Try it again:
Welcoming esteemed colleague Skreeder to the blogosphere.
Remember White Rabbit.

Nice pics, by the way.

Trees are poems the earth pens in the sky.
— (my translation) (author forgotten) quote recently layed into the sidewalk under the ancient maple at Albertplatz.

I like the quote, and it sounds so much more elegant in German. But one thing is for sure: maples give off a damn raunchy stench.

But that reminded me. What ever happened to the guy? Don’t you remember? There used to be a freaky guy — a street performance artist, if you will — who used to stand at the crosswalk near the Tree at Albertplatz. He had printed out poetic hack ramblings about atomic energy and money and lifestyle pinned to himself front and back. Later he made a bulky box suit covered with it. He just stood there for hours everyday at the crosswalk and stared at the ground.

Where did he go? I probably haven’t seen him in a year or so. I always liked seeing him around. People like him made our little village look a hell of a lot bigger. Too bad his poetry was utter garbage. Still, I think that cat had his heart in the right place.

Guy with the box and the poems, why are you now?

(more…)

I’ve got the listening comprehension test written. Now, I just need to get a recording of another native speaker other than myself to read it aloud in the microphone.

I found a rastafarian dude from kenya at the park yesterday who said he’ll do it. This test is gonna be irie, mon.

The return of Hairy Otter.

Yesterday, one of my conversation classes at a private school came up with the idea of reading a book together. Some students brought in some English books they had lying ’round. The Great Gatsby (wouldn’t mind reading again) The Catcher in the Rye (oh gawd) 1984 (oh not again) something by Hornsby… But these books would be way to frustrating for these folks… Just the week before, we slogged through a two page article from the Old Farmer’s Almanac about Washington’s teeth. Fascinating, really. I mean, did you know that at the time of his inauguration he only had one tooth left, and the dentures he had made for the occassion used carved hippo ivory as well as real teeth from cadavers? Almanac articles are at any rate light reading meant for perusal on the shitter.

So I thought about the authors I read when I was learning German. Michael Ende was by far my favourite, but who could… Oh, I know.

“Has anyone ever read Harry Potter?” I haven’t, and as it turns out, neither has anyone in that class. And it was settled like that. We’re gonna read a chapter of Potter over the week and talk about it in class.

So I’m getting paid to read Harry Potter. I’m going to have a great flight in July, I bet. God, I love my job.

Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the
sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing.
The slightest reversal would have resulted in a jolt to our prestige
giving rise to all kinds of catastrophe; the problem was not only to
conquer but to conquer again and again, perpetually; our forces would be
drained off in the attempt. - Emperor Hadrian AD 117-138

Hmmm.

Dude. I can’t believe I made an analogy with the anti-open source “fragmenting” argument to the formation of the Roman-Catholic church on Wednesday. Still, you gotta admit that it kind of fits.

That got me to thinking about the presentation in the earlier class. I believe Maya, the CGI industry standard, was mentioned. Now, I’m not sure about this, but I would suspect that the name comes from the Hindu/Buddhist vocabulary, meaning all that tangible stuff that distracts one from true enlightenment. That would be to say, the reality we see — objects, desires, tables and chairs etc — are but shadows that hide existence’s true form.

‘Twould be truly fitting, after all, seeing as Maya creates realistic 3D worlds that are really nothing but the shadows of ones and zeroes.

Vicki sez ow my head.

I should have some more pictures up soon. But not today.

Welcoming esteemed colleague Skreeder to the blogosphere.
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