Ah, rock-nothing quite like a good arena rock concert. I may listen to a lot of country, jazz, and blues these days, but I never forget my hard rock/metal roots. (Ok, my real roots are musicals, Linda Ronstadt, and Billy Joel, but my adult listening habits began with Guns N Roses and AC/DC.) Last night at the Spodek I went to the Metal Hammer Music Festival and despite Chris Cornell's cancellation due to "strained vocal cords" it was a great show. Both Polish and international bands played, and here's how it went.
First, Fair to Midland. An unfortunate name in my opinion, practically begging smartasses like me to revert to the original expression to describe them: fair to middlin'. And that's being generous. Typical of opening acts, they sucked. While all of them seemed to be competent musicians and the lead singer had an impressive range and a variety of vocal effects, their songs lacked structure and left the impression that each member had written his part in isolation, without consulting the others. They had no sound, just sound. In many ways, with their pointless flailing and random headbanging, they seemed a parody of a metal band, like a too-long, bad SNL sketch (wait, isn't that a triple redundancy?). You could see the bassist thinking, "Oh, yeah, now I bang my head, now I stomp around . . . When do I have to jump again?"
Next up was a Polish band, Delight. They were that too, competently fronted by one of those rarities in metal, a woman. I love female leads in metal bands, and they were such a relief after the histrionics of Fair to Midland. Actual melody and structure, though they'd probably do well to ditch their keyboardist. They were quite evidently having a good time up there, and while none of their songs was truly exceptional, neither were they bad or in any way pretentious. They rocked within their limits, delivered a solid performance, and just seemed happy to be there. Delight's best number was a pretty hard cover of George Michael's "Careless Whispers" which definitely benefited from distortion, power chords and driving bass riffs. Most endearing was the way the singer thanked the crowd after each song, with real sincerity, a change from the usual perfunctory thanks or the occasional hostility you sometimes get.
Best performance of the festival however, goes to the Polish band Coma (click the "download" link to listen. Doesn't actually download). These guys rocked heavy and hard. Well-crafted, layered songs, full of those thunderous beats and riffs that rip open your chest and rearrange your pulse. A truly great, charismatic frontman, the singer sweated and screamed, strutted and stepped around the stage with purpose and power. Each song was delivered with the intensity, urgency and desperation of the condemned, as if the noose was already around his neck and these last few seconds were all he had to say a lifetime's words.
Beyond the music and the singer's stage presence though, was the love. Poland is a pretty big place, but even though I don't think Coma is at all local to this area, the atmosphere was that of a hometown show. The crowd loved them and they loved the crowd. It was palpable, visceral love, reminding me of the early 90s Seattle shows I went to, especially Pearl Jam. A very special rapport, not just adoration and adulation, or even mere enjoyment, but that sense that the band is your voice, expressing your feelings, combined with the knowledge that you are all rooted in the same time and place, really sharing the same emotions and experiences. It's a powerful thing, this kind of audience feedback, and Coma responded to it with everything they had.
The next act I just couldn't take seriously. A Japanese metal band, whose primary market, judging by the high-pitched screams from the pit, is preteen girls, Dir En Grey were at first laughable, then tedious. As with Fair to Midland, I found myself wondering if this wasn't some kind of comedy act, as virtually nothing about them seemed genuine. Purely aping the stereotype of metal bands, in this case some variant of death/thrash, without irony or understanding. Musically their songs were multi-polar (I know, technically you can only have two poles, but this is the most apt way I can put it), swinging randomly, abruptly, and totally pointlessly from one state to another, the lead singer basically just alternating between the three screams in his arsenal of noise while careening around the stage like one of those little bouncy-balls. At one point, he put one leg up on a metal box, bent over screaming so far that I was instantly reminded of how Sabriel looked while licking her genitals. Now and then they'd happen on to a decent beat or riff, but inevitably they'd do their Jekyll/Hyde transition back into asinine noise within a few bars. Ultimately, we left to go get a hot dog.
Finally, after an eternity of Dir En Grey, and a longer break than usual (during which they played Medeski, Martin, and Wood and Ween's "Piss up a rope," making me and maybe three other people in the arena really happy), the headliners came on, Tool. They delivered a workmanlike performance: they came, played hard, professional, and tight, and punched out right on time. Musically, not a thing to complain about; visually, I feel they substituted lasers and video screens for actual performance. The lead singer wasn't even directly lighted for the entire hour-long set, which at first seemed like a cool effect, then just got boring and frustrating. All the band members had their part of the stage staked out, and never moved from it (ok, the drummer has no choice, but the others might have done something). Overall, nothing to complain about, but then, nothing to rave about either.
