Pumped Up Kicks

This kid is so cool I can't stand it. It's the way he uses his finger-gun. This is facile use of a common sign extending its usual function to fit this song. I really enjoyed watching his interpretation. Very serious. Focused. Tight. On point. On time. On the beat. Then his older brother barges in and totally messes him up, reveals the situation of zero privacy in family situation, then boyish playing and goofs and bloopers that blow the whole original seriousness but not its original coolness.

And I am taken back in time to my own family and my own brothers and sisters totally messing me up while also providing my entire nurturing environment that allowed me to pursue outside interests to my heart's contentment. Thank you, family, for all that you gave me.

About that gun.

All the other kids with their pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.

All the other kids with their pumped up kicks, you better run, better run faster than my bullet.

Pumped up kicks is improved sneakers. They had best run faster than a bullet. 

We must see all the other kids with improved sneakers. And we must see "better run," in a race, faster than his gun. Then repeat, the second time faster than a bullet. I need to see "better" and I need to see a race between the improved sneakers people first between a gun and then between a bullet. But I do not see all those things. All of it. Not just the main part of it. This refrain is repeated. 

We see "gun" and we see something move past the gun and that's it. Very abbreviated. 

Do you see a "rolled cigarette" or just a regular cigarette?

The sign used here for "kid" means to joke or tease. The sign for kid like a child is one of those unusual signs that moves outside the customary space, the hand moves to the side of the body and indicates the top of the head of an invisible little kid standing there. You can indicate the supposed age by the height or the level of your hand.  So, he says, "cowboy-jest" not "cowboy-boy." But he did say "kid" in sign. See how that works? It messes you up. His sign for "kid" fits the concept-cloud for joke, tease, jest in that language, but he is using it from his English concept-cloud that includes child, boy, girl, lad, lass, tot. It's a clash of the concept-clouds involving the word "kid." The interpreter will have to do "cowboy hat - child," and stand there momentarily embodying that persona and the two concepts ring through -- the Cowboy Kid.

For Korean pop dance level of excellence the interpreter will have to show everything in the lyrics, show the phrase the moment it is spoken, have key words hit on point, but this student does not. However, he does indicate what the song is about and he keeps up phrase for phrase, and does very well graphically. I like the coolness of this boy quite a lot.