Y is for Yule

Yuletide carols. Yule singing. Yule log. Yule goat. Yule boar. Yule or yuletide is a pagan Germanic winter festival later absorbed into the Christian festival of Christmas. It was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the […]

X is for exult

Kiri Te Kanawa sings Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Barlow, in Greenwich. I grew up in the joyful German Christmas Eve tradition, thanks to my mother, who brought her beliefs and practices to the US. Whatever your religion and practice, peace, joy and love to you this evening […]

W is for who

http://annehodgson.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/whos.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download 2 little whos — ee cummings 2 little whos (he and she) under are this wonderful tree smiling stand (all realms of where and when beyond) now and here (far from a grown -up i&you- ful world of known) who and who (2 little ams and over them […]

V is for violin

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Here is virtuoso Itzak Perlman finding his way into Klezmer with the Klezmatics (don’t miss magic minute 7): I did a fun Christmas exercise for Spotlight: A Great Christmas

U is for understand

I understand. — Empathy, part 2: an effective active-listening phrase when you don’t really want to listen to somebody (“too much information”), but don’t want to sound rude. Laughs c/o sitcom Two and a Half Men, 1st season, 7th episode. I put together tips and a language exercise on active listening here.

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 […]

S is for Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) is pronounced “Zeus” in English, like the Greek god. And he is a, if not the, godhead in the pantheon of English literacy. In a hilarious reading of Green Eggs and Ham, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called him a “latter-day saint”. He was a third-generation German-American who grew up […]