Happy St. Nikolaustag!

Happy St. Nikolaustag zu alle Kindern in Europa, die es zu feiern!

Ich hoffe, Sie alle waren gut so Krampus und Zwarte Piet nicht einen Auftritt machen. (1)

If you don't know what St. Nikolaustag is, here's some information:

Saint Nicholas (Sint Nikolaus in German) was a 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra (Demre, part of modern-day Turkey) in Lycia. He had a reputation of gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch word Sinterklaas.

The historical Saint Nicholas is remembered and revered amongst Catholic and Orthodox Catholic. Also by some Luthern and Anglican churches. He is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, pawnbrokers and students in various countries of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as parts of Western Europe. St. Nikolaustag is celebrated on 6 December because that was the day he died in 343 B.C. and it's also his feast day.

Here's a link to more Saint Nicholas and Sinterklaas information if you're interested. You can also learn about Krampus and Zwarte Piet (German for Black Pete).:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nikolaus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

(1): German for: Happy St. Nicholas Day to all children in Europe who celebrate it! I hope you all were good so Krampus and Black Pete didn't make an appearance.

"Switcheroo" Analysis - This American Life

Switcherro, from This American Life radio talk show [in Chicago] is about people pretending to be people they're not: sometimes it's harmless, sometimes it's hard to tell. From world-famous artists to mail-order brides, to a practice that could change the face of American journalism (This American Life, Switcherro synapses).

The Prologue
The host, Ira Glass and his friend Etgar Keret visited a Cindy Sherman photography show when a woman claiming to be Cindy Sherman walks up to Etgar. Ira later calls up the real Cindy to tell her about the incident and her view on it.

This act relates to the theme of people pretending to be people they're not, by a personal experience from the host and his friend. A woman pretending to be a well-known photographer walks up to a random stranger in the room and starts talking to them and the stranger recognizes "the photographer" from a photo of them but it's not really them.

What was/were the reason(s) behind why this woman did what she did? To dress up as a well-known photographer and impersonate her for a day. Or has she been doing this for a while? If she has, her act is very ambiguous. It also shows the theme from an artistic view.

The music that is used towards the end of the act starts after Ira calls the real Cindy Sherman. It's a mix of drums and guitar music that fits in really nice; is a good transition from the prologue to act one.

Act One - Healthy Start
This act is all about what people would do if they mistake you for someone else, and you decide to just go with it. Actor John Conlee reads this story from Etgar Keret's book Suddenly a Knock on the Door. In the podcast version, Etgar returns to explain the real-life experience that inspired him to write the story.

It relates to the theme by a person pretending to be multiple people he's not at different times for a long period at a certain restaurant. It's a man who's lonely waiting in a restaurant for people who come in looking like they're trying to find someone. So, he waves the person over and goes along with whatever they say, making the person feel like they're really talking to the person they're supposed to meet. One time he meets a man who thinks he's cheating on his wife and, well, let's just say it doesn't end well for him.

The music that plays in this act is emotional piano music that's slow and sad. It plays when the guy is reflecting on the woman that he'll never get to have a life with because her husband will take her away from him. It happens after he gets beat up by the man in question. Then, more happy, quicker piano music jumps in and Etgar Keret comes back on to explain his real-life experience.

This story was inspired by a real-life incident Etgar Keret had in Berlin. He had went to meet his publisher in a cafe to talk and had arrived early. He had sat down and waited, and when he thought he saw his publisher come in, he waved him over. But the guy was actually a trader and thought Etgar wanted to give him something in exchange for 300,000 euros. Long story short, eventually they figured out they were meeting the wrong person and they parted ways. Etgar got a two-in-one that day; he got to meet with his actual publisher and he also came up with a new story idea.

Act Two - Forgive us our Press Passes
This act explores journalism and if a company called Journatic, is really journalism. Producer Sarah Koenig reports on it.

It relates to the theme by showing people who call businesses or schools across the US and gathers information to write a short story about it for another newspaper miles and miles away. In journalistic context, it's more important to know about small towns and villages than not know. Journatic gathers just facts about these small towns and villages that no one would have ever known if they hadn't read a well-known newspaper with a story on it from Journatic. It doesn't give the actual people who gather the data credit on the actual newspaper, it just says something like: from a special person. The editors who edit the articles the writers send them use aliases for well-known newspapers and don't give credit to the people who send them the data in paragraph form. They send each little story knowing that they'll get paid 35-45 cents per story, more if it's a longer one. They're Filipinos, and know that they could easily be paid less for their work. The editors at Journatic just merely fix the grammatical errors and edit the stories, then select an alias from a list.

Is this important? Is it really important to do this? This new type of online journalism where everything is over the Internet; where you might occasionally talk to your boss on the phone but never see or meet him. Have someone write about a small town or village that they know nothing about. Yes, in a way it is. Like I explained above, if someone hadn't read an article about a small town or village for another better well-known paper, they might have never heard of the news, or known about the town in general. But, also, in a way it's a little much. It's taking away from what journalism used to be. Where solely one person would work on an article by going to the place and interviewing people, then comprising the facts and conversations into paragraph form and editing it, then publishing the finished story with their name underneath the headline.

