#Aphally Obsessed

[aphelionsabyss]

Hey guys, welcome back to Aphally Obsessed.

Recent events have gotten me pretty down, so no upbeat intro this time. No in depth talk either. Just mourning.

The song of the day is:

P.R.O.T.E.C.T.T.R.A.N.S.K.I.D.S. by Cheap Dirty Horse

[philosopherking1887]

The meaning of Aziraphale’s name

Angel names in Judeo-Christian angelology all mean something in Hebrew. Gabriel means “God is my might”; Michael means “who is like God?”; Uriel means “God is my light”; Raphael could mean either “God healed” or (as an imperative) “God, heal!” I’m not completely sure that Gaiman and Pratchett intended for the name Aziraphale to mean anything in particular in Hebrew, but because I’m obsessive, I wanted to figure something out. People who know more Hebrew than I do are welcome to make corrections or suggestions.

I think Neil Gaiman said in an interview at some point that the original spelling was Aziraphael, in keeping with the typical -el ending of angel names. If that’s the correct spelling, then the name might be a strange way of saying “God, my strength, healed” or “God, my strength, heal!” Or it might contain the name Raphael as a part, meaning “Raphael is my strength.” I don’t really buy the recent fanon proposal that Crowley was Raphael before his fall, because all the angel lore, including the Book of Tobit, has Raphael as an angel long after Lucifer’s rebellion would have taken place (in Paradise Lost, Raphael is the one who tells the story to Adam). But if we do go in for that bit of fanon, then we can imagine a scenario like the one at the beginning of this fic, in which our two heroes were in love in Heaven before the Fall and Aziraphael (who we assume ranked lower) had a different name to start with but took the name “Raphael is my strength.”

But there are other interesting translation possibilities if we take the current spelling to indicate that the name has 4 syllables rather than 5 (i.e., there’s no extra aleph between the pheh and the lamed). I’m not aware of a Hebrew root rap[h]al, so that means we’d need to break the name up into Azir - aphel or Azir(a) - phel. As noted in this wonderful post, in which someone wrote a letter from “Crawly” to Azirapil in Akkadian cuneiform (!!), the “Azir” part can be derived from a Hebrew root and mean “helper, one who helps.” That speculative translation continues:

The second element appears to be āpilu, literally “the one who answers,” but also used to mean “the one who dissents, the one who talks back.”  Thus, together, the name would mean “the one who helps the dissenter.”

Which is very cool, but I wasn’t sure whether there was any Hebrew equivalent, so I went looking for the meaning of a Hebrew root ‘ap[h]al. The first thing I found was this article called “The Sin and Danger of Presumption,” which I immediately knew was a Christian thing because Christians get way more worked up about presumption than Jews do. Anyway, here’s the relevant bit:

apal - presume. (So ASV, RSV; NASB, “to be heedless.”) - This root, to which we may compare Arabic gafala “to be heedless, neglectful, inadvertent,” is found in only one OT passage, Num 14:44 (Hiphil), of Israel’s rash and reckless attack on the Amalekites and Canaanites, following her lack of faith and great rebellion. There are some authorities who suggest that the Pual of apal in Hab 2:4 may be from the same root, “to presume, be proud.”

Whoa this is getting super long. The rest is under a cut.

So I tracked down the verses as translated by Jews, because I trust Jews more than Christians to not read anachronistic concepts into Hebrew words. In my tiny little JPS (Jewish Publication Society) Tanakh, vaya’pilu la’alot (Num. 14:44) is translated as “they defiantly marched,” with a footnote saying “meaning of Heb. uncertain.” OK, something to do with defiance... interesting. The first half of Hab. 2:4 is translated, “Lo, his spirit within him is puffed up, not upright,” and the Hebrew word translated as “puffed up” is ‘uplah (no, I’m not making that up).

Bible Hub is another Christian thing, but they’ve got a useful entry on the root aphal (that’s with an ayin at the beginning) with translations from a bunch of different concordances. It appears that the original literal meaning is “to swell,” and it acquired metaphorical meanings related to arrogance (having a swelled head or an inflated sense of one’s own importance), rashness, and/or defiance. So assuming the Azir- part means “helper,” Azir’aphel or Azir’aphal might mean “helper of the arrogant/defiant one,” which could refer to his relationship with Crowley; or it might mean “heedless helper,” which could describe the morally dubious action of giving Adam and Eve his flaming sword.

