No, these girls are not Grandpa Irv. A few months before my grandfather passed away, I went on a trip to Italy with my grandmother, uncle, and cousin. My grandfather begged me to take pictures of the beautiful Italian women for him so he had something to enjoy while at home.
Irv was a wonderful, loving, and caring dirty old man.
I still have dozens of these women on my computer and will always think about him when I see these pictures.
I have so many fantastic (and concerning) memories of my grandfather
and there is no way I could include them all in a blog post, so I created a list of the top 5. Both the naughty and the nice will be included.
5. I visited my grandparent’s house with a friend in middle school and because of this I think I may have lost this friend. My grandmother was about to go to the movies to see Sex in the City with my mother. As they were leaving my grandfather screamed out…
“Instead of sex in the city, why don’t we just have sex in the house”
I threw up a little in my mouth and my friend looked shocked. I will never forget the look on his face.
4. My grandfather would watch every Ravens game and no matter how good the team was he would always say, “Flayco sucks”. He just didn’t understand that his name was Joe Flacco. My grandmother now always jokingly calls him Flayco when discussing the “stupid game”. I miss my grandfather putting her in her place about our Ravens.
3. I was sitting at dinner with my grandparents the night before my Bar-Mitzvah. My grandmother got up to walk to the bathroom and my Grandpa Irv proclaimed to the table…
“Look how slow she goes. She’s slow walking, she slow talking, and she’s very slow in the bedroom!”
I got nauseous just writing that.
2. I went on a trip to Canada with my grandparents and uncle when I was a goofy 11 year old boy. In Quebec the teenagers were very comfortable making out in the streets. After my lightweight grandfather drank a beer, he sat with me on the corner and we laughed at all the kids kissing in town. It was so much fun and something I will never forget.
1. My grandparents stayed with my brother and me in Florida for a week when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. My parents were on vacation somewhere and left us behind. Classic. I remember being pissed off at my parents for leaving us behind with the grandparents to fend for ourselves.
My grandfather walked in the house with a suitcase in one hand and a case of Coke in the other with a huge smile painted across his face. We had a great time. I remember in particular just us two sitting on the back porch drinking Coke and talking for hours. He told me incredible stories from his experience in WWII that left me amazed. We talked about the war, his life growing up, his jobs, and America in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. It was a great night, and my fondest memory of my late Grandpa Irv.
Racism: A term that’s proper definition has been up for debate between scholars of sociology, politics, history, and a number of other research disciplines since its traditional definition was thrown out in the kindling of heat of the pre-civil rights era. Acclaimed sociologist and expert on race, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists (a book I read freshman year that really opened my eyes to the functions of post-Civil Rights era racism), borrows Ruth Benedict’s definitions of racism from her own book Race and Racism.
“the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority”
So racism occurs when a group with power abuses those without, based on the former’s belief that the latter is naturally substandard; the abuse is lashed out by way of utilizing existing disparities between the empowered and everyone else.
So I want to speak my mind on what I think causes racism. I myself am not well-versed in the many theories of where racism’s roots are buried. I have heard answers ranging from “divine right” to “a mental illness”. What I believe and, to be honest, end up preaching [through discussion], is that racism is the product of miseducation and natural human bias, with a dash of social pressure. Most of the people that I’ve talked with who hold their ground on racial prejudice and preference are people who are stubborn to begin with. They often are just as stubborn on other issues like politics, class, gender, and so forth. People aren’t naturally racist any more than one race is superior to another. Though, historically, many have disagreed with this kind of thinking.
In my own experience, education has given me the opportunity and tools necessary to understand different cultures and people. That doesn’t mean that I know ALL about people in other places. Hell, most of us don’t know shit about ourselves or the people around us. I think that education’s main role is to help people understand that learning about something will make is less unfamiliar, and therefore less threatening or frightening.
Be brave and educate yourself. If you fear what you don’t know, get to know it. We’re all tiny sub-categories of the same essential core shared by all people; that core is humanity, being a part of the human experience.
today’s post we’ll be more than simply interesting because I chose to finally talk about Spaghetti with Meatballs, the most not-Italian, iconic, stereotyped, and famous Italian-American dish.
