segunda-feira, 3 de janeiro de 2011

The Elysian Fields



Source: Speak Up
Language level: Advanced
Standard: American
Author: Johnathan Edward Amacker


The Elysian Fields

      Luck is with the Young reporter. Though traffic crawls in both directions, right away he finds a parking spot on Rio Branco, in the Campos Elíseos neighborhood. Just across the avenue some police and a small crowd are milling before an old apartment building. Nearby, two squad cars and a City Morgue van have stopped, while about twenty meters farther, by the corner of Duque de Caxias, a Polícia Militar first sergeant leans against a squad car, surveying all.
      The young reporter gets out of his Fait and locks it. Motorcycles snake through the crush of vehicles and buses roar along their center lanes. The sunlight and din resonate off auto-parts stores and cheap hotels. He wipes the sweat from his brow and curses whoever it was for picking rush hour, of all times, on a day like today. The pollution turns his stomach, burns his eyes and lips. Heat, the concrete filth of the city, exhaustion.
      He picks his way through the traffic, pausing at the median strip with its bus stop and trees. A commotion by the building’s entrance and the crowd fans out. Two wiry young cops sporting latex gloves emerge from the darkness, cradling the small, bloodstainded corpse of a boy – little more than a monkey face lolling from a scarecrow body, half the back of his skull blown away. They load him into the gray City morgue van and head back, making room for other cops to lug out a fat, dark-skinned, middle-aged victim clad only faded blue athletic shorts. Seen through the crowd, the guy’s butt barely clears the sidewalk and is enormous, blood-streaked belly quakes at each step. Hell of a job for the cops in this heat. They inch him into the rear of the gray van and shut the doors.
      Soon one, two, three young corpses are lying nearby, on the sidewalk.
      Through the air washes sadness burned out and second hand. Rubbernecks lean from windows in tall building up and down the avenue and the crowd presses close to the bodies – the dark Brazil seeing its own off.
      The young reporter crosses to the other side as the guys from the City Morgue carry out the body of an apparently adolescent boy. They put him on the sidewalk next to another boy and a girl lying side by side like trash to be collected. Crack addicts from the looks of them: Two dark, shriveled boys and the girl skeletal light haired, almost blond. Their ages? From the bodies, maybe fourteen or so, from the faces, upwards of thirty – born old to die young.
      Flies poke around the corpses; the young reporter catches a whiff of raw meat beginning to turn. Staring at the entrance to the building, at the glass-and-wrought-iron doors blocked open and the trail of blood leading to the absorbent darkness, he knows what to expect: an explosion of red and bodies splayed out as if they had no bones at all.
      The heat presses down like a great fleshy hand. Clutching pen and notepad, the young reporter accosts the sergeant he’d marked on his arrival. The old cop’s eyes are cold and yellow. He basks in the flashing blue-and-red lights of the squad car, seeming to push back the mass of air surrounding him. “Estadão, huh? Big time. What can I do for you?”
      “Just tell me what happened.” “In this neighborhood? Drug massacre. What else could it be? “How many victims?” “Eleven, far as I know.”
      “Uh huh, and it took place when?” “Couple of hours ago, more or less.”
      “The guys from the morgue got here fast. Someone important die?”
      But the sergeant isn’t listening. A young cop from Polícia Militar is carrying out the body of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than three years old. Dark red blotches soak her dress and mat her hair, and her mouth is twisted as if she’d eaten something strange taste, try as she might, she could not identify. The young cop seems unsure of how to hold her. He sets her down at the end of the row of corpses and lingers as the hum of internal combustion engines leaches into the reddening sky.
      The old man removes his gray service cap and runs his hand through his military brush cut. The soft breeze picking up brings no relief from the heat.
      “Most of the ones that got it were users and dealers,” he says. “A crack den, know what I mean? My guess is a fight over territory or an unpaid bill. Two kids showed up on a motorcycle around six o’clock. No one got a good look ‘cause they pulled their fee shirts over their heads.”
      “How old were they? “Hard to say. Late teens, early twenties – moreno claro. Super saw ‘em but got out of the way quick ‘cause he could guess what was coming.” “This shithole has a super?” “Sure, why not?” “Good, I’ll talk to him later so what happened?”
      “What happened is the two guys walk to this ground floor apartment in the rear like they were paying a fucking social visit. Like I said. It’s a crack den and it’s filled –y’know, party time. And the assholes inside open the door, or maybe they forgot to lock it, and – pow! –the two gunmen just start blasting. We found twenty-six. 380 cartridge cases in the apartment and in the hall.”
      “You think the people involved all knew each other?
      “Could be. There’s no evidence the door was forced.”
      “And what was the final score?”
