Cultural English 478 - All That Jazz; Winter Carnivals; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 478.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 478. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about another famous musical, called All That Jazz. We’re also going to talk about winter carnivals in the United States, and in particular the winter carnival of my hometown, where I was born: St. Paul, Minnesota. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

One of the most famous choreographers in the history of film and theater was a man by the name of Bob Fosse. A “choreographer” (choreographer) is a person who designs and creates dances to go with music. During Bob Fosse’s career, he won an incredible nine Tony Awards. The “Tony (Tony) Awards” are given to the best new shows, plays, and plays with music in them (called “musicals”) that are shown in, or performed in, Broadway theaters in New York City. “Broadway” is the name of the street in New York City that has the most famous theaters in the city.

In addition to being a choreographer, Fosse was also a director, dancer, and writer. In fact, he wrote, directed, and choreographed All That Jazz, which was released as a movie in 1979 and is the topic of this first part of our Café. All That Jazz tells the story of a director and choreographer named Joe Gideon. Joe Gideon is extremely successful at his job. He’s very famous and choreographs movies and theater shows – something like Bob Fosse.

In the film, he’s working on a new theater production called NY/LA. “NY” is the abbreviation, typically, for New York, although you probably see more often “NYC” for New York City. “LA” is, of course, an abbreviation for Los Angeles. In the movie, Joe Gideon is working on a new theater production. “Production” as a noun is another word for a show or a movie project.

In the movie, the character Joe Gideon is also busy editing his most recent film. “To edit” (edit) means to go back, correct, fix, or perfect something that you’ve already produced, such as a movie or perhaps a script. In All That Jazz, Gideon has a very busy personal life in addition to his busy professional life. He has an ex-wife – someone he used to be married to – a girlfriend, and a young daughter. He also sleeps with a lot of women who perform in his shows.

In order to survive this incredibly crazy life, Gideon drinks a lot of alcohol, smokes a lot of cigarettes, and takes illegal drugs. He lives what we might call the “high life.” The “high (high) life” is a term we use to describe a very busy, expensive life that you lead, one that requires a lot of money and a lot of activity. You might think of Hollywood stars, movie stars, as living the high life. Well, in the movie All That Jazz, Gideon lives the high life. He spends his time working, drinking, taking drugs, and sleeping with women.

In All That Jazz, Gideon’s way of life finally catches up to him. When we say something “catches (catches) up” to you, we mean that it has an effect on you, especially a negative effect. If, for example, you don’t sleep for 36 hours, you’re going to be very tired and it’s going to catch up to you, meaning eventually it will affect you and your performance or whatever you’re doing.

Well, Gideon’s way of life catches up to him in the movie. The movie is a musical, so it has songs and dance scenes that show different parts of Gideon’s life and his work. It also has long scenes of hallucinations about his life and his death. A “hallucination” (hallucination) is an experience where you believe something is happening to you even though it isn’t actually happening. You might have hallucinations if you take certain kinds of drugs, for example.

In the movie, one of Gideon’s hallucinations involves a woman named Angelique, and Angelique takes him through these hallucinations which show him moments in his life that have led up to the present moment, that have led him to where he is right now. That moment is Joe Gideon having a heart attack and possibly about to die. Does he die? Well, I’ll let you see the movie to find out.

The movie starred an American actor by the name of Roy Schneider as Gideon, but Schneider wasn’t the first choice for this role, this part in the movie. Fosse actually wanted a more famous actor to play Gideon, but Schneider had acted on Broadway and he had spent some time with Fosse. As Fosse got to know Schneider better, he decided to give the part to him. Schneider turned out to be the perfect choice. His performance as Joe Gideon is often considered one of the best movie performances of that time. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1980 for his performance, but he did not win.

All That Jazz, as you might have guessed, has a lot of similarities to the real life of Bob Fosse. It was not, in other words, a fictional story, at least not completely. “Fictional” (fictional) means not true, imaginary, something made up. Instead, All That Jazz is really Bob Fosse’s autobiography in many ways. An “autobiography” is a story that you write about your own life. If someone else writes the story of your life, we would call that book a “biography.”

All That Jazz is an autobiography of the life of Bob Fosse. He wrote about his own crazy life during the heart attacks, which he himself suffered in 1974 while working on the Broadway production of the musical Chicago. Fosse himself was born in Chicago in 1927. He became a professional dancer at the age of 13 and later danced in Broadway musicals and on television and in movies. He began choreographing dances in 1954.

His dances all included certain, what we would call “signature moves,” or signature items. When we say something is a “signature (signature) move” or item, we mean it’s a pattern or a characteristic that everyone recognizes belongs to this particular person – in this case, this particular choreographer. Some of Fosse’s signature moves include using items like chairs and hats as part of the dance.