I don’t know how to deal with Hebrew characters in Tumblr, so I’m going to do something dumb and put in a screenshot of how his name might be spelled in Hebrew:

The other possible way to break it down would be with the second ‘a’ just as a link between Azir- and -phel or -phal rather than the vowel associated with a ‘silent’ consonant (it’s silent now, but it used to be some guttural sound that doesn’t exist in Hebrew anymore). In Biblical Hebrew there isn’t a two-letter root pal, but I did find this old and not at all sketchy-looking e-zine entry about the root palal, which can mean “to intercede,” “to interpose,” “to arbitrate/judge,” “to pray,” or (apparently) “to think.” According to the not-at-all-sketchy e-zine, the Biblical Hebrew root palal is derived from the older parent root pal, which means “to speak to authority.” Supposedly that has something to do with the fact that the letter peh is a picture of a mouth and lamed is a picture of a shepherd’s staff, but it is absolutely fucking insane to derive the meaning of a spoken word from the meanings of the letters in which it is written, so I’m taking that with a whole handful of salt.

Somewhat more reasonable is the assertion that the root means “to fall,” and thus the connection with prayer, intercession, or pleading one’s case to an authority has to do with the practice of prostrating oneself in supplication. The root meaning “to fall” is nap[h]al, but nun is one of those funky semi-consonant letters (like heh, vav, and yud) that has a tendency to disappear or turn into something else when the verb is conjugated, so it’s not insane to think that the pal part is what’s core to the meaning and the nun is just there because roots gotta have 3 letters. It’s also not totally insane to think that this is somehow related to the root palal, because I also vaguely remember that in roots where the second and third letters are the same, they have a tendency to get mushed together, as in the palal derivative that’ll be most familiar to Jews, t’fillah, the noun meaning “prayer.” (Well, it’s a little vague because it’s spelled with two l’s in English but there’s only one lamed in the Hebrew... but there’s also a little dot in the lamed, which indicates that it’s a geminate consonant, serving as both the coda of the second syllable and the onset of the third.)

OK, so, what would that mean for Aziraphale’s name? Obviously the most exciting possibility would be that it means “helper of the fallen,” because duh. “The fallen” or “the one who falls” would be nophel, but if the nun gets dropped in conjugation, it might also fall out when it’s getting mashed together with another word in a name, right? Alternatively, going with the “prayer/intercession” meaning of palal, Aziraphale might mean “helper [and] intercessor,” which would make sense with his role as the one who attempts to plead for human beings and the Earth with his superiors who are happy to see it destroyed to settle their scores with Hell. If either of those is the meaning, it would be spelled like this:

So, to sum up: depending on how we imagine Aziraphale to be spelled in Hebrew, it could mean:

“God, my strength, healed”, “God, my strength, heal!”, or (less likely) “Raphael is my strength”

“helper of the arrogant/defiant one” or “heedless helper”

“helper of the fallen” or “helper [and] intercessor”

[aphelionsabyss]

Tag yourself as one of my current favorite songs:

[aphelionsabyss]

Devilman Crybaby soundtrack actually hits so hard tho

Because I thought that shit was normal music people were dancing to at a club

NO IT'S A FUCKING ANIME SOUNDTRACK!!!!!!

[aphelionsabyss]

I know Tom Cardy isn't typically a cover person, but if he covered or parodied "You Spin Me Round" I think I would ascend.

[aphelionsabyss]

Everytime I play a playlist and "Plastic Beach" by Gorillaz plays, I can never tell what it is.

So I'm just laying there listening to what sounds like it's about to be the coolest power metal song in existence or something and I sit up like "What is that melody?!?"

Only to get to Spotify as soon as the lyrics start and just be like "D: what the fuck"

Because how?

HOW???? How does it keep happening?

And then

Every single time I go without fail (bc the title of the song scrolls on the bottom) "Oh it's just superfast jellyfish" LIKE AN IDEOT!!!!

No!!! NO IT'S NOT SUPERFAST JELLYFISH YOU FUCKING PLEB

I will hit you over the head with a club!!!!!

[aphelionsabyss]

Nobody talks about the joy of recognizing the background music a YouTuber is using.