At the end, it was just great to be at a show. Got to hear some new music, feel that bass breaking down my cellular structure, ate overpriced food, and smell the sweat and smoke of thousands of strangers. Ah, good times. This one last thing did keep bothering me though: when I was younger, we held up lighters when the lights went down, especially for ballads or anthems. I gotta say, the greenish glow of cell phone displays is a poor substitute, and it's not even a tribute or salute, but trying to get yet another low-quality picture to post on MySpace, as if we needed that. Sigh.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." -Desiderius Erasmus
Ah, visits from friends. I had my first ever visit from home, Rico and Loran, who dropped by (after some persuasion on my part) on their European tour. (What's the matter with the rest of you? A year and a half I've been here.) I showed them the mean streets of Sosnowiec (ok, the pubs) and beautiful buildings of Krakow (ok, we went to some pubs there too). We also went to Auschwitz (Oswiecim), which is difficult and depressing and necessary. But that for another time.
Since they love bookstores as much as I do, we went to the only primarily English-language store in this part, if not the whole of, Poland, Massolit Books (ul. Felicjanek, Krakow). If I have anything approaching a religion, it is worship of the written word, and while it's a great bookstore in its own right and in any country, as an English-speaker abroad, the sheer volume literally brought on the agony and the ecstasy. Ecstasy at the sight of so many good books, agony at the knowledge that I could only take a few home with me.
I had heard of this place from my friend Patrick, and had deliberately avoided it on all my previous visits to Krakow. Money was tight for a long time, and I knew I would spend far more than I could afford. So this was my first time, and it was all I could have asked for, and more.
Firstly, they sell (and of course, buy) used books. I love the smell and feel of old books, the sense of history and travel and adventure that clings to their pages, coffee stains, sun-yellowed edges, odd underlinings and margin notes. It reassures me that reading is not a solitary experience--I always imagine the prior owner(s) and where they were, who they were, what they thought, etc. And while we will never meet, we share these words. Just beautiful.
Second, it's everything a bookstore should be. None of those sterile, upmarket shelves like a Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Empik (the Polish equivalent), all of them matching each other and the paint and the carpet and the professional signs; no piles of Dan Brown or Danielle Steele or whatever Washington insider's tell-all that lots of people will buy but just read the NYTimes Book Review article is current this week. No, Massolit is one of that vanishing breed: old, creaky, somewhat unstable shelves arranged in too small a space, hand-lettered signs thumb-tacked to the edges; a small cafe of three tables and five chairs, serviced by a two-group espresso machine, a small selection of bagels and a studious-looking cashier/server/doctoral candidate. All of it crammed into a warren of rooms connected by hallways narrowed by more shelves, flyers and posters for local events, apartments and zines. Backstock is stacked on the floor or on top of the shelves, adding to the undercurrent of tension whenever you pull a book out. Old, well-loved, saggy armchairs and sofas. You know the place. You feel at home here.
And thirdly, selection. They have good buyers at Massolit. Something on everything, and everybody can find something. Politics, sociology, history, a surprisingly large children's section (featuring an illustrated treasury of Roald Dahl that caused physical pain to leave behind), contemporary and classical fiction, science fiction and poetry, mysteries and literary criticism, all of it.
Finally, price. A mass-market paperback in English (usually of the Brown/Steele/Grisham variety) averages 50zl (about 20US) at Empik. Trade editions of good books are 20-24zl at Massolit. I really almost started crying.
Needless to say, I still spent too much, yet came away feeling I should have gotten more. This gets me to what I wanted to say here. Among my treasures was a collection of essays by Stanislaw Baranczak, a literary critic in exile during the 80s. I haven't been able to read many Polish writers, as most bookstores (strangely enough) only carry their works in Polish. These essays are from that turbulent, eventful, and very important period of change, not just in Poland, but across Eastern Europe. In one of them, titled "The New Alrightniks" he quotes a Russian emigre, Vassily Aksyonov. Written in 1987, I found this quote to be still accurate, for both cultures mentioned (expanding the Soviet viewpoint to include all of Eastern Europe, in the same manner that Baranczak used it). Here it is, without further comment from me, but I invite everyone else to offer their thoughts (make sure you click the "comments" link, not the email link).
In the Soviet Union we pictured Americans as "citizens of the world," cosmopolitans; here we find them to be detached, withdrawn, sequestered in their American planet . . . In a closed society like the Soviet Union, public interest . . . is directed outward, while in open, democratic America it is almost wholly inner directed. The outside world interests Americans much less . . . Despite the iron curtain the Soviet Union is in many ways closer to Europe than Europe's closest political and economic partner, America.
Vassily Aksyonov, In Search of Melancholy Baby, 1987
Since they love bookstores as much as I do, we went to the only primarily English-language store in this part, if not the whole of, Poland, Massolit Books (ul. Felicjanek, Krakow). If I have anything approaching a religion, it is worship of the written word, and while it's a great bookstore in its own right and in any country, as an English-speaker abroad, the sheer volume literally brought on the agony and the ecstasy. Ecstasy at the sight of so many good books, agony at the knowledge that I could only take a few home with me.
