Doing fine. Trying to get this book finished. Thinking is ALSO writing. đ
Happy 4th of July!
by CJ | Jul 4, 2014 | Journal | 58 comments
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Yeah, and what is the sound of one hand clapping. My brother claims it’s ‘swish’. Of what use is the carriage without the horse? He claims it makes a fine downhill ride. On these examples, and that of my foot-in-mouth disease, PLEASE, don’t write without thinking!
lol!
And a Happy Fourth to the Cherryh-Fancher household and all its denizens and to all of the e-citizenry of this fine blog who reside in or identify with the US.
Today the New England seacoast is being treated to a fine, soaking rain (much welcomed by my garden) courtesy of Hurricane Arthur’s coat tails, no winds – just drops of water and an equally welcome drop in temperature. The planned barbecue and fireworks with friends in New Hampshire is being postponed a week and has turned into a lovely, lazy day indoors instead.
It’s the evening of the 4th here. Very hot and sunny here today; in other words, typical Houston summer weather. It’s been a quiet day, and we may not have too many fireworks tonight around.
Hello, All! I need recommendations for films/TV I could watch online to listen to actors/actresses with an authentic Russian accent in English, or as close to it as possible. Real Russian dialogue could also help to get a feel for the accent.
I have some idea already of how this should sound. I can recall hearing Yakov Smirnov (the comedian) and the Russians in the movie 2010, some of whom were Russian. But offhand, those are the few I can recall that would be authentic. I’m sure there are more.
Likely, I’ll check out a Learning to Speak Russian app and book/CD set by some company or other, also to get a better handle on the accent.
I’ve been cast in an audio drama podcast to do a Russian continuing character, and I’d like to get my accent more authentic if possible.
2010 with Roy Scheider and Helen Mirren http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
Mirren’s Dad was Russian, and she’s got the accent down pat. The other “Russians” are real Russians.
WOL beat me to suggesting 2010. Moscow on the Hudson (Robin Williams, with some of the same folks as 2010) is another idea.
Surprisingly I find Helen Mirren was also in White Nights, released about a year later than 2010. This is the one with Michael Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. I enjoyed it a great deal at the time, perhaps it will be helpful to you.
Aha, I’ll check out White Nights. I didn’t recall the title, and I haven’t seen it since it was on TV way back when.
2010 was very helpful, and a great movie to rewatch besides.
The biggest Russian trick is -yeh- for -e-; ie, dos veh DAHN yeh.. Bye. Many -e-‘s in the Russian language are pronounced as if they’re ie, or yeh, even if it doesn’t seem likely. Nyet (no) is spelled NET in Russian characters.
There’s also a bit of mixup on w and v or f. Wodka. or Fodka. I learned from a guy from St. Petersburg, but northern Russia doesn’t seem to have significant dialect differences, as there are toward the south, at least to my ear. And overall it’s probably one of the languages which sounds a bit like English, comparedd to, say, French or German.
Here’s hoping for that continuing role.
Oh, and one of my Russian teachers was from Leningrad, back when it was Leningrad. Grew up under Stalin. They have a drawl. I can pick that accent out a mile away. Another film is Solaris — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/ see if you can get a version with subtitles.
The Hunt for Red October. The movie was made after the collapse (disunion?) of the USSR. Much of the crew of Red October were Russian emigres.
Happy 4th!
I didn’t recall much from the main actors, but I’ll be sure to rewatch it. A Farscape fan suggested I listen to interviews with Russian figure skaters, which is a great idea.
@ CJ — I’ve picked up that Russian nearly always uses a “dark L” which sounds “thicker” than the “light L” used in French. The Russian version is further back in the mouth. I’ve also got the blurry V/W (when speaking English), which this character uses often. From reading, Russian has a whole series of y- versus non-y- vowels which modify their consonants. After listening to 2010, I think I’m on the right track, but I want to practice more.
