Thursday, 27 July 06

Today's class was again 8 students. It seems we have a core of about 10 people who regularly come. The conversations are getting more fluid and students are not as inhibited to speak their minds.


Following up the topic of concerts at The Gorge in Eastern Washington, I brought in a DVD of The Dave Matthew's Band shot at that location to show the students what it looks like there. I played the song/video "Grace Is Gone" which includes a lot of footage of the area around the Gorge as well as of the concert venue itself.

The class had never heard of Dave Matthews. He is one of those megastars in the US who is virtually unknown abroad. The class quite liked the song "Grace Is Gone".

I mentioned that the Dave Matthews Band is playing 3 consecutive nights at the Gorge, September 1-3 and asked how many students will still be in Seattle at that time, but out of the eight people in the class today, only a few will still be here then. But for those who will still be here, it would be a great cultural experience to see the DMB at the Gorge. On the other hand, that is the same weekend at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle, one of the best music and arts festivals in the US. A tough choice to make... but I suppose I would recommend Bumbershoot over Dave Matthews.


Next we finally got to talking about the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack. Jun played his favorite song from the album, "When I Fall In Love" by Celine Dion and Clive Griffin (lyrics). Jun likes this album for its calming effect. Most of the class likes the song and they are fans of Celine Dion (ex. "My heart will go on" from Titanic is also a favorite).

Many of the students in the class haven't seen the movie "Sleepless in Seattle", which surprised me. When I am abroad and tell people I am from Seattle, the #1 response is "Oh, Sleepless in Seattle! I love that film!" (The #2 response is "Nirvana!"). If you have spent time in Seattle, it's good to see the movie to be reminded of the city. I also enjoy seeing movies set in places I have lived (latest example is "The Devil Wears Prada" which has some scenes shot in Paris, including one just a few streets from my apartment in the 5th Arrondissement). If you like grunge music, another film to that is set in Seattle to see is "Singles". It's not really an accurate depiction of what life was like in the music clubs in Seattle pre-Nevermind, but it's kind of fun to watch anyway if you want to see the Seattle backdrop combined with music.

The next topic was Ukranian pop music. Inna had a cd full of mp3's and played a lot of snippets of songs which are currently popular in the Ukraine. I can't remember any of the names of the bands, but we agreed that pop music is pretty similar in all countries, only the singing language changes.

We found out today that Joan from Andorra will be leaving Seattle with his family Friday to go back home. That's a shame, as Joan is one of the most active participants and clearly enjoys a wide variety of music. To commemorate Joan leaving, we took a picture of the class (unfortunately Anna is not in the picture as she is behind the camera):