David Cooper (Slavic Languages Professor)

And that's wonderful.

I love to see that happen.

That must be a nice feeling.

Yeah, it really is.

Yeah.

And I can't take all the credit for it because what they're doing is, I mean, they're reading compelling books.

Right.

And I'm just sort of helping them to I'm leading them to that material.

Right.

Yeah, okay, I'll bring a really fun Slovak instrument that's called an ozenbuch, which means literally the thing you strike on the ground.

And it's kind of like one of these one-man band instruments that has like a cymbal and a string on it that you pluck and you sort of beat it on the ground and you pluck the string and it's, yeah.

You're only the second David Cooper that I've ever had an actual conversation with.

There is another David Cooper actually in my town, in Champaign-Urbana.

And I found that out because when I came to town, people said, oh, David Cooper, are you the guitar player?

And I'm like, no, I don't play guitar.

So we have a guitar player for our band, by the way.

And I met him in person because obviously as a musician, you also have like daytime gigs where you make your money.

And when I left my car for service at a local service station, I signed up for a ride to my job to work.

And the person driving me was David Cooper.

Well, you know, depending on how this conversation goes, you're moving up.