Another signature move involved a dancer waving his or her hands gently, slowly, back and forth with all of the fingers of the hands spread out and open. This move, in fact, became something called “jazz hands.” Later there were a lot of people who made fun of jazz hands, especially a popular comedy show in the 1980s, I think (might’ve been the 1990s).

Just like Gideon, Fosse lived the high life. He had many relationships. He drank. He smoked and he did drugs. He had three heart attacks in 1974, but he survived them – he lived through them. In 1987, however, while Fosse was working on a production of the musical called Sweet Charity in Washington, D.C., he had another heart attack, and this time he did not survive. The heart attack killed him.

Many people found All That Jazz somewhat difficult to watch because it told the story of, frankly, an unpleasant man, a not very nice man whose life was coming to a fast and terrible end. Critics, however, congratulated Fosse on the film. They said it was an honest picture of his own life and all the bad things he did to himself and to other people.

Now let’s turn to a winter tradition in the United States – at least, in some parts of the United States – the winter carnival. A “carnival” (carnival) is a celebration – a festival, we could call it – that lasts usually several days during roughly the same part of the year. A fall carnival would always be in the months of September, October, November, and a winter carnival would be in the months of December, January, and February (or thereabouts).

A winter carnival, then, would take place when it is cold outside. But not every city has a winter carnival. Usually, it’s just those cities where winter is a very long season – cities in the northern part of the U.S. Most winter carnivals include traditional winter sports competitions. People can go skiing and ice skating, for example.

They also have, sometimes, some nontraditional activities, things that you wouldn’t normally expect at a carnival. These, of course, would be different for each carnival. They can include things like shovel races, where people have a shovel – which is a tool that you use to remove snow from the ground – and you have to race. You have to run with the shovel. They’re silly events, not very serious events, but people have fun at them.

The carnivals also in many cities have what are called “ice palaces.” A “palace” (palace) is a large house, a mansion, even bigger than that. A huge, formal building where someone very rich might live. You might think for example of Buckingham Palace in London, where the royal family of Great Britain lives, where the queen currently lives. Well, in a winter carnival, they build a palace not from wood or stone, but from of course ice, since it is winter.

In addition, some winter carnivals have leaders of the carnival – we might call them “honorary leaders” of the carnival – in what is called a royal court. “Royal” (royal) refers to kings and queens. The “royal court” would be the king, the queen, and other members of, if you will, the royal family. Usually people who live in the town apply to be the king or queen or member of the royal court, and during the time of the winter carnival, this royal court goes around and attends the different winter carnival events and has parties and greets people and so forth.

Now, one of the biggest winter carnivals – perhaps the biggest winter carnival in the United States – is held in my old hometown, the place where I was born: St. Paul, Minnesota. St. Paul is about 400 miles northwest of Chicago, although I would say that Chicago is 400 miles southeast of St. Paul. The St. Paul Winter Carnival began in the late nineteenth century, in 1886, and it was a celebration of the city’s success.

St. Paul, like a lot of towns in the Midwest, had a growing population and a growing economy. The local business leaders and political leaders decided it would be a good idea to have some sort of celebration. Also, because the winters are so long in a place like Minnesota, it was a way for people to celebrate a little, to get out, to have a good time even though the weather wasn’t very nice.

The leaders of St. Paul also wanted to show what a wonderful place St. Paul is in the wintertime. Now, if you like cold weather, it is a wonderful place. If, like me, you don’t like cold weather, it’s not so great, but in the late nineteenth century, some newspapers in the eastern part of the country started to talk about Minnesota as being a place where you wouldn’t want to go, in particular St. Paul, Minnesota.

In fact, one newspaper called it “unfit for human habitation in the winter.” Something that is “unfit” (unfit) is not fit. “To be fit” means to be appropriate for. So, the newspaper was saying that St. Paul was not a place where humans could live. That’s the meaning of the expression “human habitation.”

The first winter carnival had a parade. It had skiing, and it had an ice castle. It also had toboggan slides. A “toboggan” (toboggan) is basically a sled, what they might call in England a “sledge.” It’s a kind of vehicle that you use on the snow. The carnival has continued every year since 1896, I believe, and every year there are certain competitions, certain contests that are held.

One of the contests relates to doing ice sculptures. A “sculpture” (sculpture) is when you create a shape, an image of something, from some hard material, usually stone. You can think of the sculptures of Michelangelo in Florence – the great “David.” Well, people use ice also to make sculptures, and some of these sculptures are really amazing. I’ve seen many different ice sculpture competitions during the winter carnivals that I experienced when I lived in St. Paul, and some of them are really amazing sculptures to look at.

Another part of the winter carnival traditionally was a treasure hunt. “Treasure” (treasure) is something that is valuable, something that is found somewhere. A “treasure hunt” is a game or a competition where you give people clues about where something is, and they have to go out and find it.