Where French sounds nasal, like having a perpetual cold, and German has a very sharp, guttural consonant sound, Russian seems very thick, as if their tongues are always cold and thick.
To any native speakers, that’s a broad impression, and I speak French, non-native but my accent’s very good. I have a light big-city-boy Texas accent, with relatives whose accents are more “country,” so (hah) I understand accednts can be exaggerated.
I *like* being able to do accents and speak “foreign” languages.
I’ve updated my audio pages at http://shinyfiction.com/audio/ — including a breakdown by each series. I’m trying to find a solution that makes it easy to scan for series, episodes, roles, and production status, as now I have enough roles, it’s beginning to need to be more organized, quicker to find things.
Listening to Sean Connery, a Scotsman acting as a Lithuanian was hilarious……Honestly, I think Yakov Smirnoff would be good, as would The Hunt for Red October. Other than that, I don’t know….
Glad you’re okay! I was worried about the long silence (my job, after all, is to worry).
Hope you had a healthy happy birthday-of-the-nation.
Right now I’m flinching repeatedly as neighborhood idiots try to outdo each other noise-wise. Did enjoy a beautiful day, blue skies and comfortable temps.
eta: “you” meaning all the members of the household, of course!
A happy 4th to all! A ham is in the oven; there are smashed potatoes and green beans a-cookin’, and we have life support (a/c) activated in case the neighborhood explodes. Neither DH nor I respond well to gouts of gunpowder smoke, so I preemptively took my allergy drugs, and we are going to spend a quiet day at home tonight, trying to keep the cats from freaking.
A new guilty pleasure: limoncello gelato. It was on sale this week, and I bought a carton. Think iced lemon cheesecake. Then I went back and bought 3 more to stash in the deep freeze đ
That limoncello gelato sounds really, really good!
Our monsoon has set into Arizona; the skies have been cloudy and the temperatures more moderate than the month of June. We’ve now had almost two hours with moderate rainfall, a few thunderboomers. The city has put on the fireworks display anyway with accompanying booms. We can sit on our covered patio and see the fireworks from the comfort of our yard. The dog is being his cowardly self hovering at my feet, while the cat disdained to be held and wanted to retreat behind the sofa in the den… Daughter just went home after spending a couple of hours working on her cosplay costumes for an anime con in Baltimore next month. We have the room to spread stuff out and most of the necessary tools, but I’ll be happy to get my living room back when she is finished with her costumes. In the mean time I’m listening to music by Olafur Arnaulds and relaxing after a stressful week at work. Retirement is not for the faint of heart and I just had to take on this job. What have I done?
Happy 4th to all! We are baby-sitting DH’s 5 & 3 year old grandsons tonight; fed ’em hot dogs & hamburgers and as many patriotically iced sugar cookies as they wanted for dinner. Also included is our golden doodle grand-dog. Everyone else is in bed, so I should follow them shortly.
We had a lovely cold front come through MD yesterday which generated some nice thunderstorms and wonderfully brisk weather this afternoon. Predicted low tonight is in the 50s. So nice to be able to live without the AC until it warms up again.
I was beginning to think you guys had taken the scenic route home from Soonercon. News of progress on the next Foreigner book is always gladly received.
Happy Fourth everybody!
@ WOL, Walt, Joe, Chondrite, et al. — I just re-watched The Hunt for Red October, and a few nights ago, I re-watched 2010. What great films those are! They helped on the Russian authentic accents. (Er, except for Sean Connery, who’s excused on account of, well, he’s Sean Connery. đ ) — I’ve never seen Solaris, and hadn’t thought of it in years. I had heard of it years back in reading. (I haven’t read the book it’s from either.)
