Plagiarism

As the new semester begins, I am finding that I have to address this issue every single day in class. Wikipedia inevitably comes up. I have a lot of respect for Wikipedia, and the whole ideology behind t (though I lost some of that respect when a print version was announced). I struggle to explain to my students what “correct” and “incorrect” ways of Wikipedia might be. I’ve considered some of the assignments that I heard of from other professors, for example having students author Wikipedia articles in order to get a feel of how the Wikipedia editing process works. However, as I teach public speaking and therefore don’t deal with “content”, this seems like a task that doesn’t really fall within the perimeters of my curriculum. (In addition, I find the possibility of coming up with 48 interesting subjects that have not been covered by Wikipedia every semester particularly daunting).

Still, even though I lecture on this two days a week, I get bibliographies that include Wikipedia, and sometimes even bibliographies that include nothing but Wikipedia. Maybe I’m the one that’s getting this wrong. Since my students are using electronic sources almost exclusively, unless I specifically state that their (historical) subject requires them to actually face the possibility of opening a book, perhaps Wikipedia’s editorial system is better than nothing? I heard a BBC interview with the “inventor” of the Inernet on a podcast recently, most of the content of which can be found here. Isn’t Wikipedia at least a start toward this direction? Of course Wikipedia gets things wrong, but at least it gets them wrong by consensus.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently while trying to figure out a way of analyzing the plagiarism incident which has been discussed a lot within my field (performance/theatre): Routledge’s re-publication of a book under a different title and a different author’s name, virtually without any alteration. Richard Schechner has described this phenomen as the “Wikipediazation of scholarship”. But if Routledge can get away with this, why can’t my students? At least they’re actually giving Wikipedia (whoever that is) the credit. I will have to teach a class on research and research methodologies sometime next month… Looking forward to that!!!

Vegetarians not unwelcome

Since I came back to New York, about three weeks ago, I have decided to become a vegetarian. Not for any moral reasons (exactly), and not because I believe it to be healthier, but because my friend Tobi in Germany told me far too much about the meat producing industry and the conditions under which animals are raised. Again, I have no problem with killing animals: animals kill each other for food all the time, and I do not consider humans any better. My problem is with the way animals live, not with the way they die. At the same time, I am being a total hypocrite, since I continue to eat fish and other seafood, as well as milk and eggs. I am going to spare you the horrid details egg farming. But we all do what we can… In any case, this is going to have little effect on my date, since I very rarely ate red meat before. So, goodbye chicken.

I remain, however, an unreformed hedonist, and therefore it was a pleasure to rediscover a restaurant where it is a pleasure to be a vegetarian (and even a vegan, believe it or not): Curly’s Vegetarian Lunch. On 14th street between 1st and 2nd avenue, this is essentially an all-American diner without the all-American beef. They make pretty much everything your (American) mother made, with soy and tofu. I am generally not a big fan of meat-wannabe products, I’d rather have more sincere vegetables that are comfortable with their photosynthesizing selves, and so I highly recommend their macaroni and cheese (which comes vegan if you insist, but I’m not turning down cheese), but today I enjoyed a “Suna” melt. I didn’t ask what it was made of, and it definetely didn’t taste like tuna, but it tasted good!

The real highlight tonight, however, was the dessert, which is truly worth becoming a vegetarian for. tortilla stuffed with bananas and “Mexican chocolate” (chocolate with chili that is, though you can have it bland if you are a p*ssy). It comes with vanilla ice cream, vegan or not. Their servings are far too big to justify dessert, but you didn’t have meat, so you deserve it. There are several other similarly Mexican-esque dishes, many also with plantanes or bananas – some even with beans!

Their prices are extremely reasonable, especially now that this neighborhood’s gone upscale, and the lemonade is great. I’ve been wanting to try their coffee but I always end up there for dinner. I hear those vegans do great lattes…

Crabs Update

So we went to the Crabhouse, the restaurant in Long Island City I mentioned earlier, and it ROCKED! The crabcakes were amazing but among the five of us we had a pretty good range of dishes, mussels, shrimp, and some amazing clam chowder. We realized that we should have booked a table, but we were seated in about 15 minutes. I didn’t expect it to be as busy but 8pm seems to be their peak time, and they have live music on Sundays which is one of the main reasons we wanted to go back. It seems to be their busiest night.

