Wake me up

When it's all over.
When I'm wiser and I'm older.
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost.

I just now watched a million translations of this song. Possibly five translations. And they're terrible. This one's the worst. They only partially approximate the song.  Don't watch it. Although, if you do watch it then you'll get some ideas on how to express some things like "life passed me by" and "I don't care" to substitute for "that's fine by me."

The one with four schools signing the song is possibly worse. There is just no way to get that many kids to do the precise thing all at once. They all stray too far afield such that without the music you wouldn't recognize the song.

This attractive woman has well-formed signs but she's like my Belgian sheepdogs that do two or three things where one thing is called for. She overly defines the poetry so misses the meter, ignores the beat, and abandons the melody. She is sign-loquacious where the song is pithy. Still, if you care to see how to be overly precise and see multiple ways to say the same thing then it makes a very good study.

Let me say a few things about clarity.

"Understand" and "dream" are similar in that they both occur at the forehead. "Understand" is a ping with the index finger upward at the forehead. And "dream" is a "d" hand configuration with its index finger stem dreamily inching away from the forehead. I notice signers do "understand" as if there is no connection with the head. And "dream" is sometimes a whole world blooming in front of the forehead. I also notice people using "see" for "understand."

"Old" is like a King Tut beard pulled down from the chin. So then, "older" has an "R" added to "old" in the SEE that was popular when I leaned it and it's a rising upward "thumb up" in regular sign. So the, "old" (pulling down) + "thumb up" (rising up) for "older." I notice the interpreters throw the thumb over their shoulder instead of upward and that motion indicates something in the past.

Same thing with "wiser." It's a "q" hand configuration cranked a quarter turn like a gear at the forehead, with "r" or with "thumb up" added onto it for "wiser. But instead of thumb up, I'm noticing interpreters throwing their thumb back over their shoulder.

"Travel" or "journey"  is two bent legs circumnavigating a flat area in front of the torso. Not two eyes seeing an area.

"Wake up" or "wake me up" is both index fingers at your eyes going ping. Not your ears going ping, and not your cheeks nor your neck.

"It's all over" is the sign for "finish" The sign is both hands held in front of the torso both flipped at the same time. It's showing "everything that I have is dumped." Compare that with "die." One of my favorite signs. In each of these videos I see "finish" executed various ways.  "Lost" is similar. The sign starts with the fingers of both hands brought together upward as if holding peas or marbles in the fingertips to display them then flipping both hand downward, fingers apart and dumping them. Whatever you had is gone. Whereas, "lost a game" is two legs of a person falling onto the palm of the opposite hand. The girl in the video below makes "lost" look like "large" or like "growing" not "dropping."

But this sense of being lost is conveyed by "search" or "looking for something." And that is shown by a "C" hand configuration circling in front of the face, and really lost and really searching is double that with two "C" hand configurations alternating in front of the face with an inquiring facial expression, with head moving looking around behind the obfuscating rotating "Cs".

This girl is the best of the other million videos. I meant to say five videos. Despite a few idiosyncraticly formed signs. We're praying for her recovery from severe cyanosis.

Blue lipstick.

Subject change right here.

About 35 years ago I was staying overnight at a house in Breckenridge with a bunch of other people to ski the next day, when Annie Lennox came on the television that night. Her video showed her dressed as a man, then made up with a black wig, then made up with a blond wig, then made up with startlingly short hair and bright orange eye shadow, and shocking as that was it forced me acknowledge bright blue eye shadow is equally ridiculous, while blue is conventional and orange is not. And both rather clownish. It made a lasting impression. Come on. The idea is to have it appear as if you're not wearing any makeup; that all that unblemished purity is natural. Lies!

Unless you're a girl, of course, then it's all just for fun. I think the original bright red lipstick was to make the labium superius oris and inferius oris imitate the swollen aroused state of labia majus and minora. But what do I know of sexualized exaggerated bright red lips?

The girl with bright blue lips does a fine imitation of instruments suggesting guitar, keyboards and drums instead of lamely signing "music" in those passages like everyone else does and that takes a bit of guts and imagination. She does very well throughout.