eMag Uni Augsburg – Page 21 – English student print and online magazine

Do whatever you want – Mach halt was du willst

Summer is coming and it’s the festival season again! And everyone loves festivals, right? Of course, there’s the music, but that’s not all there is to it. It’s the feeling of being out with your friends, drinking beer in the sun with music all around you, escaping reality, almost like being on a holiday. So isn’t it great having a festival right on your doorstep? The Modular Festival has been taking place since 2009 and it’s been at the congress centre since 2012. Its aim is not only to bring international, national and especially local artists onto the stage, but also to offer workshops for the whole family and support local sports groups.

Music

The music is probably the main (but not the only) reason to go. This year, over 50 artists and bands are going to show what they can do on four stages: two outside in the park and two inside the centre. There’s Kakkmaddafakka, Moop Mama, RY X, Hundreds, Maeckes & die Katastrophen, Megaloh, Faber, Sxn, Die Höchste Eisenbahn, Fotos and MC Bomber, just to name a few. You might not know them yet, but there’s a little info about them on the festival’s website and you can listen to the Modular Spotify playlist. And maybe after the festival you’ll have a new favourite band.

Workshops and other things to do
Modular is not only music: it offers art exhibitions by different painters, designers and sculptors and performance acts such as a rap battle, a poetry slam and a magician. There’s the Pop Convention, where you can make and discuss music with professionals and a ‘creative market’, where you can make art yourself. It’s also not only a festival for adults: there’s a kids’ programme with a whole ‘Modular Kids Village’.
Apart from the different kinds of art, there are two sports events you can watch: the ‘BMX EX&HOP (international contest series)’ and the ‘Bavarian Miniramp Mastership’, an open skateboard contest. No matter if you’re into those sports or not – it’s amazing to watch!

For the physical well-being
Even though you can’t bring your own food, believe me, you won’t starve! The festival supports local providers of food and drinks. You can get the local beer or free drinking water and to eat there’s everything as pizza, burgers, sandwiches, tacos, ice cream, crêpes and so on… No matter if you’re a vegan, a vegetarian or a meat lover – there’s something for you.

Want to learn more?
Visit the festival’s homepage! www.modular-festival.de
Author: Sophia Brandt

Pictures: Stephan Brandt (roofop), Lukas Holzfurtner (night)

What do you know about Mozart?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – a name you should be familiar with. Everybody knows Mozart and has heard at least one of his amazing pieces or seen one of his famous operas. But what if I tell you that most of what you think you know about Amadeus was actually made up after his death and is probably not true? What if even the name you’re so familiar with isn’t his actual name?

Before you start panicking, there’s still something that has remained almost unadulterated and that is his music. Although Mozart lived in the eighteenth century, which is quite a while ago, we still listen to his music today and even if you don’t listen to it in your free time, you’ll at least have heard some at school.

Mozartfest Augsburg 19^th May – 28^th May 2017

As Mozart spent a lot of time in Augsburg – where his famliy came from – the city has decided to honor his genius every year with the so-called “Mozartfest”. Not only does the “Mozartfest” concern itself with Mozart’s first-class music, which still inspires and provokes people all over the world; it also gives you insight into the person Mozart was as well as the people that surrounded him such as his father, Leopold. At the festival, contemporary composers present their works for the first time and the “MEHR MUSIK!” workshops give children and teenagers the opportunity to learn about improvisation or the invention of instruments.

Mozart – “as touchy as gunpowder”

Now you might be wondering what makes Mozart and his personality so interesting? He was born Joannes Crysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Later, he would call himself Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, which is close to what you’re used to. However, he was actually never called Amadeus but Amadé or usually “Wolferl”. So, this is one of the things you probably didn’t know about him.

Also, he had very high self-esteem, as he received a lot of positive feedback from his father and many other people he met throughout the years. He was quite lively and somewhat jittery but not so handsome and was always well dressed. He was very religious and trusting, which sometimes led him into trouble. He was also very sensitive when it came to negative criticism or his artistic existence being restricted. Many people also think that Mozart was poor towards the end of his life. He did suffer financial problems but was never really poor.

