Creatives and their art forms

English for Artists should highlight different art forms, e.g. profiling artists expressing themselves in the various media. The Thrash Lab vlog and YouTube playlist include a profile of Saber, a graffiti artist who has branched out. In this profile he describes the work that made him a name, similarities to typography, and how he reacts […]

Hasan Elahi: FBI, here I am

“The Visible Man”, Bangladeshi-born American Hasan Elahi, says that he was mistakenly included on the US government terrorist watch list — “and once you’re on, it’s hard to get off”. (Wired) In response, he has dedicated his work to surveillance culture and has put the minute details of his life and travels online. See his […]

Mind Your Language

I’m revising for the phonology orals now, trying to focus on typical areas that learners with different mother tongues need to work on. Had some fun with this. I was wondering whether it was offensive, but have come down on the side of funny. As one reviewer puts it “Yes, they were stereotypes, and it […]

Trouble with your empharsis

Hat tip to Nik Peachey. A nice little video to introduce reluctant learners to the usefulness of pronunciation practice, isn’t it? I’d ask students to rank the speakers according to whom they’d have most trouble communicating with.

Pigeon: Impossible

Pigeon Impossible, the silent animated film by Lucas Martell released on 9 November that took 4 years to make, passed the 1 million views mark on YouTube after less than 2 weeks online. The film is set in the neighborhood of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where two of my nieces and I […]

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Heaven Can Wait

Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg,  won best actress Cannes 2009 for Lars van Trier’s totally horrifying “Antichrist” after having gone through brain surgery (9/2007). These doubtlessly destabilizing experiences have gone into her collaboration with Beck on her album IRM. The “Heaven can wait” song video (Keith Schofield) gives us “the dregs […]

Fly tricks: Early science films

Source: New Scientist Vocabulary “(Percy Smith) made a gimcrack device made up of a see-saw and two old tin cans. The tin cans slowly filled up with water, and when it would reach the bottom, clunk! it fired the shutter of the camera. And using this extraordinary home-made piece of aparatus, Percy Smith made the […]