For both Hunt and 2010, I was struck too by how both films treat their ships’ crews. Both sides are presented as highly skilled and ultimately patriotic, even though the Red October’s senior officers have philosophical objections. Post-USSR, one can say, so did a lot of patriotic Russians. But both films treat the two sides’ navies as heroes, people you don’t want to mess with and you won’t put any foolishness past them. This is very unlike some (several) TV and movie SF&F shows that tend to show the “bad guys” or the “not OUR good guys” parts of the good guys as, well, not so smart, not so good, maybe easy to beat. Instead, 2010 and Hunt both avoid having the “bad guys” altogether: They’re antagonists, but not necessarily bad and certainly not fools. This makes for a more complex story. It’s harder to beat the antagonists, there has to be thought involved, moral choices, and it’s difficult. And oh yeah, there’s just the chance the “bad guys” might be right and the “good guys” might not all be so good or right. Both films solve it by having the two opposing sides cooperate. (And both were made very near the collapse of the USSR and birth of the new / current CIS … which keeps changing.)
All in all, very, very interesting to re-watch and see how they did things.
A YouTube search for Russian skater interviews turned up (wow!) interviews conducted in Russian. Now that was interesting too, even though I could only catch some cognate borrowings. It gave me a better feel for how native Russian itself sounds. I picked up that the vowels sound a lot more “American” except for the yeh versus non-yeh divide and the dark L and the single-trill R. But I also spotted they do something to exaggerate the B sound in certain situations, as if the lips are strongly pursed, so /bi:l/ and /boi/ have a super-strong /b/ sound. It sounded like that’s only in certain words, certain phonetic environments.
I had been curious about learning a little Russian before. Now, I think I need to do it to satisfy that itch, and to get a better feel for the character. … I’ll also admit that despite courses in French lit and English / American lit, I don’t think I’ve ever read any classics of Russian literature. Uh, I am probably not ready to tackle War and Peace right now, but I think I should seek out some others as I can get to them.
I was also struck by the irony of watching Red October on July 4th. — But then, I listened to Sting’s song, Russians, while in university at a campus with both civilian and cadet corps (Texas A&M) during the 80’s. The Berlin Wall fell while I was in college; I listened to “Right Here, Right Now” (and the video) from Jesus Jones during the same time period. — And ran across a preparedness pamphlet left over from the Cuban Missile Crisis, while packing from my parents’ old house, when I was in high school. Even back then, the pamphlet (older than I) was badly outdated.
Heh. I’ve never eaten borsht either.
“Vodka? It was inwented by a little old lady from Leningrad!”
— Ens. Pavel Chekov
…Who has always had a strange spelling issue with his family name…
Some tips from a voice coach: How To Speak With A Russian Accent
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The best submarine movie ever made is the German WW2 U-Boat movie Das Boot. The trailers don’t do it justice at all.
The remastered director’s cut version is three and a half hours long. Don’t watch it if you have claustrophobia – by the end of the movie you feel like you’ve been living on that submarine. Best watched in German with subtitles, rather than the dubbed English version.
It’s basically a true story. All the events in the movie actually happened, including the badly damaged submarine stuck on the ocean floor, below it’s maximum rated depth.
Das Boot Director’s Cut Preview Trailer
The actors in Das Boot were all German. Most of them did not speak English, but they wanted to be the ones who spoke the lines in English, not dubbed-over voices. I thought the movie was very well done, the acting superb, and of course, if you’ve read the book, it makes the movie even more powerful.
(It reminds me of why I am glad that I was rejected for submarine service in the Navy.)
