We Are Suffering from Blogger's Block..............

Yes, I imagined this never happened to Albert Camus, Leo Tolstoy, Aziz Nesin*, Arthur Miller, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Miles Davis, Andy Warhol or Lee Falk, but it has happened to me!

*-He is a famous deceased Turkish writer

Quote of the Week- Leo Tolstoy

Today, we quote the vintage Russian writer Leo Tolstoy who wrote both "War and Peace" (1869) and "Anna Karenina" (1877). The Turkish-American writer Elif Batuman wrote a wonderful, fairly-recent memoir about her interest in Russian novels, which we highly recommend.

Here is a quote from Tolstoy:

"The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people."

http://www.elifbatuman.com

PSA- I Need a Job

For starters,I must profess huge admiration for my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight who went public with a personal issue that was afflicting his life several months ago.

Though I have made scathing satirical indictments from people as politically diverse as Nancy Pelosi and Michele Bachmann (full disclosure: we have made more fun of Bachmann), I have been hesitant to discuss my own personal life too much on either of my two blogs.

But, alas, I did lose my teaching job recently, and I am eager to find new opportunities elsewhere. Though my three states of preference for work are North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, I will consider looking into employment possibilities regardless if it is in Alaska or Brazil.

The three main areas where I am seeking employment are education, as I specialize in teaching developmental English and English as a Second Language (ESL), journalism and translation work as I am 90 percent fluent in Turkish.

If anyone knows of any such opportunites, then feel free to email me at
tango74@aol.com;I am also working to have my resume posted on LinkedIn as well as career-oriented sites, such as highered.com.

For those with a similar predicament, WUNC-FM (91.5 FM-Chapel Hill), the NPR station serving about 40-50 percent of North Carolina, has a show called "The State of Things" hosted by Frank Stasio. Though I was not able to listen to the show myself, yesterday Stasio interviewed state employment experts to discuss ways that people can find in the Tarheel State.

On a ligther note, I chose to go with an image of the classic Leo Tolstoy novel "War and Peace" because if I had time to read the massive circa 880-page epic, well it would be now!

We now resume our regular program schedule.

SIDEBAR: I wanted to update those of you who read the Spartak Moscow entry on here last week. In weekend play, Spartak Moscow defeated Samara 3-0 in what was a farewell game for Andrei Tikhonov, who has been an icon amongst the Spartak Moscow fandom. Samara, which sits on the Volga River, is the sixth largest city in Russia.

And, the Swedish team IFK Goteborg tied cross-town rivals BK Hacken 2-2 today with the two goals for IFK coming from Swedish player Stefan Selakovic. IFK Goteborg is the next team I hope to profile in this blog's on-going soccer team series.

Has It Been Six Years Already?

It was on Sept. 21, 2005, when I posted my first blog entry. It was a simple mini-bio talking about how I grew up in Roanoke,Va., my late father was an immigrant from Turkey, and that I had just seen "The Empire Strikes Back" for the 93rd (whoops! I got my blog mixed with good friend Chris Knight's blog "The Knight Shift;" I've only seen the second Star Wars film twice).

Alas, many of my blogger friends have either discontinued or gone on a long hiatus. But, since I saw that there have been people reading this blog and my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" from places like Iran, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic and Israel this week alone, it has certainly been a well worth-while experience.

Although, I am fully aware that I could have written a novel as long as Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in the amount of time I've spent composing nearly 3,000 entries on two blogs. But, then again, that classic Russian novel has not been checked out of my local library since 2003!

SIDEBAR: Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, is on the verge of their latest stagest production "In the Next Room" by acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl, starting tonight. The production will end on Oct. 9. The 2010 Tony Award nominee has an interesting presmise: it is about a new medical device that was designed in the late 1800s to curb 'female hysteria.' That device was a vibrator. And, that will probably get us banned in Iran.

English Soccer Results.....

