Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A must read

Here is an article you MUST read from the New York Times. It's a mystery, combining my favorite topics: war criminals and gynecological anomalies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/world/americas/23twins.html?_r=2

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Worst day to be away from home...

... Oscar Day. Long my favorite day of the year. And now this, my second rainy Sunday in February away from the action. Sure, they play the Oscars here on ProSieben (channel 7, also the home of Germany's Next Top Model) but they start at 1 a.m. with red carpet, 2 a.m. with the awards. And some of us have to work on Mondays.

Thankfully, since "Milk" opened here this weekend, I was able to see all the major nominated films. I hope "Slumdog" wins and Penelope Cruz for "Vicky Christina Barcelona." I do NOT think Heath Ledger should win over Philip Seymour Hoffman and I have very mixed feelings about Kate Winslet winning for "The Reader." That role was such a land mine to talk about if you live in Germany....

Other than those picks, the only movie I can say got the short end of the stick this year was "Frost/Nixon." It should have been a blockbuster (oddly enough, it is here in Germany, playing at all major Kinos). Frank Langella was awesome, and for adding shades of gray to a historical figure and playing against type, he beats Sean Penn.

I wonder sometimes why I like these awards so much. I am an avid movie-goer, but others like me have long claimed the ceremony doesn't hold water. Why too, in such bleak financial times do I feel bad for millionaire actors when they don't win? The obvious answer would have to be escapism or something like that. But I think it has more to do with the fact that the awards remind me of my home, my basement and the one Sunday night in the school year that didn't give me the blues.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Roses are red

I decided to liven up some classes this week by doing a unit on Valentine's poetry. Valentine's day isn't really celebrated here in Deutschland. This is because Germans are admittedly very unromantic and non-sentimental. It is also because, as wikipedia just told me, the Brits really started this holiday which became greeting card-ified by us Amis in the 1840s. Did you know 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are sent out each year? And that's not including e-cards!

So I made cookies for my students, bought some red paper and glue sticks and wrote the following on the board:

"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
any words you guys want,
any words you guys want, you."

You would have thought I asked them to write a sonnet or a dactyl or a ballad. They looked at me with a mixture of distrust and defeat. I pleaded, "No, really guys, it's fun and easy, you don't even have to make them sweet or romantic, they can be goofy and funny!" After 10 awkward minutes of scribbling and sighing, this is what I got, verbatim:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
My coffee is hot,
When I think about you.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I hate when Stephanie makes us write or do homework,
don't you?

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Someone killed my dog,
I hope it wasn't you.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
When you say someone is 'blue' in German it means they are drunk.
___________ you.


This type of exercise was clearly rejected by my students. Why? Because it is inefficient and doesn't teach them anything that's immediate. But it teaches me a lot. Like the fact that my students are freaks.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Longest German word ever

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz


I don't know what it means. But it has something to do with beef laws.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Weekend of Presidential impersonators

E and I saw "W." and "Frost/Nixon" this weekend. The later was by far the superior movie. My folks saw it a few days ago and said it was a surprising must see, and the trusty Turm Palast was showing it on the back screen, screen 6, where mice chew on red velvet seat cushions and two large columns obstruct the view of 60% of the audience members. But hey, it's in English.*

Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost, and my new fav. actor, I think. He was a better Tony Blair than Tony Blair in "The Queen") were both so impressive, and the pace of the film clipped along. At under 2 hours, it was a rare feat for modern movie going.

2008 seemed to be the year of the political impersonation. We had the ubiquitous Fey/Palin gag, and now these two movies which, while both entertaining, could not be more different in the way they handle unpopular presidents.

In Oliver Stone's "W." Josh Brolin is all youtubey one-liners and drawled grimaces. He's a cartoon character. We hear the lines that have become so stale in the last 8 years "Fool me once... won't get fooled again," "I'm the Decider," etc. The movie intersperses Bush's biography with scenes of debate and power point maps in his cabinet room in the weeks leading up to the Iraq invasion. It ends right after the "Mission Accomplished" bit. Nothing is nuanced, everything is bold-colored and comic and centered around the simplistic Bush I- Bush II relationship. We're supposed to believe that the last 8 years happened because Bush I loved Jeb more and thought he would be president, and Bush II was merely trying to get his love and attention.

What's interesting is that most of "W."'s content is unseen and imagined by Stone. But it all feels like it has been done before, in fact, I couldn't help but think my students, or anyone who's picked up a newspaper recently, could have plotted this thing. It showed us nothing new.

So it's interesting, and a testament to Ron Howard, that "Frost/Nixon"'s subject matter is actually real and well-documented. You can youtube these interviews and very little of what's on the screen is a "big reveal." But the viewer gets so much more out of the story and sees Nixon not as a caricature but as a deeply flawed man who, fundamentally, believed that "it wasn't illegal if the president did it." Langella doesn't play him as crook or misunderstood victim or even delusional old guy. Instead he plays him as a person, and hearing him speak his words opens up history and allows the viewer to step in.

* In Germany they dub all movies into German. You have to go to an OV "original version" theater to see American films in their intended language.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Groundhog Day!

Happy February, and happy Groundhog day yesterday!

I am so glad January is over. I seemed to have had a constant mild head cold and frigid fingers and salt-stained pant cuffs throughout the whole month. Now the balmy magic of my birthday month is here, and I say "amen." Today the high is 45 degrees, and we're supposed to get to 50 by the end of the week!!! Call me a MN rube, but this thrills me after a month of the coldest 'Furt temps in the last 12 years.

I am in my last week and a half of winter semester at Uni (WS: Oct-Feb, SS: March-July) so I have been a little busy giving presentations. But not really. I am shocked, after one semester, at how little work the German university requires from its students. I saw a guy in one of my seminars last week who I hadn't seen since November. Students come and go, and are able to audit as many classes they want per semester. Although I think this is nice as it promotes studying in other fields without the risk of a bad grade, it's also problematic as these auditors (who show up less than 50 % of the time) take up registration places. If you are taking a class to get a schein (grade) for your major, you must write a 25-page paper at the end of the semester and give one report. That's it. And to get a grade, you have to hound your professor to give you a piece of paper which you keep track of. There are no report cards! Needless to say the successful students have a LOT of self-initiative.

In other news we are planning a birthday trip to Ireland, namely Galway to visit some friends of Erik. I have never been to Ireland before, so any tips or recommendations would be greatly appreciated from blog readers. We have one full day in Dublin and two days in Galway. It's short, so perhaps just some "must sees."