The food was excellent. They have many more options than the name implies (including meat, if you can’t go without for one night), though I considered it imperative to have the crabcakes. Amazing! Though I need to go back and try the lobster pretty soon. This place has been a great find for me: There’s actually not that many seafood restaurants that I like in New York, and it’s nice to have a restaurant that you can walk home from in 5 minutes. I’m sick of meeting people in Manhattan! If you live in Long Island City or even Greenpoint you really need to try this place.

We paid about $140 including a bottle of wine and gratuity for 5 people. Not bad at all.

Good Intentions

I am not sure why it is that most political theatre seems self-congratulatory and naive. I mean, it works so well in all the theatres: theatre revealing truths about social structure, theatre building community and solidarity, theatre urging us toward either critical thinking or radical action, pick your theory, really. Even with the best intentions, however, theatre seems to be at best a venue for preaching to the converted – and I emphasize at best. The current production of Hair by the Public Theatre in Central Park is seemlessly professional, artistically flawless (besides the over-amplification, my ears still hurt) and outspokenly political. However, it still seems like a mindless distraction which merely reconfirms its audience in their professed liberalism.

Of course, it’s an anti-war musical, and of course it ends with the hero, in uniform, lying dead on the American flag. And then the lights go down, and the audience is invited to come to the stage and BOOGY!? Thanks for the catharsis! I suppose dance can be a form of protest, but I’m not sure this qualifies. I think the conversations had while waiting in line for five hours to get (free) tickets were much more politically productive, at least in my part of the line. Of course once the show is transferred to Broadway on a $110 ticket, even that aspect will disappear.

The greatest irony was that the pre-show speech combined the task of marking the political relevance of the musical (ie reminding the audience that there’s a war going on) with that of thanking Bank of America for its kind sponsorship: Hosannah Rockefeller!

Group Therapy

I guess now that I’ve written about the food, I should write about the play which preceded it: Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex, at the Center Stage on 21st street. (Only running till the 6th of September, so if you’re interested you better rush!)

I had actually seen the play before, in its Canadian premiere, several years ago, and I remember enjoying it. I always liked Findley (who passed away since then), his camp intellectualism reminds me of Stoppard, though he’s more camp and less intellectual and therefore more fun. Still, the Elizabethan metatheatrical setting inevitably recalls both R & G Are Dead and Shakespeare in Love. The play takes place in a barn, on the eve of Count Essex’s execution. The Queen, Stephanie Barton-Fracas, is being entertained by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who have been detained in the palace barn until after the execution is over: all of London is under curfew. One of the actors is Ned Lowenscroft, played by Michael DiGioia. Lowenscroft specializes in Shakespearian heroines – Shakespeare, of course, is also a character, played by the obnoxiously affected Scott Nogi. I hadn’t realized how intrusive the character of Shakespeare is, until this production. The play is really about Ned and the Queen, and the relationship which develops between them: a woman forced to a play the king, a man choosing to play the woman’s part. The other characters are largely superfluous, and with this cast of mixed competence it shows. Another downside of the production is the small stage: in Vancouver the other actors, who are always onstage (after all, there’s a curfew), disappeared into remote corners of the stage and on a hayloft where they pretended to snooze: here, they are always standing in the way of Ned and the Queen.

The two leads manage to salvage the greatest part of the play – that is the exchange between the actor and the queen, which culminates in a tense “master class” in which he teaches her the role of Cleopatra, the betrayed queen of Egypt. Still, I am puzzled as to how this play managed to get picked by the NY Times: I know it’s a dry part of the season, but give me a break. Sure, it’s a great literary exercise on Findley’s behalf, but unfortunately this company can’t pull it off: while Elizabeth and Ned dominate the action, this is still an ensemble play, with a fairly large cast, and that is where many Off and Off-Off theatres seem to fail: Finding a worthy lead like Barton-Fracas and DiGioia seems easy enough, but surrounding them by an equally competent supporting cast is a challenge. That is the perennial problem of places like the Classic Stage Company: unfortunately classic plays are rarely two-handers. I guess that is why playwrights don’t write them big any more…

More than fries!