My first experience with it was when I was very little, I was watching a
Tramp and Lady eating Spaghetti with Meatballs
beautiful Disney movie, called The Lady and The Tramp, and as many of you will remember there there is the romantic kiss scene thanks to a “spaghetto” (with meatballs). Now, at first I remember I was amused and as a kid, a little moved but then – after the third/forth times – I focus my attention on that plate and I realized that I had never seen such a sauce for pasta. But I said it was a movie so “not real” because why should they put those big balls in the plate when you’re still eating pasta?! – unlikely, few years later, I realized that that was a proper way to do it in a far away land, called USA.
Now, I want to answer this question once and for all. In Italy, meatballs are called “polpette” and they are, of course, cooked with tomato sauce but not served with pasta. Because it is a second course, so it comes after you finish eating the first dish which is pasta with the same sauce you used to cook the polpette. Every type of meat you cook with the tomato sauce is served after the pasta, not with it. It is true that you might used the same plate in which you ate pasta but still … no, you can’t eat it together! Also, my region is one of those where polpette are made in many different ways – I’m an expert about it even if I’m vegetarian! So, it’s fair enough to eat tiny small polpette with pasta with tomato sauce just when those meatballs are as I said tiny and small! It’s
“Brodo di Natale Abruzzese”
a variation of the “ragù alla Bolognese” (the label “Bolognese sauce” doen’t exist, but I will talk about it in another post) where little pieces of meat are cooked together
with the tomato sauce. Or, again, on Christmas day in my region is very common to prepare “Brodo di Natale” which has cardoon, endive, stracciatella (similar to egg drop soup), and finally little meatballs. That’s it! All you have to know about Italian meatballs that it is also confirmed by Corby Kummer:
What happened in the States is always a matter of convenience (and laziness I suppose) because of the habit of putting everything in the same plate, with no particular order for first, second, side or other courses. But to go deeper, I wanted to find something more than that and I find myself shocked to acknowledge that Spaghetti and Meatballs has its own English Wikipedia page where I read that
So, now, my fella Americans I will end my post with a link to the best (online) recipe for real meatballs – it’s in Italian but there are lots of
Caf weird Meatballs Sandwich
images to help you through the process and some online dictionaries will do the rest!
Try it and let me know! But do not serve it with pasta or as a very weird hotdog, please!
Let’s see what he answered to the “few” questions I asked him:
1. What was your reaction to the American food when you first came in the States – for a long period of time?
The first time I came to the States for a long period of time was 11 years ago – here at Dickinson College – I was both the Italian TA and a student. The first (daily) reaction to the American food was in the “Cafeteria”, but I also had American friends at that time and I had already tasted American food with them. I can comment on both these different situations. So first of all, as a student eating at the “Caf”, I was really surprised by the QUANTITY of food available for the students. I remember that I immediately looked at food that was labeled as Italian food that, of course, captured my attention: there was a place in the cafeteria where it was possible to order pasta – wok – with vegetables and chicken together and right away I compared it to what I was used to eating and when I ate there I was looking for my “sapori” (tastes/flavors) and what I was used to: pasta, meat, the structure of lunch/dinner (first the first course, the second, and sides). Of course, I soon found out that I was allowed to have just one plate
Typical American “All in” plate
where I had to put everything on it, but, because I had a tray, I still divided my food according to the Italian structure and that surprised everyone around me. That was for both lunch and dinner. I liked breakfast, though. Because I heard a lot about continental breakfasts, American pancakes, different kind of cereals, eggs and bacon (or sausages): I liked doing experiments during breakfast but at the end, I always ended up with cereal with milk or toast with butter and jam – I just liked to know that I had all of these different things but I never used them! On Sundays though, I dared to try more things because of the well-known “brunch”: it was more an imitation of American lifestyle – I am in the States and I can eat eggs and bacon at breakfast!
On the other hand, outside the college environment, my American friends introduced me to typical American meals that were far away from the stereotypes. I thought that American food meant hamburgers, French fries, eggs and bacon, thanksgiving turkey, and that’s it! These friends from both the east and west coasts prepared typical local or regional meals and also family recipes.
2. How long is it that you’ve been living in the States? And, did your relationship with food change?
Now, it’s been almost 6 years that I have lived in the States and now I distinguish two types of American food: mass consumption food (junk food, …) and traditional – local and regional – food. I totally avoid everything that belongs to mass production food – stereotypical meals – but I appreciate things that American’s eat during specific periods of the year like Thanksgiving Dinner, BBQ, and so on.
