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August 23, 2007

Templar: That is a real surname.

Seriously. Anglicized Hungarian/Austrian (just as likely to be bastardized into Fish or Bas), or straight-shot Belorussian. Some people have all the luck, huh?

So, Screaming Guy's got a name. And a few issues, from the sound of things. Stay tuned.

I did most of this page while watching episodes of "Tribe," a BBC2 series featuring a self-described "explorer and expedition leader" living amongst remote and traditional indigenous tribes for a month at a time and trying to fit in and survive as they do, to the best of his abilities. You can watch online; I found links to the eps here. My favorites so far have been the Suri (Horn of Africa: Lip plates, stick-fighting, cow-blood-drinking) and the Kombai (New Guinea: Penis gourds, war canoes, ritual cannibalism of enemies to this very fucking day).

What's nice about Tribe is the lengths it goes to to humanize the people being filmed. There's no cool, National Geographic-style detachment, which is something I think we've all just come to expect in documentary anthropological cinematography. I never realized how much depth translated chatter and jokes could add to a show about alien cultures; individual, candid comments from the locals are translated just as often as probing interviews are conducted, which blesses the families being filmed with tons of personality you might otherwise miss. (Apparently, being a huge ham is an inborn trait, whether or not you've ever seen a camera before.) and unusually, the cultural exchanges often go both ways; One of my favorite scenes thus far was a Kombai, after feeding the host palm grubs and sago starch, being totally and visibly grossed out by raisins. It's nice to know we can all find one another equally disgusting.

So anyway, yeah. Give it a look. I really dig it.

Back to work...

Posted by Spike at August 23, 2007 08:36 AM

Comments

Thanks for the rec, I'll check this out!

Posted by Brigid at August 23, 2007 08:43 AM
131.193.138.59

Hehe. I saw the uncolored strip last night and thought "Sheesh. That guy's got issues."

And boy, what I don't need is another interesting show to waste time catching up on. I need to do stuff like clean the bathroom. Augh.

Posted by stacey at August 23, 2007 10:19 AM
69.216.141.237

I've seen that show before, it's pretty cool. It's also been on the Discovery Channel under the name "Going Tribal." That it's on BBC2 now probably explains why I haven't seen it listed on the Discovery Channel for a long time.

Posted by Kevin at August 23, 2007 11:31 AM
68.0.147.64

Something tells me Elijah is about to start screaming.

Posted by Wood at August 23, 2007 11:53 AM
90.32.168.53

Yeah, too bad they'll never do anything on my tribe, that of the Kusu-Tatella. Fairly civilised farmers and fishermen. We tended towards animistic Catholocism once the Belgians found us. Our only claim to fame is that we spawned Patrice Lumumba, who Eisenhower wanted to kill.

Posted by Adelai at August 23, 2007 03:09 PM
74.227.197.178

There's a Dr. Punch who does racing commentary.

...and fights crime.

(okay, not really. but he SHOULD.)

Posted by KT at August 23, 2007 03:15 PM
71.206.152.76

I just have to say that the lettering on Dr. Bash's dialogue in the last panel gives me the PERFECT mental impression of a belligerent drunk. Nice job!

Posted by Ubik at August 23, 2007 03:28 PM
75.34.20.136

To be fair, raisins DO look a lot like rat droppings. I can understand why someone'd be grossed out if he's seen one before but not the other.

Posted by Duke of the Bump at August 24, 2007 04:04 AM
71.164.43.167

I am definitely watching this show! In my anthropology course we heard about this one fellow with a tribe in South America. The natives were, apparently, quite the gourmets as they were always asking for some of his food (which he brought in with him, so it was foreign to them) until one day one of the guys saw him eating a hotdog and asked "Which part of the animal is THAT?" ... and the anthropologist just said, "What part do you think it is?" He apparently never had to share his food again.

Oh, and, just to make an already long comment even longer ... I also have a weird surname. Mork. And, of course, I had to be the part of the generation whose parents all knew that show and character.

Posted by Kitty at August 24, 2007 12:34 PM
24.85.38.56

"Live." HAH!

Is probably like, prelude to the actual symphony.

Posted by MissusHow at August 25, 2007 12:42 PM
72.225.13.70

The name Bash ain't nothin'--I know a woman named Veronica Bloodsaw. Birth name.

Posted by Cat at August 25, 2007 05:24 PM
24.99.104.201

The new series of Tribe has just started in the UK coincidently. The first episode saw our main man Parry going to see a tribe that was only contacted a few decades ago. They live in a huge area of indiginous owned forest that is very tightly controlled in terms of outsiders coming and going. Some of the other tribes living in this reserve have NEVER been successfully contacted with peacefully. They don't even know that they're part of Brazil. The mind boggles.

I've often been nicknamed Bash, usally by Rugger-Buggers (or rugby players for those not used to Anglo Slang).

Posted by Ash at August 27, 2007 03:11 PM
86.134.195.28

Fairly civilised farmers and fishermen. We tended towards animistic Catholocism once the Belgians found us. Our only claim to fame is that we spawned Patrice Lumumba, who Eisenhower wanted to kill.

Posted by AndreyM at August 28, 2007 02:32 AM
91.124.110.249

Oh dear... Did Dr. Bash's pants just fall down?

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70.176.182.140

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Posted by Nadia at August 18, 2009 04:16 AM
216.12.13.29

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