One of the pleasures of being back in New York is the endless list of gastronomical delights covering essentially every imaginable cuisine. “Markt” was my latest culinary experience, and it was memorable indeed. I went with a friend, fairly late, after a play. We must have arrived around 11pm, on a Friday evening, and we were seated pretty much immediately after our trable was set – unfortunately they had just stopped seating people on the sidewalk. Probably something to do with a zoning regulation? Who lives on the corner of 6th avenue and 21st street anyway!

I wasn’t exactly sure what Belgian cuisine comprised of beyond “French” fries and chocolate, but my friend seemed very keen on it – she was in Brussels recently. There was a lot of seafood, especially shellfish, on the menu. Most people around us were having mussels. I recently stopped eating meat, except for fish - I might write more about this at some point – so this was fine with me. We opted for an appetizer to share – the shrimp cocktail – and pasta for both of us: I had the fettucini with crabmeat which was to die for, though a pretty heavy dish. Nicely sized servings – remember, this is Belgian, not French. And of course, we could not have finished with anything but chocolate desserts: dark chocolate mousse for me and the Dame Blanche, vanilla ice cream with a dark chocolate sauce for Alexia. They were both to die for.

“Markt” is located in that grey zone between the “villages” and midtown where I spend most of my time, so I don’t know how often I’ll be going. It’s fairly reasonably priced for NY, and the service is excellent. It might be worth visiting just for dessert if you’re in the area.

Madame Vice

I don’t normally blog about politics in the sense of current politics, but I can’t hold myself on this one:

Sarah Palin? What’s the idea? That the women who supported Clinton are going to op for a woman VP as a “second best” alternative? Grow up. Not that it might not happen, people have cast their votes for worse reasons, but this seems like a schoolyard game nevertheless. Now, as a foreigner, I am not voting anyway, so I can sit back and laugh at the whole process, but if I was a US citizen (and a woman) I’d find it all really insulting.

Oh, and where did they find her, anyway?

We got Crabs!

So I am finally back in New York, after a complicated flight route, and getting ready to go back to work on Wednesday. Meanwhile I am realizing that people are right by how little you know about your own neighborhood, and how much “traveling” you can actually do without living your own town. (To be fair I had only moved to Long Island City in March). Yesterday night I went to the “Waterfront Crabhouse”, with my roommate and a couple of friends. Unfortunately we had already eaten so we only had a few drinks, but it was still an experience! The best thing about it was they host a live jazz band (six musicians and a singer) on Sunday nights, which is definetely a reason to go back, and go often. Unfortunately their website doesn’t seem to be updated often, so I have no idea what other special events they host.

It seems like a family restaurant with a lot of old regulars. The barman we spoke to has been working there for seven years, which in New York is a lot. The decor seems to have been gradually accumulated during the 30 years of operation, but it includes an old bathtub full of peanuts – you can drop your peanut shells right on the floor, too. I can’t say how good the food is, but it’s at least reasonably prised. A large pitcher of sangria was $20, and it was VERY good! The band was also excellent – unfortunately they were winding down when we arrived around 10pm. I will definetely be going back, maybe next time with my camera.

My historical tour of Berlin’s main boulevards

As I had the pleasure of having guests several guests during my stay in Berlin this summer, I got the chance to play city guide a couple of times. My most succesful tour, in my humble opinion, was the fairly long walk down Berlin’s 4 major boulevards with my friend Marie, which took pretty much a whole day (with a very late start). I will try to supplement this with some of my personal photos later, and hopefully figure out a way to add an interactive map. I wish I had played around with Google maps more. So this is it, in 4 parts.