So, in the case of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, there would be what’s called a “medallion.” A “medallion” is basically a round coin, and the local newspaper would put the medallion somewhere in the city, and then each day, they would publish a clue that would help people figure out where the medallion is. If you found the medallion, then of course you would get, I don’t know, a thousand dollars, a couple of thousand dollars – I’m not sure exactly what the price was.

The St. Paul Winter Carnival usually brings about 350,000 visitors to the city. So it’s quite popular, especially in the upper Midwest. This makes it one of the largest events in St. Paul. Many of the visitors come from other parts of the U.S. in order to experience this two-week long carnival celebration. It also brings a lot of money into the city. Some people say between three and a half and five million tourist dollars come in because of the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

I have some particular memories of the winter carnival. I certainly went out and tried to find the medallion during the treasure hunt, but I was never successful. However, when I was in sixth grade, I was actually made part of the royal court. Yes, that’s right. I won’t go into the entire story, but basically, the winter carnival royalty would go around to the schools and the schools would select one or two people who would become members of the royal court.

Now, it didn’t mean that they gave you any money or gave you any power to do anything, but it was a nice thing for the school to do for a couple of its students. And when the royal court visited my school when I was in sixth grade, I was made a member of the royal court. So, in some ways you could say I am royalty, but that’s okay, you don’t have to call me “Your Majesty.” “Your Majesty” (majesty) is what you would call a king. That’s how you would address, or speak to, a king or a queen. I would be a king, of course.

Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.

Our first question comes from Mohammad (Mohammad) in the country of Malaysia. Mohammad wants to know the difference between “irony” and “metaphor.” Let’s begin with “irony” (irony).

“Irony” is when you use words, language, with the opposite meaning of what they would normally mean, usually in order to make a joke or to be funny. For example, if it is really hot outside ¬– the temperature is, I don’t know, 35 degrees Celsius, or whatever that is in Fahrenheit – you might say, “Wow, it’s kind of cold outside.” You’re joking, of course. It’s not really cold outside. In fact, it’s the opposite of that. But you say it in order to be funny.

“Irony” is a tool, a “device,” we might say, in writing as well as in spoken comedy, if you will. You will often see good writers use irony, especially as a way of making fun of or critiquing. In that sense, irony is related to another word: “satire” (satire). “Satire” is when you create a situation not only to be funny, but to make fun of and in some ways to criticize another person.

“Metaphor” (metaphor) is a way of using words or phrases where the meaning of that word or phrase is applied to a situation different from what you would normally expect or that you would find if you looked that word or those phrases up in some sort of dictionary. For example, metaphors are often used in songs, poetry, and other kinds of writing. I’m thinking, for example, of a song by Elton John written about Marilyn Monroe.

The song was called “Goodbye, Norma Jean.” Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe’s real first name. In the song, he describes Marilyn Monroe by using the image or the concept of a candle. “Your candle burned out long ago,” he sings in the song. There, “candle” is not used in the literal sense – in the real or actual sense of Marilyn Monroe burning – but rather, “candle” is used as a metaphor, as a way of describing the situation using words that would normally not apply.

Now, metaphor is often confused, especially by students here in the U.S., with a similar device or technique called “simile” (simile). A “simile” is when you compare one thing to another or describe something, but you use words like “as” or “like.” “I’m as hungry as a wolf.” I’m not a wolf, but I’m comparing myself to a wolf, an animal. “He’s bright like the sun.” He’s not the sun, but you’re comparing him to the brightness of the sun.

Our next question comes from Urban (Urban) in Slovakia. Urban wants to know the difference between “routed” and “data.” “Routed” (routed) refers to a particular path or way that something moves or travels. The noun “route” refers to the way you get from one place to another ¬– what road you travel on, what path you take. “To route” as a verb can mean to send someone to a certain place by giving them directions. “First, you go down the street, then you go down that street,” and so forth.

“Data” (data) is technically the plural form of another word, “datum” (datum). A “datum” is a piece of information. So, “data” is the plural – pieces of information. However, it’s become quite common to use data as a singular noun. People will talk about what the data shows rather than what the data show. Of course, “shows” is a third-person singular form of the verb, and “show” would be the third-person plural form of the verb.

Data can be routed through different servers or different computers. You can send the information one way or another, through this path or through that path. I think that’s what Urban is asking about here. I should add that sometimes you hear different pronunciations depending on the region of the United States in which you live. Some people say “route” which rhymes with “out.” Some people say “route” which rhymes with “boot.” Some people say “data” with a long “a.” Some people say “data” with a short “a.” The meaning is the same in all cases. It’s just a different way of pronouncing the words.