Not what you expect

All in all, he was definitely not just an inconspicuous, hard-working and successful musician as you might have imagined. There were quite a few people during his lifetime that actually disliked Mozart’s music because it was too complex with too many notes.

So, if you want to be surprised by the world of a person you don’t know enough about yet, then go ahead and take a look at next year’s “Mozartfest”. You won’t be disappointed.

Text and Image: Ana Stanković

Gegen einfache Wahrheiten

How would you define home? Can you have more than just one? Have you ever read a text written by a refugee? Are there ways of helping refugees escape the madness of German bureaucracy – at least for an hour a day? What’s it like teaching your own language and culture? And what do you learn about yourself while doing so? Do you believe everything you hear, read and see in the news? What about fake news? Are social media a more reliable way to get informed? How politically correct do you have to be and should we accept a lack of it?

All these questions were discussed on May 31^st at the “Aktionstag: Gegen einfache Wahrheiten” held at the University of Augsburg and organized by the Faculty of Philology and History (http://www.presse.uni-augsburg.de/de/unipressedienst/2017/apr-juni/2017_090/).

Asking

Twenty different seminars between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m. provided new input and an opportunity to discuss the different topics with other students and lecturers.

The seminar “Ich habe manchmal Heimweh. Ich weiß nur nicht wonach“, organized by the Fachschaft Komparatistik, was all about questions such as What is Heimat? Does everyone have one? Can we have more than one? How do we define the term and how does it feel to leave? Can we somehow relate to refugees who have had to leave the place they call Heimat? Are there maybe even more similarities than we would’ve thought?

While – of course – there were no concrete answers to all these questions, the discussion, including interviews with people who had moved, both within and across borders, was characterized by different views, funny anecdotes and many personal experiences.

Listening

The cultural event between 12:00 and 14:00 in HS I, moderated by Prof. Dr. Martin Middeke, was a colourful mix of musical contributions, presentations and readings.

Sadly, the band Jammu Afrika couldn’t perform, since their refugee-lead singer had to leave the country and go back to Senegal. Still, the band’s founder Markus Fleckenstein presented the project and played some recordings.

Anita Heckel read from her ‘parallel biography’ “Gratwanderung durch Gestern” and Prof. Dr. Miriam Zadoff gave an insight into living in Bloomington, Indiana, and teaching at the university after Trump’s election. Although we all recognize the worries of those Americans that didn’t vote for Trump, this personal report was touching and shocking at the same time.

“Milch ist der Zwilling von Teer / in weiß oder schwarz kann man lügen / Mutter schiebt ein Bonbon im Mund hin und her / Vater telefoniert mit den Fliegen“

Christina Rossi and her students presented their collage on this poem by Nobel prize winner Herta Müller.

Opera singer Cornelia Lanz presented her project “Zuflucht Kultur”. Together with Mazen Mohsen and three other Syrian refugees, she performed Arabic folk songs with the German translations and the audience fell in love with this music. One of these refugees, a Syrian girl, talked about how she experienced their dictatorial culture even in small groups of refugees in Germany and how lucky she is – and we should be – to live in a free and democratic country like this.

Acting

Between 15:00 and 17:00 pm, there were various readings and workshops in the city centre and, for example, a walk around the city highlighting important places related to migration.

Watching

At 6:00 pm, the movie “Willkommen bei den Hartmanns” was shown in HS I, followed by a panel discussion about how the movie reflects reality. Does it reflect Einfache Wahrheiten? Since the movie is a comedy, it deals with the topic in a slightly exaggerated fashion; maybe this is the right way to talk about a topic that’s not funny, because at least it’s a way to start raising awareness.

Authors and Picture: Sophia Brandt, Eva Sitzberger

DIY stamped tea towels on Towel Day

– A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. –

( Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Today is 25 May, which means it’s Towel Day! Why should we celebrate towels? Well, I believe Douglas Adams could have given a more than satisfactory answer if he was still alive.