 

1. Karl-Marx-Allee: The socialist boulevard. Technically the Allee starts at Frankfurter Tor (you can get there on the U5), but if you want the full decadent experience we had, you should start at Samariter Strasse: If you walk south down Simon-Dach-Strasse you can have an indulgent breakfast in one of the many sidewalk cafes, as we did. It will also give you a great perspective on Karl-Marx-Alee and the two towers which frame it at Frankfurter Tor. From there you can walk West toward the Alexanderplatz TV tower (the one with the ball). This was the showcase boulevard of the German Democratic Republic, AKA East Germany. The houses are indeed fairly impressive, decorated with tilework, and they are still highly desirable. The boulevard is very broad, with wide sidewalks lined with trees and with grass. Now it’s also busy with bars, expensive shops, and ethnic restaurants, as most of former East Berlin is. (Well, the central parts anyway). The view of the TV tower at the end of the boulevard is pretty impressive. If the sun is behind you, you will also be able to see the cross that the light forms on the ball. Of course I am assuming it will be a sunny day in Berlin… Once you get to Alexanderplatz, you might want to veer off the track of this tour, to see the Nikolaiviertel, the “birthplace” of medieval Berlin. If you are doing this tour in the next few months you might also be able to see the remains of the Palast der Republic – the socialist parliament building which has now been demolished in order to rebuild the Prussian Palace which was at that site. (See a previous blog on the subject). The Marx and Engels monument is also worth visiting if you are into East German History: the two philosophers are side by side, with their backs turned toward the West.

2. Unter Den Linden: The Prussian Boulevard. Once you cross the bridge you’re on the Museum Island, and about to be submerged in Prussian classicism. First on your right will be the Berliner Dom, Berlin’s ostentatious Lutheran “Cathedral”, a building of debatable merits. The view from the gallery around the dome is well worth the climb: about 300 steps, I believe. Next you will pass by the Lustgarten, the grassed area in front of the Old Museum, with its fountain. The Lustgarten was actually created by the Prussian king as a “gift” to the people (he kept the Tiergarten for his personal amusement), but it was later paved by the Nazis for military demonstrations. Nowadays it’s pretty busy with tourists. On the other side off the island you find yourself in Prussia-central: The armshouse on your right is now the German Historical Museum (well worth a visit on its own), the Neue Wache monument (formerly the house of the city guard and now an anti-war monument with a statue by Berlin sculptor Kathe Kollwitz), the Staatsoper, the main buildings of Humboldt University, which actually served as the royal palace before the Potsdam palaces were built, and the Staatsbibliothek. A mounted statue of Friedrich II (aka the Great) stands in the middle of the boulevard. Further along, past Friedrichstrasse, are many of the major Embassies, including French one which gives Pariser Platz its name. Pariser Platz is the end of Unter den Linden infront of the Brandenburg gate.

A worthwhile diversion would be turning left town Wilhelmstrasse. There aren’t many signs of the past here, but this was were most of the Nazi headquarters, including the Chancellor’s offices, were housed. Most of the buildings were destroyed, but the formers headquarters of Commercial Aviation still stand, one of the few remaining examples of Nazi architecture. They are now Finance ministry, I believe. The relief of Nazi soldiers was replaced by an equally ideologic Socialist mural. If you do choose to come down here, you can continue on to Potsdamer Platz through Leipziger Strasse, and then return to the Brandenburg Gate to continue. An icecream break at Potsdamer Platz is highly reccomended…

3. 17. Juni: The Nazi boulevard. There are not many signs of the boulevard’s Nazi past, but it’s still an interesting walk. Before you begin heading west, you might also want to take a look at the Reichstag, which is north of Brandbenburg Gate toward the river. The highlights of the 17. Juni are the Soviet monument, which ironically stood in West Berlin, and the Victory column at the center of the Tiergarten (from which Obama delivered his sensational speech…). The Tiergarten itself is worth visiting, however. This was the Prussian King’s hunting grounds, as the name suggests (“animal garden”), and it still looks fairly wild compared to most city parks. For West Berliners it was particularly important, since it was one of the few green spaces they had access to without driving for hours through East Germany. From the Victory Column take Bremer Weg toward the South, and then cross the river. The best way not to get lost is to followe the elevated S-Bahn. You might also try smelling your way there, since you’re heading toward the Zoologischer Garten… On the other side of the “Zoo” train station, you will see the bombed Memorial church, with its broken spire, a reminder of the sufferings of war.

