cultural tourism?

OH my what an evening.

Walking down the street, my roommate saw a young woman struggling with a large Persian carpet. Offering to help, she was told that it was for an art gallary opening tonight, so we went. The art gallary was a small loft, with a bar selling hot sangrias (or mulled wine with fruit), a little bit of art, and surprising numbers of people wandering both through the art, and what I think was the artist's outdoor living/ dining room.

At about 10:30 at night, and band came on, so we went outside, where there was a band set up in the middle of the street, as well as two samovars, a giant tray of bread, a bowl of mustard, a huge cooler of pickles, which included, I think, both pickled cucumbers and, I think, pickled watermelon, a tray of sausages, and some cool drinks. The band came on... 100% Russian. YES.

The bald lead singer was wearing black leather pants with two zips down the front of each leg, a leather vest and a leather knee length jacked, with handcuffs hanging from his belt. The guitarist was wearing army patns and boots and a white dress shirt and white bomber jacket. The base player and drummer were wearing sort of average looking clothes, and the keyboardist was a woman, who, in fact, I had met in her professional life, and was possibly embarrassed to see us there. The music; sort of Russian metal, and then they announced they were switching to reggae, but the music did not really change. The audience: almost all Russia, half hipsters, half parental, professorial types. After a few minutes, someone poured several bottles of vodka into the samovar which didn't have tea in it. The parental types were more into the music, and the dancing, and yelling out things in Russian which I couldn't understand.

Overall: a total win.

Who by fire? Who by water?

It's that time of year:

FYI: that is a translation of part of the Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer read in shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. If shul was like that I'd go more often.

Oh no oh no oh no

This is either super empowered and awesome or super weird.
The Scala & Kolacny Brothers Choir did a pretty cool cover of Creep by Radiohead (my go to shower song) in the ad for that facebook movie.

Listening to Nirvana, Doing stuff..

And I couldn't stop hearing

I like it I'm not gonna kvetch
I miss you I'm not gonna kvetch
I love you I'm not gonna kvetch
I killed you I'm not gonna kvetch

I think it improves the song. Same meaning, really, but more evocative.

I should march this down to Cupertino....

Dear iTunes 'Genius,'
    I may know little about music, but I do know that R.E.M. is not Brit Pop. Yours truly, Me

WORLD WIDE EXCITEMENT

Eurovision and the World Cup! So much excitement. I have watched a few of the Eurovision entries, and none so far deserve special comment, but I suggest you all pick a few countries and do your research. For those a little hazy on the details of this Olympics of song and dance, check it out.

Even more legitimately exciting is the World Cup. So except for the actual soccer, about which I'm not so interested, I love everything about World Cup 2010. South Africa! Short shorts on nice legs! And I'm not going to say most of all, but perhaps as one among many equal beloved things, Waka Waka.

Shakira performs this song, based on a Cameroonian, popular in the 80's, which itself refers to Cameroonian sharpshooters in WW2. There is very little I can say to do justice to this song, so take a look:


Basically a lot of my college education should have prepared me to be able to explain at least parts of this video. I have learned a bit about film, about non western music and dance, about Africa and African responses to colonialism, about African literature and film. Without some help though, this film leaves me pretty lost. Is the Cameroonian military an important/ loved/ hating institution, or are they singing about something else? The band is wearing makeup that reminds me of blackface, what's going on? The New York Times, as always, help me out by telling me that the pillows stuffed into the band's clothes are meant to show how fat and lazy they have gotten by riding trains a lot - is that all that is going on?

Also, and quite tangentially, the only World Cup game I have every been to was Cameroon v. Brazil in 1994. I was, however, in Paris when France won the World Cup in 1998, and in the weeklong drunken loud celebration, a drunk mine attempted to pick my pocket, but failed because all I had in my purse was sunscreen.

Remember Middle School?

Check out the audience in the background. If nothing else, this youtube clip should remind you that middle school girls are horrid!

I Didn't Want an IPad

And now I do.

Trippy Math + Sesame Street

Damn Public Television teaching children about geometry and contemporary music. Wait, this is amazing. Long live Sesame Street!

Guilty Pleasures

I have a lot of music. I have music I love, that I think is wonderful, and this music is what I would probably tell you I listen to most if you ask me. In reality, though, I spend 70% of my music listening time on playlists who's titles are synonyms for 'guilty pleasure.' I am pleased, then, and maybe only a little guilty to give as a Christmas gift to you, some of my guiltiest guilty pleasures.

EUROVISION MAAAAAAAAADNESS!!!!

I'm going to bring you news of the most important cultural event of the year, thats right, you guessed it - the Eurovision song contest. Eurovision has brought us such gems as 2006 winners Lordi, with their Hardrock Hallelujah, and from all appearances this year's crop will not disappoint.

I have done you the favor of culling through a bunch of the entries (not all though, I'm not that dedicated) to find the most crucial ones for your viewing pleasure.

This year's award for originality is going to have to go to Ireland, about whose entry I have nothing bad to say. As Dustin the Turkey says, Ireland is a nation that knows how to write a song. Dustin doesn't take best video, for which you'll have to luck East, and uh, I'm guessing a bit south to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I have NO IDEA what this video is about, but I did recognize the words 'dolce banana' in the song, which I assume means sweet banana. This only makes sense, because who has ever had a sour banana?

As you might be able to tell if you click on the links, my taste by no means runs only , or even mostly to the tasteful, but I'm going to have to give a shout out in a bad way to Azerbaijan. It is the first they have submitted a song to Eurovision, so maybe practice makes perfect, but people, it takes a lot more than that to pull off angel wings. Basically the angel vs. devil thing is hard to pull off if you really want someone to chop off the angel's head. Taken alone, Finland's band is a bit different, and therefore interesting, but in the context of past winners Lordi - it's been done.

Don't get me wrong there are many boring entrants that you shouldn't really waste time watching (ok, the France video is pretty cool, but close your eyes and listen to the song - tres non cool).

In case you're American and don't know, voting for Eurovision is complicated, and not done based on skill but on geographical and linguistic proximity, and shared history. The Slavic countries tend to vote in a block, as do the Baltic countries, and the ex Soviet type countries. This makes France and Germany very pissy, because they are used to winning, but tough cookies.