Russian is like Latin, with cases — nominative, objective, genitive, etc., — and case endings. Unlike English, but similar to Latin, the word order in a sentence really doesn’t matter — you tell what the word is doing in the sentence — whether it’s being used as a noun or verb, or adjective, etc., by its ending. Like French and Spanish, it has the two levels of “you” — the familiar(tu), and the more formal (usted, vous). However, they have a very weird verb system. Verbs come in pairs and you chose which one of the pair to use depending on aspects of the action — is it an action that is happening as we speak? is it done habitually? Is the action complete? or incomplete? Also, Russian has no articles (the, a, an), which is why Russian speakers learning English tend to sound “primitive” — “Give me book” is a grammatically correct and totally complete sentence in Russian. Also the verb “to be” in Russian has no present tense at all. To say something like “I am a student,” you would say “I student.” or “Who are you?” ends up “Who you?” So unless you are portraying someone who has very good English, you could omit an article, or the present tense of the verb “to be,” — especially under stressful circumstances, where one is likely to forget and revert to more ingrained speech habits — and be perfectly “authentic.” They also tend to choose a present perfect (to be + “-ing” form) of the verb in situations where a native English speaker wouldn’t because of the way their minds learn to do verbs. (I’m convinced that your native language physically shapes how your brain is wired and shapes your thought patterns just as surely as it shapes the muscles of your mouth — which has an effect on how your mouth looks and moves.)
Also, Russian is spoken further back in the mouth and they don’t open their mouths very much (too cold!). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HChH1xS9gRg&index=7&list=PL46tNPw4JvEj6FYTfAgUE-7omHi7ADk8p. (you can see this guy really working on his English “r’s” and you’ll notice he drops an article or an “is” or “are” once in a while. You’ll also notice how he slights his diphthongs and “ee” sounds. Despite that he’s speaking English, his vowels are classic Russian vowels.) There’s no “K” in “Khrushchev” (Đ„ŃŃŃŃĐČ) and the sound that takes four letters to write in English — “shch” — is one letter in Russian — “Ń”. — borsch is spelled with just four letters: ĐĐŸŃŃ
My female Russian teacher (I had two, the other was a man from Lithuania), had a recipe for borsch, but it made 5 gallons, and took two days to make, starting with boiling the marrow bones to make the stock. http://natashaskitchen.com/2010/09/26/classic-russian-borscht-recipe/
I was told that, when loosely defined, adding any amount of beetroot to any soup turns it into borscht. I was also told that the recipe starts out, “See what you’ve got that might go with your beets”. Here’s how I do it:
About a pound of beef
The biggest, nicest bunch of beets you can find
Carrots to half the volume of beets
Onions to match the carrots
Any available cabbage or saurkraut
Water
Some variety of vinegar
Salt
Beef boullion
Oil
Peel and chop your veggies, cut up your meat into bite sizes, and brown all in your soup pot. Add about a teaspoon of boullion (if using cubes, dissolve in water first). Add water just to cover. Bring slowly to the boiling point and simmer until the beets are tender. Add salt and vinegar to taste, and continue to simmer for about 20 minutes. Except for ladling, garnishing, and eating, you’re done.
All that being said, any leftover meat or sausage, and any veggies you like to go with your beets also work well. Some folks will add caraway or fennel to the soup in the browning stage, but I don’t care for them, so I don’t. Some folks also like it pureed or cold. Not me! This is a clean out the fridge and root cellar dish.
“The Trouble with Tribbles” Um, Chekov’s line was in response to Scotty’s drinking Scotch. “Scotch? It was inwented by a little old lady from Leningrad.” and now, Leningrad doesn’t exist as that name, and you wonder if it would have survived into the 23rd century as well.
I know this isn’t really relevant, but one of my favorite Al Stewart songs, besides “The Year of the Cat” is “The Road to Moscow”, the story of a Russian soldier in WW2 during the German invasion.
Now, a question that just struck me. Why do orchestras play Tschaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” on July 4 here? It’s a song of RUSSIAN liberation, celebrating the victory over Napoleon Bonaparte. I was watching the fireworks last night here at home and the local civic band played the “1812” during the finale of the fireworks, too. When PBS would air festivities on the 4th, especially featuring the Boston Pops, or the Washington Symphony Orchestra, or other major company, they’d always feature the “1812”, complete with field pieces.
