Ha! My favorite commentary on Spitzer thus far.
(Discovered through Vinylboy20, friend of a friend on Livejournal, who has his own commentary on the subject).
Proven Winners Plants Postulations
12 years ago
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
From Ann Arbor to Rajasthan to the Nile
Tonight I saw "In the Trail of the Ghawazee: Gypsy Dances from Rajasthan to the Nile" with Leila Haddad and the Ghawazee musicians of Luxor, thanks to a friend who got some extra tickets and kindly invited me. I was about ready to pass out because I'm so tired from grading and everything. (Okay, part of the effect is due to the fun of celebrating K&J's engagement last night!!) But the music and dancing were quite beautiful, and it was humanizing to be with friends doing something besides my everyday labor. I couldn't help but think of my friend and his research on the Gypsies of Rajasthan, though, and our informal interviewing of groupies in the audience at the Sziget a few years ago.
Yesterday I saw a lecture on the origins of domestic food production by the illustrious Kent Flannery, entitled: "The creation of agriculture: So easy a caveman could do it." Katie and I were both excited to learn about teocinte.
Contract negotiations continue for the University of Michigan graduate student instructors, via the Graduate Employees Organization. There's serious talk of a possible walk-out, depending how the conversation goes over the next couple of weeks. We've already extended our expired contract for a couple of weeks to allow for additional negotiations.
Meanwhile, there's a policy change called "continuous enrollment" being discussed at U of M's Rackham graduate school that has lots of us very concerned, to the point that the Dean met with the Graduate Student Forum today and there's another lunch meeting with the dean being scheduled for students by the GSF in another week or two. The arguments in favor of the change that were presented by the dean today centered primarily around (a) the data on degree completion from research that included both institutions that have such a policy and institutions that don't, and the apparent fact that the policy will, in fact, be revenue neutral, and (b) that the decrease in candidacy tuition will counterbalance the increase in semesters of enrollment while a candidate.
There are many issues being raised among students and faculty in disciplines that depend on extended field research in discussions that I don't want to go into here, but a couple of the things that puzzled me about what she said yesterday were the following: (1) she indicated that the cost of tuition is set by a different body than Rackham, who obviously would preside over this policy. So in principle the candidacy tuition could rise at a later date, making the argument b look rather less convincing. (2) While the dean indicated that data that include all disciplines in sciences and humanities indicate that the rate of completion of degree is higher when continuous enrollment policies are in place, when pressed by a student in the GSF with the question "Do institutions with continuous enrollment policies have greater degree completion rates than the University of Michigan?," she said that those data were unavailable, but that anecdotal evidence indicates that there are some that have better rates of completion and others that have far worse.
. . .
My neck pain is excruciating after grading my undergraduates' papers. I'm almost through all of the 75. I know I can't afford a massage, but I may need to find a way to pay for it anyway, because I can hardly turn my head. I wish there were affordable acupuncture in Ann Arbor.
I almost missed the most exciting news! My dear friend Eri just had her baby. I don't know exactly what time, or the stats or anything. But they both look positively radiant in the photos.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Letters from Home: Annotated Edition
This mix, Letters from Home, has a gentle, sweet sadness to it that corresponds to its smooth, mainly acoustic, often rather minimalist sound. It's brooding, and often retrospective, but not hopeless, and to me, it's suggestive of seeking out a kind of inner strength and appreciating the beauty of love and relationships while coming to terms with our inevitable isolation as human beings.
Note: Anyone with copyright for these songs who wishes for your content to be removed, I will gladly do so immediately if you request that I do so.
Playlist:
1. Ani Difranco - Independence Day
2. PJ Harvey - Ballad of the Soldier's Wife
3. Regina Spektor - Samson
4. Vienna Teng - Now Three
5. The Persuasions - Oh, Heavenly Salvation
6. Orpheum Bell - Pretty as You
7. Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone with You
8. Jenny Owen Youngs - Bricks
9. Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
10. Eva Cassidy - Kathy's Song
11. Camera Obscura - Books Written for Girls
12. Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
13. Patty Griffin - Rowing Song
14. Jenny Owen Youngs - Fuck Was I
15. Vienna Teng - Pontchartrain
Notes:
1. Ani Difranco manages to remain one of the most flexible, prolific, outspoken, and trailblazing modern musicians out there, weaving an Allen Ginsberg-esque confessional quality with down-home folkiness and a pushy yet highly personalized brand of feminism I really appreciate. I was slow to love Little Plastic Castle, probably because it was pushing the envelope musically in directions I hadn't heard her go before, and I was attached at the time to the sound of her early stuff. When I came around to getting it, it became my favorite of hers. "Independence Day," to me, says something profound about vulnerability and our connections to other people.