3. What do you miss most about Italian?
First of all, I miss the structure of the courses: I miss that when I sit at the table I know that there’s going to be “un primo” (pasta) and “un secondo” (meat) – I miss the “table experience.” I miss the bread (“il pane”) because personally I am one of those people who eats pasta with bread, “la
Polenta al Sugo
polenta” (cornmeal mush) with bread – my family jokes about it because it’s not a common thing – I don’t miss pasta that much because I like cooking and I cook it at home, but I miss “i sapori” which I grew up with – childhood flavors that luckily I can recreate cooking at home, the problem is that I miss the “table experience,” the convivial experience. When I cook and eat with other Italians living here it’s not a problem anymore because we cook together, we sit at the table, there’s a precise structure that everybody knows, and then while we eat, the food itself is important and a main topic of conversation; while with the Americans the meal is just food, there are no memories, stories, and so on – with the Italians there’s always a “I remember this recipe because my mother, when I grew up, or in your city, or in the North/South, …” – the food moves to the background. The focus – topic of eating with Italians is to appreciate and taste food together.
4. What do you miss most about Italian habits related to food? And/or about daily habits (like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breaks during the day)?
I miss having breakfast at the “bar” [from now on, I will use bar to talk about café shops], I miss waking up and going directly to the bar: next door there will always be a bar with a “caffè macchiato” and a “cornetto” (croissant or pastry) waiting for me! Here, I prepare the Moka, of course, but it isn’t the same thing! I miss sharing my time with poeple. When you eat here you eat for the sake of eating, you eat because you have to! While in Italy, it is “we have to eat, so let’s spend some time together”: it’s both a matter of quantity and quality of time! I miss lunch time which is usually in the office, although I also did this in Italy it was different! Dinner is similar to the Italian experience but still both lunch and dinner time in Italy are linked to the “telegiornale” (newscast).
Coffee Break
If I have a 30-minute break, I cannot say “let’s go grab a coffee” to my American colleagues! Well, I do it but with my Italians colleagues because they know what I mean! It means relax for thirty minutes, drink a coffee while we gossip, smoke a cigarette and that’s it! Americans do not understand going to grab a coffee at random moments of the day! They ask for the purpose, or usually they say “Do you need to talk to me about something?”.
5. Is there a different vibe or feeling around a “lunch/dinner table”? Like rules, behavior, or different habits to respect?
“Galateo” (manners) is quite the same. Fork and knife are the opposite, though. I’m used to eating by cutting the meat with the knife in my right hand and then grabbing a piece with the fork in my left hand. Also, you’re not supposed to put your hands on the table, instead you put them on your legs. Here, there’s way more conversation about all kind of topics! I’m generalizing of course, I’m telling you my own experience. Dinner is a time to get to know people, dinner is a social event here in the States. People with different jobs, age, and so on at the same table talking about various topics is not common in Italy at all!
6. Are there any American meals that you like?
First of all, I like eating, I like the culinary experience, I like “stare a tavola” (to sit at the table and talk), I like tasting different things: Italian, American, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, and so on. I couldn’t and I don’t want to substitute one thing for another – the Italian breakfast is a thing, the American brunch is a totally different thing. I like both but I don’t want to replace anything: I have to be honest when I have brunch, I like drinking American coffee, but if I am in Italy, I would never order it! It’s the same thing when I am in Italy, after lunch I want my caffé macchiato, not the American one! There are things that I really like but they have to be contextualized. So, back to the question, I like everything that comes from a diner, I love the diner’s experience! The funny thing that I found out is that Americans that go to Italy love “l’Autogrill” (roadside/highway restaurant). Personally, I like that too. I also like the American contemporary cuisine which is a fusion between European (French and Italians) techniques and typical American meals. I like everything that is a traditional meal, too. I love Thanksgiving Day meals, and also local and regional meals, or the casseroles. Well done Hamburgers, for examples, are amazing!
7. How is doing the grocery shopping experience different from Italy?
Doing grocery shopping hasn’t changed much! When I am in a grocery store in the States, I behave as I did in Italy: it’s an important moment and it takes time! I read the labels, I think about the ingredients, I try to save money too and I look, I watch, and I see! As I said, I love cooking so I need to spend time in the grocery store to see new things, etc: I love grocery shopping although I heard that most Americans hate it – they don’t like to experiment with food!