My bad; I suggested BCS [strike]look[/strike] listen to Anton Yelchin, who speaks Russian and is both a child of Russian emigrants and an emigrant himself. He plays Pavel Chekov in the JJTrek movies. Walter Koenig just got badly typecast đ
Alas, the Pops didn’t play the 1812 Overture this year to accompany the fireworks, due to nature prepping too many of her own. Boston did the Fourth a night early (on the 3rd) due to the very correctly forecast continuous, pouring rain from “Arthur’s” coat tails for Friday night, but the humidity was such that rolling thunderstorms were also threatening all evening of the 3rd. When they spotted one arriving around 10:00 on Thursday evening, the pops/fireworks crew decided to rush the show and went straight from the end of the Pops concert (with the Beach Boys! but minus several boys) into manmade boom, flash a boom, flash a boom and then evacuated the esplanade where the Pops and fireworks and assembled multitude were to the accompaniment of a deluge and natural fireworks.
possible because there’s nothing American that sounds that big. Or that boomy. (Sousa wrote great marches, but nothing that required artillery.)
My favorite version of ‘1812’ is the one from Telarc, recorded direct-to-disc, with Civil War cannon and real church bells. I understand that one shot had a big enough boom that it took out a bunch of windows – and you can *see* that one on the vinyl! (They recommend not turning the volume up unless you’re sure your speakers (and walls and windows) can handle it.)
I have that on CD, which has a lot more dynamic range than vinyl. Even at moderate volume, the cannon feel like someone has thumped your chest with a pillow. You actually feel the shock wave, assuming a stereo that can reproduce such a low frequency sound.
I once had the experience of sitting in the front row at a concert that featured the 1812 overture with a small cannon and blank rounds, and a shock wave hit me so hard in the chest that for a moment I thought I had been struck by a physical object. I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds, then I was fine, but it wasn’t pleasant.
One of our friends occasionally does black powder reenactment, and has built a variety of medieval light cannon. For New Year’s, he brought up his harquebus (a ‘hand cannon’, the precursor to a large pistol), and for fun, stuffed in a double charge. When he set it off, car alarms went off a quarter mile away and you could feel the overpressure wave. We heard police sirens coming towards our area, and slunk back inside đ
A friend got it on vinyl: the big boom has a sudden jump to the side, plus a slow (very low frequency, like 4Hz) wave as it gets back to actual audible stuff. That particular section of vinyl has grooves that are kind of far apart. You usually can’t see the sound like that. (I have CD as well as cassette.)
GreenWyvern, thanks, I will check that right now!
I’ll check for the Road to Moscow. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard it. I’ve heard a song called the Year of the Cat, but I’m not sure it’s the one you’re thinking of. I’ll check.
You know, I’ve never seen Das Boot, despite hearing about it since college. Sounds like it’s time.
For the 1812 Overture, I can’t help thinking of The Lone Ranger, or Farscape. Heh.
BTW, about Chekov’s hyper-patriotism, I think now the best angle is to say it was his sense of humor as well as young pride. It also points to a lot could have been swept under the rug before we get to Starfleet and Federation times.
A Farscape fan suggested an interview with Sergei Krikalov, which gives his Russian under a translator’s interpretation. It also gives a peek at a few techs in the background. Great as a resource for the accents and speech habits, as well as the space exploration side. Congrats to Mr. Krikalov for keeping the discussion refreshingly candid and free of politics.
@Joe & BCS
For about the same reason during St Patrick’s Day if the local TV news shows a story about celebrations with piping, the piper will like as not be playing “Scotland the Brave”! đ
For Russian movies my fav is “The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!”
Loved that movie Paul.
I keep coming back to the strange idea folks seem to have that Scotland belongs to England, rather than vice-versa. If Scotland wants to be shed of England, why don’t they just settle it on some other branch of the royals?
