Lena Horne, "New Fangled Tango"

I wish I had a video of Lena Horne doing this delightful show tune, but, instead, here's my favorite video based on the song ...



Just the audio:

Lena Horne — New Fangled Tango на Яндекс.Музыке

And here are the words! (Harold Karr / Matt Dubey)

Everybody’s mambo crazy Cha-cha happy, but I’m lazy
I don’t dig that frantic Terpsichore.
When I trip the light fantastic I don’t wanna be gymnastic,
That’s not what a dancing floor is for
What I got in mind is a big improvement
With a very minimum amount of movement
Let the other couples push and shove
What I got in mind I think you’re gonna love

I’ve got a new-fangled tango
And there’s nothing to it
You just sort of stand there
And just sort of do it
You stand close together
There’s no wasted motion
A new fangled tango
An old fashioned notion

The floor may be crowded
But that doesn’t matter
It’s not necessary to move (Don’t move, why move?)
It may be crowded
But that’s all the better
It’s just like romancing, while dancing (Who’s dancin’?)

You start off with one step
And cling to each other
And you know how one step
Can lead to another
Oh, there’s nothing wrong with
A waltz or fandango
But oh, what can come from
A new fangled tango

You cling to your partner
And sway to the rhythm
You can’t lose your partner
’Cause you’re right there with him
You don’t have to be worry
About fast or slow steps
The nice part about it
In this dance, you don’t need steps

You don’t have to worry
If your dancing won’t do
It’s not what you do do
It’s more what you don’t do
You don’t need a waltz
Or a fancy fandango
You just need a man
And a new fangled tango

Forget the fandango
Give up the mambo
Do the tango

301: Coffee? I'm the girlfriend, aren't I?

Source.

       Ginger is a seasoning, I want to tell him. A knobby little root!
       I turn the key in the lock, and before Drew can answer I’m closing the door on the image of his face—slate-blue-gray eyes looking up sheepishly through brown schoolboy bangs, mouth parted slightly, one foot lifted as if to step forward.
       I snap the lock shut and hurry down the hall to the kitchen. I close the kitchen door, pull down the shades, then crawl into the pantry, because that is one room farther away from Drew Ellis. As far inside my house as I can burrow. I yank the long cord to the bare bulb overhead, pull the door shut, and sit on the floor under the dim yellow light.
       Although we just ate dinner, I’m hungry. There’s nothing to eat in the pantry except for raw ingredients, though: flour, sugar, shortening, yeast, and polenta. I twist open a canister of rye flour and dig my hand into it. It’s dry and silty and tickles as it runs between my fingers. I scoop some into my mouth and try chewing. But you cannot chew flour. I cough and choke, then swallow, saliva turning the flour to a sort of doughy glob that sticks in the back of my throat.
       She’s more beautiful, for one thing. And Drew mentioned that she’s a Seattle SuperSonics fan. I tried to share Drew’s enthusiasm for his stupid Seattle team. “They have a deep bench,” I’d gush, watching the game with him, pretending not to prefer the Lakers, whom Ethan and I love. Loved. Whatever. Drew says the Lakers are too Hollywood, though, and I pretended to agree. That’s the dumb thing about dating—feigning similar interests.

Lolly Winston, Good Grief, pages 237-8.

Choose twelve of these words and phrases for your homework. Instructions: same as always. Have fun!

Source.

to get together 
demoted (to demote) 
to move up the ranks 
on the verge of 
to meet family 
St. Christopher 
a fling (noun) 
hybrid freak 
conglomeration 
to muster 
to clutch 
“I see” 
to jam 
Ginger is a seasoning... 
knobby 
sheepishly 
bangs 
parted (to part) 
pantry 
to burrow 
to yank 
silty 
deep bench 
to gush 
too Hollywood 
to feign

Groups 201-205 Homework: Essay on being famous

Source.

