Kino Reticulator » Miscellaneous

Pipe organ = bad guys

Reticulator — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:04:02 +0000

On my ride home from work tonight, I listened to some of the book of Luke from the Russian bible I downloaded from the Faith Comes by Hearing site. Occasionally I listen to it while exercising on our elliptical machine, usually with a printed version of Russian and English to study alongside. Sometimes it takes me an entire 20- or 30-minute session to work my way through one chapter. Though when there’s a Big Ten basketball game on TV, I usually watch that while exercising instead of working on Russian. But when there’s no game on TV, I’ll work on Russian. I’m also reading “Wintering Station on Chill River” by D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak in a bilingual printed version.

But there’s no audio for that, so for bicycling I listen to a movie soundtrack, or some Russian songs, or in this case, the Bible.

I got the slightly dramatized version of the Russian Bible. Several years ago I got a “Parole de Vie” Bible (limited-vocabulary French) from these same people. (It’s a long story, but it came about when our pastor called my bluff.) That recording seems to have been produced by French-African people. I thought the dramatization was very nicely done. The various voices are good, and the music or other background sounds were just the right touch — not overdone, and it stands up to repeated listening — but stands out just enough to be an aide to listening. You even get a Caribbean flavor with steel drums in a few places where it’s just the right thing.

So I had high hopes for the Russian bible, though I was worried that the dramatic effects might be overdone — like the gaudy stage settings on a lot of Russian music programs one can see on the Internet. But instead, it’s underdone. It’s no huge problem, because the voices are good, but I am a little disappointed.

What’s especially disappointing is that the musical accompaniment is often in the form of organ music. Who ever heard of pipe organ music in a Russian anything? I enjoy organ music by Bach or Saint Saens. But it just doesn’t seem right for Russian. Do they even have pipe organs in Russia? The only pipe organ I’ve ever seen in a Russian movie is the one pictured above in Sergei Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky” — and it’s one of the evil enemy German clerics who is playing the thing. For Russian they should use a garmoshka, piano, or guitar, shouldn’t they? Or better yet, all of the above. You see those in lots of Russian movies, anyway.

It could be worse. At least it’s an understated organ accompaniment. But I still find it somewhat disconcerting, and probably would even if I had never seen that Alexander Nevsky movie.

ASL vs Russian Sign Language

Reticulator — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:40:48 +0000

I did make myself finish watching Strana glukhikh last night. It was not the ending I expected!

But I got to wondering how Russian Sign Language relates to American Sign Language. Where is it in the taxonomy of sign languages? I don’t know any sign languages myself — I need the subtitles — but I’m curious about things like that.

I didn’t find an answer to my question, but I did find this web page that tells about a Russian Sign Language/American Sign Language translator program. And some Russian Sign Language is used in the US:

In communities in the United States with a large Russian presence, such as New York City, interpreting agencies may offer Russian sign language interpreting services.

A multi-lingual, English-as-Official-Language society

Reticulator — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:16:42 +0000

Paul Greenberg writes:

I’m all for the wonderful mosaic of cultures in this country – social, religious, linguistic, culinary and every other kind in this country of countries. Each contributes something to the way we all see things, think about things. We learn from each other. But here there is room for only one, indivisible, unhyphenated civic culture. A civic and civil culture that gives us a common tongue to argue in, and common ground to stand on.

Note that having English as the one official language of this country, the language used for government work, would be quite compatible with our being more of a multi-lingual society. It would be quite compatible with kids learning more languages in school, and perhaps ought to be accompanied by such if it were ever to be made official policy. It’s no threat to our having a multitude of cultures and languages — unless all aspects of our cultures and private lives become government business. If that’s the case, then government is too big.

This was in Paul Greenberg’s recent article on immigration reform : Me, Ma, and Ben Franklin. So was Greenberg for the recent immigration bill or against it? He explains in the introductory paragraph to the article in which the above quote appeared.

I didn’t much like the immigration bill that just stalled in the U.S. Senate. In fact, I disliked it. Intensely. And I was for it. You can imagine how the folks who were against it felt about the bill.