I’m not so sure Scots independence is such a good idea đ , for reasons of diversification of assets. I dispair of some of the small nations that have insisted on independence, with little they can support themselves with. đ On the other hand I have dispaired over state boundaries that were drawn by foreigners with no regard for the nations they divided or lumped together, e.g. Kurdistan in Turkey, Iraq (not to mention Iraq itself), and Iran.
[Replying on the independent Scotland/Flodden thread: I’m not certain quite where this reply will come out as the above indenting is pretty convoluted now and I had to “log-in]– having lived in Scotland for four years while getting my Masters at the University of Edinburgh in Celtic and then done my PhD on Campbell early modern period social structure, I find myself strongly conflicted on the idea of independence. Emotionally, I would love to see an independent Scotland. Emotionally I think most Scots would too. Despite 300 plus years of political Union (400+ for the union of crowns), it still is very much a distinct country from England (in a way that Wales is not, to my biased eyes — but having never lived in Wales) with a strong sense of self identity.
But, can the country hack it economically alone? Scotland always has been a country that, with the exception of the now defunct Clyde ship building and related steel industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has never really had much of a non-primary resources economic base. Indeed, the major economic justification for independence is the North Sea oil, yet another raw, primary resource for exporting – the classic Scots economic system.
Intellectually, I think the country would be foolish to separate from England, Wales and Northern Ireland (but really, we’re all meaning foolish to separate from England). I also watched Quebec in the 70’s seriously flirt with independence. My father still lived in Montreal although my Mom, brother and I had moved back to New Hampshire after my parents separated. So many of the multi-national corporations in Quebec abandoned the province as it got close to independence. My father, who was an American working for a branch of the UN in Montreal, was totally disgusted with what he perceived as the QuĂ©bĂ©cois running the province economically into the ground. So, that experience, as filtered through my father’s eyes and emotions, has colored how I view the realistic, economic prospects of an independent Scotland. A tough choice, emotions or fearful realism.
If one were to own an interest in an oil well here, the IRS would allow a depletion allowance deduction.
A town near Sacramento, CA, decided it wanted to start it’s own utility district. SMUD didn’t object, it just presented a bill for all the installed infrastructure. Don’t recall how it turned out. đ I wonder who has paid for North Sea development and who owns what contracts.
I also wonder if the North Sea oil would be as favorable for the Scots as some think, and for how long. I for one have never jumped on the “Drill, Baby, drill!” bandwagon–we should help use up the foreigners oil and leave ours in the grou…err, bank. Americans 7 generations from now might want it to be there.
Oh, and as to why people don’t think England belongs to Scotland, perhaps it’s has something to with how my 15th GGF Duncan Campbell, Earl of Glenorchy, died. He, James IV and most of the Scots nobility, went off to defeat the English at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Arguably the Scots had never been the most disciplined of fighters, and the English/British Army was to become one of the most disciplined. The letter also mentions that the Scots placed their officers in the front line in medieval style who were vulnerable and killed, contrasting this loss of the nobility with the English great men who took their stand with the reserves and at the rear. The English generals stayed behind the lines in the Renaissance style. The loss of so many Scottish officers meant there was no one to coordinate a retreat.”
Even though this was during the reign of Henry VIII and Mary, Queen of Scots, was to become Queen in England subsequently, Scotland was “finished” as an independent power, having lost so much of its ruling class. “Edward Hall, thirty years after, wrote in his Chronicle that ‘12,000 at the least of the best gentlemen and flower of Scotland’ were slain. As the nineteenth century antiquarian John Riddell supposed, nearly every noble family in Scotland would have lost a member at Flodden.”
Mary, Queen of Scots, was never queen of England. Perhaps you’re thinking of Bloody Mary.
Scotland has never ‘belonged’ to England. The two countries were peacefully joined together by mutual consent as a new country, the United Kingdom, after a century of sharing the same monarch. But because England always had a far larger population and was always far wealthier, it always dominated the union.
