Food for thoughts

Strange Fruits

By Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol (1937)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

When we hear "strange fruits" it's easy to imagine an exotic fruit like strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, watermelon... However, in this song you would be wrong. There is a metaphor about some terrible acts that happened in America. The song condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans that had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all regions of the United States. In conclusion, it talks about all the corpses that hung on trees.

Pastafarian

Have you ever heard about a strange religion called The Flying Spaghetti Monster??

I'm not joking, of course it exists!

In fact, it's a parody religion that appeared in 2005 by Bobby Henderson. It was a satirical protest to the decision by the Kansas State to teach "Intelligent design" as an alternative to the theory of evolution. Intelligent design was a movement that used ambiguous references to an intelligent designer of our world, a supernatural creator.

For that reason, Henderson invented a new theory of creation called Pastafarian and he wanted to teach in science classrooms. There are other versions of this idea. The Invisible Pink Unicorn is another satiric parody religion. It talks about a god that takes the form of an unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink. In fact, it wants to argue that supernatural beliefs are arbitrary.

In conclusion, I think Pastafarian is a perfect religion to pass on your kids, behind the other religious beliefs. Are you spagnostic? Please, say yes!!! I think it's better than being religious, atheist or agnostic! (Here, I'm kidding, don't get annoyed with me please!)

Great cartoon!

If you want more, go to the web: http://xkcd.org/523/
Enjoy it!

Mobile phone terms

Today, it's been a cleaning day. I've tidied up my english notebooks and surprisingly, I've found a big list of mobile phone terms: abbreviations for writing faster and with less letters. It's an amazing slang! That makes me think that language is constantly changing.

So, let me show you some examples!
I'm going to organize the list in different levels:

LEVEL 1 (easy to guess it!)
ASAP : as soon as possible.
COZ: because.
DA: day.
EZ: easy.
H8: hate.
L8: late.
LV: love.
PLS: please.
NE: any.
M8: mate (friend)
Y: Why?
B: be


LEVEL 2. A bit more difficult! Go ahead!
NP: no problem!
PAW: parents are wathcing.
PPL: people.
SUM: someone.
TMB: text me back.
2MORO: tomorrow.
2nite: tonight.
RU: Are you?


LEVEL 3. That could be hard!
TTYL: talk to you later.
TYUM: Thank you very much.
WUD: What are you doing?
IyQ: I like you!
IM2GUD4U: I'm too good for you.
WYGOWM: Will you go out?
URA: You are a star! (this is impossible to guess!)


And what is the meaning of SMS? Do you know it?
Short Message Service!!!

Seal

Few days ago, Gentleman recommended me a british soul singer and songwriter called Seal. First of all, I thought "Why not?" and I visited his own web (http://www.seal.com/). His voice surprised me, so I downloaded a couple of his albums. Besides, there is something in his face, that makes him very handsome, don't you think it?
His most famous song is "Kiss from a rose". Enjoy it!

Recommendations are a chain. Maybe, there will be one other student that maybe would like this artist. What do you think?

Sublime

To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, but of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
and the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

In aesthetics, the word sublime means the quality of greatness or vast magnitude. So, nothing else can be compared with it!
This concept comes from an ancient philosophy but in eighteenth century, there were a british philosphy that theorize about it. Shaftesbury and Edmund Burke are some of the most important philosophers. However, Kant talks about it, and Victor Hugo touched on aspects of the sublim in many of his poems.
They used to explain it with nature: big storms, huge waterfalls, volcanos erupted, heavy avalanches,...
In spanish, we can compare it with the increase of adrenaline...a "subidón" :).
There is a really famous painting that illustrates it. "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich. However, all the romantic paintings wants to find this concept: Turner, Friedrich, Constable, Dahl...Nevertheless, I think that in this aspect, Turner is the most representative painter.

Curiously, there's a music group called "Sublime". Awful! It's so pedantic!