A conversation while training one of the 9th grade boys for an 'Oratory and Poetry in English' performance that we had to do last week (as part of a week of 'talents' while some of the big funders of Talleres --the informal name for Centro Vocacional N.P.H.-- were here).
We tried to give him Shakespeare's 'To Be or Not To Be' from Hamlet, but quickly realized it was too complicated. So I tried to explain why we were giving up on it:
Me: Bueno, las obras de Shakespeare son muy complicadas para las personas que ya hablan inglés, porque él tiene sus propios ritmos, palabras, formas de rima, etc...
Bryan: Ohhh, sí. ¿Como Calle Trece?
(Me: Well, Shakespeare is really hard for people who speak English too, because he has his own rythyms, words, rhyme forms and so forth...
Bryan: Ohhhh, yeah. Like Calle 13?)
We did have another student -who's also really good at English- read the Gettysburg Address, though. And when she read "Es totalmente justo y propio que obremos de este modo", I was suddenly brought back to Mr. Miller's 11th grade History class, in which I seem to remember him often repeating the phrase 'It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this'.
To be fair, that's not entirely off-course. Calle 13 are kind of brilliant in their lyrics. At least in that song. I've never listened to much else.
ReplyDeleteOh, for sure, it's totally legit. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job describing Bryan, who's a sort of macho -though also very intelligent and good at school- 16 or 17 year old who, in his free time, loves to pretend he's Calle 13. He also has the best hair of any of the boys on the ranch, in my opinion-- he's always got the super-gelled faux-hawk thing going.
ReplyDelete