It was a Scottish king, James VI, who also became king of England, as James I of England, in 1603. From then until the Union in 1707, the two countries remained separate, but shared the same monarchs – who always chose to be based in London.
The union was very much to Scotland’s financial advantage, and still is. That’s why I think Scots will be too ‘canny’ to choose independence, no matter what the rhetoric may be.
The latest poll, published today shows 32% for independence, 46% against, and 22% donât know. I think the ‘no’ vote will only increase as time goes on.
Scotland may not have belonged to England, but it’s run it often enough.
Elizabeth’s Catholic half-sister Mary?
No, you’re right, I got my Mary’s confused. “Bloody” Mary was Catholic, but through Spain, not Scotland. Mary Stuart claimed the throne before Elizabeth’s accession.
Wikipedia – On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of James, her one-year-old son by Darnley. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southwards seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I of England. Mary had previously claimed Elizabeth’s throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving her as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in custody, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth, and was subsequently executed.
Much of what we consider “Scottish,” i.e., kilts, bagpipes, they got from the Irish. The indigenous Scots were Picts. They were assimilated by the Dalriada, Gaelic speaking peoples from Ireland who invaded and set up a kingdom in western Scotland — the Picts were assimilated to the point that their language and much of their culture was lost, and subsequently Gaelic became the “native” language. . . Not surprising that the stronghold of Gaelic in Scotland is in the western isles.
Perhaps so, but it’s even more interesting than that. My [mumble, munble] GGFs appear to have been Sigtrygg Silkbeard Olafsson and Brian Boru, high Kings of Dublin and Ireland, through my Welsh ancestor Rhys ap Gryffudd. (My surname comes from a Welsh Quaker that resettled in Pennsylvania.) Both were Norse. Arguably the red hair we associate with the Irish has a great deal to do with Norse second sons that went a-viking to both Ireland and Scotland, and England, and Normandy, settled and spread their genes around. The Coat of Arms of my Campbell ancestors includes a Norse long boat in honor of their ancestors I’m told.
Happy 4th to you, too! Really enjoyed seeing you and Jane at Soonercon!
I found a pretty ora verde acropora photo with lots of other colours and I hope to use it as inspiration for Acropora.
Can’t post the photo or I would show it to you.
I ran into a lot of the hyper patriotism when I was observing on Russian fishing boats, (especially from the politicals, but it was omnipresent in the background). Any mention of WW2 was Our Great Patriotic War of Liberation -very heavy on all capital letters!
Hunt for Red October got the feel of the crews right (the novel – I didn’t see the film).
Many of them munched raw garlic kind of like popcorn. One engineer who did his training in the Siberian fleet told me that it was to prevent scurvy.
Combine that with the showers being unlocked once every 10 days and a really hot summer ….
Wow! I got the Russian part. They were very happy with how I did. I am not sure yet how frequent the episodes will be, but it’s a regular cast part.
This and the upcoming part in Starship Excelsior ep. 4.02 will be my largest fan audio roles to date.
Both are still in very early production. I’ll have more news when they are closer to release.
I had also auditioned for a few roles for an anthology audio drama, thriller/spooky/etc., that is restarting. They were delayed making their decisions, because of the holiday week/weekend and because it’s a volunteer production. I emailed to check, and they’ve said they’ll let people know their casting decisions soon. So I might have a one-off bit or a recurring role, or I might not be the one they’re looking for. But they have other series, so I have a chance in the future too.
This has all been in the past month to six weeks. I’m surprised! — And it means I need to see what’s around locally that might offer paid work. I’m an amateur. I have recorded audio before in a few small roles and for reading stories and poems, and I’ve enjoyed it. Other than that, I have past choir experience and a few skits/plays, amateur, not pro. So…I might have a chance at doing voice work, if I can figure out how to pursue it. — I have a contact I haven’t talked to in a while and need to check with him for advice.
Hah, I wore myself out over the weekend binging on audio-video, both to improve my Russian accent, and for general SF&F genre fun. But a little rest this week, and I’ll be fine.
