple truth from this our song
whatever you may do whatever you aspire
first feed the face and then talk right and wrong
for even saintly folk may act like sinners
unless they've had their customary dinners
WHat keeps a man alive?
What keeps a man alive
He lives on others
He likes to taste them first then eat them whole if he can
Forgets that they're supposed to be his brothers
That he himself was ever called a man
Remember if you wish to stay alive
For once do something bad and you'll survive" 23009. arkymalarky - 11/27/2007 12:21:01 AM Alistair--send him to our school for a semester as an exchange student if he does get kicked out. Good luck to all of you in the meantime. 23010. arkymalarky - 11/27/2007 12:24:38 AM What a fun millennial race to read! Alistair the Dark Horse. You're safe from an Arky steal on a weekday--except tomorrow when I have the day off. 23011. judithathome - 11/27/2007 4:30:56 AM Nice poetry but I hope it doesn't mean my quest for the meaning of Sutherland's pin was a waste of time, David. 23012. David Ehrenstein - 11/27/2007 5:15:59 PM No dear. It's one of the best -- but least sung -- songs from The Threepenny Opera. The english lyrics are by Johnny Mercer. I love Marianne Faithful's rendition of it. 23013. judithathome - 11/27/2007 5:37:35 PM (((Blush)))...I think the two that stuck more in my memory are "Mack the Knife" and the one Polly sang about waitng to find a man. It's either called Love Song or Barbara Song...I can't figure out which is which in the song list but it's the one she sang at the wedding supper.
All of them were fabulous... 23014. judithathome - 11/27/2007 5:38:41 PM I read that Nina Simone did a cover of it and I'd bet THAT was a great ride! 23015. alistairconnor - 11/27/2007 6:26:30 PM Yo arky... Actually his mother wants to send him to England next summer so he can improve his English... I say it's a waste of time:
(cue Professor Higgins ... while we're doing musicals)
Henry Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,
Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered.
By law she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.
Eliza Aaoooww! Henry imitating her Aaoooww!
Heaven's! What a noise!
This is what the British population,
Calls an elementary education. Pickering Oh,
Counsel, I think you picked a poor example. Henry Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square,
Dropping "h's" everywhere.
Speaking English anyway they like.
You sir, did you go to school?
Man Wadaya tike me for, a fool?
Henry No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction, by now,
Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too!
Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse,
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one!
Eliza Garn! Henry I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?
It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. In France every Frenchman knows
his language fro "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce in properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?
23016. alistairconnor - 11/27/2007 6:27:15 PM How would the exchange thing work? Would the schools already need to be hooked up? 23017. wonkers2 - 11/27/2007 6:31:31 PM Threepenny Opera is one of my favorites. I once had an LP with Lotte Lenya singing the lead in German. I've seen the show twice. Once in NYC and once in Detroit. And I'd see it again given the opportunity. 23018. Ms. No - 11/27/2007 6:55:15 PM Judith,
Pirate Jenny was one of Nina Simone's signature songs. When she sang it you were very aware of her singing from the point of view of a black servant woman fed up with her treatment who finally gets her revenge in violence and blood on those who have mistreated her for so long. It made a brilliant protest song in her hands.
Another of Simone's standards was I Loves You Porgy from Porgy and Bess. 23019. Ms. No - 11/27/2007 7:03:00 PM David,
Ah, "How to Survive", 3 Penny is full of home truths. I haven't heard Marianne Faithful's rendition, but we did keep it in our production when the university staged it back in '93. The only thing I remember us cutting was the Lucy Brown character.
It was a great show experience. We had a guy that came to every performance and would carry signs --- not that I can now remember what any of them said. He kind of freaked people out but it was so very Brechtian that I wondered if perhaps our director who was a member of the International Brecht Society hadn't maybe put him up to it. 23020. PelleNilsson - 11/27/2007 8:30:59 PM wonkers -- you asked me upthread about the paper I'm writing. It is about the infamous Nüremburg laws of 1935 and about the dispute between the Nazi party and the civil service over how to look at the offspring of so called mixed marriages and over the status of assimilated, converted Jews. 23021. arkymalarky - 11/27/2007 9:27:12 PM Yo arky... Actually his mother wants to send him to England next summer so he can improve his English... I say it's a waste of time:
Is that a subtle way of saying you don't think we would improve his English in Arkansas? ;-> 23022. arkymalarky - 11/27/2007 9:30:07 PM I'll ask the person who works with the exchange program in our area. I don't know what the process is of application, placement and all that. I know we've had several who came to our school from other parts of the US or other host families that didn't work out, so it's evidently flexible. 23023. Wombat - 11/27/2007 9:58:11 PM Pelle:
Mischling, eh? Sounds interesting. Have you read "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers?" 23024. PelleNilsson - 11/27/2007 10:34:59 PM Yes, Mischlinge of the first and second degree. No, I haven't read Rigg's book but I looked it up. It doesn't seem to be a seminal work, not even an interesting one. 23025. judithathome - 11/28/2007 12:46:00 AM I have been using "The 3 Penny Opera" because that is the way the title is on Pabst's film...but I like "The Threepenny Opera" better.
I had always loved Bobby Darin's rendition of "Mack The Knife" and appreicate it even more so now. Keoni was determined to learn who "Sukey Tawdry" was and the film answered the question. Ha! 23026. wonkers2 - 11/28/2007 1:38:47 AM Judith, you've got to listen to Lotte Lenya sind Threepenny Opera. She's the greatest. She has the hard edge to her voice that's required for the lyrics and music.
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