Fluency – Page 11 – The Paris Savannah Connection

American Folk Music

Folk music is all about folk – people, family, friends, you and me and everyone else; individuals coping with life’s everyday cares. Happy ones and sad, hard and sweet.

Folk music provides us with a country’s history because it’s the people’s history … and how can we understand the present without a feeling and grasp of the working people who’ve lived before us, built our railroads, plucked our cotton, suffered the dust storms and prayed for rain? Brought us to where we are? Not only with their successes … but also their failures. Folk is about “everyday” people in touch with their emotions, their strengths, their weaknesses, their environments.

American folk music is so incredibly rich that I’d like to introduce you to a few tunes, stories, people and songs. Far from today’s global political stage, these songs are rooted in everyday experience. Pionners. Immigrants. Roamers.Expressions of work, love, family, discovery.

Without the advent of sound recording, they’d be lost. Fortunately, there are many many recordings and thanks to a fellow whose name was Moses Asch, the Folkways Collection was a lifetime project to guarantee their perennity … and I, at least, am grateful to him and his team for their work. Vanguard Records, too, as well as major and minor labels produced artists whose souls are still very alive.

Folk music is for listening. And here’s one of the classics: Woody Guthrie, of course.

This Land is Your Land:

PS.The Folkways Collection put about 2 dozen podcasts on the net for free downloads on iTunes (and maybe elsewhere!) … and this leads me to one of my father’s, bless his soul, favorite sayings: “A word to the wise is sufficient.”

PSS. If French is your native language … be careful not to mispronounce “folk.” The “o” is like “Oh!”

“New York I love you” at the Balzac

Not so long ago, I mentioned some of my favorite movie theaters in Paris. One of them is the Balzac … for cinema off the beaten track, sometimes low budget masterpeices … this is one of the spaces.

Right now, the Balzac is showing “New York I love you.” And I give it plenty of ***** !

Expatica – Working internationally

Expatica is the international community’s home away from home on the web. It is a must-read for English-speaking expatriates and internationals across Europe. Expatica provides a tailored local news service and essential information on living in, working in or moving to your country of choice. With in-depth features, Expatica brings the international community closer together. Read the Expatica Story.

Related Images:

Photos Cross Cultural Comments Reading

Are we really SO different?

As the prices indicated are in USD, I think this must only apply to American women living within driving distance of a mall … I was about to say that French women have other preoccupations … until I thought about how many pairs of shoes my daughters have … and the rue St. Placide …

A word to the wise: Note the pronunciation of “women.” The plural of woman. Listen:

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/MF81991.mp3|titles=women]

NB. Why do malls work? Precisely because … women are known to go to the major department stores to compare … Malls are designed so that there are competing department stores at opposite ends or multi-polar points … so the shoppers MUST walk in front of all the other shops as they go back and forth from one to the other … Those mall planners are pretty tricky folk.

Talk … and Tough Talk

It seems that some people “talk …talk … talk …” but when it comes to “doing … doing … doing … ” they can be hard to find!

There are several expressions dealing with these situations. One common one is:

Talk is cheap.

meaning … this is easy because it doesn’t cost anything except your time …

This same notion is used when calling someone’s bluff:

Put your money … where your mouth is.

Yes, it’s direct .. it’s straight to the point. No kid gloves in this one.

But it does mean what it says… If you mean what you say, risk your hard-earned money to prove it.

As much as I can stand by different just and fair causes, I often think that if every protester were asked to open their wallets and volontarily contribute to the cause according to their means … there might be … fewer protesters:

“Putting your money where your mouth is” describes this.

Vitamin R+

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is HOW to improve language skills. Language is a skill, sometimes elevated to an art. But like every skill, practice makes perfect. You won’t be a good swimmer … unless you swim. You can’t be a good negotiator if you don’t negotiate. The same goes for photography and cooking. You need to maintain and to acquire. You need a little, just a little vitamin R every day … And that’s one of the reasons for … The Paris Savannah Connection.

Vitamine R

Reading of course. And reading often. Daily.

