Blockbusters

Movies with big budgets that sell a lot of tickets are called _________. Many of these movies do so well that movie producers make a __________, or part II.

At the Theater:

The place where you watch a movie is called a _________. To see a movie, usually, you have to buy a ___________. The movie is projected onto a large _________ using a movie __________. An _________ is a person who shows you to your seat and makes sure everybody is quiet during the movie.

4. Study the inside structure of a theatre. Which seats are the most prestigious / convenient / cheap / expensive?

5. Write out music styles mentioned in the text. Think of other styles, give their definition or description.

The 20-th century opened a new era in the history of mankind, and the new epoch was to be described in new musical forms. The rules were left in the past. In the 20-th century everybody could choose the music that he would enjoy. In the 1920s in New Orleans beautiful music filled the streets and cafes. The black and poor singers sang about their hard lives. Their music – jazz, ragtime and blues – soon traveled to Europe. It was the time when the black music entered the white culture changing the lifestyle of the people all over the world.

Ever since the 1930s music was not just a way to relax. From that time on music began to reflect and determine the people’s way of life. Many sub-cultures developed as a result of the fusion of black and white music cultures. Black music evolved in the Caribbean and in the United States, later it moved to Britain. Such styles as reggae, rap, hip-hop to say nothing of the blues were created by the black community. Today many white musicians either perform the black music or use the black melodies in creating their own songs.

In the 1940s and 1950s new styles of music emerged. Swing, rock-n-roll and singers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry destroyed the laws of morality that were imposed on the people by the Church for centuries. In the 1950s Elvis Presley became the king of rock-n-roll in the USA.

6. Translate into English.

1. MTV Music Awards – щорічна церемонія вручення музичних нагород, заснована телеканалом MTV Європа в 1994 році.

2. Американський співак Майкл Джексон – один із найуспішніших виконавців в історії музики, володар 14 премій Гремі та десятків інших нагород.

3. The Beatles – легендарна британська рок-група з Ліверпуля, що вплинула на розвиток сучасної музики та світової культури в цілому.

4. Американська співачка італійського походження Мадонна, яка з 2001 року є громадянкою Об’єднаного Королівства, – комерційно найуспішніша у світі виконавиця. Співачка, авторка пісень, танцівниця, акторка, режисер та сценарист, Мадонна відома у світі завдяки своїм відвертим відеокліпам та сценічним виступам, використанню політичних та релігійних образів у своїх роботах.

5. У нашому місті щороку проводять джазові фестивалі.

6. Популярність співака Елвіса Преслі така велика, що більшості людей він відомий як “Елвіс”. Щодо нього також найчастіше вживають фразу “король рок-н-ролу”.

7. Комерційно доступний із кінця 30-х років, телевізор став невід’ємною частиною побуту, джерелом новин та розваг.

BLOCK III

Modern Arts

1. Read the text and do the activities that follow.

American Graffiti

Until relatively recently, graffiti was considered to be an example of anti-social behavior, the work of vandals. Nowadays, many of those ‘vandals’ are treated as respected artists, and some of them have made it in the world of business.

1 New Yorkers used to see the graffiti on the walls of poor neighborhoods and subway trains as something menacing and an example of urban decay. The scrawled names and slogans were seen as unsightly and aggressive, the work of vandals seeking to express the identity or even make a political point. Up to the 1970s, most New Yorkers hated graffiti, considering it as an eyesore that was illegal and punishable by fines.

2 Since those days, graffiti has changed a lot and it is no longer found only in the subway and poor ghetto areas of the city. Nowadays, it has the status of ‘street art’ and you get graffiti in places where you wouldn’t expect to – in advertisement, on clothes, on toys, and even on the Wall Street Journal’s official website. In the early 1980s , the was a real craze for graffiti art and the sophisticated Manhattan art world has displays of street art in its galleries. The trend was short-lived – until the arrival of hip-hop music in the late 80s.

