Michael Kiwanuka: I’m Getting Ready

A soul prayer from Michael Kiwanuka (2012). Thank you, Christoph. Oh my, I didn’t know what it means to believe Oh my, I didn’t know what it means to believe But if I hold on tight, is it true? Would You take care of all that I do? Oh Lord, I’m a getting ready to […]

Donald Fagan: Snowbound

Big storm Xaver over Northern Germany is announcing it’s winter. I’ve just moved all the plants indoors and tied things down. Hoping for snow. “Snowbound” (1993) from Fagan’s second solo album Kamakiriad continues the concept story, a road trip sometime in the future. The song describes being in a city in winter weather with bad […]

Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud

We sang my mother-in-law’s favorite song at her funeral: Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud, with a text by Paul Gerhardt (1656) and music by August Harder (1813). Her heaven is full of birds and flowers. Who needs angels when you have nightingales? RIP dear Heidi. Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud 1. […]

Communicative aim

A communicative aim in a Trinity assessed class is not the same thing as a communicative aim in real life. In real life, we might communicate with each other to get something off our chest, or to check each other out, to find areas we share interests in or perhaps just to shoot the breeze […]

Ruby’s shoes, ruby shoes

“The Problem We All Live With”  by Norman Rockwell is currently on display at the White House, just outside the president’s office. It shows Ruby Bridges, the most famous of the children who in 1960, at the age of 6, walked into an all-white school and helped desegregate the schools of New Orleans. Daddy’s brave […]

Joe Jackson and learner agency

Joe Jackson has a new live album out, and I’ve just ordered it. He lives in Berlin. I found this marvellously provocative video dedicated to him by New Yorkers who want him back: This all came out of surfing around after Ann posted something about Coney Island being the target of redevelopment, and Coney Island […]

T is for thee

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” is the beginning of possibly the most beautiful love poem ever written, of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Pity that there is no “Du” in English. The intimacy of “thou, thee, thine”, the “du, dich, dein” we have lost in English, is one of the things that makes […]