Thursday, October 29, 2009

"the centre does not hold"

I'm very grateful for this post. It's really boring and sad to constantly reaffirm that the Cold War is indeed over (and has been for twenty years now) and that the fall of the Berlin Wall followed the collapse of Communism in Poland, not the other way around.

And there's a thousand years of national history--with the good, the bad, and the outrageous--right in that middle that the gracious Western world refuses to admit.

End of rant. Back to work.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Synonyms of Boredom

That's something I asked a student to look up because she was afraid "bored" was too plain a word for an essay about Jane Austen.

Meanwhile, boredom is just fine for me. It's not ennui and not spleen, but plain boredom under a newly-acquired snuggie (blanket with sleeves). Having passed my horrid exam, I am enjoying napping, watching movies I've seen many times already, and playing with the layout of the blog I fail to write.

The colors outside, just about to be washed out by the rain:

Friday, October 16, 2009

Hey, "Kto tam? Kto jest w środku?"

Counting down to the release of the new album. It's unbelievable: Hey has never failed me. It's probably the only band I've been (more or less) faithfully listening to since the early 1990s. (End of schoolgirl confession.)


Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Marlene


Forthcoming or already there: Marlene by Angelika Kuźniak. New Polish biography reveals Dietrich's Polish connections.

All linked texts are in Polish, since it's pretty unlikely that the book will be translated. Something to ponder.

[An early blog review]
[From the publisher]
[Radiowa Dwójka reading Marlene on air]