As the Bangles sang back this time of year in 1986, it is indeed another "Manic Monday." The song actually got to number two on the Billboard pop chart only to be blocked by Prince and his smash-hit "Kiss." Ironically, Prince wrote "Manic Monday." I saw the Bangles vinyl record with that song plus "Walk Like an Egyptian" at a used bookstore in Greensboro, NC, for like five dollars. I passed, but not before thinking about it.

So, we decided to have a post that would take less time and research than normal. Alas, like the late Russian author Leo Tolstoy (of "War and Peace" fame) brevity is not one of my strengths. Thus, we are simply going to post weekend results from the English Premiere League in the hopes that this will also boost blog hits from across the pond.

The big game of the week was Manchester United-Chelsea, a game which Man U won 2-1; the event was described 'as the Royal Wedding for men."

Here is the complete list of games played on Saturday and Sunday; for the record, I am a bit out of the loop when it comes to English soccer, which perhaps even has a following in Abbottabad, Pakistan (we just mentioned that, so we could use the city in our tags, personally I am getting Osama bin Laden is Dead fatigue), but I do listen to broadcasts of the BBC World Service virtually every night, so this seems fitting. In fact, I just learned earlier this year than Man U and Man City were two different teams!:

Manchester United 2 Chelsea 1

Stoke City 3 Arsenal 1

Aston Villa 1 Wigan Athletic 1

Sunderland 2 Bolton 1

Wolverhampton 2 west Bromwich 1

Tottenham 1 Blackpool 1

West Ham United 1 Blackburn 1

Newcastle 2 Birmingham 1

Everton 2 Manchester City 1

I should credit my friend Chris Knight for letting me know about the world of Leggo Soccer during the 2010 World Cup.

Since Chris is a big science-fiction fan, I thought he might like this quip from English comic actor Simon Pegg who was recently in "Paul," a road movie about two English science-fiction/comic book guys traveling to Nevada to see Area 51. Here, in an interview for "Rolling Stone," Pegg is talking about his hometown of Gloucestershire, England:

"It's an old port town where nothing much goes on," Pegg says. "The only other famous person from Gloucestershire is a serial killer."

Through some research via Google (check out that tribute to the late English children's author Roger Hargreaves they have up today), we found out that man was Fred West (1941-1995). With the help of his wife Rosemary, West killed approximately 12 girls. He committed suicide by hanging with a rope in his cell at age 53.

On a happier note, we learned there is an interesting band with an interesting name called The Pains of Being Pure at Heart; the New York indie rock group has a new single called "Anne with an E." So, if you know anyone named Anne as opposed to Ann, be sure to tell them about it!

We Are Postponing the Top 10 Entry (for the moment)

We are going to post our Top Ten list of very long names, but we think Mon., April 25 will be the better time for that as opposed to today since our last entry took as long as reading "War and Peace" would.

Since we knew we would mention Leo Tolstoy's epic 1,225 page novel which perhaps an inmate at the Birmingham, Alabama, city jail on 425 6th Avenue, South, is reading to pass the time, we will point out a few things we learned about the work here.

__ It was originally published in 1869

___Novel begins in 1805 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I and it details the years in which Russia was invaded by Napoleon starting in 1812.

___Made into 1956 Hollywood film with Henry Fonda and Audrey Fonda, as well as the more critically-acclaimed very long (we think it lasts like ten hours) version made in Russia in 1968.

_ "War and Peace" has also been adopted into an opera and stage play.

Elif Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American (I don't know her personally) wrote about her love for Tolstoy and other Russian authors in her recent memoir "The Possessed."

And, in all likelihood University of Virginia professor and author Sina Vaidhyanathan will make our hardest names in the world list. In his latest book "The Googlization of Everything," he states that the small town of Eu, France, actually considered changing its name so that it would not be confused with the EU (European Union) on Google search engines.

As for "War and Peace," one can probably find it at PackBackers (a student bookstore at North Carolina State) and the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.