Last essay of the year! Comment on the following statement:

Many people dream of becoming famous celebrities, but fame can bring many pressures and problems.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being famous? Write 200-250 words, using the following plan:

1. title
2. introduction (state the problem/topic)
3. list the advantages and give reasons/examples
4. list the disadvantages and give reasons/examples
5. draw a conclusion (give your opinion or a balanced consideration of the topic)

Bring your essay to class on May 22 or 24. Together we'll consider the advantages and disadvantages of being famous.

---

Exercise adapted from Olga Afanasyeva, Virginia Evans, Victoria Kopylova, Practice Exam Papers for the Russian State Exam, 2010 Revised Edition, Moscow: Express Publishing/Prosveshchenie Publishers.

Arcade Fire, "My Body Is a Cage"

Audio, Sarah Lov:  

Sara Lov — My Body Is a Cage на Яндекс.Музыке

Amazon.com purchase link Arcade Fire
Amazon.com purchase link Sarah Lov
Amazon.com purchase link Peter Gabriel

My Body Is a Cage, Arcade Fire (Jeremy Gara / Richard Parry / Régine Chassagne / Tim Kingsbury / William Butler / Win Butler )

(Other singers' versions differ slightly.)

Chorus: My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
[x2]

I’m standing on the stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It’s a hollow play
But they’ll clap anyway

Chorus

You’re standing next to me
My mind holds the key

I’m living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head

I’m living in an age
Whose name I don’t know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow

Chorus

You’re standing next to me
My mind holds the key
My body is a...

My body is a cage
We take what we’re given
Just because you’ve forgotten,
That don’t mean you’re forgiven

I’m living in an age
That screams my name at night
But when I get to the doorway
There’s no one in sight

I’m living in an age
They laugh and I’m dancing
With the one I love
But my mind holds the key

You’re still next to me
My mind holds the key

Set my spirit free [x2]
Set my body free [x2]
...

Groups 201-205 Homework: Alex asks about music and TV

Waterfront Blues Festival, 2011. Photo: Johan Maurer.

---

Exercise adapted from Olga Afanasyeva, Virginia Evans, Victoria Kopylova, Practice Exam Papers for the Russian State Exam, 2010 Revised Edition, Moscow: Express Publishing/Prosveshchenie Publishers.

"Political Correctness in the English-Language Classroom"

From my article published in the proceedings of our institute's March conference, "Образование. Язык. Наука. Культура"--

. . . Accuracy is in fact the first goal of the “politically correct” classroom. When I advise students to use categories, pronouns, and titles relating to race and sex correctly, I do so not out of any fear that some linguistic mafia (apology to Italians!) will hunt us down for our every mistake. The blunt truth is that English has changed—and if our students’ English usage doesn’t reflect these changes, their credibility as actors on the global stage will be reduced.

It’s not that I fear my students will give offense by using out-of-date terms for racial groups (for example); almost everyone understands that non-native speakers are at a disadvantage, and allowances are therefore made. (Beyond that, almost any error can be neutralized by a sincere apology.) The value of inclusive speech is not so much in avoiding offense as in avoiding distraction. When my student uses a wrong or obsolete term, the hearer will almost certainly stop to wonder whether the speaker really is not aware that this term hasn’t been used among educated people since the 1960’s.

Here it may be useful to define a couple of terms. Inclusive language is usage that avoids making social distinctions that are misleading, biased, or insulting. In spiritual terms, inclusive language is a form of linguistic hospitality, signaling that the person, group, profession, or social situation referred to by the speaker is seen as wholly human, not as some lesser object. Political correctness is a label that is (often humorously or ironically) applied to this humane concern to use inclusive language. Critics of political correctness sometimes imply that inclusive terms are circumlocutions or euphemisms, but this is not true. Inclusive terms are more accurate in two ways: first, they neutralize historical or cultural disadvantages that obscure human value and equality; secondly, they reflect what people being referred to actually want to be called. I call this the “Berdy standard” after Michele A. Berdy’s important article, “Bias-Free and Inclusive English” [Berdy 2004; see link in sidebar at right].