If I want Italian products, I look for the ingredients not for the final product! I look for products imported from Italy, but I avoid imitations. Recently, there are new stores in the States where you can also find particular products – yeah, they are very expensive.
8. Can you tell us something about the relationship between Italians and Americans recipes (ingredients, preparation, and different types)?
In the States, recipes are gold. Quantities are very important and strict – you can’t mess them up! It’s mechanical. I understand that sometimes recipes are needed and necessary – it’s chemistry – but for Italians they follow these recipes “q.b.” (“quanto basta” – as needed). It’s interesting to see the difference, though. In Italy, if I have to prepare or tell somebody to prepare “spaghetti all’amatriciana,” it’s pretty much everything q.b., random, as much as you like, and so on. Contrary, in the States, it’s pretty much one tablespoon of oil for the pan, two pieces of bacon – we’d say more or less, as much bacon as you have in the fridge, my Granma’d say “yeah, more or less, one egg, two eggs, it depends! I’m used to saying two or three tablespoons of something, Italians soon understand it, here they would ask me “two or three?!”: q.b. vs tablespoon! Also, in Italy we have a theory of not wasting anything, everything is “recycled.”
9. Italian-American food vs Italian food, can you explain the differences?
My relation with the Italian-American food, changed a lot during the years. At first, it was negative: what I used to say was “I don’t care – this is not Italian!”. Then, I understood and learned the reasons why it was like this! “Why Italians and the Italian-American changed the food so badly?”: I found out that the origins of all these meals are actually Italian. At the end of 19th century and at beginning of the 20th century, Italians who came to the States wanted to recreate their own meals but without the same ingredients that actually were too hard to get at the time – some of them are still hard to find nowadays. “Bisogna saper fare di necessità, virtù” (Necessity is the mother of invention or when life gives you lemons, make a lemonade)! I started understanding these meals, I still don’t like them because I’m not used to them. But I also found out that in some part of Italy people use different ingredients than I’m used to. So, it’s just a matter of culinary contamination and a lack of original ingredients.
The only thing I’m actually sorry about is that Italian-Americans are kind of stuck in the past, I respect their meals but why don’t they modify it a little bit? Make them better? Evolve them in a sense? People like them though! So if you like something why do you have to change it? I’m sorry that other people think and associate those meals with Italy/Italians. On the other hand, things are changing nowadays according to – real – Italian food or meals. More people, now, know that there’s a distinction between Italian and Italian-American meals – they know that spaghetti meatballs are a stereotype!
10. I know but let’s be formal: Do you like cooking? If yes, can you give the readers one last ultimate tip?
There’s a lack of curiosity, of willingness to try: “if it’s not chicken, I’m not gonna taste it!” – it’s still good, try it!
So, guys: Try, Explore, and be Curious!
And that’s almost it! I had to cut a lot of questions and answers because of the length of the interview but I think that as a first approach to a general overview of the two different cultures, this is pretty exhaustive!
FYI, soon I’ll post a video-interview about Americans who lived in Italy for a long time and of course their reaction … just to have a wider point of view on the matter! 😉
Perhaps only politicians could give hip-hop a run for its money when it comes to degrading rhetoric about women. At least politicians experience some sort of pushback. Hip-hop, it seems, is impervious to the sporadic attempts to address issues of sexism; a war of words is hard to win against the genre that invented the rap battle. Perhaps this is because of the one-sidedness surrounding the issue. Discussions about perceived moral depravity in hip-hop are often written from the perspective of those not involved with the genre or its socio-political landscape. Therefore, it is necessary to be discerning when discussing misogyny in hip-hop. Addressing the issue should not be a practice in teaching what is right and what is wrong; it should be a discussion surrounding both the rhetoric used and the matrix in which this rhetoric is accepted and allowed to grow.
The Rhetoric
Unfortunately, searching for hip-hop lyrics degrading to women is a quick and easy task. Examples abound, and even when there is pushback, apologies are lackluster and fail to address the issue. Rappers apologize like NFL players apologize.
On U.O.E.N.O. Rick Ross raps, “Put Molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it; I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it.” This line actually did receive substantial criticism for its blatant posturing about date rape, yet Ross’ response was less-than reassuring. His apology includes a reference to “all the sexy ladies, the beautiful ladies,” a further commodification of women. He attempts to further himself from the issue by reminding people that he never used the term “rape” in the lyric, as if only explicit rhetoric can do damage.
Drake’s “Hotline Bling” is a practice in low-key, passive sexism. Without delving too far into the song’s meaning, let’s examine just a couple of bars: “Used to always stay at home, be a good girl. You was in the zone, yeah.” This section of the bridge reads like an ode to the Cult of True Womanhood, or the classic 1950s stay-at-home-mom. Drake, attempting to remind his girl of how good it all was, places her in a submissive waiting game, a stay-here-till-I-get back role that dismisses Drake’s own womanizing. He’s allowed to (wear less) and go out more, but she isn’t awarded the same liberty.
Without even referencing women directly, rappers manage to be degrading. Take, for example, the often-used term “pussy n****.” Used as a way to bring down other rappers, the term inherently attaches lyrical inability or a lack of street credibility to feminine characteristics. As trivial as that may sound, rhetoric compounds, rhetoric informs. The more artists tie femininity to inability, the more we will see those values reflected on a larger scale.
The most visceral and upsetting type of misogyny in hip-hop is marked by sexual violence. Jay Roc is going to “beat the pussy up.” Young Thug “beat the pussy up.” Rich Homie Quan’s girls are all scared of him because he “put[s] that rod in ‘em.” Vic Mensa, in one of the more depraved and ill-advised lyrics of the year, raps, “but if she bad I might hit a bitch in the elevator like Ray Rice.” The implications are clear; Vic is going to have sex with a women in an elevator, but his rhetoric evokes violence. Worse, he references an explicit violent incident without any regard for how terrible it really was. Sexual violence is pervasive in rap. That is not to say that there aren’t respectful approaches to sex and love in rap; rap’s scope means that anything is possible. Yet in mainstream hip hop, approaches to sex promote unbalanced ideas of pleasure, respect, and sexuality.
The implications of misogyny in hip hop are far-reaching. It has become a genre with listeners in the millions. It is powerful both politically and socially. It informs values, provides social cues, and helps inform how people interact. It is the poetic footprint of multiple decades. For these reasons, its rhetoric needs to become more inclusive. We often talk about a lack of female rap artists. Those few women that do experience mainstream success often must adhere to the rules of patriarchal rhetoric. If hip hop were to curb its language, perhaps we would see a rise in female artists. Intellectuals, writers, and college students often toss about the word inclusivity, with mixed reactions (apparently we’re all too sensitive now). But it remains an important word when discussing how hip-hop will grow. If the genre is to experience any forward growth, artists must respect the fact that rap is not homogeneous, and female artists need to be allowed to enter the foray.
A few searches on Rap Genius and some Spotify cruising gave us a plethora of examples for backing the assertion that rap is misogynistic. Yet it isn’t sufficient to discuss this issue using the easy tactics. It is necessary to also understand why rap rhetoric is the way it is. For that, we need to address the socio-political matrix in which rap has developed, and the business it has become.
Rap Grows Not In A Vacuum
Critiques of hip-hop often read as if hip-hop exists in a vacuum; as though rappers write questionable lyrics because, well, they’re morally inept. That approach denies centuries of history that inform not only hip-hop’s largest constituency, black Americans, but also the white role in this history.
In their piece “Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space,” published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Guillermo Rebollo-Gil and Amanda Moras argue that, “any analysis [of misogyny] that does not simultaneously discuss the racist, patriarchal, capitalist hierarchy within which rap exists does not move the music toward liberatory practice.” Commercially successful hip-hop is most often driven by what is commercially appealing. As Rebello-Gil and Moras argue, it is “larger, white-owned corporations [that] continue to control the music’s distribution channels,” which see stereotypes of uber-sexual and violent black men as marketable. Sexual and violent lyrics are what sell, and therefore it is sexual and violent music that sees commercial success.
Rebollo-Gil and Moras’ piece argues that gender relations and patriarchy within the black communities from which most rap music comes from are greatly influenced by white perceptions of people of color. White culture has long identified people of color as exotic, erotic, and violent. In a white-dominated society, these stereotypes have been grafted onto people of color, informing how they are perceived socially and culturally, creating institutionalized racism. Because these stereotypes become “fact,” they add levels of “truth” to lyrics about violence and oversexualization that make these things marketable. It isn’t just true when discussing black men; black women are defined as “baby mammas” and “freaks,” rhetoric that allows mistreatment. Western-centric definitions of blackness have come to inform how we perceive rap music and how we digest it. Therefore, oversexualized and violent lyrics, or simply lyrics that lack respect toward women, are not only commercially successfully, they’re “honest.” They portray what dominant groups have formalized as true, while betraying the real experiences of black America and failing to help redefine marginalized communities. Working from false definitions of sexuality and blackness, rap music has grown to fit a mold that it was forced into. Cracking the seams of that mold is now the responsibility of those who love the genre.
This is a nuanced issue. Yet it isn’t hard to understand. Although hip-hop is home to a considerable amount of misogyny, blame cannot be leveled at only the artists. What is seen as a black-centric genre is in reality run by white-owned corporations on a commercial level. It is these corporations, working with Western-centric definitions of blackness, that determine what sells, and therefore what goes into songs. We cannot pretend that rap exists in a vacuum of sex and violence. Its lyrics can also be vibrant and uplifting; honest and gritty. Rap fans love some level of beef, some level of posturing, some level of sexuality. But let us not promote extremes. Let us not accept rhetoric that demeans and hurts. Be discerning listeners and readers, and understand the circumstances in which rap grows.
For this post I created a movie spoof paralleling “Man vs Wild”. The idea was that spending a few nights at my grandmother’s house was similar to a few nights out in the wild. It was an enormous amount of fun to make, and my grandmother loved being the center of attention.
You will notice the video concludes with credits. Since this blog has been so much about family, I decided to include the entire family in these credits. Without the family, my grandmother wouldn’t have the same audience to perform for and this blog wouldn’t be very entertaining. Thankfully Grandma Ida loves to perform and we all love to watch. Thank you to all my readers who have kept up with this blog and I hope you enjoy this short film!
Over the course of this blog, I have realized my posts have been less about my grandparents and more importantly about family. I have been privileged enough to be born into a wonderful and loving family that enjoy coming together over the absurdity of my grandparents.
My parents, brother, uncles, aunts, and cousins have regularly reached out to me to discuss my posts. I am apart of an extremely close family and I think my posts have made that seem even more apparent.
For this post, I wanted to include my brother and three other cousins on my grandmothers side and allow them to share some stories about our grandmother. My brother Adam is a 23 year old production assistant working for the New York Mets. He lived at my grandmothers house for 3 months last year while working in Baltimore.
My cousin Alyssa is a junior at The University of Florida and went on a trip to Italy with me two summers ago. Her brother Max is a sophomore in high school and the smartest 16 year old in the world. He has been labeled a walking Wikipedia and has 3 girlfriends minimum at any given point in time. Alex is the youngest cousin and is also a sophomore in high school. He is a huge sports fan and is always eager to discuss the ravens and his below average fantasy football team.
For the interview, I asked all four of them the same 5 question. Enjoy…
1. What’s your favorite memory of grandma?
Adam: All the trips and cruises she has taken us on. They are something I will never forget.
Alyssa: Traveling with her in Italy after my high school graduation.
Max:My favorite memory of grandma Ida is on one of the cruises where she got up and danced with the waiters. As the song “Low” played she danced more intense with the waiters and got everyone else to dance with her too. The whole time she was smiling and having fun while making everyone else laugh.
Alex: When she got lost in St. Maarten and we had to look for her for 4 hours and she almost didn’t make it back on the cruise ship.
2. What’s the most embarrassingthing you’ve seen her do?
Adam: The most embarrassing thing I have seen grandma do is probably get lost for hours in a market on some Caribbean island. The boat almost left without her. Uncle Marty was pissed. It was hilarious.
Alyssa: The most embarrassing thing I’ve seen her do was at a family event where she was dancing inappropriately with my great aunt.
Max:The most embarrassing thing I’ve seen her do is tell my friends a story about how her metal bra set off the metal detector at the airport.
Alex: All the times she dances.
3. What is your favorite story about her involving alcohol?
Adam: My favorite grandma drunk story was when she had 2 glasses of wine and then screamed at the table about how she wanted to meet young men and bring them back to her room and put a cowboy hat on the door to show people she was busy.
Alyssa: Favorite alcohol story would be her drinking wine in Italy and starting to kiss the waiter she thought was cute
Max: My favorite story about alcohol and grandma was when she was drunk at my Bar Mitzvah and started to suggestively dance in front of everyone.
Alex: I don’t know. Too many.
4. Talk about a time she got really pissed at you.
Adam: Grandma got super mad at me when I was trying to watch the Orioles game and she wanted me to get the mail. I tried to tell her I would after the game but that didn’t seem to go well with her. She turned off the TV and yelled at me for watching a stupid game. She then lectured me about how most professional athletes are rapist and thugs. Good times.
Alyssa: She got really pissed at me when I was rude to my mom and she got in the middle of it.
Max: One time Grandma got really pissed at me when we were in Brye Canyon because me and Uncle Marty went on a hike that took awhile. While we were gone, the temperature dropped and she was very angry that we left her alone in the cold without the keys to the car.
Alex: None that I can remember.
(Looks like Alex is trying to win some brownie points)
I asked my aunt to write whatever she wanted about me, our relationship and our shared passion: teaching English. She sent me an e-mail last Sunday with ‘a contribution’ for my blog. This contribution makes me really happy since she has been a crucial person in my development as a professional.
Silvia, my mother’s sister, is an English teacher who has always helped me not only as a professional guide, but also as a supportive aunt. Being here, at Dickinson, is also part of her advice and the long hours she spent helping me, sharing my complaints, my doubts, my decisions and my challenges. For that reason, I would like to share some of her inspiring words!
The practice after critique can bring many changes. This year it did just that. After taking what we heard from the judges into consideration our coach decided to make a couple changes to the program. Most of these changes included arm movements or simple revisions. However sometimes you have to gut out one part of the program and make it something new, which in this case, we had to do.
We started with the beginning of the program. What better part to work on than from the beginning? The judges had told our coach that our music started off dark and mysterious, so we had to act the part. We took the beginning and made a couple changes. Originally we had 2 groups of 4 doing specific elements and one girl in the center doing something else. While this looked very nice we didn’t get a lot of speed, which was a comment from the judges. So, we changed the beggining of our program to give us the speed we needed.
The judges liked the middle of our program, however, they said that during our intersection it looks like we come to a complete stop. Again we made a change. For our intersection, we come in from different directions in two lines. After our intersection we would join the two lines and make one long line. We are still doing this, but before one of our lines had to spin around themselves to get to the other line.
This made it look slow and appear that we came to a stop. The change was made so now we continue going with the other line and have a greater amount of speed going into our one long line than before.
The judges said they loved our line. This is when we are all connected in a line and force it to pivot. A pivot line. In this line we have foot work as well. Luckily, this part of our program had no changes.
Moving forward after our pivot line there is a triangle block. A line of four, three, and two. Before we had a backward twizzle. This is when you enter on one foot and do a traveling spin backwards. Twizzles are hard on their own but to make a block of nine girls come together and do it at the same time is even harder. Most of us can do a back twizzle very well, but some can’t. Because of this all our turns were at different times. We took out the turns and put something new in.
Our new change wasn’t a big one nor did it make it difficult. Most of the girls liked the twizzle better but you have to do what your coach wants. Now instead of doing a turn we move from a triangle to two lines. After we transition from three to two lines the back line intersects the first line, then it’s repeated with the new back line.
The first intersection here is just a simple glide through. However the second one the girls lunge through our line. A lunge is when you glide forward on two feet then just like a lunge when you work out, you put one leg behind you, but for skating you rest the side of your boot on the ice while balancing on the foot that is bent. While this change is simple the moms watching said it looks very nice and makes our next transition look very clean.
The next part of the program stayed the same because the judges said they absolutely loved it. Moving from the two lines we did a pivot block. A pivot block is when we have three lines of three moving on a pivot with foot work. Continuing after this we transition into another two lines and then again separate our lines, however this time we separate into four lines: three lines of two and one line of three. And, yet again, it’s an intersection, but not like before. With this intersection it looks like a ladder’s steps, but every other step is moving to a different side. Two lines left while two lines move right. The judges loved this.
Continuing the program to the finish, the judges said that we only need to look more alive and to add some different arm movements, if possible. Continuing on from the moving ladder we move into a three spoke wheel.
This means we have three lines of three, moving in the same direction, backwards. The best thing that describes it is a pinwheel. The first couple rotations of this we do foot work. Then we move out and change direction. After changing direction we changed our arm hold. Typically we do a shoulder hold, when you are holding at the shoulders of the skaters next to you. We changed this to a basket weave hold. This is where your arms all weave together by having an over-under pattern.
We go around this one time in the pinwheel and transition into one long line. To do this, one line flips their direction and moves in between the other two lines. This creates one line where half the girls are facing one direction and the other half faces the other direction.
Finally we come to the end of our program. After a couple of rotations in our last wheel we end in a straight line and end with a cannon.
Simply, this means that the two girls in the center start the cannon by hitting their end position and then it ripples down to the girls in the end. Every girl has the same position however we move so it gets lower as every girl hits their position.
Over all the judges loved our program. They loved our music and how unexpected it was, our dresses and how they moved on the ice, the program and how well it captured the music. However, they did give us many things to work on. The two main things are all of the turns in our program, making sure they are all done at the same time and working on our presentation. We as a team have to capture the audience by over exaggerating our arms and our facial expressions. Smile ’til it hurts, scowl like you’re furious. You have to sell the emotions.
We as a team have a lot of work before our first competition, but hard work and dedication are what makes the team stronger.
I believe that it is very important in any sport to have someone to idolize. Luckily, I have many idols. Cross Country/ Track is full of so many inspiring athletes. Some of my most favorite elite distance runners Kara Goucher and Mary Cain. They are insanely talented runners, who have gone represented the U.S. at World Championships.
Kara Goucher
Kara Goucher is amazing. She continues to have an incredibly successful career, here are a few highlights of her running. In her college career at the University of Colorado, she and her team claimed the individual and team titles at the NCAA Division I Championships in 2000. In 2007, she claimed the bronze medal at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan. She then continued that same year to set the American Record in the ½ Marathon in 1:06.57. In 2008 and 2012, Goucher represented the U.S. at the Beijing and London Olympics.
2007 World Outdoor Championships Osaka, Japan August 25-Sept 2, 2007 Photo: Victah Sailer@Photo Run Victah1111@aol.com 631-741-1865
Why is Kara Goucher so inspiring?
Kara Goucher inspires me because of her sheer determination. Though she has been incredibly successful for most of her career, she has also experienced setbacks. Through having bad races and tough experiences with coaches, she has always found a way to get herself back on track. In my running, I like to learn from Kara’s strength and determination and channel it to my running.
Kara Goucher running the marathon at the London Olympics in 2012.
Mary Cain
Mary Cain is one of the fastest middle distance (800m-1500m) runners in the country. She is also only 19 years old, which makes her one the youngest elite distance runners. Mary Cain has already had an impressive running career. She has broken multiple American Junior and World Junior Records and has attended World and World Junior Championships. Some of her most notable highlights are winning the 3000m at the IAAF World Junior Championships in July of 2014 and obtaining the world indoor junior record in the 1000m in 2:35.80. She was also the first American youth to break 2 minutes in the 800m and set the current high school and American youth record for the 800m in 1:59.51. In addition, she was the youngest athlete to ever run for team USA at the Moscow World T&F Championships in the 1500m in 2013 .
Mary Cain winning the 3000m at the World Junior Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Why is Mary Cain so inspiring?
Mary Cain is inspiring because of all her accomplishments in running at such a young age. She is so fast, that she decided to forgo her college eligibility to run and pursue a professional running career (she runs for Nike Oregon Project). Mary Cain is incredibly humble athlete and encourages young runners like her to also strive to run her times. It is amazing to see how young runners can accomplish goals that older and veteran runners strive to accomplish.
Mary Cain on her way to breaking 2 minutes at the Prefontaine Classic! Photo taken from Photo RumMary Cain speaks to the the press after setting the U.S.A. High School National record in the 800 meters with a time of 1:59.51 at the second day of the Prefontaine Classic. (Mason Trinca/Emerald)
While this looked very nice we didn’t get a lot of speed, which was a comment from the judges. So, we changed the beggining of our program to give us the speed we needed.