      “Eight in the apartments. Mostly kids. Three from other apartments. No survivors. Some of the victims had an entry wound at the base of the skull and a missing forehead – misericórdia, unjacketed bullets. We’ll give you a list of the names and ages. The crack heads were all holding on to each other – real lovey-dokey.”
      “They didn’t return fire?”           looks like one of ‘em tried to. Got off a couple of rounds, anyway, but I don’t think he had much of a chance. We found two cartridge cases and two 32 caliber bullet holes in the ceiling above the door, so God only knows what he was aiming at. If we find a gun, we’ll see if the prints on it match those of any of the corpses.”
      “You think you’ll find a gun?” “The 32, maybe – unless someone in the building already stole it or the killers took it with them. But we’ll took for it. The point is, whoever wasted those creeps did us all a favor
      “Can I quaote you on that?” “Be my guest.”
      “Sergeant, I saw the cops from the morgue put a middle-aged fat guy into the van, who was he?”
      “Super’s brother. Everyone says he was a decent sort, but a real fuck-up, if you ask me. Hears sreaming and gunfire and pops out to have a look. Man, some people got a dry hole where their brain ought to be.”
      “What can you tell me about the little girl?”
      A shout from the entrance to the building. Two cops charge through the crowd and rush inside, barreling out in a flash with a couple of street kids. “Lemme go, you old son of a bitch, lemme go! Onolookers scurry as the cops send the boys flying – one tumbling, skinning his hands and knees on the sidewalk. He scrambles to join his friends at the end of the block. Shrieking, they tear across the avenue, narrowly missing an oncoming bus, and take off in the direction of Paissandu Square.
      “See that?” Demands the sergeant. “Most of those kids are nuts.”
      “O.K., but what about the little girl? Anything you can give me, I’d appreciate it.”
      The old man’s eyes take in the shimmering, bloodied landscape. He fishes in his shirt pocket and comes up with a pack of Ministers. The young reporter declines, so the cop extracts one for himself and, with some difficult, lights it with a match, puffing out a big cloud of smoke. “She was coming downstairs to play. Got caught in the crossfire. Bullet entered her back and punctured her heart. Blew a big hole…”
      The young reporter scratches his pen across the paper.
      “Anything else? Her name? How old she was?”
      “No, that’s about it.” The sergeant takes another shaky drag on his cigarette. Loses interest, and flicks it to the sidewalk. “Fucking pollution,” he says, wiping his eyes. Can’t even see.”
      For a moment, only the soft swirl of the hot wind and the white noise of idling motors. The sergeant pulls out a handkerchief. “Give me a minute, will you?
      Take your time.”
      He’s not the policeman you’d want interrogating you. No trick to imagine the games he’s been involved with, especially in the old days, in some precinct station’s truth room. Now he stands broken down on this crummy street in Campos Elíseos.
      What am I doing here? The young reporter asks himself. For three years mixing with the sewage of São Paulo – how time flies when you’re wasting it. He imagines that he’s falling through the circles of the metropolis, little arms opening to him as he plummets. Before him the broad avenue stretches past the old apartment building past the dusty public square sprawled beneath the equestrian statue of the Duke of Caxias, then curves over the Rudge Viaduct to meet the northwest horizon glowing beyond the distant roofs of the factories near the mountains. And suddenly, for no reason at all, he’s thinking of his sister in New York, the one who got luck and won’t be coming back. And he wonders vaguely whether she feels about the heat, whether it makes her sad sometimes, makes her feel empty and tired, makes her want to run away from the earth and from memory. New York…it’s like a dream. But where would she go to escape the cold?
      “Sergeant?”
      What do you want?
      Who was she?
      Patches like sweat like shadows spread across the old cop’s gray uniform shirt. His face ha collapsed. Taking on the color of smoke. His gaze wanders to rest on the tiny corpse, and his voice comes out thin, from the other side of the world: “A kid from the neighborhood. Who else could she be?”
      “She was a pretty little thing, “says the young reporter. “Someone must’ve been taking good care of her. Didn’t she have a mother?”
      “Why? Do you want to meet her?” “Yes – for the record.”        
      The sergeant’s breath reeks of cigarettes and garlic. He looks as if a gun, pressed against his gray temple, were about to leave a warm, red hole.
      “The guys from the morgue can show you the body. Talk to that corporal lover by the van. Nivaldo. He’ll fill you in on any details I may have missed. Go on. Tell him I sent you.”
      He fumbles for another cigarette, but ends by crumpling and throwing away the pack. And that’s it.
      Neither man – not the weary young report, not the ruined monument of a sergeant – has more to add, no truth to tell, no confession to make. Besides, maybe what happened really was just the usual crap among a bunch of scumbags who are better off dead, and the girl got in the way is all. It’s impossible, but not much of an epitaph. She got in the way. In event, she’s out of this way now.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2)