Correspondingly, we teachers want to be accurate for two distinct, if related, reasons. First of all, we want our students to be technically correct, technically proficient. Second, as David Smith and Barbara Carvill emphasized in their wonderful book The Gift of the Stranger, we want each student to be “a blessing as a stranger” when abroad, and to practice “hospitality to the stranger” when at home [Smith and Carvill 2000]. This goes beyond proficiency to the very heart of cross-cultural communication: a recognition of our common humanity.

In practical terms, what are the classroom situations where we come face to face with issues of political correctness and inclusive language? Alex Case, in his useful overview “Politically Correct Language in the EFL Classroom” [Case n.d.], provides a convenient list of awkward “teachable moments”:

• They [the students] didn’t know that it [an error] was politically incorrect
• It is not politically incorrect in their language
• The word or expression has become politically incorrect since they learnt it
• What they said was a slight mistranslation
• The place where they got the word from, e.g. an electronic dictionary, doesn’t have information on connotations
• They didn’t learn that it was not PC when they learnt the word.
• They learnt it from a text that was old, very informal (e.g. rap), or deliberately politically incorrect (e.g. a stand-up comedian)

Let’s take some examples.

The word “Negro” fits several categories: “not politically incorrect in their language” (i.e., “негр”, “негритянский”); possibly “a text that was old”; and possibly “they didn’t know it wasn’t PC when they learned it.” Berdy’s standard provides the antidote: we accurately and professionally teach what English-speaking black people actually prefer to be called. We expect English speakers to learn the difference between “русский” and “российский”; it is no less reasonable for us to teach the difference between the historical “Negro” and the contemporary “black” or “African American.”

V.D. Arakin, whose books play a central role for English instruction in our Institute, provides a beautifully nuanced and elegant foundation for each student. But here again we need to provide an update. When, for example, Arakin provides such uncorrected samples as “What does the reader bring to the study of his first literary work in a foreign language?” [Arakin 2000: 58], we must tell our students that they should no longer rely on the old universal masculine (“his”). While it is quite true that pockets of resistance remain—authors who insist on the inclusive masculine—our students should be aware that, whether we like it or not, to many if not most of their English-speaking peers, this usage will sound faintly odd at best, ignorant at worst.

Here the antidote is not to prescribe clumsy patches such as “he/she” and “him/her” but, as in so many other cases of awkward or ambiguous constructions, simply to learn to rewrite our way around the problem: “What do readers bring to the study of their first literary work in a foreign language?” This useful skill happens to be the same skill that is needed in so many other situations, such as the ever-popular ambiguous antecedent or the run-on sentence.

Far from being a laughable form of trivial fastidiousness, “political correctness” in its linguistic application is very simply a concern for humane accuracy. Just as we want our students to reveal their facility with grammar and lexicology, we also want to equip them with an awareness of the changes brought about by almost five decades of inclusive language, so that their encounter with their international peers will lead to mutual respect and mutual blessings.

The full article, and the rest of the conference articles, can be found in this PDF-format book.

Erin McKeown, "The Politician"

Audio:


Listen or download Erin McKeown The Politician on Prostopleer

Amazon.com purchase link.

Words by Erin McKeown:

Baby you know how this is gonna do
One for me, one for you
Baby you know how this is gonna do
You get something and I do too

If nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime
And if nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime

Power and purpose are whiskey
I do nothing but the work of God
Power and purpose are whiskey
Drink it straight then talk the talk

If nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime
And if nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime
If nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime
Between me and God, tell me what’s the crime

Baby I stand before you a humbled man
Pray pray pray I’m so sorry
Baby here before you I am a humbled man
Shame shame shame shame on me

If nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime
Love the drinker, hate the wine
I will do my penance, do my time
But if nobody knows, tell me what’s the crime