I had heard of this place from my friend Patrick, and had deliberately avoided it on all my previous visits to Krakow. Money was tight for a long time, and I knew I would spend far more than I could afford. So this was my first time, and it was all I could have asked for, and more.
Firstly, they sell (and of course, buy) used books. I love the smell and feel of old books, the sense of history and travel and adventure that clings to their pages, coffee stains, sun-yellowed edges, odd underlinings and margin notes. It reassures me that reading is not a solitary experience--I always imagine the prior owner(s) and where they were, who they were, what they thought, etc. And while we will never meet, we share these words. Just beautiful.
Second, it's everything a bookstore should be. None of those sterile, upmarket shelves like a Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Empik (the Polish equivalent), all of them matching each other and the paint and the carpet and the professional signs; no piles of Dan Brown or Danielle Steele or whatever Washington insider's tell-all that lots of people will buy but just read the NYTimes Book Review article is current this week. No, Massolit is one of that vanishing breed: old, creaky, somewhat unstable shelves arranged in too small a space, hand-lettered signs thumb-tacked to the edges; a small cafe of three tables and five chairs, serviced by a two-group espresso machine, a small selection of bagels and a studious-looking cashier/server/doctoral candidate. All of it crammed into a warren of rooms connected by hallways narrowed by more shelves, flyers and posters for local events, apartments and zines. Backstock is stacked on the floor or on top of the shelves, adding to the undercurrent of tension whenever you pull a book out. Old, well-loved, saggy armchairs and sofas. You know the place. You feel at home here.
And thirdly, selection. They have good buyers at Massolit. Something on everything, and everybody can find something. Politics, sociology, history, a surprisingly large children's section (featuring an illustrated treasury of Roald Dahl that caused physical pain to leave behind), contemporary and classical fiction, science fiction and poetry, mysteries and literary criticism, all of it.
Finally, price. A mass-market paperback in English (usually of the Brown/Steele/Grisham variety) averages 50zl (about 20US) at Empik. Trade editions of good books are 20-24zl at Massolit. I really almost started crying.
Needless to say, I still spent too much, yet came away feeling I should have gotten more. This gets me to what I wanted to say here. Among my treasures was a collection of essays by Stanislaw Baranczak, a literary critic in exile during the 80s. I haven't been able to read many Polish writers, as most bookstores (strangely enough) only carry their works in Polish. These essays are from that turbulent, eventful, and very important period of change, not just in Poland, but across Eastern Europe. In one of them, titled "The New Alrightniks" he quotes a Russian emigre, Vassily Aksyonov. Written in 1987, I found this quote to be still accurate, for both cultures mentioned (expanding the Soviet viewpoint to include all of Eastern Europe, in the same manner that Baranczak used it). Here it is, without further comment from me, but I invite everyone else to offer their thoughts (make sure you click the "comments" link, not the email link).
In the Soviet Union we pictured Americans as "citizens of the world," cosmopolitans; here we find them to be detached, withdrawn, sequestered in their American planet . . . In a closed society like the Soviet Union, public interest . . . is directed outward, while in open, democratic America it is almost wholly inner directed. The outside world interests Americans much less . . . Despite the iron curtain the Soviet Union is in many ways closer to Europe than Europe's closest political and economic partner, America.
Vassily Aksyonov, In Search of Melancholy Baby, 1987
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
"--------," Tom said wordlessly.
People always ask me, "How do you get by? How do you communicate, how do you buy things, how do you live, if you can't speak Polish?" I usually tell them, somewhat defensively I admit, that by now I've mastered a great deal of vocabulary, foods, numbers, nouns, general phrases, etc., and even if I cannot precisely converse in Polish, neither am I totally ignorant of it. And this is indeed true. I also readily confess to relying on the kindness of strangers to be patient with the stupid American who doesn't understand things like, "You have to fill out this form," or "I'll bring it to your table," or "Has the 805 bus come yet?" Well, sometimes they help me, and sometimes I figure out what they said after they've given up trying to make me understand, but it all works out. However, what I've really been learning here is how little we actually need language for a lot of everyday encounters.
Don't get me wrong; I love language and have spent most of my life playing with it, poking at it, stretching and bending it in different ways. I believe it to be the single most important feature of humanity, the very essence of what makes us human, and precision in language, or lack thereof, one of the most consequential acts we can perform. There's many good reasons why peace treaties and trade negotiations break down over prepositions and commas, why some people perenially attempt to ban certain books and media, why Shakespeare continues to astonish and fascinate us hundreds of years after his death. Words have power, and well-chosen words can move us in any direction, to any purpose, which is why we must learn them and think carefully about what we say.
But not always, I'm learning. And not even most of the time. In fact, it seems, true comprehension of language is unnecessary surprisingly often.