This weekend is also Independent Record Store Weekend, and if one is in Athens, Georgia, they may want to visit Wuxtry Records where I found a rare cd from the late German New Wave pop artist Klaus Nomi when I was visited the town two weeks ago.

Quote of the Week- Niccollo Machiavelli

Today's quote of the day comes from Italian philosopher Niccollo Machiavelli (1469-1527) who authored the ever-controversial book "The Prince," which was listed by "Mental Floss" magazine as one of the best books to read that can be read in one sitting. (Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" alas did not qualify, though some inmate in Oklahoma has perhaps had the opportunity to read that Russian literary classic before the lights went out).

"The Prince" was intended to serve as a model for creating principalities and many scholars feel it has encouraged ruthless dictatorships and countless gangster movies. (A Virginia Tech student once told me a professor of his wanted him to compare "The Price" to the film version of "The Godfather.").

Perhaps, the book is also on Hosni Mubarak's amazon.com wish list. We would go with the even more infamous Libyan el presidente, but the former Egyptian dictator's name is much easier to spell and don't like complaints from Princeton University English professors (actually no one from the Ivy League has ever complained about this blog; yes- we are surprised by that too!).

Incidentally, Italy is celebratings its 150th anniversary, and we are going to quip other Italians for that occasion at some point this year. In the mean time, the BBC has produced has several interesting pieces about how Italy, which is more culturally divided that many may realize, is celebrtaing the milestone.

Here is the quip from this most contrversial philosopher, we strongly recommend that you not use this on a sympathy card:

"A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair."

Special Quote of the Week- Bono

We continue our series of quips from famous people from Ireland, in honor of Saint Patrick's Day on Thursday, with a quote from Bono who everyone knows as the lead singer of U2. Bono is also known for his civic activities, including helping third world countries like Ethiopia with their debt crisis problems.

My favorite U2 song is "A Sort of Homecoming" from the 1984 album "An Unforgettable Fire," which followed their classic album "War" (1983, pictured here). I did not know until researching this piece that another one of the songs on 'Fire' which is titled "Bad" (has the memorable lyrics: I'm wiiiiiiiddde awake") is about heroin addiction.

Apparently, Bono is also into reading as we gather from this quote:

"Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gifts one person can give another."

Speaking of books, I just finished Elif Batuman's excellent memoir "The Possessed" about her love of Russian literature (assuredly, she loves Leo Tolstoy) and the summer she spent in Uzbekistan as a Stanford student in 2002(she was either getting her graduate or doctoral degree at the time; Batuman was born in 1977)

Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American whom I've never met, also has a story in the March 7 issue of "New Yorker" about young fans for the Istanbul soccer power Besiktash. She will be in Ireland for an international book festival on April 14.

Quotes from The Composers- Sergei Prokofiev

Today, as promised, we are quoting two Russian composers on our two blogs. We start Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1936), the modern composer we've quipped so far. He is perhaps best known for his symphonic children's story "Peter and the Wolf," which was written in 1936. It was ironically made into a Disney short film just ten years later.

The Soviet-era composer died on the same day when dictator Joseph Stalin's death was announced.

Prokofiev is buried at the famed Novodevichy Cemetary in Moscow where one can also find the graves of Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-963) who left Turkey because of his communist views (today, he is ironically Turkey's national poet) and famed Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) who directed "Battleship Potemkin."

Here is his quote:

"I play rather well- in any case, jauntily. My success was rather great and I should say no doubt unexpected."

SIDEBAR: For those who love all things Russian, Turkish-American writer and scholar Elif Batuman has a relatively new book (released in early 2010) entitled: "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them." The book, as one would expect, discusses the likes of Anton Chekov and Leo Tolstoy. I will probably never read the rather lenghty "War and Peace" by Tolstoy myself, but Batuman's book is only (compared to Russian novels) 296 pages.

Even though I am also a Turkish-American, I have never met Batuman, though I've been told that her book, which was reviewed in "The New York Times" last year, is really good.

We learned through Wikipedia that Batuman also studied the Uzbek language as a grad student while studying in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.