Totallympics Open International Song Contest 2020

[heywoodu 15,135]

is in  

 

Only @thepharoah for Egypt and @amen09 for Tunisia are still missing, although our Egyptian friend answered positively yesterday, so I have good hopes. Other than that, @LDOG is the only jury member missing, but since our other Argentinian contestant has voted, Argentina is already known to be officially in for a while.

[Glen 180]

33 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Delegation location 8 - Staverden

In the woods around Ermelo, we find a city - although you do either have to know it's there or just happen to stumble upon it, as yours truly once did. We could list all of the inhabitants without too much hassle, since Staverden is home to only 30 people. That is not a typo: 30 people, and with that Staverden officially is the smallest city in the Benelux - it was granted city rights in 1298, the German emperor confirmed them in 1309, but around 1320 the idea of a true city was given up and so Staverden remained small...but a city.

 

Staverden castle, which lands comprise basically the entire city of Staverden

The main reason of existence for Staverden is the castle with the same name, built around the year 1300 and rebuilt and restyled several times since those days. The local dukes used it as a hunting castle and had to keep and protect it for the count, with one of their obligations being to keep white peacocks there: the feathers were used to decorate the count's helmets - the nickname of 'White Peacock's Keep' didn't come out of nowhere. This tradition is still around, although the feathers aren't used to decorate helmets anymore, and every two years one person or organization who has meant something for the cultural and natural heritage of the Gelderland province receives a white feather.

 

This is a peacock and the keen observer will have noticed that it's white

Reading this takes longer than walking through Staverden, so we'll finish up with the local legend: there's a sort of monument behind the castle, with the text 'Leonora 1353' engraved into it. According to legend, this is about Lady Leonora van Barchem, who was supposed to get married with some dude. She married someone else, but he went on a crusade and the first guy tried to swoop in and then killed her lover when he came back. Leonora went to live with her foster mom - Eleonor of Woodstock of the royal House Plantagenet, married to the local count - at Staverden and slowly withered away and died in 1353. The 'Black Lady of Staverden' is still around, according to locals, and at night one can hear her cries around the castle, a place one should avoid during the night.

 

The stone monument for Leonora, the Black Lady of Staverden - seeing her means certain death, so get out when you hear her greet the peacocks and let out her cries of torment and sadness

 

Lastly, a less...eery kind of fun fact: double Olympic hockey champion Jacques Brinkman leads a brewery at the Staverden castle since 2018, where they brew De Uddelaer, named after the nearby town of Uddel. Apparently this beer is getting popular around here and one can go and get a tour from the hockey legend himself.

 

Delegations in Staverden

Italy

Malta

 Ireland

So will this delegation be accommodated in this castle? I know it's Halloween, but hearing the Black Lady of Staverden in the middle of the night would be something.. you know.. unpleasant to put it mildly   

[heywoodu 15,135]

21 minutes ago, Glen said:

So will this delegation be accommodated in this castle? I know it's Halloween, but hearing the Black Lady of Staverden in the middle of the night would be something.. you know.. unpleasant to put it mildly   

Well it's Staverden, so...it's basically either the castle or setting up a tent in the forest around it  

 

There's some rooms reserved, maybe go ahead and get a taste of the Uddelaer beer to try and deal with the Black Lady, why do you think our Irish friend and his buddy Seamus are located here?  

[dcro 10,210]

Heywoodu: "Ballads Are Supposed to Have Meaning"

 

Heywoodu in Amsterdam. Future Netflix series?

 

The Netherlands hold a distinct, often overlooked TISC record. Together with Vietnam, who only participated once, they are the only other nation which never placed outside of the Top 20. A highly impressive record, no doubt, but today we invited their leading juror Heywoodu on a little interview regarding a somewhat different subject...

 

Q: How do you go about evaluating TISC entries? Do you use a specific system when picking out your Top 12?

A: I take the playlist and give every song one listen in the playlist's order while trying to not see which country it's from yet (that'll be impossible now, but that's fine). While doing so, every song gets a note from 1 to 10, and if I'm lucky, around 15 songs stand out above the rest. I do give the others a short listen as well if time permits, to make sure I didn't miss something there, but usually, if a song doesn't make my list on the first listen, I don't really change my mind about it later.

 

Q: And what about the maximum 12 points? Can you recognize it immediately? Or do you take a certain amount of time before deciding on it?

A: When I've got my shortlist of songs to be awarded points, they all get another listen and often a new note - generally on a new scale, 1 to 100, so that it's easier to differentiate between songs that for example would otherwise all get an 8. If there's still ties left, it's a matter of listening to the songs involved again and simply picking the one I like most.

 

Q: Do you have a favourite music genre? Is there any genre you would like to hear more of on the TISC stage?

A: Not really. In general, I like a sort of 'rock-like' songs, but my voting history shows I definitely appreciate much more ballad-like songs as well. Song About Love, Dear Home, Sacre Coeur, Gosto de Ti, Epitáfio, absolute masterpieces.

 

Q: How important are lyrics to you?

A: Fairly important. It sort of depends on the kind of song: in the ballad-like songs I mentioned, the combination of the wonderful voices and lyrics make them stand out for me. In more rock-like songs, the general feel and melody mean more for me, which is why songs in languages I don't understand usually only have a chance to score well in my book if they're not ballads - after all, ballads are supposed to have some sort of meaning, for me at least. I do find it pretty important to at least be able to hear what they are singing. Even if I don't know French, I can at least recognize words, which is why for example Arab, Chinese or Indian (non-English) songs are so difficult for me to score high: nothing against these languages, but the sounds and such are so entirely different it is nearly impossible for me to recognize words or anything. I think it'd be similar for someone who's only grown up with, for example, Arab and suddenly hears Italian: it'd probably sound like a bunch of random sounds, simply because it is so totally different.

 

Q: And finally... How can we get 12 points from Heywoodu?

A: Enter a song I like more than any other entry.

 

 

If Heywoodu's musical preferences still feel like a jigsaw puzzle - maybe this will help. Our resident Dutch juror has outlined the following entries as favorites during the most recent TISC editions...

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more user interviews to come, as we count down to TOISC 2020...

[Werloc 3,164]

Damn, if Egypt and Tunisia do not vote, this would be the first ever TISC without an African representative 

[tuniscof 152]

13 minutes ago, Werloc said:

Damn, if Egypt and Tunisia do not vote, this would be the first ever TISC without an African representative 

can i still vote ? 

[dcro 10,210]

12 minutes ago, tuniscof said:

can i still vote ? 

Yes!

[heywoodu 15,135]

1 hour ago, tuniscof said:

can i still vote ? 

I am not sure what the rules say about this, but since Tunisia was already entered and so you voting would not mean there's a new country or anything, I'd say it's no problem (although if you could send your votes today, that'd be much appreciated).

[dcro 10,210]

13 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I am not sure what the rules say about this, but since Tunisia was already entered and so you voting would not mean there's a new country or anything, I'd say it's no problem (although if you could send your votes today, that'd be much appreciated).

Oops... I thought that was amen09.

 

Nevermind then, I have no idea what is the procedure here.

[Werloc 3,164]

I don't know exactly if the draw is rescheduled a bit, but I definitely think it would help to know the exact number of nations participating before preparing the final tables for the day