An illustration: walking home from work the other day, I stopped at the crosswalk just before my block, where ul. Jagiellonska Ts into ul. Ostrogorska. It has a stoplight, and walk signals, since those cars turning from Ostrogorska onto Jagiellonska need to know when pedestrians will be in the crosswalk. These streets are only moderately busy: regular traffic, but high volume only during the evening rush hour when people are trying to get to Myslowice, the next town over. As I stood at the corner, waiting for the light, an older gentleman, shortish, slim, blue jeans jacket and tanned skin, arrived at the corner opposite. We stood there, not making eye contact, but looking at the other person as you are bound to do in these situations where you end up facing someone, as on the bus or train, waiting. The light changed, allowing the one car on Jagiellonska to move between us and turn onto Ostrogorska toward the center of Sosnowiec. Our walk light had not come on yet (actually, it wasn't going to; it has been broken for a week, but the beeping noise it makes for the blind or absentminded still worked), both of us looked both ways at the quiet streets, shrugged, and began to cross. As we passed, he looked me in the eye, grinned, spoke, and we both laughed.
Now, I have no idea what he said, precisely. Partly because of my Polish, partly because it was short and fast, and partly because he kind of mumbled. But it didn't matter. Not at all. What he said to me was quite clearly on the order of "What the hell, right?" Although likely a bit more polite than that. The point being that we both understood the situation, the ridiculousness of standing on a street corner in a residential neighborhood waiting for a light when the only car around had just disappeared heading away from us. It's a 50 zl fine for jaywalking, but were we really going to get busted here? No.
And this is what happens to me all the time, every day. I can't catch the actual words, but I find I don't need to. Someone asks the time and I tell them, not because I understood the words (though I can) but because it's obvious. Someone on the street asks me for money and I know what they want. Maybe I catch just one word in ten, but the other nine aren't truly needed, like when I'm ordering pizza, and they ask me if I want extra sauce. I only hear "sos" (sauce), and I know. And at work, in case any students read this, it's completely unnecessary to know Polish to be able to tell when you're talking about the lesson or gossiping about computer games or friends or whatnot. Believe me, I always know.
Of course there are many other situations that call for much more specific language skills, and then I go back to relying on friends and kind strangers. And dziekuje bardzo to all of them. But in answer to the question, "How do you live, how do you survive here, not knowing Polish?" I can honestly answer: "Quite well, thank you."
Don't get me wrong; I love language and have spent most of my life playing with it, poking at it, stretching and bending it in different ways. I believe it to be the single most important feature of humanity, the very essence of what makes us human, and precision in language, or lack thereof, one of the most consequential acts we can perform. There's many good reasons why peace treaties and trade negotiations break down over prepositions and commas, why some people perenially attempt to ban certain books and media, why Shakespeare continues to astonish and fascinate us hundreds of years after his death. Words have power, and well-chosen words can move us in any direction, to any purpose, which is why we must learn them and think carefully about what we say.
But not always, I'm learning. And not even most of the time. In fact, it seems, true comprehension of language is unnecessary surprisingly often.
An illustration: walking home from work the other day, I stopped at the crosswalk just before my block, where ul. Jagiellonska Ts into ul. Ostrogorska. It has a stoplight, and walk signals, since those cars turning from Ostrogorska onto Jagiellonska need to know when pedestrians will be in the crosswalk. These streets are only moderately busy: regular traffic, but high volume only during the evening rush hour when people are trying to get to Myslowice, the next town over. As I stood at the corner, waiting for the light, an older gentleman, shortish, slim, blue jeans jacket and tanned skin, arrived at the corner opposite. We stood there, not making eye contact, but looking at the other person as you are bound to do in these situations where you end up facing someone, as on the bus or train, waiting. The light changed, allowing the one car on Jagiellonska to move between us and turn onto Ostrogorska toward the center of Sosnowiec. Our walk light had not come on yet (actually, it wasn't going to; it has been broken for a week, but the beeping noise it makes for the blind or absentminded still worked), both of us looked both ways at the quiet streets, shrugged, and began to cross. As we passed, he looked me in the eye, grinned, spoke, and we both laughed.
Now, I have no idea what he said, precisely. Partly because of my Polish, partly because it was short and fast, and partly because he kind of mumbled. But it didn't matter. Not at all. What he said to me was quite clearly on the order of "What the hell, right?" Although likely a bit more polite than that. The point being that we both understood the situation, the ridiculousness of standing on a street corner in a residential neighborhood waiting for a light when the only car around had just disappeared heading away from us. It's a 50 zl fine for jaywalking, but were we really going to get busted here? No.