Keyan Carlile's (I think it's him anyways) videos commonly uses the card-jitsu theme from Club Penguin and whenever I hear it I get so excited

So many people across the internet use songs from the Bee & Puppycat soundtrack as background music

One time, I was watching an analysis video of some sort and I literally heard them use Leon Chang's music from BIRD WORLD

It's not even just that!!!

Like even like really basic songs from like Kevin MacLeod or other similar artists, when I can actually name the title of said music or trace back a memory to when I first heard it, I love that shit!!!

AUHGGGGGG.

JUST

Music is cool

And hearing music you like in other media is very cool

Unless they use it incorrectly or cut out parts of the song that make no sense to cut out bc now the scene sounds weird.

[aphelionsabyss]

I made some of the best City Pop songs my alarms and unfortunately I'm suffering for it

(I can't stop the loneliness but Anri just started playing and it incited anxiety)

[aphelionsabyss]

Hello hello hello my lovely little stars!Welcome back to another episode of:

APHALLY OBSESSED!

YOUR new favorite "daily radio show" in which your host, Aphelion (That's me!) tells you all about music they're ACTUALLY OBSESSED with!

Today's episode is gonna be a little bit different. I haven't done one of these in a little bit and that's because I'm going through sort of a music funk. That meaning: Music is a bit overstimulating and overwhelming for me and I just haven't had something I really like come to mind.

I'm also going through HUGE writer's block. I'm very burnt out. So it may take me a bit to get back to our regularly scheduled programming. HOWEVER, because of this I've decided to add a NEW segment to this show!!!!!!

Aphelion's Absolutely Amazing Album Recommendations!!!!

Or, AAAAR for short! (Name is subject to change)

In this segment, I will be recommending three different albums or EPs for your listening pleasures! It will not get TOO much of a personal story behind it, but they WILL all be genuinely one I like (Which is rare!!! I don't listen to albums!)

The albums for today are:

AQUARIUM CITY by Louie Zong

Drones by Muse

Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

AQUARIUM CITY

This album actually just came out TODAY (Friday, July 26th, 2024)

I just finished listening to it and of course, it's amazing! Louie Zong never misses.

It is self described as "Masayoshi Takanaka flavor" city pop album. This seems to add up as it has mych very funk / electro-funk influence. This album really evokes a summery island vibe. If you like city pop, future funk, electro r&b or electro jazz, this may be for you. It's mostly instrumental but contains some vocal snippets throughout the tracks. The most vocal song would be Swim With Me.

Louie Zong also makes great use of an iconic sample from the song "Soulful Strut" by Young-Holt Unlimited in Track 3: Tuna Turnpike. I'm sure there's many other samples of which I can't identify currently. Especially probably from Masayoshi Takanaka, who I'm sure I've heard the songs of but do not know the names 😅

There's only 8 songs, and the album tops out at 24 minutes and 7 seconds long. This is closer to what some would call an EP so you should be able to listen to it fairly quickly!

Drones

This is my current favorite Muse album, finally growing on me and taking the top spot from The 2nd Law.

Muse also rarely has missed and I feel like this is one of their best albums quite honestly. It's a progressive rock concept album about soldier going from being an indoctrinated "Drone" in the military, to a Defector. Despite being an English rock band, the album includes heavy critiques of the U.S military in the song, especially the Obama administration and the use of drones in bombing civilians in the middle east.

It has two tracks that are mostly vocal snippets, [Drill Sargent] and [JFK] which perfectly leads into the songs that follow them. The final and title song, Drones, includes music from "Missa Papae Marcelli" by renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. With Matt Bellamy singing over-top it in the final minutes of the song, expressing the soldier's grief at the loss of everything and everyone he loved, it is truly brilliant. Having said that, my favorite song on this album has to be Reapers.

The album is 12 tracks long and clocks in at 52 min 42 sec. This is the longest album on the list :)

If you like rock and critiques of the military, go check it out!

Jubilee

Japanese Breakfast's 3rd album, this time much more joyful than the previous two, which were very much about the grief of. This album is like a dream pop...well...dream! It's a somewhat similar in vibe to AQUARIUM CITY in its use of instruments with synthesizers, funky bass lines, and an overall 80s pop vibe. So I guess that is the vibe today. But it's very different from that album, I swear.

The album seems to mostly be about love. A love story in fact. Just being in love with someone and all it entails. From falling hard, to needing to distance yourself from the person to be healthy.

