Eddie Izzard is a Force Majeure
Eddie Izzard is unbelievable. 8 years of French and 2 years of German in school. And after witnessing people of many nations splashing about peacefully together in Santorini and believing that languages will unite us, he’s decided to do his show in various countries and languages. Standup comedy in foreign tongues, not just in French, […]
Captain Picard: Let it Snow? Make it So!
Actually, the weather is absolutely delightful. Sunny and beautiful. But snow is on the way. Someplace. Love this remix.
Kurt Vonnegut on the Shape of Stories
In the Cornelsen coursebook I’m writing, and in my classes, I warn my students against turning their presentations into straight pitches. Robert McKee, the Hollywood scriptwriter, has pointed out that the audience doesn’t really engage with and is not convinced by a presentation that tries to sell only strong points. People aren’t dumb. They’ll instinctively […]
Eric Berne: Games People Play
A seminal, very useful book is turning 50 this coming year. Published in 1964, and the best selling non-fiction book of the 1960s, Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne introduced Transactional Analysis, which looked closely at human relationships. He opted to study interaction as transaction, since he said we communicate to get something out […]
Yoda: A Jedi craves not these things.
Craving Yoda’s funny and wise pontifications, I went and found some quotes, with their charming and haunting backward sentence structure: No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try. — Much to learn, you still have. — Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is. — Ready, are you? What know you of […]
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 […]
Painting from Life
Videos on painting from life by The Art Students’ League of New York would be useful in an English course for Artists. Here I would focus on how an artist, Sharon Sprung, describes her process as she paints. Notice how difficult it is to multitask, producing both visually and verbally, and both commenting on the […]
