Monday, September 10, 2018

Sign up for your Oral Exam next Thursday!

Sign up here for your Oral Exam... Slots are first-come-first-served, and you'll take your exam with either Dr. Zheltoukhova or Dr. Denner. The SPREES center tutors will be there on Thursday to help you with last minute details... They're a great resource! 

Please DO NOT come up before you exam slot.... This is courtesy to your fellow students. 

A few years ago, we began to host music from the Russian, East European, and Eurasian area, that wonderful and surprising area we at SPREES call ours. I'm reviving that tradition (and hoping that the other faculty joins me!)... This week, I'm showcasing one of my favorite Georgian bands, 33a (that's its name... 33ა... It doesn't mean anything to me, either...). 

Anyway, Georgian music is WILD... totally NOT Western, not Eastern... It's... GEORGIAN. If I have one complaint about Georgian music, it's that it relies a lot on a very small cannon of songs. It tends to be.. a little self-absorbed.

Georgian music exerts a huge influence over the entire region... Nino Katamadze, a Georgian from Adchara who sings largely in Russia, is one of the most popular "Russian" singers in the Russian Federation. 

Anyway, I like this 33a song,  აი მთაზედა Ai Mtazeda (something like, "Look, Mountains!" You say that a LOT in Georgia!)... The video is sort of Georgian beauty p0rn... Mountains. Beautiful people and places.