In journalistic context, it's more important to know about something than not know, and in the prologue it's more open-ended and taking the artistic angle of the theme than in this act. Does this make sense to my viewers? Send me comments on it.

Act Three - Runaway Groom
This act is about parents pretending to be parents. Comedian Jackie Clarke tells the story (This American Life, Switcherro act three synapses).

The story starts with a Jackie telling of how her mom died from cancer when she was young and her dad started dating a while after, then the catalogs started coming about mail-order brides. A Filipino woman named Cora was her new mother and wasn't very good at it; she didn't want anything to do with being a mom. And because of this experience, it made her become closer to her father.

This act relates to the theme because it turns out that Jackie's father was really a father to another family. That's why he was gone for months at a time (business trips, he told his family). It wasn't that he was pretending to be a father to Jackie and her two siblings, he already was a father, just to another family. He wasn't around full-time for them like most fathers are today. Surprisingly, Jackie didn't freak out. She wanted to be there for her dad. She knew that what her father was doing was wrong, but somehow she thought maybe my dad has a good reason. 

The music is very up-beat and 80's-ish. It starts at the very beginning of the act. Then there's more music (seems a little like music that would be played during an investigator movie and then in an international movie) and it starts when Jackie is telling about how her dad wanted a mail-order bride. The next piece of music comes when her father is telling his daughter of his second family in the Philippines. It's kind of like Mario Bros/video game music just a bit slower and deeper in pitch. Piano music plays as the story is wrapping up, when Jackie is telling about how, years later, her dad called her from the Philippines where he had moved to after the court case that lasted five years with Cora.

A/N: That's the end of the episode for the week! It aired on June 29, 2012 and lasted an hour. The online version, found here, is longer than 59 minutes (it's actually 63). Sorry if this post seems very choppy, I'm not very good at analyzing things like this. I'm also not very good at describing music, so if anyone has any advice on how better to describe the music used, feel free to comment. And remember, this blog is for a class I'm taking in high school. The only reason I put the viewing status as Public was because I'm interested in seeing how many people would actually read my posts. And I'm very happy with how many have so far, considering there's only six. Thank you very much. A/N stands for Author's Note.

This American Life - Act 2 "Message in a Bottle" Analysis

In this act from a Chicago radio talk show by Ira Glass, comedian Dave Hill tells a story live of when he got a message. He got the message loud and clear in the form of a Gatorade bottle filled with urine. Dave had been on a subway platform when he had woken up a homeless guy to try to throw some trash away. The guy proceeded to throw the bottle at Dave.

This act doesn't use music except to introduce the act. Most of the eight minutes is Dave telling his story.

Dave was running late to a big conference or dinner for something in downtown Chicago. He had to take the subway to get there but stopped to get a bite to eat. When he got off at his stop to throw away the trash, he awoke this bear of a homeless guy who had a giant bottle of Gatorade filled with his own urine. He threatened to throw it at Dave if he didn't back away and get the trash out of there. Dave moved a bit and the trash was removed but the guy still threw the bottle of urine at him anyway. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with Dave's efforts of backing up.

This is yet another example of how messages can not be a very good way of communicating. They're not a very good way of communicating because they can be interpreted the wrong way by the receiver and the consequence(s) could be negative, or not how the user of the message wanted or hoped for. Just the man saying "Back up or I'll throw this bottle of piss on you!" should have been enough for Dave to get the picture and move, especially when the homeless man showed him the bottle. It was huge! But apparently the space that he did move was not enough, for the man still threw the bottle. And not a drop was wasted. It soaked him. At this point, Dave got the message the man was trying to give and got the h*&l off the platform. The question is, though, why did the man have to throw the bottle? Dave was just trying to throw a piece of trash away and saw no trash can but a storage container in which to set it on.

You can listen to the eight minute-long segment here, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/475/send-a-message?act=2#play

Or you can listen to the full hour session for that week here, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/475/send-a-message

Analysis of a Teacher

My teacher dresses very formally in a dress shirt, pants, and shoes every other day of the school week. He's quite a bit younger than most of my teachers and perhaps because of this he is more laid back and jokes with us; is very outgoing. He can easily tell us short stories about his family that relate to German or a topic that someone was talking about. He keeps a very organized desk and has a detailed schedule of what we're to do everyday and what he is to teach. When he thinks no one is looking or not paying attention, he takes a sip from his water bottle. Sometimes he scratches his nose, absentmindedly rubs his arm, or fiddles with a shirt cuff when he's teaching.