3 People now appreciating it for its style, which they couldn’t back then, because they couldn’t get beyond the vandalism thing. Hip-hop was originally black ghetto music, sung by young African Americans from the poor, run-down districts of American cities. When it suddenly got to the top of the American music charts, hip-hop culture was spread, brining graffiti with it.

4 Today companies realize the appeal of graffiti in advertising. Kel Rodrigues, who used to spray New York subway trains, was the artist chosen to design the Wall Street Journal’s website and it is obviously done in graffiti-style. ‘Some of that graffiti feeling, that energy, sort of got in there,’ Rodrigues explained.

5 Many of this new wave artists give lectures on developments in their art. Lee Quinones is having a lot of success in Europe and feels that European galleries and museums are more open to his art form. ‘They want to support an artists as he develops,’ comments Quinones, who can get up to $10, 000 for his paintings. Indeed, the Groninger Museum in Holland is one of the few museums in the world that displays and recognizes graffiti as an art form.

6 Another artist, Blade, has his own website devoted only to the world of graffiti. This website has ‘a merchandise page’ where Blade sells things with his own original designs all over the world – everything from baseball caps to yo-yos! Leonard McGurr, a street artist for 25 years, went from painting subway trains to designing and marketing graffiti-inspired clothes for young people. ‘Graffiti has been a story of survival,’ he says. ‘There’s a way to benefit from your work without spoiling public property.’

a) Use the headings (a-g) to match the paragraphs 1-6. There’s one extra heading.

a) Spoiled Cities e) Tasteless Comics

b) Transatlantic Success f) Graffiti Products

c) Wall Street Art! g) Big Change

d) Ghetto Culture

b) Find synonyms in the text for these words and expressions. Paragraph numbers are in brackets.

threatening (1) / ugly (1) / fad (2) / classy (2) / damage to property (3) / depressed area (3) / receptive (5) / acknowledges (5) / products (6) / advertising and selling (6)

c) Answer the questions about the text. Use words from exercise 2.

1. Why did New Yorkers consider graffiti the work of vandals?

2. Why did graffiti artists suddenly become respectable in NY?

3. What influence did music have on the popularity of graffiti artists?

4. In what way does Europe take graffiti art more seriously than the USA?

5. How do some graffiti artists make money?

6. What are the tools of graffiti art?

2. Read the text and do the after-text activities.

What’s the Point?

Lisa West went to meet a professional body piercer and asked…

Everywhere you look these days, you can see people that have got rings – hanging from ears and pushed through noses, lips and eyebrows. And they are in lots of other places that you can’t see, too!

Mick Shannon, who is a qualified body piercer, took me to his saloon. I was looking at the walls, covered with photos of clients, showing off their rings and jewellery and Mick pointed out his certificate, which was on the wall. ‘Some people give our profession a bad name,’ he said. ‘They don’t clean their equipment, which shows they don’t know what they are doing. I’ve known people who have got disease like hepatitis from cheap ear-piercing guns. I only pierce young people whose parent or guardian is with them. And they have to be over fifteen to have their navel done and over eighteen for their tongue.’

Is it an expensive fashion? ‘That depends. Ears, costing $8, are cheap, eyebrows are about $35, and the tongue over $100. Anything else I have to negotiate!’

I watched Mick pierce a girl’s navel. First he marked the area where he had disinfected the skin, then he pushed a needle through. He finished by giving the girl advice on how to help the skin get better, which was a nice professional touch.

a) What can people have done to their bodies? Match the key words with the parts of the body in the box.

Parts of the body	Key words	Procedure done
arm	Dyed
ears	pierced
eyebrows	shaved
hair	tattooed
nails	varnished
navel
nose
tongue

1. Answer the following questions.

1. Why do some people give a profession ‘a bad name’?

2. How can body piercing go wrong? Is there any risk?

3. Is body piercing expensive abroad / in your country?

4. What are the reasons of piercing?

5. What metals for jewellery should piercing use?