Know Your Picture Characters Entry #62
A. 秋 B. 夏 C. 春 D. 冬
Shirley produced a quite interesting treatise in response to this week’s challenge, which I have decided to title, “Seasons, Scandinavians, and Insanity.” For those of you who did not get a chance to read it, the work discusses cavorting at length and also refers to a mysterious substance known as “glug,” the consensus opinion of which seems to be that while one can drink it, such consumption is not recommended. It also teaches some foreign language, and isn’t that what we’re all about here? “Skoll” means “Here’s to you, kid,” which I assume is rather different from, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” By the way, the Japanese equivalent of “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid” is kimi no hitomi ni kanpai, which means roughly, “A toast to your eyes.” Or, “A toast in your eyes.” Particles can be confusing sometimes.
What’s that? Answers? What about answers? I’m having fun here.
Oh, fine.
On the basis of general rowdiness, Shirley selected D as her eventual guess for summer. This answer is correct . . . on opposite day. D is winter, the time when all those Swedes–and possibly the occasional Japanese–are busy resting up so they can have enough energy to do all the things she mentions and hints at in her response. A Fan is technically correct, I suppose, though if we were to uphold the spirit of competition, he settled on the same incorrect answer as Shirley. But if we were to uphold the spirit of competition somewhat less stringently and allow second guesses, then he would be correct: B is summer. In fact, the choices ended up going in reverse order: autumn, summer, spring, winter.
Here’s how you can remember them . . . at least if you know the meanings of some of the parts. The right half of A means “fire”; in fall, the leaves turn the color(s) of fire. The bottom part of B is the largest part of D, winter; summer crushes winter. And then paper covers summer, and scissors cut paper. The box at the bottom of C means “sun”; spring is when the sun comes out . . . except when it rains, which is all the time. And finally, the two dots at the bottom of D also appear in the character meaning “cold”; winter is cold. Though that doesn’t do you a lot of good unless you know that kanji.
I planned for that to make more sense in my head.
Anyway, it’s time to move on. Speaking of moving on, the final movie in the Harry Potter series just came out, so millions of children (and childish adults) will have to come to grips with the fact that there will be no more, at least until Warner Bros. gets desperate and tries to crank out a prequel or something (I give it until about 2013). So this week’s challenge is: identify the titles of the 7.5 Harry Potter books/movies. Now, since every title comes in the form, “Harry Potter and the _____,” I won’t bother repeating the first part; you just get the blanks. And just in case there’s someone out there who doesn’t know what goes in the blanks, your options are: Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows. Those less familiar with the books may feel free to consult other sources for inspiration, so long as these sources are not Japanese.
A. アズカバンの囚人 B. 賢者の石 C. 死の秘宝 D. 謎のプリンス
E. 秘密の部屋 F. 不死鳥の騎士団 G. 炎のゴブレット
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6 Comments »
July 18th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
I’ll be a little more ambitious this time and try to go 7 for 7. Here are the books in order:
B., E., A., G., C., D., F.
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:31 am
I’ve been thinking about this all week, which is why I haven’t commented until now:
A.
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:31 am
I’ve been thinking about this all week, which is why I haven’t commented until now:
A.
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:35 am
Sorry about the earlier messages, apparently the “Tab” key is also a “Send” button. Anyway:
A. The one they had to rename in America.
B. The one where Snape is mean to Harry.
C. The one with snogging.
D. The Two Towers.
E. Harry Potter and the Pirsoner of Azkaban. (Surprised you with a real guess!)
F. The stupid one that proved J.K. Rowling was too rich and powerful to allow a mere editor anywhere near her books.
G. Deathly Hallows, Part I: The Long Camping Trip (and more snogging).
July 22nd, 2011 at 11:32 am
I seem to have lost the long, eloquent paragraph I just labored through. If it shows up when I send, forgive the repeat. Since I am the only contestant who can’t recite the entire series by heart, having only read the first two books when they first came out and seen some of the movies, I only remember the barest details of the premise. This isn’t my genre. If you want to talk the great Victorian novelists, I’m your gal. (I hope this defensive apology for my dated mentality doesn’t appear twice. The first one was better, actually, but even longer).
Nothing daunted and OK with making a fool of myself, here goes: D. is Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. Am I supposed to take the S/Ph as an indication of a split personality? It does rather look like S/Ph isn’t sure what exactly he is. Half the characters seem to be one thing, the other half another.
B.’ Goblet of Fire. I don’t know why. It was just left over.
G. Order of the >Phoenix. You can see the bird rising from the ashes of something or other and flying somewhere or other.
C. The Half Blood Prince.
has enough blood, I guess, but something seems to be missing.
E. is Prisoner of Azkaban Buttoned down and locked up.
F., Deathly hollows. Lots of Hollows that could be deadly if somebody got careless.
A. Chamber of Secrets. Does look like lots of secrets, all inscrutable.
July 24th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
I’M HERE NOW, EVERYBODY CALM DOWN
A is Prisoner of Azkaban. Some of those aren’t kanji, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have kanji for “Azkaban.” And I know the first character is the sound A.
B is Chamber of Secrets. See, the last character has the box that’s the chamber, and then there’s something on top of it. Keeping it secret.
C is Order of the Phoenix, because it looks the worst.
D is Half-Blood Prince. The first character is really complicated and represents the complexities in Snape’s character.
E is Philosopher’s Stone because one of them looks kinda like a guy wearing a turban. The last one. Or maybe he’s holding a flag.
F is Deathly Hallows because there’s that one that looks kinda like a dog. …Look, it’s a long book, and I’m sure there was a dog in it SOMEWHERE, and I already used Prisoner of Azkaban.
G is Goblet of Fire, because…wait, I actually recognize the character for fire, I think. Unless it’s something else. I might have made it up. Either way, it looks familiar, so this is a momentous occasion.
THERE, I DID ALL OF THEM, YOU CAN NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING EVER AGAIN