| (no subject) |
[Jun. 1st, 2006|01:58 pm] |
i'm off to a circus festival this weekend (wild animal-free, of course).
three days of circus acts from across europe... |
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| graffiti |
[Dec. 19th, 2005|04:44 pm] |
someone long ago did some graffiti in my neighbourhood with a stencil.
despite all types of weather, these faces remain....
on a concrete wall near my building
and on the side of a green kiosk
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| rosie and violetta hit the big-time |
[Dec. 6th, 2005|04:22 pm] |
i got my photos developed.
so far this is the only shot of "rosie and violetta" side-by-side: after our first show we were about to take off our costumes when it suddenly struck me that we should pose for a photo.
since then, we've had a lot of people snapping photos of us during shows on their digital cameras. i keep asking people to email them to me, but i haven't gotten any yet. so you'll have to wait for an action shot.
we've done four shows now. the first was on a sunday morning in an english-language bookshop/cafe (massolit). the second was at the american international school, performing for about 35 little kids (several classes together). the third was at the christmas party of the "cracovie accueil" group - a kind of alliance of french families in krakow. we were told by the organizer of the party that every french person living in krakow was there! the fourth show was at a private birthday party. last saturday was busy - we did the french party and the birthday party in one day, flying from party to party by taxi! we made a heap of cash and had lots of fun (and were given wine, good food and cake at each party).
after the show at the american school i was standing outside in front of a wall, holding my accordion, waiting for our taxi, and kristen told me to stand still so she could take a photo of me, since the graffiti behind me was cool.
( rosie waiting for the taxi )
after that i took a shot of her (forcing her to put her flower head back on).
( violetta waiting for the taxi ) |
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| hair dye in communist times |
[Dec. 2nd, 2005|06:35 pm] |
my friend barbara once told me that back in communist times hair dye was unavailable (or else hard to get, i can't remember which). when women felt the urge to dye their hair, they often used onion skin juice (you peel the skins off of some red onions and boil them to make a nice purplish-red liquid). i'm not sure how long you have to soak your hair in this onion juice - i didn't ask barbara for specifics.
after dying her hair in onion juice she went out to her doctor's appointment. unfortunately a torrential downpour began, and she didn't have an umbrella. the onion-dye turned out not to be very permanent. it ran down all over her neck and shoulders, and when she took her jacket off, she saw that her white blouse was completely streaked in the red onion juice, and she was embarrassed... i'm not sure if she dyed her hair with onion juice ever again. probably not. |
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| the rosie and violetta show |
[Nov. 22nd, 2005|04:58 pm] |
so a week ago sunday my friend k. and i dressed up as enormous flowers, with big papier mache things on our heads that we made. there had been some heavy-duty stressful papiermacheing and painting at my place during the preceding three weeks. there were some moments when i wished we had made sure the costumes were ready FIRST before getting a gig date, since i hadn't realized how long the papier macheing would take. i hadn't made anything with papier mache for a long time. i think the moon pinata i made for my sister's birthday last january was the last. and making something that fits your face perfectly, and is comfortable and allows you to sing and smile (while dancing and playing an instrument) is a much more challenging task than i had imagined.
( Read more... ) |
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| all souls' day |
[Nov. 1st, 2005|08:48 pm] |
every year i carve a pumpkin and put it to glow on my windowsill feeling like i must be the only one in this entire country doing it. i feel nervous that i'm offending my neighbours, who tomorrow will be ritually mourning their dead loved ones. this year i feel, even more than ever, that maintaining my north american habits in this foreign culture serves no point.
but i love carving jack-o-lanterns....
i decided to try my hand at journalism. for a long time i've been wanting to write an article, and i decided, as "all souls' day" was approaching, to do a bit of reportage, or "personal journalism," on the subject. so i wrote an article, edited it a million times to try to "tighten it up" as much as possible, and shopped it around to the newspapers that are most familiar to me back home.
well.... the national post wrote back immediately (like 30 seconds after i had sent the email query) saying that they had no interest in such an article. the vancouver sun (whom i thought might be interested in publishing it in their weekend supplement) never responded, and neither did the globe and mail.
