Kaitlyn did not actually request this.

>Four freshmen (is that what you call them
>at an all-girl school? or would it be "freshwomen"?)

It is; it would not.

>Yes, they play in their real school uniforms

Azalynn hasn't been observing them long enough to know that they do this as a defense mechanism. If they didn't, their faculty advisor would dress them up as French maids. Or meter maids. Or mermaids. Or milkmaids. Or any kind of maids, really. The poor woman's not entirely stable.

>("Gīta")

This is, in fact, simply the Kokugo word for "guitar". Somewhat akin to Zuko naming his dragon "Dragon". Which happened.

>I just wanna be with her. Isn't there a Japanese
>word for that? I can't remember. In Dantrovese we'd call it
>kha'thanva.

Like all Dantrovese words having to do with emotions or interpersonal relationships, kha'thanva is a master's thesis in sapient psychology all by itself and defies direct translation, but it can be very roughly summarized as an intense yearning to share that "it's a cold morning but I have a ton of blankets here and absolutely no reason to get out of bed so neener, world" feeling with somebody else.

>And to be fair, the Les
>Paul really does have too damn many knobs.

Azalynn also feels this way about Miki's Rickenbacker. "Seriously, do I need to control all the pickups individually? That's what the engineer is for."

>It's... it's like you and your sword.

"Once again I have played a worthless chord," said Yui glumly.

>("Elizabass" - this is a pun that makes sense in Japanese, and
>presumably Kokugo)

The joke is that it's the same word as "Elizabeth" when you re-romanize them: "erizabesu".

>I'm told she's occasionally
>paralyzed by stage fright, particularly if the circumstances are such
>that she has to sing lead.

Azalynn doesn't mention to Kate that there's a very good reason for at least part of that. She knows what it is, because she's watched the video of their first school festival show, the previous year, at the end of which there was A Mishap that has left poor Miss Akiyama psychologically scarred. Probably she considered it outside the scope of a preliminary report.

>Hōkago Tea Time's music videos

That is, the ending credits sequences from the TV series and movie (four in all).

>They tell me she became a bassist because she thought it was the least
>conspicuous position in the band.

This is a common fallacy embraced by bassists; I remember being told of it 20 years ago by a friend who played bass in one of the student bands at WPI, in almost precisely the same terms in which Mio describes it at one point in the K-On! manga.

>(I so want to hear her do the solo from "House of the Rising Sun".)

Or the one from "Roll with the Changes" by REO Speedwagon!

>She's a fun date! Not too observant, though.

It doesn't seem to have occurred to Azalynn that Ritsu might just've been being tactful. Admittedly, that's not too likely, but it is possible. :)

Judging by the looks Mugi
>gets on her face when they're on their game around her, she tends to
>reads more into it than I suspect is really there, but they're
>definitely thal'vai

The usual Anglo-Standard oversimplification is "lifemates", but the Dantrovese original (contrary to many humans' expectations of pretty much all Dantrovese words) has no sexual component whatever. There's another word for that part if it's there, and the presence of one doesn't require or rule out the other, in either direction. (Dantrovians don't euphemize about that kind of thing. If they say "sleep with", for instance, they only ever mean proximate unconsciousness.)

>a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline

Said of the Blues Brothers Band by the late Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist for same, in The Blues Brothers.

>I can't spell
>it, but I'm making that noise Roy Orbison makes in "Oh Pretty Woman"
>right now.)

Also to be heard in "Rattled" by the Traveling Wilburys.

>"My Love Is a Stapler"

Literally "My Love is a Hotchkiss", which is apparently a genericalized trademark for staplers in Japan, similar to the way we talk about Band-Aids in the US or Hoovers in Britain. The singer isn't declaring her love for a stapler, she's saying her love (as in "for someone") is like a stapler. Which doesn't really make a ton of sense to me either, but hey, it's Mio. Also, "Hotchkiss" is one of the funniest-sounding words ever when said by a Japanese person. It just is. The first voice you hear is Mio, the second Yui.

>"Fluffy Fluffy Time"

HTT's signature song, frequently a show-closer. Because Mio wrote the lyrics, it's a peppy, up-tempo rock anthem... about the agony of unrequited love. (Seriously. The subtitled translation of the second chorus, in the one episode where they sing that part of the song on screen, goes something like, "Oh God, why does this dream hurt so bad that I'm starting to like it?")

>"Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen"

Another of Mio's peppy love-from-afar songs, about writing a greeting card with a calligraphy pen (lines in the subtitles include "Fight on, brush pen, you've come this far" and "Sorry, ballpoint pen, you might as well call it a night").

>And the one about taking
>someone to bed on the first day that turned out to be about her
>guitar

Seriously.

>And yet... I've seen this on video and in person: when they do play,
>they can blow the doors off bands ten times more diligent than they
>are.

Possibly do worse damage than that, but Azalynn knows you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

>I figure that Ritsu
>will eventually start contributing odd songs with long, rambling,
>only-tangentially-relevant titles, like early Fall Out Boy tracks.
>Ritchan would totally entitle a song "I'm Like a Lawyer with
>the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off" or "I've Got a Dark Alley
>and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth". :)

Less likely: "I Slept With Someone in Hōkago Tea Time and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me".

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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