Saturday, August 29, 2009

Basic Hindi

I've decided to learn Hindi! Don't be shocked, but I am at the moment fascinated with the idea! I have learned so far (and likely the only phrases I'll ever be able to retain) a few simple phrases that surprises a Hindi speaker, every single time, I attempt to "show of"! I have learned with "Caminho das Indias" a telenovela from Brazil. It's remarkably done, the details of the culture of Rajasthan is very close to it's original principles. Check it here and see it for yourself, of course the protagonists are all beautiful as it's in Bollywood. http://caminhodasindias.globo.com/

Friday, August 28, 2009

My review after a comment from a German visitor at a University in Pernambuco, Brazil

Não muito animador o comentário de Boris Goger, que trabalha com desenvolvimento de software em Munique, a respeito da sua visita a uma Universidade brasileira. ( the original post translation from English to Portuguese was done by Adriana Beal from Desafios em IT http://2wtx.com/adriana/blog/)

Comment by Boris Geler:

Last week I visited UFRPE- Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, an incredible place. It's possible to feel the energy of the place and immediately understand that the people in this university is really wanting to study. But in the other hand, I was also chocked. The ambiance is bad. The buildings don't have the appearance of an university, and the computers that you find in the labs are super old. But...obviously that doesn't prompt the people to be unhappy studying there. If you've seen that, you would never think that the conditions in Germany are not sufficient. Cool!

Translated to Portuguese by Adriana Beal:

Semana passada visitei a UFRPE – Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, em Recife. Um lugar incrível. É possível sentir a energia do lugar e entender imediatamente que as pessoas nessa universidade realmente querem estudar.
Mas por outro lado, eu também fiquei chocado. O ambiente é ruim. Os prédios não parecem com uma universidade, e os computadores que se vê nos laboratórios são super antigos. Mas… obviamente isso não faz as pessoas deixarem de estar felizes por estudar. Se você visse aquilo, você não iria nunca pensar que não tem condições de estudo boas o suficiente na Alemanha. Legal!

My reply:

Though I don't think the German visitor really meant any harm...

Brazil seems to always have the feel of "Love and Hate" relationship with foreigners. I write in English with the hope that the Germans or any other nations get to read this. I agree, Brazil is a lovely country (the love relationship) and a third world country (the hate relationship), but the majority of these foreigners who which tend to define Brazil as lovely are the ones who comes with the view of easy women and beautiful beaches and forget really that Brazilians are very talented and resourceful, after all, they accomplish so much with so little (of course, not talking about the corrupted politicians) who does give Brazil a "bad rep". Do "they" forget that Brazil has been self-sustained for fossil fuels for decades? Do they know that Brazilian, Dr. Eduardo do Couto e Silva is a particle physicist and Deputy Manager of Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope's (GLAST) (who's born and raised in Brazil) to being the Vice-director of the famous telescope lab at Stanford University? Perhaps we could go on and on...the fact of the matter is that the politicians in Brazil need to have the audacity of becoming a honest servant for a change (stop using the people's money to pay for your lavish lifestyles) and who knows, we may catch up with having "finally" what the people deserve, BASIC NEEDS, and yes, current hardware/software and I bet, it will be money left over for a little building remodeling to please the eyes of these "foreigners".

Peace!

The life and death of Arshile Gorky...a sudden urge to remember!




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

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

'Timberbrit': Opera Tackles The Trials Of Britney








Mellissa Hughes — pictured on a recent music-video shoot in Brooklyn, N.Y. — plays Britney Spears in Timberbrit, an experimental opera by composer Jacob Cooper.



What a relief to know that "THIS" is not on our Colorado Opera upcoming season (thanks Greg), or EVER season. Listening to this gave me chills, no, not the chills we are accustomed to in Lucia, Rigoletto, Tosca, etc. it was a chill of disgust! Composer Jacob Cooper I suppose is following his dream (and maybe a crush on the pop singer), but if he needs content for the next composition, please Jacob, give me a ring, I have plenty of material for you. The only prolonged death scene I could see here, would me my own.
By Paula Kechichian



The article below is by Claire Happel:
August 4, 2009 - Opera has a long history of over-the-top spectacle and melodramatic plots. Composer Jacob Cooper decided to embrace that excess, creating a contemporary opera that imagines the tragic end of one particularly tempestuous pop diva.
The work is called Timberbrit — as in Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. It's a tragic tale that imagines Spears' last concert, in the final hours of her life. Timberlake returns after a long absence to win back Spears' love, but in the end she chooses the audience's love above all else.
Cooper began work on the opera by experimenting with a technique called time-stretching. Using digital audio software, he slowed down Spears' songs — and suddenly the light pop tunes seemed hauntingly tragic. Phrases like "Hit me baby one more time" took on an entirely different and more weighted meaning.
Cooper then collaborated with his performers to create new pieces of music inspired by those slowed-down hits, and writer Yuka Igarashi crafted fresh lyrics using the vernacular of Spears' songs — tears, love, dreams, innocence.
As a doctoral student at Yale, Cooper has looked at the psychological aspects of how traditional operas stretch time during death scenes — the way a dying character in Rigoletto or Boris Godunov, say, will pause to sing a 10-minute aria. Not realistic perhaps, but it packs a punch.
Cooper has expanded on that distinctive musical tradition by creating an entire opera enveloped by a fatal slowness of action. The idea is that in Timberbrit, Spears' prolonged destruction amplifies the tragedy of her downfall.
The opera premiered in New York City as a semistaged production in 2008 and is currently being developed into a fully staged version.
Meanwhile, the cast and crew of Timberbrit recently shot a music video of Cooper's song "Worst Fantasy," inspired by Spears' "Toxic." In keeping with the opera's process, the videographers started with a slowed-down, stretched-out recording of the original, then manipulated it and built on it to create something new.
The result: a distillation of Spears' music videos and public meltdowns that forces viewers to take a second look at both pop-star lives and the way the public devours them.
This piece was originally produced for NPR's Intern Edition by Claire Happel and Sarah Metcalf.