sigh. oh well. perhaps eastern europe holds little interest for vancouverites. i just wish they had given my article a chance. i didn't even get a chance to send it to them.
maybe i don't know how to write a good query letter.
anyways, i can't, after all, expect to know how to write an article that a newspaper would be interested in when i so rarely read newspapers myself! you have to know the genre inside and out to do it well.
i think my article would probably be more suited to a literary journal that publishes non-fiction, anyways, since, despite my "tightening up" it's still rather heavy.
not fluffy enough for the vancouver sun, probably. an old friend of mine who writes freqent articles for the weekend edition of the vancouver sun is a professional "puff" journalist.
so.... what is all souls' day like in poland?
( Read more... )
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 27th, 2005|09:18 pm] |
the film "gadjo dilo" ("the crazy stranger") turned out to be even better than i remembered!
a big reason why i enjoyed it more this time is because the film is half in french, half in roma (gypsy language), and when i saw it five years ago my polish was very weak, and i therefore didn't understand the polish subtitles when the gypsies were talking, and only understood the french (when the main character stephane talks). but this time i understood everything! there were even a few moments when i didn't catch stephane's french and had to look at the polish subtitle to understand it, so the film served as a good testament to the progress i've made in polish. a very satisfying experience.
on top of that, it's just an all-round amazing film... with great characters, a crazy plot, wild scenes, lots of intoxication and mayhem.
here are a few more stills from the film. i'm in love with both of the main characters - the girl and the boy (as well as the whole village of gypsies).
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| gypsies and other fun |
[Oct. 25th, 2005|07:35 pm] |
it often feels like krakow has cast a spell on me with all of its crazy events.
the silent film festival is coming up: tons of flickery old black and white films, many of which are rather obscure and i’ve never seen before, accompanied by fantastic live music (klezmer bands, all-percussion bands, famous jazz musicians such as tomasz stanko).
the "chinese circus".... a poster for this suddenly appeared last week on a pole on my street. the poster has a huge photo of wild, colourful chinese contortionists and acrobats. the poster actually says: "sights you have never before seen!" and "first time ever in poland!" i can’t wait for this - it’ll be just a few days after my birthday.
a "Roma" evening at the mikro cinema: two films back to back about gypsy culture in eastern europe.
one of my most favourite films EVER, "gadjo dilo" by tony gatliff, is playing again!!!!! i’ve seen it only once, five years ago, so i’m anxious to see it again, and hoping that it’s as great as i remember. it’s about a young french guy who travels by himself to romania in the dead of winter to seek out gypsy music, and tape it on his little tape recorder. he falls in with a band of crazy gypsies in a small village, falls in love with a gypsy girl, goes to bucharest, etc. this film is a wild and drunken revel and lives out my own fantasy of going off to romania to live with the gypsies and do nothing all day but play my accordion and drink.
and...there’s an exhibition at the ethnographic museum of ancient beehives...(???) the collection includes beehives as old as from the middle ages. according to the brochure for this exhibit, the polish tradition was to decorate beehives with painting and bas-relief, and to make them in the shape of little houses, churches, windmills and human figures such as soldiers, monks, jews, gypsies and saints, especially saint ambrose, the patron saint of beekeepers. sounds weird, but i think i'll have to check it out. |
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| siberia |
[Oct. 13th, 2005|03:47 pm] |
this is the time of year when it's dangerous to go for a walk:
the chestnuts are falling like bombs.
groups of nuns in long black robes gather the chestnuts from under the trees. i don't know what they do with them. can they be good for eating?
my good friend barbara left recently for siberia. she moved there for the school year. she's normally a russian professor at the university in krakow, but she decided to apply for a post offered somewhere in siberia to teach polish. she was hired, and left. to fly there she had to pay about three times what i paid to fly to canada, because flights there are rare. so few people want to go there.
she's emailed to say that it's already below zero, and that everything makes her feel like she's gone back to the 19th century. there are conductors on the trams who come round to collect tickets.