Improving your language skills means both input and output. By reading you open yourself to others’ ideas, others’ words, others’ ways of thinking. And it’s a pleasure.

What should you read? Read what interests you. Read for your pleasure. Read for entertainment. Read to learn. Here are some suggestions:

Read the press. There’s something there for you. Whether you’re in business or the arts; whether you love sports or fashion, you will improve your vocabulary. You’ll read better. Faster. Think better, too. Often assimilating without even realizing it, without even being aware of it.

Read short stories. Read about people, places, and things. Read a few minutes a day. Like about 15 … ? There are numerous bilingual editions and I especially recommend the Folio series.

Read what you enjoy reading.

Reading reinforces what you already “know.”

When I’m in Savannah, I LOVE spending time in the big – and smaller – bookstores. The choices are infinite. So I usually end up spending not only lots of hours but also lots of …

Paris has half a dozen or so incredibly fine English language bookstores for both new and used books. Galignani’s and WH Smith on the rue de Rivoli near Concorde, Brentano’s avenue de l’Opéra, The Village Voice on rue Princesse at Mabillon and on rue Monsieur le Prince, the San Francisco Bookshop. Shakespeare and Company in the Latin Quarter across the Seine from Notre Dame, and there are others too as well as … hundreds of other booksellers and bookshops dealing in, as is said, la langue de Molière … I think that part of the city experience is just that: being in touch with the people who love what they’re doing. Paper. Print. Ink.

And … of course… if you ever have a hard time going to sleep … the very best remedy is … a book! Either to fall asleep or to stay awake!

If you’re interested in reading … just subscribe to the Paris Savannah Connection!

The Last Word: Odetta

Life is too short! In addition to everything else to do, I’d love to host a radio show broadcasting folk, blues, musicals, songs, instrumentals. There is so much incredible music that lives and lives and goes on living.

Today, I take no credit except for bringing Odetta to your screen.

Authenticity. Intelligence. Soul. Spirit. Beauty. Nobility. To say the least.

Thanks to the NYT’s Last Word, here she is. For all of us.

The Last Word: Odetta.

Vitamin L+ as in “Les Paul”

Vitamine L+:

as in Listen … Love to Listen … Love to Listen & Learn

We’re so incredibly fortunate to have inherited constitutions which guarantee Free Speech. And broadband access to the Internet has given us access to sources and media hitherto relatively unavailable.

If you happen to be stuck in Paris or Savannah with nothin’ to do … why not listen to the media you’re not used to …. why not the BBC ? … or the FT? or the NYT? There are interviews and documentaries, often brilliant, rather short and very sweet:

Les Paul was a virtuoso guitarist and inventor whose solid-body electric guitar changed the course of 20th-century music.

Listen to NYT’s “The Last Word” with Les Paul … Produced by Matthew Orr.

Whether you’re interested in business, technology, the environment, science, the arts or real estate or fashion or sports … You’ll love to listen. If you need a little Vitamin L … subscribe to the Paris Savannah Connection.

“The bottom line” and “at the end of the day”

The bottom line is the final result.

“The bottom line,” said Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chief of pulmonology at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, “is there’s no longterm health effect from volcanic ash.”

(see the article on the vocabulary of green, too)

and at the end of the day …

“I can’t help it…”

Now if this were … “I can’t help you” or “I can’t help him” or “I can’t help them”… it would be easily translatable.

In French, for example, we’d say literally: “Désolé, je ne peux pas vous aider” ou “Je ne peux pas t’aider … dans le sens de “Je ne peux pas te donner un coup de main” , “Je ne peux pas te dépanner … ” “Je ne peux pas vous être utile…” ou même “Mon cher ami, si vous saviez …” … etcetera.

But the “it” … changes everything! Unless you’re talking about Minerva, your pet cat, or Tolleston, your pet dog … for example …,

“I can’t help it” is what someone says when they’re doing something compulsively. Indulging in something. Having an uncontrolled reaction. Cleptomania, for example … just picking up something that doesn’t belong to them. Maybe having … one more drink.