And this is what happens to me all the time, every day. I can't catch the actual words, but I find I don't need to. Someone asks the time and I tell them, not because I understood the words (though I can) but because it's obvious. Someone on the street asks me for money and I know what they want. Maybe I catch just one word in ten, but the other nine aren't truly needed, like when I'm ordering pizza, and they ask me if I want extra sauce. I only hear "sos" (sauce), and I know. And at work, in case any students read this, it's completely unnecessary to know Polish to be able to tell when you're talking about the lesson or gossiping about computer games or friends or whatnot. Believe me, I always know.
Of course there are many other situations that call for much more specific language skills, and then I go back to relying on friends and kind strangers. And dziekuje bardzo to all of them. But in answer to the question, "How do you live, how do you survive here, not knowing Polish?" I can honestly answer: "Quite well, thank you."
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Movies, Manners, and McClane
So, yeah, I know, it's been a long time since I last posted, which may mean no one is reading anymore. I'd love to say that I've been doing wild, crazy and exciting things, having adventures and escapades throughout Poland, and that this post will be a compelling account of travels and travails this past month.
But I can't.
I have no better excuse than sheer laziness.
Ok, the first week or so it was the end of the year rush, turning in books, writing evaluations, riding the bus between two cities and three jobs, etc. But then most of that finished, leaving me with only my summer job and a vastly reduced work schedule. LOTS of time to be creative and post something. All I can say is that it's summer, long days and warm nights, better for reading fluff fiction and hanging out on the patelnia than for blogging.
I've seen some movies, which I haven't done for a very long time (ever since my first job at a movie theater lo those many years ago, I kinda resent having to pay, though I do eat popcorn again now). The last one I saw was Die Hard 4.0, which is translated into Polish as The Glass Trap. I don't know if you've seen any or all of them, but the first one was set in a high-rise office building taken over by terrorists. For that one, the title made sense. But to stick with it for all the others? What about Die Harder, which takes place all over New York? Anyway, the strangest thing for me was not the titles, but the seating. In Polish theaters, when you buy your tickets, you are assigned seats, as if it was a play or opera or whatever. This does make a certain amount of sense when it's busy, and any American who's ever come late with three other people and tried to find four seats together in a dark, crowded theater will appreciate the system, but I saw Die Hard 4.0 on a Sunday matinee. Apparently, this is not a popular time to go see movies here (totally unlike the U.S.). When we came in, mere minutes before the start, there were only two other people there, in a fairly large theater. About two-thirds up from the screen, dead-center, great seats. As we looked for our own seats, it quickly became clear that we had been assigned the ones directly in front of the couple.
This is the point where our cultures clashed. My Polish friends went straight to their seats without pause or thought; these were the ones they got, no problem. In the U.S. however, if you were in this same situation, you would choose seats at least a row or two away, and the hell with what it said on your ticket. To give each other some space, a little distance, if for no other reason than so the other people can't hear the snide comments you're going to make about the movie. But this was evidently not something my friends noticed or minded, nor a consideration of the girl in the box office who gave us these seats, so, since no one else came in, there we sat, just the five of us, bunched together in the middle of a 300 seat theater.
And in any case, after the first explosion, approximately 90 seconds into the movie, I stopped thinking about it. I do love it when they blow stuff up.
But I can't.
I have no better excuse than sheer laziness.
Ok, the first week or so it was the end of the year rush, turning in books, writing evaluations, riding the bus between two cities and three jobs, etc. But then most of that finished, leaving me with only my summer job and a vastly reduced work schedule. LOTS of time to be creative and post something. All I can say is that it's summer, long days and warm nights, better for reading fluff fiction and hanging out on the patelnia than for blogging.
I've seen some movies, which I haven't done for a very long time (ever since my first job at a movie theater lo those many years ago, I kinda resent having to pay, though I do eat popcorn again now). The last one I saw was Die Hard 4.0, which is translated into Polish as The Glass Trap. I don't know if you've seen any or all of them, but the first one was set in a high-rise office building taken over by terrorists. For that one, the title made sense. But to stick with it for all the others? What about Die Harder, which takes place all over New York? Anyway, the strangest thing for me was not the titles, but the seating. In Polish theaters, when you buy your tickets, you are assigned seats, as if it was a play or opera or whatever. This does make a certain amount of sense when it's busy, and any American who's ever come late with three other people and tried to find four seats together in a dark, crowded theater will appreciate the system, but I saw Die Hard 4.0 on a Sunday matinee. Apparently, this is not a popular time to go see movies here (totally unlike the U.S.). When we came in, mere minutes before the start, there were only two other people there, in a fairly large theater. About two-thirds up from the screen, dead-center, great seats. As we looked for our own seats, it quickly became clear that we had been assigned the ones directly in front of the couple.
This is the point where our cultures clashed. My Polish friends went straight to their seats without pause or thought; these were the ones they got, no problem. In the U.S. however, if you were in this same situation, you would choose seats at least a row or two away, and the hell with what it said on your ticket. To give each other some space, a little distance, if for no other reason than so the other people can't hear the snide comments you're going to make about the movie. But this was evidently not something my friends noticed or minded, nor a consideration of the girl in the box office who gave us these seats, so, since no one else came in, there we sat, just the five of us, bunched together in the middle of a 300 seat theater.