4. Kurfustendamm: The Capitalist Boulevard. On the other side of the Memorial church, the Kurfustendamm is the Fifth Avenue of West Berlin. It probably has the highest density of Starbucks cafes, too. For many East Berliners I’ve met, the Kurfustendamm symbolized the “freedoms” of the West, the freedom to shop, that is. Of course nobody can actually afford to shop there, but they are free to look! The Kurfustendamm, however, had always been the commercial center of Berlin, and West Berlin had always been an “exclusive” shopping district, even before the division. The “boulevard” theatres were also located here, while the serious, state-supported theatres, were in Mitte around Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse.

It took us about 5 hours to walk the whole way, including all of the diversions from the main route, and a couple of breaks, first at Potsdamer Platz and the at the Reichstag. This might be a tour that’s more suited for people with an interest and at least some knowledge of German history, than for the average traveler, but I hope some people will find it helpful.

All good things come to an end… (Berlin)

The idea with the banner is to keep it updated to indicate where I am living at the moment, and as you might guess I’m heading back to New York for another school year. It’s supposed to be kind of a “view from my window” thing… One day when I install a webcam on my window frame it might even be for real! I am actually in Cyprus right now for a week, visiting my family, but will be in NY a week from Sunday.

I hope a few of you at least enjoyed my posts and photos from Berlin – I definetely haven’t been posting as often as I’d like to. I will keep posting photos from Berlin for a while I guess, once I’m back in NY and have more regular access. I’ve taken a lot of photos this summer, I actually had to buy an extra memory card for my camera, and my primary one is 2GB. Maybe I don’t really need to have it on the highest quality setting…

A few words on the language program I attended this summer in Berlin: The International Summer and Winter University of the Frei Universitaet, Berlin, which somehow is abbreviated FUBiS – don’t ask me why. I have attended other language schools in Berlin before, in 2006 and then earlier this year. They wear small private language institutes, with a very loose approach to scheduling – you could show up whenever you wanted, and they would try to put you in an appropriate level. FUBiS was much more structured, a regular 6 or 4 week program, with a final exam, certificates, and even the same teacher for the whole time you’re there. But perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that what I needed was more structure…

I actually had two very different FUBiS experience this summer: FUBiS is divided in two summer semesters (and one winter semester), and I participated in both. The first class was a disappointiing disaster, the second class was challenging and informative and rewarding. The whole thing reminded me that often education is more about the people you study with (both teachers and students). My first class felt like a frat house: of 8 students, 7 were male, and 6 were American undergraduates from fairly elite schools. They were as a whole very young, and very immature – they reminded me more of my own students. I really felt like I was wasting time in that class. It wasn’t that the level was too low – in fact I think they all spoke German better than I did (or maybe still do) – but the pace was slow to accomodate for their touristic mentality.

I don’t want to be a reverse sexist, but the second class, which consited of about 8 women and 4 men, was a big relief. It was also more ethnically diverse, with most of the students being from Eastern/Central Europe. Even our token American was much cooler! The teacher generally had higher standards, we spoke exclusively in German (it was also a higher level class, but still there was too much English in the first one), and what made the class very fun is that she had a theme and a concept, both for the whole class, and for each week. Everything was built around that concept, assignments, class discussions, excursions, and so on. For example on one week we talked about immigration in Berlin, read relevant articles, both historical and current, then looked at lingustic variations in the German spoken by certain immigrant groups, and on the excursion day visited two parts of Berlin heavily influenced by in-migration: one by Turkish workers, and one by yuppies from West Germany and English-speaking cyber-commuters.

I think she developed this as a way to keep the class interesting both for herself and for the students. I find that I do similar things in the classes I teach. I teach public speaking and I draw a lot of my examples and my topics for discussion from immigration-related news. This seems to work well since the majority of my students are immigrants or children of immigrants. (And I mean, like 90%, with another 5% being grandchildren of immigrants maybe. Yay urban NY college!)

Anyway, I learned a lot from her not just about German, or just about Berlin, but also about teaching. Thank you, Lucia!

I think I will do one more post about Berlin before I quit the subject, on the “city tour” I developed for a friend of mine that was visiting. I am wondering what I could use to design a map to go with it. Any suggestions from you travel bloggers?