     In his classroom there are lots of different sized German flags on the walls or by his desk. There's a SMART Board on the wall in front of a white board, an old map of Europa (1) to the side of it, and a bunch of fotos (2) and posters of German cities and foreign exchange students on the walls. A black television is suspended from the ceiling in the corner. Deutsch-Englisch Woerterbuechern (3) are on a set of shelves, a stool is by a rolling counter by the board. An old cane with a rounded handle the teacher sometimes uses as a pointer hangs from the marker sill on the white board. A rolling cart of Apple lap tops are by his desk as well as an old overhead projector (4). You can tell he really likes teaching and his students as there's pictures of every class in each year he's taught since coming to our school. By his desk on the wall are colored pieces of paper with all the seniors he's taught in every year. Next year there will be a picture of me up there along with a small handful of others.
     I think everyone who's ever had him as a teacher will agree with me in saying: "We love you, Herr Mitchell!" (5)

KEY:
(1): Europa means Europe in German.
(2): fotos mean pictures in German. Photographs are Fotografie or Photographie.
(3): Deutsch-Englisch Woerterbuechern means German-English dictionaries in German. Deutschland is Germany. Deutsch is used both for the language and class at school, same with Englisch. oe = o umlaut and ue = u umlaut.
(4): Now, since SMART Boards were invented by Smart Technologies, overhead projectors are not widely used in most schools.
(5): Herr is Mr. in German. Frau is Mrs. or Miss in German. Also means husband and wife respectively. 

Cambodian Market

A woman with long black straight hair pulled up into a ponytail is gutting piles of fish to sell in her local town market in Cambodia. It is a busy day, with lots of people walking around. Lots are wearing jeans and brightly-colored pants with matching mid-sleeve shirts. It's a hot day so the woman decided to wear Capris and flip-flops with a light-colored mid-sleeve shirt of her own. There are bright green weighing scales next to her for her to measure out costumer's orders. She separates the tiny fish from the bigger ones by putting them in a bright red plastic bowl. A woman next to her sells whole thin chickens; already naked of their feathers. She also has her black hair off her neck and wears a pink baseball cap to keep the sun from heating her head. She wears purple Capris and flip-flops, with a matching floral shirt. There's stalls all along the way with a thin alise for people to walk through.

A Sweet 1900s Family

Left to right: Lizze (11), Matthew (43), John (5), Annie (13),

James (7), Marion (37), baby Young, Mary Anne (14), and

Briget Angela (9).

It is October 5, 1913. The Young family of Waterford House located in Waterford, Munster, Ireland are at a local photographer's studio. Since it is Octobor, it seems they would be there to take a Christmas or family photo for extended family and friends. During that time, photography was still fairly new and expensive, so it was a rare and treasured gift to recieve or have a photo taken. That's why most do not smile and are dressed in their best, or "church clothes".
     The patriarch of the mainly all-women family, Matthew Young, sits in a hard-backed cushioned, wood chair. He wears black or brown boots and a dark three-piece suit (perhaps black or brown), with a white dress shirt underneath and a bow tie. He is a Fishmonger by trade. It would seem he makes a pretty good income, as his family is able to afford all those pretty dresses for the young ladies and a nice three-piece suit for himself.
     His two middle daughters, Lizzie and Annie stand on either side of him; Lizzie on his right and Annie on his left. They and their younger sister, Briget Angela, wear their best white lace dresses with high collars and wrist-length sleeves. Their black Mary Jane's, with the low heel and rounded toe, make for a nice contrast between the white dresses and socks. Their long wavy hair has been pulled back and tied with matching ribbons of a dark color (now known as pig tails). The oldest sister, Mary Anne, stands next to her mother Marion and behind Briget Angela, a hand on her shoulder, as the younger girl sits in a chair with her hands folded in her lap and ankles crossed like a true young lady. Mary Anne is also dressed in her best mid-sleeve dress of a dark color with pointed collar and buttons. We can assume she wears the same socks and shoes as her sisters.
    The two boys, James and John stand in the front. John, the second-youngest stands between his father's legs, smiling. He wears dark boots and light shorts with a light high-collared long-sleeved shirt (now known as a turtleneck). His older brother, James stands before Annie wearing the same shirt as his brother but darker colored shorts and boots. He's grinning with his hand in his back pocket. The baby of the family, (who we don't have a name for), looks around one year of age and sits on a stool, held up by her mother. She wears dark colored boots; perhaps black or brown, and a lighter colored coat or dress. (Although I think it's the former). The children's mother, Marion, wears a floor-length dress of presumably black with a high collar and wrist-length sleeves. Her shoes are also black.
    They stand on an intricately patterned Persian rug with potted plants behind Lizze and Briget Angela. Long heavy drapes trimmed with babbles frame the wallpapered-background.

Originally posted on Flickr.com by "National Library of Ireland on The Commons". Title of the photo is "October 5, 1913". The ages, names, Matthlew's trade "Fishmonger", and where they live is all fact. Waterloo House has since been torn down.

A Day at the Beach

It is a nice sunny day. The water cools the little boy as he splashes in it with his yellow lab puppy. A person, maybe one of his parents, puts a little toy wheelbarrow over his neck. He gets down on his hands and knees on the sandy bottom of the beach and the boy looks like a carthorse but with a smile on his face. The short curly black hair is sticking to his forehead as it is wet. The puppy jumps into the wheelbarrow and sits patiently, waiting for the child to move him around the beach. But the puppy is too heavy for the little boy and he stays still.