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Dec. 3rd, 2002 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bzarcherMmm. Herr Doktor Figge was here tonight.
Herr Figge, (perhaps more known to non-Woosterians as Dr. Richard Figge of the German department), is a consumate storyteller.
He's got a glorious voice, deep and sonorous, and he looks like everyone's grandfather. He always comes at Christmas to read stories to the Program (we invite him), and sometimes to read ghost stories at Halloween, or just to read things if we ask nicely. I think he loves having an audience, especially since he's a bit of an actor when not teaching.
For the winter, he always reads 2 stories. 1 is almost always a story called Hershel and the Channukah Goblins (Herr Figge is Jewish), and is this wonderful children's tale that he injects incredible life into. (He brings the picturebook of the story, and shows us the pictures for effect. It's always neat.) He even explains the traditions and the assorted "stuff" of Channukah, right down to the latkes.
His second story...that one he changes from year to year, and he's never done the same one twice. Last year was The Gift of the Magi. The year before was one I can't remember.
This year...this year he read A Child's Christmas in Wales. He makes them special. Always. And when he jokes, you can't help but laugh. He's infectious with joy. And we had a fire, and there was cocoa, and almost everyone took a blanket to wrap up in as we listened. A wonderful, wonderful experience.
I think, if I ever leave Wooster for good, he will be one of the things I miss most.
"The English can be stingy with their words, regardless of the meaning they inject into them. But Welshmen and the Irish spend words like a drunken sailor in port."
-Herr Figge on the writing of Dylan Thomas.
Herr Figge, (perhaps more known to non-Woosterians as Dr. Richard Figge of the German department), is a consumate storyteller.
He's got a glorious voice, deep and sonorous, and he looks like everyone's grandfather. He always comes at Christmas to read stories to the Program (we invite him), and sometimes to read ghost stories at Halloween, or just to read things if we ask nicely. I think he loves having an audience, especially since he's a bit of an actor when not teaching.
For the winter, he always reads 2 stories. 1 is almost always a story called Hershel and the Channukah Goblins (Herr Figge is Jewish), and is this wonderful children's tale that he injects incredible life into. (He brings the picturebook of the story, and shows us the pictures for effect. It's always neat.) He even explains the traditions and the assorted "stuff" of Channukah, right down to the latkes.
His second story...that one he changes from year to year, and he's never done the same one twice. Last year was The Gift of the Magi. The year before was one I can't remember.
This year...this year he read A Child's Christmas in Wales. He makes them special. Always. And when he jokes, you can't help but laugh. He's infectious with joy. And we had a fire, and there was cocoa, and almost everyone took a blanket to wrap up in as we listened. A wonderful, wonderful experience.
I think, if I ever leave Wooster for good, he will be one of the things I miss most.
"The English can be stingy with their words, regardless of the meaning they inject into them. But Welshmen and the Irish spend words like a drunken sailor in port."
-Herr Figge on the writing of Dylan Thomas.