Actually, it’s thanks to him that Towel Day came into existence in the first place, as it’s celebrated as a tribute to the author’s famous book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The day was first celebrated two weeks after Adams’ death in 2001 and refers to the phrase that “a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”. Therefore, fans all over the world celebrate towel day by carrying a towel with them wherever they go that day. If you want to join in the celebrations and you want to have your own special towel, then here is a fun tutorial on how to make stamped tea towels:

You will need:

white bed linen (that you don’t need anymore)
foam sheet – use one of the thicker ones
fabric paint
carpet cutter
pencil
scissors
glue

Firstly, grab your bed linen and lay a tea towel on top. Then outline the shape of your towel and cut it out. Now draw your designs on the foam sheet and cut them out with your cutter. You can make whatever shapes you like, but if you’re as bad as drawing as I am, geometric shapes are just fine 😉

Then cut out a small piece of foam and glue it to the back of your cut outs as a handle for your stamp.

Now cover the stamp with paint and start stamping your towels.

Once you’re happy with your towels, allow the paint to dry and iron them afterwards in order to prevent the paint from coming off when they’re being washed.

Now you have your perfect towel for celebrating Towel Day, but of course, you can just use it as a regualar tea towel as well. I hope you have fun crafting and always bear in mind: don’t panic!

Author & Pictures: Ricarda Rosenbaum

Review Trend & Food and Street Food Festival 2016

Augsburg really seems to be becoming a food city. In 2016, the city had three food events. Trend & Food Augsburg, which took place at the Kongress am Park between April 15 and 17, was the first. It really had a lot to offer: bars, food trucks, candy, hors d’oeuvre, vegan options and much more. And even though the Kongresshalle isn’t that big, there were a lot of different booths and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. Whiskey, liquor and moonshine tasting were some of the fun booze-related activities you could indulge in. How about some tiny but delicious cupcakes? Sure! At some – if not most – of the booths, you could use the vouchers you got for paying to get in. This way you basically got all your money back and theoretically the entrance was free (with the early bird ticket at least).

Trend & Food was pretty small, but the bigger event was the Street Food Markt, which took place in May and between September 23 and 25, 2016 at the Gögginger Festplatz. Compared to 2015, there were almost twice as many booths and almost no waiting time at all. Everybody seemed to be crazy about those potato spiral thingies – they were delicious, but we couldn’t figure out if there were bread crumbs on them or not. The smoothie booth was a nice touch. I actually ordered the first Green Bull of the day. The pies, a ton of different versions of hot dogs, BBQ, pizza, Israeli and vegan booths also gave visitors an opportunity to try something new. One of my favorites was definitely the donuts: they looked, smelled and tasted like heaven! And if you were there early, you could easily get a very nice spot on a deckchair and enjoy the sun while nibbling on something yummy and drinking a cocktail, beer, smoothie or just plain water.

So… you might like to consider going to one of those festivals. It’s definitely worth it!

Author & Pictures: Susi Tallmadge

Guia de sobrevivência para pedir um café em Portugal

Off to Portugal on holiday? Like coffee? This Portuguese article by Isabel Marcante, the second piece published by eMAG in a language other than English, could be of interest. And even if you don’t speak the language, maybe you can understand a bit!

Não, não vamos falar agora da Europa, nem de eleições, nem de crise. Este texto ocupa-se de coisas mais prosaicas mas que provavelmente darão mais prazer à vida, pelo menos por um momento: falamos do café em Portugal, do qual somos grandes aficionados (um castelhanismo! Por favor, substituam a palavra por «adepto» ou «fã»).

Parece que o povo que bebe mais café no mundo são os Finlandeses, mas nós achamos que isso é mentira. As estatísticas enganam, dizemos nós, os Portugueses. E o café que bebemos é o melhor! (Os Italianos dizem o mesmo sobre o café deles). E o nosso café vem, muitas vezes, em pacotes que têm nomes de lugares que nos transportam para paisagens exóticas:

Cabo-Verde, Timor, Angola, S.Tomé…

Voltando ao assunto, pedir um café em Portugal é um assunto sério. Até para os nativos. Aqui vai, então, uma espécie de «guia de sobrevivência» para os amantes, os adeptos, os fãs, os aficionados do café ou para aqueles que querem sê-lo.

