Borderlands Community of Poets will feature "Bilingual Poets of Austin” at 4 pm, Sunday, February 28, at the Sunset Valley Barnes & Noble.

Poets include Tony Beckwith, Celeste Guzman-Mendoza, Ire'ne Lara Silva, Anjela Villarreal-Ratliff, Lydia Armendariz, Gloria Amescua, Steve Vera, Enrique Cabrera, with poet/writer/translator Liliana Valenzuela as presenter. 

Email for more information.

Fillers are sounds or words spoken to fill gaps in utterances. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; English speakers commonly use “uh,” “er,” and “um.” “Like,” “y’know,” and “basically” are examples of filler words.

Language learners display a lack of fluency by using fillers from their native tongue, e.g., “Quiero una umm … quesadilla.” Wikipedia gives us some fillers in other languages

Knowing the placeholder words (sometimes called kadigans) of a language (e.g., the equivalent of “thingy”) can also improve fluency, such as the French truc: “Je cherche le truc qu’on utilise pour ouvrir une boîte” (“I’m looking for the thingy that you use to open up a can”). Wikipedia cites placeholders in English and other languages.

Thanks to Languagehat for this pointer.

Once again, the Austin Classical Guitar Society has been kind enough to offer AATIA members a special rate for a very special event.

The legendary Kazuhito Yamashita , Japan ’s most celebrated classical guitarist, will be making a rare appearance in the United States, on Saturday, October 10th at the Northwest Hills United Methodist Church at 8:00pm.

Interested members can call the ACGS office (512-300-2247), mention AATIA, and receive their discount. Discounted tickets can also be purchased at the door. Members’ families are also eligible for the discounted ticket price.

Kazuhito Yamashita
Saturday, October 10th, at 8PM
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church
7050 Village Center Drive
Special Ticket Offer to members and affiliates of AATIA
Tickets $25 (normally $45!)
512-300-ACGS or AustinClassicalGuitar.org

Yamashita rose to international prominence when he performed phenomenal feats on the solo classical guitar including Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. He has recorded and toured extensively with flute giant James Galway. His debut in Austin is one of ACGS’ proudest moments and is the ideal beginning to our 20th anniversary season.
  

Liliana Valenzuela and Cristina Garcia will perform bilingual readings at 7 p.m. this Thursday, October 1, as part of Austin Community College’s The Big Read program. The readings will be held at the Main Theater of ACC’s Rio Grande Campus.

On Friday and Saturday evening, July 24th and 25th, at 7:30PM, the Austin Classical Guitar Society will present a concert featuring two of Austin’s favorite musicians Douglas Harvey (cellist, ASO) and Liz Cass (mezzo-soprano, ALO) alongside of a Naumburg prizewinning Peruvian virtuoso guitarist Jorge Caballero and New York City-based violinist Maria Conti. These fine musicians will collaborate to perform music ranging from Bach to Piazzolla at Austin ’s gorgeous Mexican American Cultural Center on Lady Bird Lake .

ACGS would like to offer AATIA members $15 tickets to the show! Normal ticket prices range from $25-$50. To redeem this offer, please call the ACGS office at 512-300-2247 by Thursday, July 23rd at 4PM. For a preview of Jorge Caballero’s masterful playing, please tune in to his live performance at 7:50AM on Fox 7 Morning News on Tuesday, July 21st.

In a letter to the editors of the New York Times, responding to Paul Berman's review of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, by Gerald Martin, Ezra E. Fitz, of Brentwood, Tennessee, made an important point — one all translators automatically appreciate — about the logical flaw of an English-speaking critic discussing Márquez without mentioning Rabassa or Grossman.  To read the letter, click here.

AATIA member Tony Beckwith is still waxing poetic about language. Here’s one of his recent rhymes:

Pink Flamingos

At the bottom of the garden
under the eaves
near the palm festooned with leaves
two pink flamingos stoop to graze
and pass the time on summer days

They watch the shadows cruising by
and muse on how it feels to fly

I’d join them if I knew the lingo.
Wish I’d learned to speak flamingo!

Journalist and former Austinite John Gibler will discuss his new book, Mexico Unconquered, tomorrow night, March 31, from 7 to 9 p.m. at MonkeyWrench Books, 110 E. North Loop in Austin. One reviewer has said about the book: "From Spanish colonization to today’s state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from the street barricades, against the Slims of the world, and alongside ‘the underdogs and rebels’ of an unconquered country. The book offers a gripping account of the ongoing attempts to colonize Mexico, and the hopeful grassroots movements that have resisted this conquest."