Finally, another, different Mohammed (Mohammed), this time in Algeria, wants to know the meaning of the word “hopefully.” “Hopefully” (hopefully) is a word whose meaning has changed somewhat, at least in popular usage, over the last several years – probably the last 30 or 40 years, I would guess. The traditional or older meaning of “hopefully” is “in a hopeful way,” or “in a hopeful manner,” or “in a way that would be full of hope.”

“Hope” (hope) is some sort of positive expectation about the future. It’s when you think something good will happen in the future, usually. It used to be that “hopefully” would only be used in this sense. “He waited hopefully for his girlfriend to call.” He was sitting there with a lot of hope: “Hopefully, he was sitting there.” However, more recently, “hopefully” has changed its meaning somewhat, or at least has added a new meaning, which is “it is hoped that.” “It is hoped that” – or “I hope that” – “it rains today.”

People nowadays will say, “Hopefully, it will rain today.” There, “hopefully” means “It is hoped that” or “I hope that” or “We hope that.” The use of the word “hopefully” (like in my mind the use of the word “impact” as a verb) is one of those things that sort of separates people who care a lot about grammar and language – who think that we need to express ourselves more precisely and exactly. Sometimes I’m that way, and sometimes I’m not.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.

Glossary

choreographer – a person who designs and creates dances to be performed with music

* The choreographer worked closely with the director to be sure that the dances represented the storyline of the show.

production – show; a movie, television, or theater project

* The movie was one of the most expensive productions that the studio had ever made, costing over $400 million.

high-life – describing a very busy, expensive, and often wasteful way of living

* Antonio lives the high-life. He’s out partying every night, drives a $250,000 car, and travels around the country in his private jet.

hallucination – an experience in which one believes something is happening that is not actually happening or seeing something that is not actually there

* After walking through the desert for days, Amir thought that he finally saw trees and water, but it was just a hallucination.

fictional – not true; imaginary

* Alice in Wonderland is the fictional story of a girl who travels down a secret hole and finds a world with talking animals.

autobiography – a person’s own written account of his or her own life

* Lorenzo wrote his autobiography when he was in his 70s.

signature – a pattern or characteristic that is easily recognizable as belonging to one person

* Purple is Annika’s signature color, and she always wears a piece of clothing with purple in it.

carnival – a festival or celebration that occurs over a period of a few days at the same time each year with special games, rides, food, and performances

* The school carnival included rides, games, and a live band.

season – one of four periods in a year associated with a certain type of weather; spring, summer, fall, or winter

* Having grown up in New York where the weather changes a lot each season, Jackson had a hard time adjusting to Algeria where it always feels like summer.

royal court – a group of people who serve as representatives of a country or event and use titles such as king, queen, prince, princess, duke, and duchess

* At American high school proms, there is usually a royal court students are selected by their classmates to serve as prom king and queen.

habitation – living or existing in a certain place

* Even though the building was supposed to be empty, there were some signs of habitation, including a bed that had slept in and some dirty dishes.

toboggan – a long, narrow vehicle used to travel downhill over snow

* After the first major snowfall of the year, all of the children ran out to the biggest hill to ride their toboggans.

irony – the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally means the opposite, typically for humor or emphasis

* “Don’t thank me too much for the gift I gave you,” she said with irony when Gina was silent after opening the present.

metaphor – a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

* Which is a better metaphor for the sun – “a ball of fire” or “a lamp in the sky”?

to route – to send by a particular way, path, or method

* Let’s route this shipment by sea, rather than by land.

data – information and facts collected together for reference or analysis

* The school collects data on its students’ performance every month.

hopefully – it is hoped that; in a hopeful manner

* Hopefully, we won’t have any problems finding our hotel when we arrive in the city.

What Insiders Know

Jazz Poetry

In the 1920’s, a new kind of “poetry” (style of writing with a particular rhythm and short lines, expressing feeling) “emerged” (was being created; appeared). During this time, jazz music was becoming more and more popular, especially in the African American community. This led many poets to write in a new style, “merging” (combining) jazz and poetry called “jazz poetry.”

At first, jazz poetry was simply poetry that “made reference to” (mentioned) jazz and its “musicians” (people who play musical instruments or who sing), “instruments” (the devices used to make music), and locations where jazz began or was the most popular.

Jazz poetry “evolved” (changed) over time and “gradually” (little by little) began to use the rhythms and “repetitive” (done many times) “phrases” (sections of music) in jazz music. “Prominent” (important and well known) poets like Langston Hughes, wrote in this style.

Jazz poetry continued to evolve, and soon, African American poets “incorporated” (included) different “themes” (subjects; topics) in their jazz poetry. These topics included “racial pride” (feeling proud of one’s race, culture, and background).

In the 1950’s, other themes began to be expressed through jazz poetry. These new themes included “spontaneity” (actions without planning, done because one wants to) and freedom. Poets like Jack Kerouac would perform his poetry while his friend and “colleague” (coworker) played the piano or drums.