And in any case, after the first explosion, approximately 90 seconds into the movie, I stopped thinking about it. I do love it when they blow stuff up.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Balderdash
End of the year, exams and evaluations and such, but also more relaxed in some ways. We're here at the end, not a whole lot that can really be done in the time we have, and for a few of my groups, we've finished the books (read: I skipped the last few terminally boring reading and listening exercises. And I do mean terminal; you literally feel your pulse slowing down and your brain begins to enter a comatose state and they finish just when you notice a bright light that hadn't been there before), so we get to have some fun.
One of my favorite games is based on Balderdash, a variation of which is played on the most excellent radio program, Says You! I divide the class into teams of two or three, give each team a dictionary, tell them to choose five words they think nobody knows and write two definitions in their own words: one false and one true. When everyone is done, they take turns reading their words and definitions, and the other teams try to decide which one is true. There are several reasons why I like this game: one, they get to learn some interesting and random vocabulary that might not come up in a regular lesson (a sample of some of their choices: scampi, twit, vest, wiggle, niggle, plank, germ, amalgamate, arid); two, it's a creative exercise, thinking of plausible definitions and writing them convincingly in English; and three, they really have to think about the words, how they sound, how they are constructed, how they relate to their meanings. I love wordplay myself, and English is a great language for it.
Some of the definitions were just wonderful, and demonstrated real thought and consideration. Here's a few, as written by my students, unedited:
gulp: 1. drink without stop. 2. water dripping from the roof. (Going with the onomatopoeia)
backlog: 1. something you didn't do but you had to 2. escape from the program. (Just great, relating the word to the phrasal verb "log in")
creak: 1. the noise cosed (sic) by old furniture. 2. the narrow small river (I especially love this for its deviousness, using the definition of the homonym).
silt: 1. an animal covered with silver skin spending most of his life on the bottom of river. 2. sand or mud which remains after river flows slowly.
armpit: 1. the opening in a piece of clothing where your arm goes through. 2. the part of the body under the arm at the point where it joins the shoulder.
A few words garnered clean sweeps, fooling everybody. One was ascent, defined as "climb on the rock" and "confirmation which you get from the post office." Another was merry, which surprised me. After all, this was a fairly advanced group, who should all know "Merry Christmas." Yet, the definition that took them all in was, "it's a kind of drink made from beer and juice and whisky, and it's served in Italy." While you have to admire the creativity of the writers, it does maybe reflect poorly on me as a teacher that the rest of the class believed it. Nevertheless, we all had a good time, and that's the important part.
One of my favorite games is based on Balderdash, a variation of which is played on the most excellent radio program, Says You! I divide the class into teams of two or three, give each team a dictionary, tell them to choose five words they think nobody knows and write two definitions in their own words: one false and one true. When everyone is done, they take turns reading their words and definitions, and the other teams try to decide which one is true. There are several reasons why I like this game: one, they get to learn some interesting and random vocabulary that might not come up in a regular lesson (a sample of some of their choices: scampi, twit, vest, wiggle, niggle, plank, germ, amalgamate, arid); two, it's a creative exercise, thinking of plausible definitions and writing them convincingly in English; and three, they really have to think about the words, how they sound, how they are constructed, how they relate to their meanings. I love wordplay myself, and English is a great language for it.
Some of the definitions were just wonderful, and demonstrated real thought and consideration. Here's a few, as written by my students, unedited:
gulp: 1. drink without stop. 2. water dripping from the roof. (Going with the onomatopoeia)
backlog: 1. something you didn't do but you had to 2. escape from the program. (Just great, relating the word to the phrasal verb "log in")
creak: 1. the noise cosed (sic) by old furniture. 2. the narrow small river (I especially love this for its deviousness, using the definition of the homonym).
silt: 1. an animal covered with silver skin spending most of his life on the bottom of river. 2. sand or mud which remains after river flows slowly.
armpit: 1. the opening in a piece of clothing where your arm goes through. 2. the part of the body under the arm at the point where it joins the shoulder.
A few words garnered clean sweeps, fooling everybody. One was ascent, defined as "climb on the rock" and "confirmation which you get from the post office." Another was merry, which surprised me. After all, this was a fairly advanced group, who should all know "Merry Christmas." Yet, the definition that took them all in was, "it's a kind of drink made from beer and juice and whisky, and it's served in Italy." While you have to admire the creativity of the writers, it does maybe reflect poorly on me as a teacher that the rest of the class believed it. Nevertheless, we all had a good time, and that's the important part.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Past Party-ciple
Profi-Lingua has annual end-of-the-year parties, although not actually at the end of the year, but the week before our exams start, during the time high schools and universities have their exams, and generally during the week, so despite fairly high enrollment, the parties are relatively sparsely attended. Between the two schools I teach at, in Sosnowiec and Katowice, I have somewhere around 130 students. While about 30 or 40 of those are underage teenagers, that still leaves close to 100 who could attend, and of those, I saw maybe 15 this week between the two parties. Nevertheless, they are fun, and a nice event to have. I do try to meet some of the older groups outside of class during the year, but this is a good time to do so.