Author: Teacher Aracelli from Spain
Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=3587



1. Fill in the gaps with the Present Perfect of the verbs in brackets.
 (climb) highest mountains
 (run) through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
 (run)
 (crawl)
 (scale) these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
2. Put the words in the correct order:
haven't found      But  I        what      I'm looking for      still
3. Finish the lines by choosing one of the words given:
I have kissed honey 
Felt the healing in her 
It burnt like
This burning 
4. Fill in the gaps with the Present Perfect of the verbs in brackets.
 (speak) with the tongue of angels
 (hold) the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
It was cold as a stone

5. Put the words in the correct order:
haven't found      But  I        what      I'm looking for      still
6. Put the missing verbs in the past simple form:
I believe in the kindom come
then all the colours will bleed into one
bleed into one
Well yes, I'm still running
You  (break) the bonds
and you  (loose) the chains
 (carry) the cross
of my shame
You know I   (believe) it

Apollo 11, part II


Source: http://www.ingvip.com

1. The lunar lander, controlled by a computer, dropped toward the airless surface of the moon. One hundred forty meters from the surface, the astronauts took control of the lander from the computer.

2. They moved Eagle forwardaway from a very rocky area that might have caused a difficult landing. The voices of Aldrin and Armstrong could be heard in short messages.

3. EDWIN ALDRIN: "Forward. Forward. Good. Forty feet. Down two and a half. Kicking up some dust. Thirty feet. Two and a half down. Faint shadow. Four forward. Four forward. Drifting to the right a little. OK. Down a half.

MISSION CONTROL: "Thirty seconds …" 
NEIL ARMSTRONG: "Forward drift?"
EDWIN ALDRIN: "Contact light. OK. Engine stop. "
Armstrong reported
NEIL ARMSTRONG: "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." 


4. NASA's plan had called for the astronauts to test instruments, eat and then rest for four hours before leaving the Eagle. But Armstrong and Aldrin asked to cancel the four-hour sleep period. They wanted to go out onto the moon as soon as they could get ready. NASA controllers agreed

5. It took the astronauts more than three hours to complete the preparations for leaving the lander. It was difficult -- in Eagle's small space -- to get into space suits that would protect them on the moon's surface.

6. Finally, Armstrong and Aldrin were ready. They opened the door. Armstrong went out first and moved slowly down the ladder. At two hours fifty-six Greenwich Mean Time on July twentieth, nineteen sixty-nine, Neil Armstrong put his foot on the moon.
NEIL ARMSTRONG: "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind."