2. This song, as well as track 5 (missing for now) are from an album of Kurt Weill songs sung by various artists that my friend Dani turned me onto. (Those of you who heard my mix I made in my cottage in Austin several years ago may see no small irony in its title, "September Songs.") PJ Harvey's uniquely brash voice gives a particular chill to the tragic end of the "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" [September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill]
3. Regina Spektor explains the story of the changes she made to the early version of "Samson" from her self-released album Songs in this interview, which is also telling about her own relationship with her music. As far as she's concerned, the one on her album Begin to Hope is the right version and she wishes she could erase all the copies of her previous performance. Unlike her, though, I personally really prefer the slow one I've included here. It seems so much more intimate and careful, two qualities I really love about this song. The reworking of biblical stories to reflect on much despised female figures is a popular activity, and the Samson/Delilah story seems to have attracted especially a lot of musical attention. Anyway, one of the many reasons I love this song is the way it suggests the mystery in the connection between two people and also the surprising banality and everydayness even of a great tragedy.
4. Vienna Teng grabbed hold of my soul and pulled us into a frenzied, ecstatic dance from the first moment I heard her on NPR. I was further bowled over when I heard her in concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Dreaming through the Noise is the first album of hers I got to know. "Now Three" always reminds me of one particular friend of mine, to the point that I think of it really as her song. Initially I started making this mix for her, and then I realized it was as much for me as it was for her. The thing about this song is that it's romantic to the point of bordering on folly, or at the least to to the point of being effacing of everything else. It dives right into the mystical and frightening aspects of love, but does so with so much purity of heart that there's a clarity and a gentle resolution to it.
5. The Persuasions - Oh, Heavenly Salvation [September Songs] Also from the Kurt Weill album, but gone for the moment until my hard drive cooperates.
6. Orpheum Bell is a local Ann Arbor band, whose first album is a little inconsistent, but compelling, and it shows a lot of interesting musical potential, with yummy, pretty vocals from Merrill Hodnefield, and instrumentation that draws on bluegrass, folk, Gillian Welch-like "American primitivism," jazz, klezmer, and Balkan folk music. "Pretty as You" is a lovely, nostalgic song that suggestively touches on something old and mysterious and long-lost. [buy album Pretty as You]
7. Sufjan Stevens is an artist I've been listening to in little bits for a while, but whom I've taken some time to get into. Part of the reason I like this song is its Michigan reference; Stevens is from Detroit, so I feel connected to the geographic landscape he's relating to. I also appreciate the feeling of love and longing he describes in "To Be Alone with You" [Seven Swans]
8. I just love this song from Jenny Owen Youngs, seeking some sense and order in a fragmented and often disruptive world we don't have much control over.
9. Somehow I only 'discovered' Elliott Smith recently. Under the guise of being reassuring, "Between the Bars" is a very dark and disturbing song about hiding from what we don't want to acknowledge. And I can't imagine who isn't tempted to listen to such voices at times of suffering . . . Incidentally, I just heard the Madeleine Peyroux cover of the song, too, which is cool, but I'm partial to the original. [Buy Either/Or]
10. The late Eva Cassidy's cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Kathy's Song" is perhaps even more tender than the original, and just ever so beautiful with her sweet voice. It's a loving song, but also one about being separated from one you love. Thanks very much to someone in Audiography for introducing me to her. [Time after Time]
11. I believe I discovered the Scottish band Camera Obscura through the British music website last.fm, which I cannot recommend enough, simply by poking around bands similar to others I liked, and bands liked by people with similar tastes to me. The live acoustic version of "Books Written for Girls" couldn't be simpler musically, but I love the sound of it, and its sweet sad wistfulness. [album]
12. "Hope There's Someone" has a bareness musically that resembles the previous song, relying exclusively on piano and vocals. But the stunning and unusual vocal quality Antony brings to the music of Antony and the Johnsons has me rather mesmerized by this band. [catalog] [I am a Bird Now]
13. The repetitiveness of Patty Griffin's "Rowing Song" makes it rather like a lullaby, I think. The lyrics are gently reassuring despite the solitary and wistful quality of the song. [Impossible Dream]
14. The gem "Fuck Was I" by Jenny Owen Youngs is one I first heard from her when she opened for Vienna Teng at the Ark. I really like her G-rated video for the song, surprisingly, too. It's such a simple little song, but it's very catchy, and so immediately easy to relate to.