The Sosnowiec party (on Monday, for crying out loud) was pleasant, actually almost intimate, given the number of people there. I got to see some of my former students from last year, though none of them, current or former, would participate in the little competitions they had (translating a word and using it in a sentence, saying something nice about Profi, etc. Not really competitions, as everyone who participated got a prize.), but I had great conversations.
But I really had a good time at the Katowice party. A beautiful, late spring evening, and although a Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday (Corpus Christi) so people were out and about, gathered at the tables on the patelnia or bunched in noisy groups along the street. Walking to the bus stop I ran into three of my students, one of whom, Pawel, tipped me off that it was better to take a tram to the club than the bus, for which I will be eternally grateful. I go to Katowice several times a week, and always take a bus, as they are faster, and in the case of the private line "D" bus, significantly cheaper, but this club, Poziom3, was in a part of Katowice I hadn't been to before and my plan was to take a bus as close as I could get and figure the rest out after. However, for those in the know, tram no. 15 went almost right to the door, and left Sosnowiec from the same place as the bus. Who knew?
And it was that tram ride that was almost the best part of the night. The bus routes run on the freeway between the two cities, past strip malls, chain stores, gas stations, McDonald's, car dealerships, etc., typical urban detritus, washed up by tides of zoning, taxes, and convenience. Not the most picturesque trip I've ever taken. But the tram route winds through leafy residential streets as it leaves Sosnowiec, and three stops from the center passes a lovely little lake, over which the sunset was throwing soft, pale reds. I didn't even know the lake was there, and it was just so beautiful and unexpected, it made the successive industrial parks we passed through much more bearable.
Of course, I didn't know where I was going, or what my destination looked like, or exactly how long it would take, so I was a little nervous. I'd counted the stops on the schedule at the stop, 14, and Pawel had told me the name of the stop, Akademia Ekonomiczna (someone Polish correct my spelling, please), but it's actually rather difficult to count that many stops. Up to three or four is ok, but then you start second-guessing yourself: did I count that last one? was that 8 or 9? did I miss one, thinking it was a stoplight instead? But it was all good as the one and only stop that had a sign was, yes, Akademia Ekonomiczna. This is a rare event in Poland.
The club itself was fairly big, several floors, booths and tables, dance floor, but the best part was the back patio, which has its own little tiki bar, with sand piled up around the edges and possibly-fake potted palms embedded in it. This is where I spent the majority of the evening, talking mostly with my fellow teachers and my own students who had turned up, but trying my Polish on some of the German students, shying away from the Spanish native speaker (I'd picked up a lot in Spain, but not enough for actual conversation), regretfully refusing to dance (I'd reaggravated my lower back problem a few days before, which no one actually believed, but oh well.). Late in the night, or early in the morning, after having some sort of religious discussion with one teacher, and having another yelling wetly in my face about some basketball achievement (LeBron James in the NBA playoffs, a performance I'd heard about, but after a few minutes I could no longer tell if he was still (literally) gushing about him or M.J.), I slipped out, very happy, instantly caught the night bus, found an open take-out hamburger place in Sosnowiec, and crashed out contentedly around 4 a.m. But it was that unexpected lake and glorious sunset that I think about now, and I plan to spend some part of my summer taking random buses and trams to see where I end up. So, thanks again, Pawel. I appreciate the tip.
The Sosnowiec party (on Monday, for crying out loud) was pleasant, actually almost intimate, given the number of people there. I got to see some of my former students from last year, though none of them, current or former, would participate in the little competitions they had (translating a word and using it in a sentence, saying something nice about Profi, etc. Not really competitions, as everyone who participated got a prize.), but I had great conversations.
But I really had a good time at the Katowice party. A beautiful, late spring evening, and although a Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday (Corpus Christi) so people were out and about, gathered at the tables on the patelnia or bunched in noisy groups along the street. Walking to the bus stop I ran into three of my students, one of whom, Pawel, tipped me off that it was better to take a tram to the club than the bus, for which I will be eternally grateful. I go to Katowice several times a week, and always take a bus, as they are faster, and in the case of the private line "D" bus, significantly cheaper, but this club, Poziom3, was in a part of Katowice I hadn't been to before and my plan was to take a bus as close as I could get and figure the rest out after. However, for those in the know, tram no. 15 went almost right to the door, and left Sosnowiec from the same place as the bus. Who knew?