7. The world could see the history-making event on television. But the man who was closest to what was happening, Michael Collins, could only listen. He was orbiting the moon in the command module Columbia. It did not have a television receiver.

8. Armstrong moved carefully away from the Eagle. He left the cold, black shadow of the lander and stepped into the blinding white light of the sun. On Earth, all was quiet. No sound came from televisions or radios. No one felt able to talk about what was happening. 

9. Armstrong began to describe what he saw: "The surface appears to be very, very fine grain, like a powder. I can kick it loosely with my toes. I can see footprints of my boots in the small, fine particles. Notrouble to walk around."

10. Aldrin appeared on the ladder. Down he came, very slowly. Soon, both men were busy placing experiments to be left behind on the moon. They collected more than thirty kilograms of rock and soil totake back to Earth. They moved easily and quickly, because the moon's gravity is six times less than Earth's.

11. Hours passed. Too soon, it was time to return to the Eagle. Armstrong and Aldrin re-entered the lander. They rested for a while. Then they began to prepare to launch the lander for the return flight to the orbiting command module.

12. Listeners on Earth heard the countdown from Tranquility Base: "Three, two, one ... first stage engine on ascent. Proceed. Beautiful. Twenty-six ... thirty-six feet per second up. Very smooth, very quiet ride." Eagle was flying. Man had been on the moon for twenty-one and one-half hours.

13. Eagle moved into the orbit of the command module. It connected with Columbia. Armstrong and Aldrin rejoined Collins in the command ship. They separated from Eagle and said good-bye to it. The lander had done its job well.

14. Eight days after it started its voyage to the moon, Apollo Eleven splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Left behind on the moon were the footprints of Armstrong and Aldrin, an American flag and scientific equipment. Also left forever on the moon is a sign with these words:

15. "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the Moon -- July, nineteen sixty-nine A. D. We came in peace for all mankind. "

16. Our program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. It was produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Shirley Griffith.
And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. We continue the story of the Apollo space flight program. You can find earlier reports about the American space program at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Vocabulary

  1. agreed = concordou
  2. airless surface = superfície sem ar
  3. ascent = ascensão
  4. away from = para longe de
  5. before leaving = antes de deixar
  6. began = começaram
  7. blinding = ofuscante
  8. closest = mais perto
  9. describe = descrever
  10. Drifting = derivando, movimentando
  11. dropped = despencou, caiu
  12. easily = facilmente
  13. Engine = motor
  14. Faint = fraco(a)
  15. felt = sentia-se
  16. flag = bandeira
  17. footprints = pegadas
  18. for a while = por algum tempo
  19. forward = para a frente
  20. get ready = estar pronto
  21. grain = grão
  22. has landed = aterrissou
  23. heard = ouvidas
  24. job = trabalho
  25. Kicking up some dust = levantando um pouco de pó
  26. ladder = escada
  27. lander = que aterrissa
  28. leap = salto
  29. left behind = deixados para trás
  30. Listeners = ouvintes
  1. loosely = livremente
  2. mankind = humanidade
  3. Mean Time = tempo médio
  4. might have caused = poderia ter causado
  5. moved carefully away = afastou-se cuidadosamente
  6. placing = colocando
  7. powder = pó
  8. quickly = rapidamente
  9. receiver = receptor
  10. rejoined = reencontraram
  11. reported = relatou
  12. rest = descansar
  13. ride = trajeto, passeio
  14. saw = viu
  15. set foot = colocou o pé
  16. shadow = sombra
  17. ship = nave
  18. slowly = lentamente
  19. smooth = suave
  20. soil = solo
  21. Soon = logo, em breve
  22. space suits = trajes espaciais
  23. splashed down = caiu na água
  24. take back = levar de volta
  25. toes = dedos do pé
  26. took control = assumiram o controle
  27. toward = em direção a
  28. trouble = problema, dificuldade
  29. went out = saiu

domingo, 2 de janeiro de 2011

Family Album, part XXII




Source: Family Album


Apollo 11, Part I


Source: www.ingvip.com classes on line with Teacher Fulvio Carlos


1. I'm Steve Ember.  And I'm Shirley Griffith with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we continue our history of the American space program with theflight of Apollo Eleven.

