Well hello,

First off, somebody wrote to me asking if there was a recording of that conversation at YIVO about Pola Nireńska that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The answer is yes! You can find it here.

Polish stuff

Elsewhere, I was quite amused this week to find out about the Polish song Typ Niepokorny (Stubborn Guy) by Stachursky. Why amused? Because it sounds exactly like Chesney Hawke's classic one-hit-wonder The One and Only.

Stachursky (2000):

Chesney Hawkes (1991):

What I don't understand about this is that Hawkes' song was popular in Poland too. I guess Poles were happy to hear it again with new lyrics they fully understood?

I'm pretty sure I've heard more of these sorts of Polish remakes but I've never noted them down. If you know of any, please let me know immediately, as I'd quite like to make a list. And I would like to think it happens the other way too, so any examples of that would be good too.

I have to add here that remaking a song in another language is WAY better than the common trend for making dance music covers of old pop songs. I hate that crap. They are always worse. E.g. here's a completely unnecessary house version of The One and Only.

Non-Polish stuff

I've fixed the security issues from last week on both TranslatingMarek.com and Procrastilearning.com. If you didn't check out the new article on the latter, now's a good time - who knows if I'll break them again 😅

Video recommendation of the week

If you recognise this symbol, you are probably a human. It's something that schoolchildren in particular have been doodling for decades. But where did it come from? This 18-minute YouTube video is a thorough investigation trying to answer that question. To be honest, it's a total rabbit hole, but masterfully put together.

Eagle-eyed commenters on the video insist it's also in this famed Holbein painting that's one of the National Gallery in London's most treasured exhibits. Can you see it?

And that's a wrap! Remember to breathe as much as possible this week - it's actually quite good for you.

Adam

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / Procrastilearning.com / More stuff

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