Month: August 2024

Yevsey Moiseyenko | August 28 2024, 13:53

Today marks the birthday of an intriguing Soviet artist, Yevsey Moiseyenko. I’m convinced almost none of you are familiar with him. When the war erupted, Yevsey enlisted in the People’s Militia voluntarily. Along with his comrades near Leningrad, he was encircled and captured by the Nazis. He endured time in a concentration camp in Altengrabow until April 1945, when the prisoners were liberated by Allied forces. After his return to the front, he lived until 1988.

Posts like this are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and all 102 can be found in the “Art Rauf Likes” section on beinginamerica.com (unlike Facebook, which forgets—or ignores—almost half of them).

Navigating Accents and Pronunciations in American English | August 27 2024, 04:13

Just had a conversation with a friend about the American accent.

I want to share what I’ve come to realize over time: don’t sweat the accent, but gradually learn to make fewer pronunciation errors. Correcting an accent is very tough (it requires years of work with a speech therapist), while pronunciation mistakes usually get fixed in the process of communication, provided you don’t ignore them.

To leave no doubt that correcting an accent is difficult and that its presence generally bothers no one (and often even pleases some), here are a couple of examples familiar to many just from “Mimino”:

– Frunzik Mkrtchyan. Remember, “I have such a personal dislike for the victim, I can’t even eat”?

– Vakhtang Kikabidze. Remember, “Hello! I want Larisa Ivanovna!”?

In the US, one can recall Arnold Schwarzenegger and Salma Hayek. Speaking of Schwarzenegger, it’s quite funny. Initially, he was considered for dubbing the Terminator in German – his native language, but after the auditions were “cut off” because his rural accent sounded very comical coming from a futuristic robot, and eventually, some German voiced the Terminator. But no worries, the grandpa made it to governor, and in 2023 became the Director of Action at Netflix.

A simple rule: what (#1) and how (#2) you say something is far more important than how you pronounce it. Clearly, you need to produce sounds more or less correctly and learn to pronounce them more or less accurately (like bare/bear/beer/peer and similar), but it’s far more crucial to be able to convey thought in “large units”, structurally, clearly, without “fluff” and stumbles.

P. S. A good video on the subject by Virginia Bēowolf in the comments

Churchyards Rising: The Surprising Depth of History | August 26 2024, 20:42

From the book “At Home” by Bill Bryson:

“…Have you ever noticed,” asked Brian as we entered the churchyard, “that country churches almost always seem to have sunk into the ground?”

I admitted that I had never thought about it.

“It’s not that the church itself is sinking,” he continued. “It’s just that the churchyard has risen. How many people do you think are buried here?”

I glanced at the gravestones and responded, “I don’t know. Eighty? A hundred?”

“I think that’s quite a modest estimate,” said Brian with good-natured imperturbability. “Think about it. In a rural community like this one [Norfolk. – my note], there are usually about 250 inhabitants. That’s roughly a thousand adult deaths per century, plus several thousand more of those poor souls who didn’t reach adulthood. Multiply that by the number of centuries the church has been here, and you’re not looking at eighty or a hundred burials, but likely something around twenty thousand.”

Ken Call | August 26 2024, 14:03

Another interesting American watercolor artist is Ken Call. He primarily paints children’s portraits. Interestingly, he’s the first talented artist I’ve come across who has a price list for commissioned portraits on his website ($500-$1500). I’m not saying this is bad—it’s just that I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

Similar posts are grouped under the #artrauflikes tag, and on beinginamerica.com, in the “Art Rauf Likes section, you can find all 102 of them (unlike Facebook, which tends to forget or ignore almost half).

Reuniting Liza with Her Beloved Cat: A Family’s Journey | August 24 2024, 21:26

They cleared out everything from Liza’s closet and took her favorite cat. Now the daughters have moved away: one lives in Italy, the other – in Blacksburg. The kitty lived with us for eight months, now we are taking him to Liza. Yuki said he would provide moral support.

Contrasting Portrayals of Kensington’s Plight | August 24 2024, 16:47

One really good thing about Kensington — this incredibly criminal neighborhood of Philadelphia, just teeming with dying drug addicts on the streets, a couple of hours away from us. Varlamov traveled there to report on “Kensington: Zombie Apocalypse in the Middle of the USA”, and after seeing Peter, watching Varlamov is revolting. Such different approaches to the same topic. Varlamov presented the neighborhood as a form of entertainment, while Peter shows what life there is like, from a very kind and humane perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWGwCbSUECw