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Archive for March, 2008

Du hast ein Buch geschrieben!

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

I finally got sick of feeling guilty for not knowing German. So, for the past month, I have been studying this language over the internet. I’m using the Rosetta Stone program, ironically named because it uses no translations at all, just a large collection of stock photos, which you have to match up with phrases.

Erwachsene liest

Jogi liest

I particularly enjoyed the lesson on “can” and “cannot”:

Ein Hund kann nicht Auto fahren

Please note the facial expression of the non-driving dog, which I intend to emulate for the duration of my German travels.

In the lesson on present perfect, there is this very encouraging illustration of the sentence, “You have written a book!”:

Du hast ein Buch geschrieben!

Evidently, the production of this book comes as a complete surprise to its author. No doubt this happens quite frequently in Germany: you spend a year or two writing emails, doing laundry, grading papers, etc.; and then, when you least expect it…

Du hast ein Buch geschrieben!

Great news for Bach impersonators

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Truly New York is the city of constant drama.   I had been in this magical city for scarcely 12 hours (8 of which I had spent asleep), when my mother’s iPhone was stolen while she was on the elliptical trainer; then we somehow both ended up getting haircuts. 

So, this will not be a long post—but I did want to share with you a piece of wonderful news for Bach impersonators (brought to my attention by the promising young Germanist, Na’ama Rokem).  Finally, twenty-first-century computer modeling techniques have been put to the task of producing a historically accurate three-dimensional reconstruction of the head of Johann Sebastian Bach.  Not a moment too soon, gentlemen!

Reconstructed Bach-Head

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