I would say this album is one of the least electronic of the three, but correct me if in wrong. We get a lot of sweet and soft vocals from lead singer Michelle Zauner accompanied with what I think to be live electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums. They make great use of dissonance in the album to provide that dreamy feel as if looking back on a memory.

My favorite song from this album is currently the 2nd track: "Be Sweet"

This album has 10 songs and is 37 minutes and 3 seconds long.

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ ☾. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

As always, I listen to these on Spotify, but you can listen to these albums anywhere you find music!

[aphelionsabyss]

Hello everyone and welcome back to

APHALLY OBSESSED

Your NEW "daily radio show" where your host, Aphelion (That's me!!!) shares music that they are Actually Obsessed with!

Today's song is:

Poisoning Pigeons In The Park by Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer is such a multi-talented man. A musician, a mathematician, and a satirist? My god. 96 years old. National treasure. He also TAUGHT?! He's a teacher?!? Like??? One of my three favorite famous guys named Tom (Tom Lehrer, Tom Kenny, Tom Cardy. Why are all Tom's funny???)

This song is my absolute favorite song by him. For now, at least! Who knows what may be my favorite in the future!!

I have to admit that I first discovered it when listening to the podcast, Midnight Burger. ("Chapter 25: Your Mom.")

In that episode, one of the characters ends up singing the song in the Midnight Diner and I loved it so much that I HAD to look it up and add it to my playlists!!! I've been thinking about it a lot today.

Some of you guys may know about Tom Lehrer from "The Masochism Tango" which got very popular on Tik Tok a couple months ago. In a similar way to the sort of darkness that is in that song, this song is just as "dark."

The people I've shared this song with have never much liked the song, but Tom Lehrer jauntily singing about strolling about a park, with his lover in spring, and throwing around poisoned peanuts SO fun and enjoyable to me.

And for the very literal, no. Tom Lehrer doesn't want to kill all pigeons or ACTUALLY poison pigeons in the park. It's satire.

If you end up enjoying this song, I would like to suggest a few of his other songs that I enjoy: New Math, Clementine, and The Elements. New Math is my second favorite because my grandfather introduced it to me 😌

You can find "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" anywhere you can listen to music!

[aphelionsabyss]

Welcome to a little segment I like to call

APHALLY OBSESSED

Your NEW daily "radio show" where your host, Aphelion (that's me), tells you all about music they're ACTUALLY OBSESSED with!

Today's song is:

Bats by Scary Bitches

Bats is the 7th song in the 2009 album titled "Island of The Damned" by all women British band, Scary Bitches.

The song is about the tragic love story between the speaker, and a man revealed to be a count (as well as a vampire) from Transylvania.

Bats is NOT serious. It's more of a comedic song. It is also somewhat long for a song, clocking in at 5 minutes and 18 seconds. But I have so much fun listening to it that I hardly even notice! However, the chorus is repetitive, and the lyrics are not very complicated at all. I can see why people may not enjoy this. Especially those who enjoy songs with deep and poetic lyrics.

I first found this song looking for vampire songs to add to my "Vampire"playlist on Spotify. I was initially looking for "Lesbian Vampyrs from Outer Space" (by the same band) and "Vampire Lover" by Lesbian Bed Death, but I ended up finding that :D

Neither are on my vampire themed playlist now that I think about it...

Anyways

Go check it out! I personally listen to it on Spotify. However, you can find it nearly anywhere you listen to music :D

The only thing I will say is that I checked, and I was unable to listen to it on SoundCloud. I do not know if it's because of my country, or not. So, go test it out for me!

[aphelionsabyss]

I'm trapped in my tiny human brain

And it's killing me

But it's fine

Yeah, I'm alright

If I move my hands fast enough, I won't die

[aphelionsabyss]

Do I hear 3 song review for the day? 🤔

[aphelionsabyss]

I FORGOT THIS ALSO CAME OUT TODAY!

YIPPIEEEE!!!!!

[aphelionsabyss]

TIME IS MOVING

TOO FUCKING SLOW

[aphelionsabyss]

D:

I'm finally listening to the Duality commentary and like...

YOU MEAN DUALITY IS ABOUT SEX THIS WHOLE TIME?

I'm fuckin- 😭✋✋✋

WELL HE WAS FUCKING TBH

bro I misinterpreted that song for years ._.

That's so embarrassing.

Oh my g o d.