2. A rocket launch countdown. A common sound in the nineteen sixties. But this was not just another launch. It was the beginning of a historic event. It was the countdown for Apollo Eleven -- the space flight that would carry men to the first landing on the moon.

3. The ground shook at Cape Kennedy, Florida, the morning of July sixteenth, nineteen sixty-nine. The huge Saturn Five rocket moved slowly up into the sky. It roseperfectly. Someone on the launch crew spoke the words: "Good luck. And Godspeed."

4. In the spacecraft at the top of the speeding rocket were three American astronauts whose names soon would be known around the world: Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins.

5. Neil Armstrong was the commander of the spacecraft. He was a test pilot. He had flown earlier on one of the two-man Gemini space flights. Armstrong was a calm person, a man who talked very little.

6. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin was pilot of the moon lander vehicle. The astronauts gave it the name Eagle. Aldrin had flown on the last of the Gemini flights. He also was a quiet man, except when he talked about space.

7.Michael Collins was the pilot of the command module vehicle, Columbia. He also had made a Gemini flight. He would wait in orbit around the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin landed and explored thesurface. Collins was very popular and always ready with a smile.

8.Two-and-one-half minutes after the Apollo Eleven launch, the first-stage rocket separated from the spacecraft. Twelve minutes later, the spacecraft reached orbit. Its speed was twenty-nine thousand kilometers an hour. Its orbit was one hundred sixty-five kilometers above the Earth.

9. This was the time for the crew to test all the spacecraft systems. Everything worked perfectly. So, the NASA flight director told them they were "go" for the moon. They fired the third-stage rocket. It increasedthe speed of the spacecraft to forty thousand kilometers an hour. This was fast enough to escape the pull of the Earth's gravity.

10. Apollo Eleven was on its way to the moon. In seventy-seven hours, if all went well, Apollo Eleven would be there. Halfway to the moon, the astronauts broadcast a color television program to Earth.

11. The broadcast showed how the astronauts lived on the spacecraft. It showed their instruments, food storage, and details of how they moved and worked without gravity to give them weight

12. The television broadcast also showed the Earth behind Apollo Eleven. And it showed the moon growing larger in the blackness ahead. As hours passed, the pull of the moon's gravity grew stronger. Near the moon, the astronauts fired rockets to slow the spacecraft enough to put it into moon orbit.

13. Apollo Eleven circled the moon while the crew prepared for the landing. Finally, spacecraft commander Armstrong and NASA flight controllers agreed it was time to separate the lander module Eagle from the command module Columbia.

14. Armstrong and Aldrin moved through the small opening between the two spacecraft. Then they moved Eagle away from Columbia. Armstrong reported: "The Eagle has wings!" The lunar module was ready. Men were about to land on the moon.

15. On Earth, all activity seemed to stop. President Richard Nixon gave federal government workers the day off to watch the moon landing on television. Around the world, five hundred million people watched the television report. Countless millions more listened on their radios.

16. Armstrong and Aldrin fired the lander rocket engine. The firing slowed the spacecraft and sent it down toward the landing place. It was in an area known as the Sea of Tranquility.