This has all been in six weeks or less, and it’s been very quick and unexpected, and good news. It’s the most encouragement I’ve had in a halfway professional capacity in a long time. It might lead to income. It will definitely lead to more fan/volunteer audio involvement. So…yippee!
Doing Happy Dance for you. It’s a toe in the door and will help flesh out a resume.
Congratulations! Have fun!
Excellent, BCS!
Spasibo! (Still to do: Find a good Learning Russian book/CD set and an app.)
This is one case where “old school” (printed books) are probably better than Kindle ebooks. After looking at two beginner to intermediate ebooks that might be good, I was seeing too many comments that the Russian letters were not showing in the ebooks, useless, and that’s a shame. One included dual language short stories with audio available, but I found no printed book copy available.
I wanted something which would give me grammar up front, rather than immersion in tourist phrases without teaching the grammar as you go. I was lucky to get a more traditional classroom grammatical approach, learning this along with vocabulary and key phrases in units, when I took Spanish and French. I’ve seen the phrasebook approach that doesn’t teach grammar, and it drives me nuts. How else is one to pattern new sentences, if one doesn’t get the rules behind them?
So I’ve ordered three books:
Living Language Russian – Complete Edition with course book(s), CD’s, and online resources. Hmm.
New Penguin Russian Course – A Complete Course. This appears to be a book only, no audio, unless it’s online.
Oxford Russian Grammar and Verbs. I’m not familiar with the Oxford guides, but this looked good.
In high school and college, I often used the Barron’s 501 or 1001 guides for verbs and grammar, and I’ll likely get these later.
I’d appreciate a recommendation from anyone for a good bilingual Russian-English / English-Russian dictionary, a reasonably complete college-level version.
In Dictionaries, I’m familiar with Larousse for French, Collins for French and Spanish, and the Signet New World Dictionary for Spanish, yellow and orange cover. In college, I “outgrew” the Pocket Larousse, but kept it handy.
My reasoning is, though this is for a fan audio role, if I’m going to do a Russian accent properly, and just in case I need to speak any Russian (doubtful for this role), then I’d better learn some Russian.
The books should be here this week or next, yay Amazon.
It has been way too long since I reviewed my French and Spanish seriously. It’s way past time. There’s no reason I can’t shake the rust off my college language studies. I made A’s consistently, even up through the French lit two semester survey course (in French). — I’ve discovered I’m missing some old vocabulary, but my grammar’s mostly fine, except I’m shaky on a couple of areas.
(French)
— I’ve forgotten what the rule is for when you’re supposed to make the past participle agree in form with the object, in the passĂ© composĂ©.
— I’m shaky occasionally on Ă versus en for “to/from/by place-name” constructions, but I think I mostly recall correctly.
— I never did master the “literary tenses,” but I should be able to get through reading them.
— I felt I still had a little weakness in prepositions and some of the other particles for prepositional or lead-in phrases.
(Spanish)
— Ironically, since I haven’t had regular practice with Spanish speakers, despite where I live, my Spanish is rustier than it ought to be. I had up through Spanish II in high school before switching to French, and before and during college, my Spanish was still good enough to get me though a visit to Mexico City, though I wasn’t on my own to be totally immersed and self-reliant. I was able to read most of what I saw, and understand more than half of what I heard. Speaking was OK, probably above average for a second year student, but back then I didn’t have the confidence to wing it as I would try now.
Spasibo again!
In re the Koenig “Chekov” and his “hyperpatriotism” — (Scotch was inwented by a little old lady in Leningrad) I think that was not so much patriotism as it was the Russian version of “machismo” (“Ruskismo?”) set to balance Scotty’s Scottish version (“Scotchismo?”), which I think it did nicely. Apparently this is a “dozens” “dudebro” “yo momma” kind of thing. Reminds me of the way puppies are always tussling.