Hello again! 

I know that I've already reached the limit of the posts for a day, but because it's the day of the world's premiere of the series, I'd like to share it with you right now. If you're already fed up with 'Grey's Anatomy', 'House M.D.', or you just don't want to waste time looking for another TV series that could occupy you by the next season of the 'House of Cards' (which I - shame on me, future philologist, can't wait to see), check out something totally different. 

The day that Ellen Page decided to come out was a very important day for the whole LGBTQ community in the world. As she admitted in one of the interviews she gave after her famous speech, she made herself the best gift she could ever make. But she also made a gift to many other people and, no wonder, she became one of the unofficial ambassadors of the LGBTQ people all over the world. And it's really great to know that she perform this function very, very well.

Hello!

Today, on this very special for every filmgoer day, I'm back after quite a long, but very intense break. Last night, during the 88th ceremony of American Academy Awards, Leo finally got an Oscar, after 23 years that had passed from his first nomination. The whole Internet filled up with funny memes and photos of Kate Winslet praying for mercy for her friend. 

I remember the year when I got excited about the Academy Awards for the first time, short after I got fascinated about films and film industry. I was thirteen, maybe fourteen, and I got addicted to watching films. I was doing it during each possible everyday activity. It was the only moment in my life when the books weren't the most significant position in my personal budget - I bought films and film magazines like a nutcase.

I also remember how shocked I was, two or three years later, when I read an article in 'Kino' magazine about the backstage of the American dream prize, and my doubts about the objectivity of the members of the Academy turned out to be justified. I had to accept that it's just a huge farce, that it's all about the money and the influences, which is, basically, the same thing.

From that moment I was not an enthusiast of this annual ceremony anymore. I also realized that there are a lot of other aspects that should be openly condemned. This morning I found an interesting study made by Los Angeles Times: from aprox. 5700 of Academy Award members, who decide about the nominations and vote for the winners, the 94% are men, and the 77% is white. The following image reveals more details:

Does it really matter, if they're white, black, Asian or Latino? It shouldn't, but, actually, it does, because this year there have been no nominations for black artists. Is it because they weren't good enough? Well, I don't think it's necessary to answer this question. The worst thing about it is that the racism isn't the only symptom of the strongly discriminatory politics of the Academy. 

Regardless of this question, I really believe that 'Spotlight' is worth watching and I recommend it to all of you who haven't done it yet!

Here is the trailer which may encourage you to go to the cinema: 

Good evening!

Tonight I'd like to share with you a short video made by journalists from Gazeta Wyborcza. It's an experiment made on a group of French people met by accident on a street. The reporters wanted to see their reactions to the most recent situation in Poland. First of all, they made them guess what country they were describing: they mentioned that it's a country were the deputies work and vote during the night, where the government wants to impose new regulations on the Constitutional Tribunal, mass media, access to the personal information about the civils in the Internet and to restrict civil liberties. The interviewed people were, at least, surprised, when they found out that this actually happens in... Poland.

You can see it here:

I'm not surprised, but I do feel terrified. I'm terrified because of the things made by our government, but I'm even more terrified when I realize that this is the result of a democratic decision of the Polish people. At the very beginning I had the feeling that the reality is a surreal dream of Luis Buñuel. Now I know that I was wrong - it's not Luis Buñuel, it's Michael Haneke, who always makes me want to escape from this world as far as possible, so that I not have to participate in it.

If you think that I'm getting boring with my complaining about the same thing all the time - you're right. But, come on, is it possible not to complain? I don't think so anymore.

At least we have music. This time - Janis Joplin, who would be 73 today. 

Enjoy!

 

Hello everybody!

Tonight I'd like to share with you some of my reflections about famous people. Last week I had an opportunity to play in the orchestra Collegium F on New Year's Concerts in Warsaw in the Roma Music Theater and in Poznań. After giving 5 concerts in only 7 days I felt extremely exhausted, but also full of thoughts about the human nature. I worked with two big stars of Polish music, who I haven't been a fan of, and whose music I would consider as cheap mass art. But still it's undeniable that for some reason they've already left their trace in the history of Polish music. I had worked with famous musician before, some of them very strange, so I wasn't very surprised when it turned out that working with those artists was nothing but a very unpleasant experience. They were moody, troublesome and they had no respect for other musician, not to mention the organizers and plenty of other people that were doing whatever they could to satisfy them.

