JOURNAL: POLAND IS A LAND YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO

This is so incredibly important. You need, need, need, need, need, need, NEED to know about Franek Kimono. He's brilliant. Imagine Rocky if he were Polish and decided to record a disco album. 



My coworker and I discovered him during a morning absorbed in Polish music exploration, a pursuit I highly recommend. Time and time again I've found Poland is a frequently overlooked rich treasure trove.

Franek is actually the creation of a man whose name, Piotr Fronczewski, I cannot pronounce but nevertheless is an actor and singer who in 1983 decided to record the Franek Kimono album as a joke and stumbled into success. I am not in the least surprised, the album is incredibly delightful.


A longtime favorite Pole of mine is the film director Andrzej Wajda. His films are masterful and poignant and I am fully aware that's the least substantive sentence, I essentially have told you nothing about him. Let me put it this way: his films, from the first viewing, have reached themselves deep into the folds of my mind. I regularly reflect on them, tracing the outline of their images. Ashes and Diamonds (1958) and Katyn (2007) both deal with war from which I've pieced together histories we don't hear often. I never knew Poland was invaded both by the Nazis and the Soviets during WWII and suffered under each, the Soviet control lasting for decades.

Perhaps you're crazy and history and movies about the terror and tenderness that occurs during war isn't your thing. I still think you should watch them. Particularly look for a reference to Antigone in Katyn. In fact, brush up on your familiarity with Sophocles' and Anouilh's versions of the play, then watch Katyn. With a box of tissues. And some candy canes, for 'tis the season.

xoxo,
Marge