13 November 2008 (Thursday)

9 students today and lots of conversation!

First of all I wanted to figure out the schedule for the rest of the quarter. It turns out that with the Thanksgiving holiday and the end of the quarter, this coming Thursday, 20 November will be our last regular meeting of the Fall Quarter! We will resume in January. Nonetheless, we will do some activities as a group -- at least a dinner and hopefully a concert -- during December.

On to music: This evening the Latin Grammy Awards were going to be on TV and I was sure to point that out to Diego. So we started by watching a couple of the artists who were most nominated for Latin Grammy's.

First up was "Me Enamore" (video, lyrics) by Juanes (bio). Diego told us Juanes is describing his perfect girl. Naturally I asked everyone in the group what the first thing is that they about notice a boy or girl they think is good looking at a party. (No, I will *not* reveal the answers from the students!)

At this point we started talking about how people in different cultures (in the US and in other countries) act when they pass each other on the street. For example, some people like that in the US complete strangers say "Hi" to each other as they pass whereas in other countries people will not look at each other as they pass. Ozlem said that in Turkey everyone looks at everyone!

Back to the Latin Grammy's: I had read that this Mexican alternative band, Cafe Tacuba (bio) was up for an award for their song "Volver A Comenzar" (video, lyrics), so we watched that song.




Next we watched "Git" (video) by Emre Aydin (bio).











I can't remember how we go to this one, but the next song was "Isn't She Lovely" (song only, no video, lyrics) by Stevie Wonder (bio). (Stevie Wonder is one of my favorite singers!)





Next song chosen was "I'm Yours" (video, lyrics) by Jason Mraz (bio). (Is it really possible that this video has been viewed 35 *million* times?!?) Ah, a little bit of summer atmosphere in the face of the cold, wet weeks we had been having!



This playful song about loving a girl made me think of a similar song from a few years ago: "Your Body Is A Wonderland" (video, lyrics) by John Mayer (bio).





All this talk of appreciating bodies led the next choice to be "Feedback" (video, lyrics) by Janet Jackson (bio).

At this point I had to mention that Janet started out here career in the 1980's as a much more "wholesome" (definition) reputation. One of her first hits was "Let's Wait A While" (video, lyrics). I wonder if she still does that song in concert...

I bet my students dont' know that Janet got her start on TV shows in the early 1980's. She was on Diff'rent Strokes (show info), one of my favorite shows as a kid. Here's a clip of her singing on that show. Here's an episode where one of the boys falls in love with Charlene (Janet).

My students also were not aware of the craziest Jackson of them all: La Toya Jackson (bio). Here's a clip where she looks more like Michael than Michael himself does.







Ok, back to the subject of dancing like Janet does: someone wanted to see Shakira (bio) (could it have been Diego?) and the group chose "Beautiful Liar" (video, lyrics) with Shakira and Beyonce (bio) together.






However, their belly dancing was a bit unimpressive, so Ozlem showed us a clip for a Turkish TV show (video). She did note that this a "slow" style of belly dancing; there is also a faster style.




Now we went further into Turkish traditional dancing. First we saw a traditional dance like at a wedding (video). Then we saw a traditional "knife dance" (video). Lastly we saw a "battle" dance (video) -- amazing footwork!




All this Turkish music set us up for the planned class trip to a Turkish restaurant Friday evening. See next blog entry about that!