Although it wasn't my first time to play concerts like those, I still haven't got used to this kind of behavior and I'm not able to consider it as something normal, common and acceptable. That's maybe because I could never understand the notion of double standards in some situations. Before the first concert in Warsaw I felt frustrated, helpless and sad (apart from being just hungry and thirsty, because the rehearsal before the first of two concerts that I played that evening was much longer that it should be because of those artists) and I started to think that maybe it's just impossible to be different for people like them.

But I won my hope back during the rehearsal with a famous singer from Roma Music Theatre, Edyta Krzemień. She was nice, professional and... just amazing. She rehearsed what she needed to rehearse, she asked the conductor to repeat some difficult parts and she said 'thank you' to everybody on the stage. So simply. She disappeared and she came back few hours later when it was her turn to sing on the first concert. And then she made me forget about the whole world with her voice, the power of her expression and her sensibility.

I didn't ask anybody for an autograph. I'm just happy that I could shake hands with her. And that I could be a part of her music.

Enjoy:

Hi everybody!

I hope you enjoyed Christmas as much as I did. Mostly because this year my family and I didn't have enough time to argue, although we managed to carry on other traditions. Moreover, this year the Christmas tree didn't have a suicide attempt on Christmas Eve. And I ate so much that I can't even describe it. Shame on me.

Now I'm preparing for the New Year's Eve, which means that I do everything to get some rest so that I not fall asleep before midnight (as I did last year). And I was wondering if you've already made some New Year's resolutions. I used to make lots of them and then I had no chance to keep them because I always lost the list on the New Year's Eve party. What about you? If you're curious about other people's resolutions, watch this monologue by Ellen Degeneres (who I truely adore). 

Happy New Year!

Hi! Christmas is coming! That means that the majority of vegans will have to endure big amount of tiring questions from carnivorous. 'How can you celebrate Christmas and not eat fish?' or 'Are dumplings vegan? What about wafer?'. So, I decided to share with you a very funny video by Buzzfeed, which I really love and which is the main reason of my backlog of work and studying. 

Enjoy!

Hi!

Some of you already know that this week I'm more musician than philologist, spending whole days on rehearsing and practicing for the concert of Chamber Strings Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Poznań. I suppose that most of you have already read my post about the details of the concert on Facebook, so I decided to put here only some additional information that you might find interesting before (or even after) the concert.

The programme of the concert includes three pieces: 'Trzy utwory w stylu dawnym' by Krzysztof Penderecki, Violin concerto in d minor by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Serenade for strings op. 48 by one of my favourites composers, Peter I. Tchaikovsky. 

The first piece is the only composition of Penderecki written as a soundtrack for a film - 'Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie' (1964) directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has. Although the music of Penderecki appears also in other films (for example, in 'Katyń' directed by Andrzej Wajda or in Stanley Kubrick's 'The shining'), it wasn't composed to be used as soundtrack - it had already existed before it was taken, unlike the piece we'll play on Thursday. 

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is well-known among the violinist because of his Violin concerto in e minor, also very easy to recognize for non-musicians. But the Violin concerto in d minor is hardly known and it had remained totally unknown until the 40s of 20th century, when it was finally discovered and edited by Yehudi Menuhin, a very famous American violinist. Why? I haven't found it out yet, but I'm sure that it wasn't because of its quality - the concerto is really nice, even though Mendelssohn composed it when he was... 13.

The last part of the programme is a composition of Tchaikovsky, whose biography has been equipped with lots of strange stories about his alleged habits. It is a fact that he suffered from depression, but he is also supposed to be hypochondriac with strange obsessions. For instance, probably he never drank unbottled water, what was actually not a bad idea, given the epidemic of cholera in Russia in the 19th century. On the other hand, he was diagnosed with cholera which, probably, caused his death at the age of 53. But according to some other theories, Tchaikovsky committed suicide by poisoning himself with arsenic. It's not decided what was the real reason of his death, but it's also impossible to reject the theory of the suicide after listening to the music of Tchaikovsky, full of pain, suffering and longing. 

I hope you'll enjoy the concert as much as I do enjoy preparing for it. 

By now, here's one of my favourites Tchaikovsky's piano pieces: