March 12, 2005
Jim and John
I met Silistra's Rosencrantz and Gildenstern the other night. That's a bit harsh of course, both guys are great and fun to hang out with, but they had a team vibe that smacked of the Tom Stoppard R & G and, more exactly, the Aykroyd-Martin "Wild and Crazy Guys" bit from SNL. They were hanging out at the ol' local and, since they're both relatively powerful guys in town, listerning to the music they brought.
Usually in Bulgaria, when a pair or group of people control a place's Winamp, it's a certainty that the music will be from the eighties. This includes, but it not limited to, hair bands and metal. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear that these guys love The Beatles and The Doors to the point where they know all the words. John (as he wanted to be called) says he learned all of his English from The Beatles, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was telling the truth. For several reasons.
Jim doesn't know much English himself, but when you're a Doors fan, that's understandable. Whiskey bars and snakes in the sky don't come up often in everyday conversation.
Their amazingly good taste in music also extended to film, as John was, for some unexplained reason, carrying around a small collection of films on CD. Usually in Bulgaria, this would mean "Eurotrip," "Old School," "Spider-Man 2," and "I, Robot." However, John has every Monty Python movie on CD (To date, he is the second Bulgarian I've met who has heard of Monty Python. Although it's not something I ask every Bulgarian I meet. Of course.), and he also had two classics that I haven't yet seen--"A Clockwork Orange" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"--which he let me borrow. He also told me he's working on getting the Coen brothers' movies, making him the second Bulgarian I've met who has brought up a Coen brothers movie in conversation.
Between all this talk of high culture, the two of them toasted each other back and forth, and when a particular Doors favorite started playing, they gave each other high fives that definitely had me waiting for "For we are two--Wild And Cray-zy Guys!" Good times.
Times not so good passed today. The government giveth and the government taketh away and since the government had given the nation a four day weekend following last Thursday's holiday, it was nationally decided that today, Saturday, be turned into a working day. So everybody had to go to school. Well, not everybody, it was closer to half, I'd say. Attendance wasn't really tracked that well today, and a student I talked to last night said she wouldn't have classes today because none of her teachers were going to be available for teaching.
I gave it a good sporting effort and got all of my students through to the end of the day. But I have a gut feeling that a day like this, so close to spring break, may prematurely bring out the horrible laziness that seems to hit Bulgarian kids right after the April break. My worst nightmare is that, beginning next week, no one will want to work. I'll go in prepared for the worst.
By the by, today's picture is of a church that I pass pretty much every day on my way home from the internet club. Usually it's at sunset, just as it is in the photo. I wish the garbage bins weren't there, but, well, that's life.
Posted by Rob at March 12, 2005 03:50 PM