I've just seen the trailer of a brand new French movie which is based on Boris Vian's book, Froth on the Daydream. I have mentioned this book in my blog post on personal higlights of 2012 as one of the things that made the year 2012 remarkable to me. This book was a fantastic literary discovery, and now here it is in the form of a film titled "Mood Indigo" which I can't wait to see. It looks amazing according to the trailer. I'm really curious if it will have a similar effect on me as the book had. I would say it's not an easy task to dramatize any of Vian's books because of their surreal nature. Another thing I'm really happy about related to this is that it stars the cute Audrey Tautou well-known to many of us from the film The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. I believe she will be perfect as Chloé, the female main character of the book.
Oh, I'm really happy and excited now! :-)
Your next blog task will be to summarise the content of a newspaper article. We have started dealing with society and social issues in module 9 of the textbook, and we have also learnt about reading strategies that you can use when you need to summarise a text. These are:
- read the text to get the general idea
- identify the topic of each paragraph in the form of topic words or key words
- underline the key sentence in each paragraph (often at the beginning), find information that backs it up
- summarise each paragraph in one or two sentences
- write the summary as a coherent text: use your own words to write down the main points and the key information
I've chosen several recent articles from the website of the Guardian. They all deal with different social issues. Choose ONE of them and write a short summary of 100-150 words, which includes the most important ideas expressed in each paragraph and the whole text.
There are numerous lists of 2012 world events on the net, but in my opinion the really interesting stuff is actually personal highlights of the people you know and of those you don't. For eg. I found this one on the website of The Guardian really cool, not only because it's funny. I liked it because of its personal flavour and privacy. It drew my attention to the small but important things in our life, the ones that make a difference, the ones that really matter and make people, events, things memorable to US.
My three-year-old daughter's funny words, such as cizmározni (cipzározni), Józsiska (Jézuska), izmonyom (izmom), taski (taxi), etc. I try to keep a record of all of them, they will be funny to talk about later when she gets older.
Mason of the year: my friend's father who built a small new house in our garden out of the material from the old house that was pulled down. He reused every bit and piece that was in good condition in order keep the "spirit" of the garden and save money naturally. He had so many great ideas that are cheap or even costless to realise. I really admire the way he thinks and feels about buildings, spaces, decoration, nature and harmony.
In Bruges: a fantastic story in the form of a beautiful film that's both funny and sad, comedy and tragedy, real and surreal. It made me laugh my head off and cry like a baby several times during the 107 minutes it lasts. It's full of suspense and tension, and weird turns of events. Here's the trailer.
A literary discovery - Boris Vian: I like reading books that are in some way magical or even absurd, I like tales very much, those modern, contemporary ones mostly. Vian knows how to do it. The first book of his that I read was Froth on the Daydream (Tajtékos napok) which is a strange, surrealistic love story full of wordplays, made-up-words that take you into a familiar yet completely new and special world. The way he uses the language is really funny and it adds up so much to the overall effect of the book, it's simply amazing.
Gardening - The place where I spent a huge amount of my free time was our garden. All those quiet, peaceful mornings with a cup of coffee and plants to take care of... Brings back lovely memories. It also reminds me of how much I look forward to the spring when I'll be able to indulge in this activity again.
There is a huge number of various websites telling you about the most important world events in 2012. I found Google's Zeitgeist 2012 really interesting because it's not only someone' s opinion but the number of clicks and searches according to which the important people/events/etc. are shown. I've chosen some that I found interesting, and here they are in no special oder:
Olympic Games in London - I've just checked the medal section of the official website: Serbia won 4 medals and Hungary 17
Steve Jobs's death - the head of the Apple Inc. passes away, all those lovely gadgets such as iPads, iPods, iPhones are to be thanked to him...
Barack Obama's reelection - the first Afro American president is reelected.
The Socialists and the Radicals make up the new government of Serbia - a change that many people feared and many expected here in Serbia! i just hope it doesn't mean going back to the past completely and irreversibly. we'll see!
The Mayan Calendar and the end of the world on 21st December - what a hoax! what a media upheaval!
Pussy Riot arrest - 3 members of a Russian feminist punk-rock band get arrested because of their song against Putin.... 2 of them got 2 years of imprisonment which is an exaggerated punishment for singing a song imho
