Kate Bush

KateBush
Originally uploaded by Jon George.

Mokotow Monkey is sponsored by Kate Bush.

Wifewatching

Good golly. Here's Tommy looking ever-so-slightly evil, and here's Tom and the 'new' drummer. They were live at The Spitz on September 9th last year, lucky little lambkins.

Ozdobny

This word 'ozdobny' has been bugging me. 'Podobny' means 'similar'. 'Oz' is an affectionate name for the land of Australia. I have a notion that 'ozdobny' means 'exotic', but perhaps that is just because of its exotic sound.

Alrighty. It means 'decorative'. Polish language, of you I approve.

And here's another one. 'Zaplatalem sie troche' = 'I got a little bit confused'. 'Zaplatac' (with nasal a in the middle) is the perfective of 'platac' which means 'to tangle (up)', 'to mix (up)', and when used as a reflexive verb means 'to tangle', 'to falter' and 'to hang around'.

wszystko mi sie placze = I'm all confused

jezyk mu sie placze = he can't find his tongue

I needed to say 'Zaplatalem sie troche!' to describe the worst teaching experience so far at UW, when I embarked upon a reading of Heaney's 'Broagh' that somehow transmogrified into a panicky exercise in deconstruction. The poem, I declared, was importantly unreadable, and as such was a good model for the sectarian conflict. I'm such a wally.

The Fatherland of the Tomato

What is a tomato?
And where can they be found?
Help is at hand. Fear not. At hand is help. Don't be fearing now.

Let's hear it then!

Here you go.
I mean here you go.
Sorry, I mean here you go.

Jean DuBuffet is not in the Penguin Book of Facts.

Neither am I.

The time is a lie. The Blogware thinks I am in California, not Warszawa. When I get to grips a bit with all this new-fangled-ness, that's one of the little problems I hope to solve.

The Penguin Book of Facts

dubuffet
Originally uploaded by Jon George.

Jean DuBuffet. Is there a painter with a better name?

Charles Ives is there in the index, which sends us to pages 642 and (gulp) 666. On the former we discover that he was born in 1874 in Danbury, Connecticut; he died in 1954. That means that he was either 79 or 80 years of age when he logged off. There is a selection of orchestral works, reproduced below in full. On the latter we are told that in 1947 his Symphony No 3 was awarded the annual 'Pulitzer Prize in music'. Ives was the fifth composer to be so honoured.

Were Rubinstein and Horowitz fans?

And as promised that little list -

- Holidays Symphony (in the plural? where did he go?)
- The Unanswered Question (that old chestnut!)
- Central Park in the Dark (great title)
- Symphonies 1-3 (which is your favourite?)
- Variations on 'America'

Alan

lomax
Originally uploaded by Jon George.

At the tender of age of 17, Alan set off with his father to do some field work. Here we see him a few years later, writing something up.

Knights move in L-shapes

RedHead
Originally uploaded by Jon George.

Here is somebody waiting to cross the road.

Captain's Blogbook

A Blog can be like a scrapbook. A notebook. Why ever not?
Who is Charles Ives? There's an example of the kind of thing that Mokotow Monkey might help with.
Charles Ives tinkling on the ivories. He composed a piece called "The Unanswered Question". He was from the U S of A.

AND THEY'RE OFF

How would you rate this Blog in comparison with Horowitz or Rubinstein?