Feelin' It

Englishly Proficient

I took the day off from the gym yesterday. It would have been my sixth workout this week, and I was just not feelin' it.

I went to the gym night before last with my niece after her English class. She's very excited about her English teacher who is apparently nearly as awesome as me, what with her short hair and many piercings and her shoot-from-the-hip yet humorous way of talking to students. In her class last night, they talked about the uses of studying English. The teacher asked, "Do you need to know English to make a good living?" I asked my niece what she thought. She said, some people can get good-paying jobs--like, say, in construction--without knowing English but yes, you do need to know English to make a good living. It's a fair question, I think; the teacher was asking students to think about why they're studying what they're studying. But at the same time, the question and my niece's answer made me wonder whether or not the teacher was really in touch with the class.

My niece interpreted the question to mean whether or not non-English-speaking immigrants need to learn English in order to stay in America. That's a fair interpretation of the question given that my niece and I live in a place where we come into contact with many people who don't speak English. (At the gym, for example, there are five or six people who converse almost exclusively in Spanish and who speak only rudimentary English. There are another handful--my Gym Boyfriend and Gay Spiderman among them--who are Spanish-English bilingual.) But what the teacher was trying to get at, I think, was whether the students needed to improve their English skills to have a better life. There was a disconnect there between the students' interpretation and the intention behind the question.

It was an interesting question nonetheless. The kind of thinking that leads someone to ask about English in America is a double-edged sword. When people bring it up, it makes me nervous, because it taps right into all those feelings that people have that America is going to be overrun by non-English speaking immigrants who are going to take away our rights and use up our resources and, I guess, sell us into slavery. Or something. (Something?) Those people want to use English proficiency as a criterion for keeping certain people from immigrating to America. (Worthless piece of humanity from Britain? Welcome to America! We think your accent's cute! Stay has long as you like! Hard-working Mexican? Hey, not so fast, Spic. Where do you think you're going?) There's a lot of fear and xenophobia behind that idea. I am pretty radical in that I consider fear and xenophobia to be un-American.

So the lesson there is that you shouldn't get me started on the subject of immigration, because in light of the recent political climate, my views are pretty far left. They're a hard sell anymore. Suffice to say that I have faith in America's ability to shift and change with what comes, which makes me pretty open-armed about a majority of immigrants. The idea that we should close our borders to people who want to come here in search of a better life for themselves and their families simply because those people don't speak English? That is an un-American idea as far as I'm concerned.

And yet I think that, yes, you should strive to improve your English skills. Not because you'll get something tangible from it (American citizenship, say) but because you should strive to improve all your skills. Also, you're human so you should be trying to improve communication between you and the other humans. You should likewise give some serious consideration to learning another language. If you're bilingual, it'll make you seem moderately less dickish when you say that Americans should speak English exclusively. And there is everything to admire about multilingual people.

Viggo Update

Fun Viggo fact: Viggo Mortensen speaks English, Danish, and Spanish. Seriously. I've seen him give interviews in all three languages. Cool, no?

But that doesn't change the fact that The Brain's Viggo Fest is winding down.

Yesterday and today we watched the first two The Lord of the Rings movies. I'm debating about the third. Unlike the other two, I didn't bother to see the third in the theater. (I'm not a big fan of seeing movies in movie theaters, mostly because I'm afraid that I'm going to someday have to beat down some loud talker or cell phone user or back-of-my-seat kicker. You'd think I'm about to go off on a rant about the rise in the rude behavior of today's youth, no? But the last couple of times I've wanted to go postal on people, it was a couple of dinosaurs who set me off. Old folks. Youth has no corner on the rude asswipe market.)

So, yes, The Brain isn't even bothering to pretend anymore that we're going to watch all of Viggo's movies.

Because A Perfect Murder? We're not going there. First of all, its major star is not Viggo but Michael Douglas. I think Michael Douglas is a major douchebag who needs to stop casting his own wrinkly, old, bloated-raisin ass opposite hot young starlets (unless he's playing daddy, I mean). Case in point: In the movie Michael's wife is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. And Gwyneth Paltrow? Is strike number two for this movie. Gwyneth Paltrow's in-real-life, strange, narcissistic, poor-little-rich-girl neediness makes The Brain feel very stabby. Not that I've ever much been impressed by Gwyneth, but can I just say that girlfriend needs to stop trying to be the skinny, white Oprah.

I love me some Viggo, but not under those circumstances.

The other option would be The Portrait of a Lady. But you know, here's the crazy thing: I've seen it. I do not remember Viggo being in it, although there he is, right there on the cast list. (Absolute full disclosure: I saw it because I was obsessing over another moderately-talented actor--Martin Donovan--at the time.) Another forgettable performance, Viggo? Thanks, but I'll pass.

And speaking of forgettable performances: Like I said, I did see the first two The Lord of the Rings movies in the theater and at the time I was not particularly impressed by Viggo. That is, he made little to no impression. In fact, I only had eyes for the guy--Craig Parker--who played the very small part of Haldir the elf. (Don't worry, I'm not going to go all ga-ga over him--if for no other reason than the only other notable thing he's done is Stephen King's Tommyknockers. Ain't no way I'm letting The Brain subject us to that train wreck.)

I'll finish up with The Lord of The Rings (as much of it as I can take), maybe A History of Violence. And then I think that's it for Viggo.