Taylor Swift?! Uh-huh!

Today I rocked to country.
Yes. I did.

I rocked to country music.

The reason I say this twice is because, well, for lack of a better phrase, I don't do country. I don't know why. I just can't. I am not attracted to it. I never was. While I'm sure that country music feeds many people, it doesn't manage to feed me in any way. Not even with carbs. It's a preference issue, you see. For example, I love Verdi, Wagner, Beethoven, and Mozart but I don't care for Schumann. I love Indie rock but basically everything about Grunge bothers me. And, yes, Nirvana is an exception. Kurt Cobain is bigger than any genre. And I loved him. Very much. I still do. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" continues to be a high-frequency track. It's not grunge, it's classic. So there are exceptions within certain genres, of course.

Now back to my country encounter today. I rocked out to Taylor Swift's "Love Story."
At the end of the tenth lap at the pool, I thought I would take a 60-second break and change up the routine. I remove the items that guarantee my isolation from the surroundings and I suddenly hear this uber-loud song blasting from the loudspeakers.
I gave out a 'huh?' Hmm. The pool is sounding like a Bavarian disco? How about that!

After my 60-second break at the pool, I found myself rocking to the song the loudspeakers were feeding my already-filled-with-water ears. At the end of the mini-break, I found myself singing along with Taylor: "Romeo, save me... My daddy said "stay away from Juliet" Marry me, Juliet... Baby just say 'yes.''

I remember letting out a 'HA!' and then put my cap and goggles back on and got to the second half of the work-out. I couldn't get Swift's words out of my head. I then tried to switch to Verdi. Verdi always bails me out. I tried Nabucco but words like 'Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone, you can be the prince, I can be the princess' kept creeping in. I had another 20 minutes left in my routine, so I was stuck. My iPod and Keane were calling me but I resisted. Instead, I gave in and sang in my head, ''And I said, Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone."

At the end of the workout, I get to my iPod and listen to Keane's Perfect Symmetry. Keane, de-Swift me swiftly, please. It didn't work.
I turn to Verdi. Nichts!

Now, I support the arts. And I most actively support music. For without music I wouldn't be who I am. But I am very, very specific about what I like. And country is not it. We're all entitled to having our favorites and Indie is what I choose. Indie is what I have chosen for years now. And this week has been a very good week for me. I got Franz Ferdinand's new album, Lily Allen's new stuff, and The Annie Lennox Collection. And it's not even Friday yet. So, what's this country business about?

And I know exactly what my annoyance consists of. Taylor Swift's little, puerile track is a distraction. Much like Lifehouse was a few years ago when their music kept me from more relevant artists like the Magnetic Fields or Morrissey. And this is supposed to be Verdi's time. This is Verdi's month. So, Taylor, I'm sure you have plenty of other fans out there. I am not hiring. I never was. My love is already spoken for. And it's good. It's very, very good.

Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman

Economy of speech, peut-être?

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Uta Dirks: German Businesswoman Par Excellence

This is Uta Dirks




She is the owner and operator of this:












Here is Uta's podcast.


Her official Germany-based site is here.

Uta Dirks is a linguist par excellence.
She writes brilliantly.
She takes beautiful photographs.
She gives the words reason and balance a new, graspable meaning.
She is one of the sharpest individuals I know whose professional and personal opinion I trust completely.
She is the best travel buddy anyone could ever have especially if one is a picky, boundary-conscious individual who also likes to experience it all at the same time.
She understands the culture of language better than anyone I know and, as a result, perfectly gets what human civility and boundaries entail.
Uta can do any culture because she can decode with ease the precepts of Culture. She gets the deep structure of Language, ergo the surface structure is a given. Some people manage to do that naturally and no amount of education and/or artificially acquired linguistic experience can quite procure that for one. Uta happens to have both: great linguistic instinct and first-rate training.

The reason why I’m blogging about Uta is not to share my bragging rights for a friend I love dearly who makes me proud on a quotidian basis. The reason I do so is to proudly make you all aware of what she has accomplished in Kiel, Germany and how much she will now be accomplishing world-wide thanks to a cyber expansion of her language business.

And, folks, nobody gets the language business the way she does. Language is her business.

So, if you have any German-related questions at all, might I strongly recommend that you reach Uta Dirks first. You will not only get quality and speed, you will get a kind of linguistic experience the German romantics of the likes of Schlegel wrote about: a conglomeration of language, the arts, elegance of presentation, precision of expression, and culture.

The motto of Uta’s business is: LIV: Language, Interaction, Vision.
That is the motto of Uta’s life, too.
And what a brilliant life LIV-er she is!

Proudly and happily I sign off.

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