ABATANADO (m): é um expresso que tem a quantidade dupla de água da bica. É servido numa chávena grande.
BICA (f): é um expresso que vem servido numa chávena muito pequena (no Porto chama-se «cimbalino»).
CAFÉ DUPLO (m): expresso duplo.
CAFÉ CORTADO (m): é um expresso curto. O adjectivo «cortado» refere-se à medida indicada no botãozinho da máquina de cafés.
CAFÉ PINGADO (m): expresso com uma gota (pinga) de leite.

Não confundir com a expressão idiomática «gato pingado» que significa simplesmente «pobre diabo».

CAFÉ COM CHEIRINHO (m): é um café com uma gota de «bagaço» (Tresterschnapps)

CARIOCA (m): aqui não se trata de um habitante do Rio de Janeiro, mas de um café fraco (a segunda tiragem) que é servido numa chávena pequena.

DESCAFEINADO (m): um café sem cofeína, claro.
GALÃO (m): café com leite (3/4 de leite), servido num copo de vidro e que é tomado normalmente de manhã, ao pequeno-almoço, ou à tarde, ao lanche, juntamente com uma torrada, um pastel de Belém, um pastel de nata ou com um outro bolo.
GAROTO (m): é um café com leite, pequeno (talvez o Kleinlatte em alemão) com normalmente 50% de leite / 50% de café, servido numa chávena pequena (no Porto chama-se «pingo»).

MAZAGRÃ (m): café com cubos de gelo, açúcar e casca de limão.
MEIA DE LEITE (f): 50% de leite / 50% de café, servido numa chávena grande (na Madeira designado por «chinesa»).

Já agora, vai um café?

Author: Isabel Marcante

Pictures: Eva Sitzberger

Things that happen on the tram

Monday, 7.40 AM. Fog pours into the streets and the square starts to fill up as another workday has just begun. People are accumulating on the platform, ready to fight. Yes, fight. Some of them are quietly staring at their smartphones, but expectation is hanging in the air. Then there’s a light chime. With its awaited, growing rustle, the tram appears at the beginning of the platform. The heads turn and follow automatically that cable-driven truck, everybody hoping to be the lucky guy who finds themselves in front of the sliding door. The tram stops. Time stops. The doors open and the melee pushes inside, grumbling and trying to reach the most longed goal at that moment: a free seat. After less than a minute of catch-as-catch-can each passenger has found their place in this little ecosystem on rails.

Equilibrium principles

More than any other ecosystem, the tram needs to maintain a certain equilibrium during its urban rollercoaster ride. The public transport in Augsburg (aka AVV Racing Team) provides a unique service of balance training, thanks to sudden accelerations and abrupt braking, no matter if you’re sitting or standing. Grasping on to any possible object in the tram is the basic rule of such peculiar environment; it could be a pole, a strap or…another passenger. The latest extreme example of savage desperation to find the right equilibrium was a short woman who leant against another one’s breasts during the whole ride to Kö. No, the two women didn’t even know each other.

Fighting without referee

As we’ve already seen, the tram is a very “physical” space. A place where all kinds of dangerous studs-up tackles and nudges will never be subject to a yellow or red card. But not only body parts are involved. The most life-threatening weapon in this case is the backpack. These self-propelled bags are kind of their own life form, with the owner apparently not knowing the real bulk of what they’re carrying. Thousands of victims suffer on a daily basis: innocent noses, shoulders and backs which can’t even seek justice as what happens on the tram, stays on the tram!

Riding into freedom

In some ways this is the secret beauty of the tram: anyone is free to do what they want during the ride. You can listen to a wide variety of languages spoken by passengers, whether they are tourists or foreign inhabitants, or you can turn on you MP3-player and pretend to be in a music video. You can chat with interesting urban philosophers or chat on your smartphone, keeping an eye on your neighbor who is probably craning his neck to snoop your messages. You can look out of the window or steal a glance at other passengers… Oh no. That old man’s wearing tight shorts…Without underpants… I must get off. “Ding dong. Next stop: Cathedral”. Thank God!

Author & Pictures: Veronica Armellini

Mozartfest Augsburg 19th May – 28th May 2017

Mozart – “as touchy as gunpowder”

Not what you expect

Mozartfest Augsburg 19^th May – 28^th May 2017