In this photo I am celebrating my first birthday! You can see me about to consume that little cake, or rather already doing so... This photo was taken at my great-grandmother's place where we used to live until the building of our new house was completed. I don't remember a lot of my living there since I was about three years of age when we moved out, but whenever I visit my first home, my parents tell me about those early days back there.
I would like to
write about the persecution of African Americans in the United States by the
members of Ku Klux Klan. There were numerous brutal acts of murder performed by
those extremely racist degenerates.
If I had the power to turn back time and change
the history of the world, I would definitely help the African-Americans who
have been persecuted for so many years. In the past, the actions of the Ku Klux
Klan did an enormous load of evil to those innocent people, fighting to have
the “alleged” inalienable right to live. I would create some kind of board of
politicians (not excluding African-American ones), who would present the
problem objectively to the federal government so that they had a clear picture
of what had been going on and how cruelly many lives had been taken. Those
elected politicians’ task would be to fight for human rights of the racial
minority and create them decent living conditions, in a world where no black
person would dread to go out late at night, go to the polls or have to give up
their seat on a bus for a white person. I
would definitely support Martin Luther King and his struggle for creating a
better life for all African Americans. Below you can watch the renowned speech
by this American clergyman, which he delivered on August 28, 1963 at the
Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
Helping those
people would be an essential thing to do if I somehow managed to change the
course of events over the years, because their desperate plight, although not
so physically cruel as it used to be, seems to continue and appears in many
areas of our lives.
When I first heard The Calm Blue Sea I was left speechless and stunned and it was in the July of 2011. Now, almost a year after I don't seem to be any less speechless or stunned by this Texas band. It is thanks to NPR that I got the chance to hear them because of the weekly series on NPR Music called First Listen: Album Previews where they present some new records that get their release during the following week or so, and one of those records was a self-titled debut album by The Calm Blue Sea. This Austin, TX - based band's music can be vaguely described as post-rock, but in reality there is much more to it, and it doesn't get any clearer unless you listen to it yourself which I strongly recommend.
The Calm Blue Sea are Stephen Bidwell (drums), Chris Patin (guitar), Kyle Robarge, and Taylor Wilkins. The band originated in 2008, with the release of 6-track EP, but at that time nobody outside their hometown of Austin had heard about them. They came back last year with a full album featuring remastered songs from the EP and 2 brand new tracks released under Modern Outsider, an independent record label from Austin.
As far as their music style goes, some people compare The Calm Blue Sea to such bands as Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai. There is some similarity indeed, but in my opinion the sound of TCBL is the rawest and the most uncontrollable and this makes them so special. Their songs are known for being guitar-driven mostly instrumental epics with the pattern that goes like quiet-loud-louder-quiet in order to have its grand finale and burst out and end on a quiet note again. This is definitely the kind of music that is to be listened to at full volume.
The band is even better live, from what I can say watching videos. I hope to see them someday, and apparently it doesn't seem so faraway, as I have heard that they are going to tour Europe this year and Poland may be included in their gig schedule. In a couple of days, on March 14, they are playing South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX.
Below, you can watch 2 clips. The first one is a studio version of "We Happy Few" and the other one is a live version of "Literal". You can listen to the entire album for free at the Calm Blue Sea official website
The following post is a reply to an article published in The Observer, concerned with the issue of knowing more than one language. In my opinion, people who know more than one language are better prepared to interact in world that surrounds us, are more sensitive to other people's needs and views, can express their opinions in many more ways and finally are able to communicate with foreigners effortlessly. For those reasons, knowing another language is a blessing and a great privilege. Apart from all those aforementioned arguments, concerning largely the emotional aspect of our personalities, knowing a second langauge also opens many gates as far as material matters go, e.g. it helps get a better job or simply score better grades at school ;-)
According to linguists specializing in second language acquisition, multilingualism is the norm, while monolingualism is an exception. An interesting fact is that, about a half of the global population know and use more than one language in their daily life. While there are almost 7,000 languages in the world, there are only over 200 countries where they are spoken.
Since the topic of this blog is the American South, I think it is worth mentioning that many people who live in the state of Louisiana know both English and French, for the state used to be the French colony in the past.
In my opinion the idea of ceasing to teach foreign languages in British schools is just ridiculous. Even though English has become lingua franca and everyone in the world is more likely expected to communicate in English than in his or her mother tongue, I think that learning a language takes much more than just this.This is an invaluable muscle training for our brain and gray cells. Hence, even though British students already know English, I think they should definitely know at least one other language. If not out of personal satisfaction or willingness to communicate better with those who do not know English, then just out of politeness towards those who learn their mother tongue as well.
Hello everybody! This blog is devoted to a very broad topic, namely the American South. I decided to blog about the American South, also known as Dixie, because apart from my general interest in the whole United States, this region is especially interesting to me. Here, I wish to write about the geography, cuisine, history and language of the South. In addition, I would like to present some movies, music and books which bring up the topic of the American South. Let's get started, then!
In the first post I would like to share with you, one of my favorite movies, which is "Mississippi Burning". The movie brings up the disgraceful issue of slavery and racism, which had its germ down there in the South. It tells the story of two FBI agents carrying out investigation into mysterious and cruel murdery of some of human rights' activists. Great performance by Gene Hackman and one of my favorite actresses ever - Frances McDormand. Truly recommend the movie and as a preview you can watch the trailer below ;-)