And it was that tram ride that was almost the best part of the night. The bus routes run on the freeway between the two cities, past strip malls, chain stores, gas stations, McDonald's, car dealerships, etc., typical urban detritus, washed up by tides of zoning, taxes, and convenience. Not the most picturesque trip I've ever taken. But the tram route winds through leafy residential streets as it leaves Sosnowiec, and three stops from the center passes a lovely little lake, over which the sunset was throwing soft, pale reds. I didn't even know the lake was there, and it was just so beautiful and unexpected, it made the successive industrial parks we passed through much more bearable.
Of course, I didn't know where I was going, or what my destination looked like, or exactly how long it would take, so I was a little nervous. I'd counted the stops on the schedule at the stop, 14, and Pawel had told me the name of the stop, Akademia Ekonomiczna (someone Polish correct my spelling, please), but it's actually rather difficult to count that many stops. Up to three or four is ok, but then you start second-guessing yourself: did I count that last one? was that 8 or 9? did I miss one, thinking it was a stoplight instead? But it was all good as the one and only stop that had a sign was, yes, Akademia Ekonomiczna. This is a rare event in Poland.
The club itself was fairly big, several floors, booths and tables, dance floor, but the best part was the back patio, which has its own little tiki bar, with sand piled up around the edges and possibly-fake potted palms embedded in it. This is where I spent the majority of the evening, talking mostly with my fellow teachers and my own students who had turned up, but trying my Polish on some of the German students, shying away from the Spanish native speaker (I'd picked up a lot in Spain, but not enough for actual conversation), regretfully refusing to dance (I'd reaggravated my lower back problem a few days before, which no one actually believed, but oh well.). Late in the night, or early in the morning, after having some sort of religious discussion with one teacher, and having another yelling wetly in my face about some basketball achievement (LeBron James in the NBA playoffs, a performance I'd heard about, but after a few minutes I could no longer tell if he was still (literally) gushing about him or M.J.), I slipped out, very happy, instantly caught the night bus, found an open take-out hamburger place in Sosnowiec, and crashed out contentedly around 4 a.m. But it was that unexpected lake and glorious sunset that I think about now, and I plan to spend some part of my summer taking random buses and trams to see where I end up. So, thanks again, Pawel. I appreciate the tip.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Impending summer
Ah, June. School is coming to a close, the air is warm and soft, teenagers get especially restless, and anticipation is mixed with dread as exams loom on the calendar. I remember this feeling so well from my time as a student, and it's a bit odd to be back inside it as a teacher. Exams for me now are not something to worry about, but something to administer (though there is a touch of dread, as I do the speaking exams, and it can be somewhat tedious to sit and listen for hours every day and maintain interest. Nevertheless, if any of my students do read this, I am paying attention, I swear.), my hormone levels settled down a while ago, and summer is not the unrestrained freedom it used to be.
But there is that sense of ending, mingled relief and regret, bittersweet and delicious. I will have more time to myself this summer, to do some traveling, but I will miss many of my students, and while I may see some next year, there's no guarantee. The pubs and cafes have put tables outside again, so I can sit in the sun with a coffee or beer, one of the things I most enjoy about Europe, but my friend and conversational companion, Patrick, is returning to the US in a few weeks, so who will I sit with? Back home, my family is celebrating a wedding and saying goodbye to my grandfather. Politically the primaries are moving into high gear and Bush is making farewell gestures already.
Nonetheless, I will think about the good stuff. Like wearing my Hawaiian shirts in appropriate weather again. (I wear them all through the winter, but I get more looks then.) Sandals, instead of boots or shoes. Open windows and late sunsets. Summer thunderstorms and hot, lazy Sunday afternoons. The near-weightless feeling of my bag without textbooks and photocopied exercises. Adventures to be had, history to be discovered, new friends to make. It's a good month, June.
But there is that sense of ending, mingled relief and regret, bittersweet and delicious. I will have more time to myself this summer, to do some traveling, but I will miss many of my students, and while I may see some next year, there's no guarantee. The pubs and cafes have put tables outside again, so I can sit in the sun with a coffee or beer, one of the things I most enjoy about Europe, but my friend and conversational companion, Patrick, is returning to the US in a few weeks, so who will I sit with? Back home, my family is celebrating a wedding and saying goodbye to my grandfather. Politically the primaries are moving into high gear and Bush is making farewell gestures already.
Nonetheless, I will think about the good stuff. Like wearing my Hawaiian shirts in appropriate weather again. (I wear them all through the winter, but I get more looks then.) Sandals, instead of boots or shoes. Open windows and late sunsets. Summer thunderstorms and hot, lazy Sunday afternoons. The near-weightless feeling of my bag without textbooks and photocopied exercises. Adventures to be had, history to be discovered, new friends to make. It's a good month, June.
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