Take Off

In just a little more than a day, I'll be there with the crowd watching and listening to REM at the Sziget, Budapest, Hungary. I hope to be back from that concert with a special REM Live edition of the podcast. We'll see. What's sure is that the most recent episode features "Find the River."
#rembudapest

I'll post the next episode in early August, after I come home from the Kapolcs Magic Days festivities. Meantime, you can listen to one of my favorite student stories, which also appears in my collection, the JPU Corpus.

That's right: this week, the lyrics comes from that 60s musical, Hair. Enjoy!

How about shifting into sixth gear with this fantastic track from REM's latest album? Plus listen to my rendition of the lyrics. Enjoy! Also, check out Take Off after the REM concert on the Sziget on August 16. I will be there and share with you some of the highlights of the show!

#rembudapest

The first summer episode! Enjoy your vacation and this story, the lyrics of Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

Konkoly Kriszta, Horváth Bálint, and Szilas Péter, three English majors at the University of Pécs, talk about an exam and their summer plans.

Lovorka Zergollern - Miletic, a colleague from the University of Zagreb, and I gave a talk on coherence and originality in student writing at a Pécs conference last week. After the presentation, we went to have a glass of wine downtown -- together with a team of participants. It was there that I made this recording.

The song is by The Agape Rose. Find more great music by them and other bands at www.ilike.com.

Kosóczki Kata, Buda Réka and Fodor Balázs, three students from my Oral Presentation Skills II course, are talking about Forster's novel, A Passage to India, and another passage.

The song is "Sol naciente" by Cargo Cult. Go to http://www.ilike.com to listen to songs by them or other GarageBand musicians.

In the past three years, I have met Steve four times: at the annual Budapest Folk Dance Festivals. This past weekend I asked him to tell Take Off a little bit about his interest in things Hungarian and Transylvanian.

Here's the cover photo of his album Ten Years in Transylvania:

If you would like to see Steve's other photos, too, visit his site at

http://www.spinderartphoto.com/

A scene from the movie starring Sean Connery and Kevin Costner, plus a conversation with Rácz Krisztián.

The song is by the Mitchell Blues Band -- a free MP3 file from www.iLike.com

In this episode I read a passage about the prehistoric statues on Easter Island. Read the rest of the chapter and other sections in Routledge's book on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=36yi7JgoBY8C&rview=1

Listen to Rudolf Anna's story from her blog at http://anchuk.blogspot.com

The singer featured in the episode is Hannah Ild.

A talented writer, Gergo is a fourth-year student at the University of Pecs.

This episode features Lugossy Reka and her stories.

Another rerun of a segment from a Joe and Co. episode from last year, featuring Marianne's ideas about learning vocabulary.

The music for this episode is by Everyday Jones, What I'm Missing. Used under the Creative Commons license. You can hear more Everyday Jones songs at http://www.podsafeaudio.com.

The Lord of the... listen to the episode to find out!

Horvath Bernadett, a friend and former JPU student, joined me in the morning on Skype. She told me about an exercise she's recently designed and about a Newsweek article written by... but you will find that out.

The music: Rain in the Desert, by Little Red King. Used under the Creative Commons license. To listen to this and other Little Red King tracks, visit http://www.podsafeaudio.com.

A look back at a session held last year in the American Corner. Students read and talk about magazine articles, watch a movie, and discuss what they have discovered at 9 Maria street, Pecs, Hungary.

The music for this episode is by Bob Maus, Next Step. Used under the Creative Commons license. You can hear more Bob Maus songs at http://www.podsafeaudio.com.

Ever wanted to know what keeps your teachers on the job? Not really? Well, for those of you who are interested, here's my reason. Ten, actually.

It's those student essays that I will, I know, remember for years to come – and go. There are dozens – for now, let me just share the top, the crème de le crème, the very best.

An essay I wrote five or six years ago.

The music for this episode is by Everyday Jones, Here I Am. Used under the Creative Commons license. You can hear more Everyday Jones songs at http://www.podsafeaudio.com.

An essay written in 1996 by Schubert Gabor, a former student at the University of Pecs.

The music for this episode is by Tyson Emanuel, Touched by Fire. Used under the Creative Commons license. You can hear more of Tyson's songs at http://www.podsafeaudio.com.

A part of episode 2 from my first podcast, Joe and Co., Co. and Joe, featuring blog news about Aliz, on the phone with Judit, and Bono from the Guardian podcast.

Two parts from a chapter from William Zinsser's On Writing Well, a classic nonfiction guide.

If you would like to listen to the Obscure 80s podcast, go to http://obscure80s.podomatic.com

A passage from Annie Poulx's novella. Some of you may have expected an essay of mine for the last 2007 episode: nine listeners out of 24 requested, in my blog poll, that the feature be my funny bad essay. But my only hard copy of that piece, "Why Do We Play Soccer," is missing. If anyone out there still has it, please let me know.

In other news: Take Off is now available on the iTunes Music Store. In the past few days, it has even been featured as a new and notable podcast.

Wishing you all a great New Year's Eve and a shiny happy 2008, when Take Off returns with more great literature by students and classics.

The author: Takacs Daniel. The piece: a short story written exclusively for Take Off.

Welcome to the twelfth episode. Remember the first? It featured Dani, too, with his "Still There," a story about his days in England. Now he returns to Take Off with another masterpiece in this, the Xmas edition of the podcast. Thanks, Dani!

Want to share your ideas about this and other stories? Send me a comment. I am planning an episode featuring listeners' views.

Enjoy and happy holidays to all!

Welcome to the eleventh episode. It features a passage from Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The first two paragraphs:

I’d been to a movie, come home and gone to bed with a bourbon nightcap and the newest Simenon: so much my idea of comfort that I couldn’t understand a sense of unease that multiplied until I could hear my heart beating. It was a feeling I'd read about, written about, but never before experienced. The feeling of being watched. Of someone in the room. Then: an abrupt rapping at the window, a glimpse of ghostly gray: I spilled the bourbon. It was some little while before I could bring myself to open the window, and ask Miss Golightly what she wanted.

"I've got the most terrifying man downstairs," she said, stepping off the fire escape into the room. "I mean he's sweet when he isn't drunk, but let him start lapping up the vino, and oh God quel beast! If there's one thing I loathe, it's men who bite." She loosened a gray flannel robe off her shoulder to show me evidence of what happens if a man bites. The robe was all she was wearing. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. But when the beast got so tiresome I just went out the window.”

Zsani tells about her accident, Reka about leaving home, and Mark about whether it's worth talking about hobbies.

I answer five Xanga featured questions

Featuring recent blog posts

Episode based on Wikipedia content.

A passage from The Catcher in the Rye

An essay by a student in Zagreb, Croatia

A story from the creative anthology of Take Off about photocopying

An essay by a student about childhood -- from the JPU Corpus.

The first in the Take Off podcast series, featuring a story by Daniel Takacs about his summer in England. It is also part of the creative anthology of Take Off, the book.