she'll be teaching polish mostly to young adults who grew up in siberia but are descended from the polish people who were exiled from poland to siberia during world war II and stalinist times.
i'm in awe of barbara's ability to just drop everything and take such a deep plunge. not many people could go off to a foreign country where they've never been, completely alone. siberia, furthermore. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 5th, 2005|05:30 pm] |
yay!
the the winks'
new album is out!
i hope my lil' sis will send it to me for my birthday.
i hope she'll go to their show this friday. it'll also be a chance to finally see hank and lily
- whose show we NEARLY caught when we were in victoria in the summer. |
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| new films |
[Oct. 1st, 2005|03:51 pm] |
polanski's new film opened yesterday. i can't believe he made a film of "oliver twist." i love how directors keep surprising the world. one never knows what to expect next from any of them. i can't wait til monday, when i'm going to go see it. or maybe tuesday. oh, yes, it will have to be tuesday since monday will be the beginning of the semester for the class i'm teaching. boy, back to work! my two and a half hour work week is gonna kill me!! :+}
it's nice that college doesn't start in poland til october. they love long holidays here. they know what's important. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 29th, 2005|05:21 pm] |
i went to see "broken blossoms." god, i love jim jarmusch. it's such a relief when film directors you love keep on making good stuff.
such a sad, beautiful movie.
it made me want to run home to hug and kiss my little son.
it's a sweet pleasure watching american films in poland. so good to hear english, and see american life, which, on the big screen in a polish audience, seems strangely exotic. i usually try to go to the "american-style" cinema (where they sell popcorn and coca cola). i've gotta have popcorn with my jarmusch.
it's weird watching american films in a polish audience, because they laugh at the strangest things. i'm always acutely aware of american life seeming exotic through their eyes. at the beginning of "broken flowers" there's a scene of a black family's house - little black kids running all over the place, playing, making a lot of noise. the mail carrier is a plump black woman (!!!), delivering mail to the black family home. people all around me laughed to see this. black people are funny to poles. like clowns. it's really uncomfortable watching an american film in which stereotypes of black people are upheld - as violent, aggressive criminals. or simply as extremely happy, cheerful, crazy people always singing and dancing (a bit of this was in "broken flowers"). it all just solidifies the view poles already have of blacks. |
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| fire and gargoyles |
[Sep. 28th, 2005|09:41 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | the kinks - village green preservation society | ] |
after dark, the fire-jugglers, fire-spinners and fire-breathers take over the main square. the flames rise high, and stone gargoyle heads gaze down from the edges of the renaissance buildings with an inscrutable expression in their eyes. |
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| melodia wants an organ |
[Sep. 24th, 2005|07:14 pm] |
a short while ago a guy announced on the vancouver indie community that he had an organ to give away to whomever could describe to him a project they'd use it for. i emailed him as soon as i saw the post and told him how much melodia dreams of having an organ, but that we're too poor at the moment to expand our instrument collection. i described melodia and invited him to listen to us on new music canada. he wrote back:
Hey Scotia,
The organ is already going to someone else, but if they don't come to pick it up or something, I've bumped you two to next on the list. I LOVE the music. It's exactly what I needed this morning. Maybe someday we can collaborate on a film project (I'm a director).
John
**************
it's when i hear things like this from people (even just faint little words of approval) that it all truly truly truly makes sense.
and making music for films is one of melodia's dreams. this was the third offer we've had for film soundtrack work.
too bad about the organ but hopefully whomever got it will use it well!!! |
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| the real contest |
[Sep. 24th, 2005|07:02 pm] |
there was a secret contest in all of this.....
it was to see which of YOU had the sharpest eye (or was paying the most attention).
for, you see, one grandma was entered in BOTH contests! yes, that's right! how could grandma frances run for both most beautiful grandma and ugliest?
in one photo she's elegant in a long white gown, smiling bashfully beneath a pretty parasol.
in another we see a full-on mongloid demented face.
so much can be done to change appearances. people recreate themselves in a million different ways. |
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