ERIC WENNINGER

Tag: newsletter

Halloween Suzuki

October 31, 2024

The Halloween Suzuki — #NotMySuzuki
Happy Halloween from Grenada!

In last week’s newsletter, I suggested some scary shorts from the page and from the screen:

One of my favorite times to be a teacher is during Halloween. I love incorporating eery music and stories into my classroom. I’ve played the music video for the song, “Drácula, Calígula, Tarántula,” by the Chilean sitcom, 31 Minutos (similar in content and esthetic to The Muppets). It’s a total vibe that you’ll pick up on even if you don’t speak Spanish. I will also use movies without any narration or dialogue in class, like Alma and Úlfur, and then work with students to build language around the story. Alma is a creepy animated short involving children and dolls, neither of which is creepy, right? Úlfur is another animated short that confuses the line between dream and reality in a circular fashion, reminiscent of two of my favorite short stories from Argentinian author, Julio Cortázar. Continuidad de los parques (English version) and La noche boca arriba (English version) were both introduced to me during my college days as a Spanish student. Both are well worth the read. Cortázar was a master of confusing what’s real and what’s fiction—perfect for Halloween!

You can read the rest of the newsletter here.

In other Halloween news, the following picture came up today as a Facebook memory from 2016.

Cal Pumpkinhead from our Vietnam days

Of course, we miss Cal and the fun of being around the hood tonight to hand out candy and play terrifying tunes for all the children. Angie and I are still planning on watching a scary movie or two though, be it tonight or tomorrow night. Studying is the horror consuming most of the time around here these days. Movies currently in the running are:
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
- I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
- Coraline (2009)
- It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Last but not least, I was finally able to put together a Halloween playlist for 2024, just in the nick of time! You can listen to it here.
O’Rourke’s Fast Car

October 18, 2024

Cover art from Jim O’Rourke’s 2002 concert in Japan, featuring an image of O’Rourke obscured and blended with Chapman’s original, much like his version of “Fast Car”

Last week’s newsletter started out with my post on contemplating blue. It wrapped up with an impromptu concert from Jim O’Rourke, featuring a 33-minute version of “Fast Car.” I wrote:

I’m a big Jeff Tweedy fan, and “I celebrate the guy’s entire catalog”—especially the Wilco albums from the early 2000s, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. At the time they were recorded, Tweedy was collaborating heavily with the musician and multi-instrumentalist, Jim O’Rourke. It was O’Rourke who first introduced Jeff Tweedy to Glen Kotche, Wilco’s current drummer who has been with the band ever since YHF. The three of them even formed a side project called Loose Fur that put out a couple of albums during those years. I was recently listening to an episode of NPR’s New Music Friday and learned about a 2002 impromptu concert that O’Rourke did in Japan. He was asked last minute to perform and had to piece together a set using borrowed instruments. I found a bootleg (if the Internet Archives site is down, you can still listen here) of the show, which closes with a beautiful cover of Tracy Chapman’s iconic song, “Fast Car,” one of my favorites. O’Rourke’s drone-infused and atmospheric version goes on for a whopping 33 minutes! In the days of streaming, it’s been a while since I’ve downloaded an album and had to go through the process of adding the files to my Mac’s music library and then transfer them to my phone via a USB cable. It was well worth it.

Jim O’Rourke (via Cover Me)

If ever you’re in need of some peace, I recommend kicking back and listening to the full set. You’ll be transported to another place, one where the mental noise inside your head begins to fade away.

You can read the whole newsletter here.
Connecting from a Distance

October 4, 2024

NPR’s Goats and Soda: Stories of Life in a Changing World

Last week’s newsletter discussed connecting from a distance. It started out like this:

I’ve been thinking a lot about the many ways technology helps people stay connected from a distance. I connect with people and places via music, so while living abroad, I’ll often stream The Current out of the Twin Cites or WXPR’s Northwoods Cafe out of Wisconsin’s northwoods. These are great ways for me to connect with the Midwest, a place I will always call home. I’m connecting to Grenada too, through music. Two great trends I’ve enjoyed about the music here: 1) popular songs that have been caribbeanized (think Simon & Garfunkel with steel drums), and 2) 80s/90s soft rock and R&B. There is a radio station here that I swear plays Luther Vandross at least 50% of the time. If you’d like to tune into Grenadian radio, I’m a big fan of Radio Garden (also an app), which allows you to stream radio stations from all over the world. You can explore the globe through an interface similar to that of Google Earth, each green dot representing a different radio station. This is how I discovered Interferencia IMER (Instituto Mexicano de la Radio), broadcasting out of Mexico City. I highly recommend it. They play a wonderfully eclectic mix of tunes. It was through Interferencia that I first learned about Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers being traded to the New York Jets. At the time I thought, “How appropriate is it for a Spanish teacher from Wisconsin to get big-time Wisconsin news from a Mexican radio station?”

I also wrote about the moon and how it connects us to one another across great distances.

Image from Thea’s Tree, by Judith Clay (via The Marginalian)

You can read the whole newsletter here.
Crossing Thresholds

September 13, 2024

Sunset in Grenada (August, 2024)

Today’s newsletter is about crossing thresholds. It starts:

Taking risks in life is hard. You have to cross the threshold between what is known, well-documented, and comfortable; and step into territory that’s foreign, obscure, and uneasy. Whenever I have started afresh in a new place, I tend to initially latch onto those things that make me feel comfortable, before fully stepping across that threshold. Music is a big help for me in this way and so is, it would seem, Harry Potter. When I studied abroad in Spain, I read the first Harry Potter book in Spanish before immersing myself in my new Spanish community. In anticipation of moving to Grenada, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite, which included a 3-month free subscription to Kindle Unlimited. The last book in the Harry Potter series was available to download so I’ve been enjoying the comforts of reading a beloved story every night before going to bed. It’s the perfect anecdote to the daily struggles that inevitably come with adjusting to life in a new place. I was reminded of several scenes that are missing from the movie version of the book, which prompted me to stumble upon this video that looks at two such deleted scenes.

It continues:

Both feature a character crossing a threshold, physically and symbolically, to meet another character where they are at. To take a risk and enter an unfamiliar space in an attempt to bridge differences and create a mutual understanding. I think it’s a great visual for reflecting on what thresholds we might cross, be they cultural, political, relational, or something else all together. Taking risks like these do not have to be enormous and completely life-altering. They can be small and achievable by anyone, anywhere. This makes them no less profound. I love this 72kilos post which provides another great visual for crossing thresholds.

Translation: I think completely different than you, but that doesn’t prevent me from drawing near to you. Image by 72kilos.

You can read the whole newsletter here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Wenninger is an educator and writer. He teaches language and culture and writes about his thoughts and experiences here.