Vocabulary

  1. about to = prestes a
  2. above = acima
  3. agreed = concordaram
  4. ahead = à frente
  5. away = para longe
  6. beginning = começo
  7. behind = atrás
  8. blackness = escuridão
  9. broadcast = transmitiram
  10. Cape = cabo
  11. carry = transporter
  12. circled = circulou
  13. countdown = contagem regressive
  14. Countless = incontáveis
  15. crew = tripulação
  16. Earth = Planeta Terra
  17. engine = motor
  18. enough = o suficiente
  19. except = exceto
  20. fired = dispararam
  21. Flight = vôo
  22. gave = deram
  23. Godspeed = “sorte”, “Deus proteja”
  24. ground = chão
  25. growing larger = ficando maior
  26. had flown = tinha voado
  27. Halfway = na metade do caminho
  28. huge = imenso(a)
  29. increased = aumentou
  30. known = conhecido
  31. lander = modulo de aterrissagem
  32. on its way = a caminho
  33. opening = abertura
  34. pull = arrasto
  35. reached = alcançou
  36. ready = pronto
  37. rocket launch = lançamento de foguete
  38. rose = subiu
  39. seemed = pareceu
  40. shook = tremeu
  41. showed = mostrou, desacelerou
  42. slowly = lentamente
  43. soon = em breve
  44. spacecraft = espaçonave
  45. speeding = em aceleração
  46. stage = estágio
  47. storage = armazenamento
  48. the day off = o dia de folga
  49. through = através
  50. vehicle = veículo
  51. weight = peso
  52. while = enquanto
  53. whose = cujos

sábado, 1 de janeiro de 2011

Glastonbury Festival



Source: Speak Up
Language level: Basic
Standard: American accent


The Glastonbury Festival

     This month we’re off to the Glastonbury Festival for three days of music, inspiration and, hopefully, sunshine. At the event an estimated 150.000 people will enjoy a weekend of entertainment, while Greenpeace Oxfam and other charities receive over £ 1 million. The line-up is kept secret till close to the date, but rumors have already confirmed top music acts such as Arctic Monkey’s, Bjork, The Who and the Chemical Brothers. Let’s hope the weather is good, so we can avoid the horror of mud and dancing in Wellington boots.
     The Festival doesn’t actually take place in the town of Glastonbury, but nearby at Worthy Farm, Pilton. The Festival began in 1970 when 1.000 people paid farmer Michael Eavis (pictured above)  one pound for a two-day concert, plus free milk from his farm. Why did he organise the festival? He answered: “I’m just an ordinary person – I have debts and I have to pay them off.”
     Today the event attracts thousands of people and 71-year-old Eavis is still enthusiastic. He says they have made some compromises in order to continue, but he has refused millions from potential sponsors. He says: “It’s about bringing people together, it’s about artistic achievement and the whole youth culture of Britain. You can’t put a label on all that talent.”
     From 1981 to 1992 the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) helped to organise the Festival, but Eavis turned to Greenpeace in 1992. The Cold War was over and the protection of the environment became more important goal, the ticket price this year is £ 145, but this is the largest music and arts Festival in the world.
     What are people paying for? Entrance to the beautiful site in the Vale of Avalon, a city of tents with 17 stages.  The main Pyramid and Dance stages are more commercially oriented. Then there are relaxed areas like the “Jazzworld” and “Acoustic,” and the family-oriented areas like the Kidz Field, the Theatre and Circus Fields.

The Glastonbury Zodiac No sound available

The Festival is also an important annual meeting for New Age travellers and Druids. There are about 10.000 druids in Britain and many are travellers who live like gypsies. They meet at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, before going to the Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury is in Somerset, in the Southwest of England. The travellers are attracted by its pagan history. There is the Glastonbury Zodiac, an extraordinary ancient earthen work. It is a circle 16 kilometres across and 48 kilometres in circumference formed by hills, roads and rivers.

Glastonbury Legends

One legend tells that St. Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of Jesus, came to Glastonbury and founded the first Christian church in England. He rested his staff on Wearyall Hill: it rooted and became the Glastonbury thorn. This unusual variety of thorn flowers around Christmas time, which is unique, and many think it is a miracle.

Another story identifies Glastonbury as King Arthur’s Isle of Avalon, but this was probably an invention of the monks from local Abbey. They “found” the grave of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere near the Abbey, but there is no proof today because the remains were later moved and then lost. 

Family Album Part XXI



Source: Family Album