15. Only Vienna Teng could get away with writing an outsider's song about the disaster in New Orleans that doesn't come across as tacky, maudlin, or sugar-coated. "Pontchartrain" is simply haunting and brilliant. "Who drew the line, who drew the line between you and me; who drew the line that everyone sees?"
Note: Anyone with copyright for these songs who wishes for your content to be removed, I will gladly do so immediately if you request that I do so.
Playlist:
1. Ani Difranco - Independence Day
2. PJ Harvey - Ballad of the Soldier's Wife
3. Regina Spektor - Samson
4. Vienna Teng - Now Three
5. The Persuasions - Oh, Heavenly Salvation
6. Orpheum Bell - Pretty as You
7. Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone with You
8. Jenny Owen Youngs - Bricks
9. Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
10. Eva Cassidy - Kathy's Song
11. Camera Obscura - Books Written for Girls
12. Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
13. Patty Griffin - Rowing Song
14. Jenny Owen Youngs - Fuck Was I
15. Vienna Teng - Pontchartrain
Notes:
1. Ani Difranco manages to remain one of the most flexible, prolific, outspoken, and trailblazing modern musicians out there, weaving an Allen Ginsberg-esque confessional quality with down-home folkiness and a pushy yet highly personalized brand of feminism I really appreciate. I was slow to love Little Plastic Castle, probably because it was pushing the envelope musically in directions I hadn't heard her go before, and I was attached at the time to the sound of her early stuff. When I came around to getting it, it became my favorite of hers. "Independence Day," to me, says something profound about vulnerability and our connections to other people.
2. This song, as well as track 5 (missing for now) are from an album of Kurt Weill songs sung by various artists that my friend Dani turned me onto. (Those of you who heard my mix I made in my cottage in Austin several years ago may see no small irony in its title, "September Songs.") PJ Harvey's uniquely brash voice gives a particular chill to the tragic end of the "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" [September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill]
3. Regina Spektor explains the story of the changes she made to the early version of "Samson" from her self-released album Songs in this interview, which is also telling about her own relationship with her music. As far as she's concerned, the one on her album Begin to Hope is the right version and she wishes she could erase all the copies of her previous performance. Unlike her, though, I personally really prefer the slow one I've included here. It seems so much more intimate and careful, two qualities I really love about this song. The reworking of biblical stories to reflect on much despised female figures is a popular activity, and the Samson/Delilah story seems to have attracted especially a lot of musical attention. Anyway, one of the many reasons I love this song is the way it suggests the mystery in the connection between two people and also the surprising banality and everydayness even of a great tragedy.
4. Vienna Teng grabbed hold of my soul and pulled us into a frenzied, ecstatic dance from the first moment I heard her on NPR. I was further bowled over when I heard her in concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Dreaming through the Noise is the first album of hers I got to know. "Now Three" always reminds me of one particular friend of mine, to the point that I think of it really as her song. Initially I started making this mix for her, and then I realized it was as much for me as it was for her. The thing about this song is that it's romantic to the point of bordering on folly, or at the least to to the point of being effacing of everything else. It dives right into the mystical and frightening aspects of love, but does so with so much purity of heart that there's a clarity and a gentle resolution to it.
5. The Persuasions - Oh, Heavenly Salvation [September Songs] Also from the Kurt Weill album, but gone for the moment until my hard drive cooperates.
6. Orpheum Bell is a local Ann Arbor band, whose first album is a little inconsistent, but compelling, and it shows a lot of interesting musical potential, with yummy, pretty vocals from Merrill Hodnefield, and instrumentation that draws on bluegrass, folk, Gillian Welch-like "American primitivism," jazz, klezmer, and Balkan folk music. "Pretty as You" is a lovely, nostalgic song that suggestively touches on something old and mysterious and long-lost. [buy album Pretty as You]
7. Sufjan Stevens is an artist I've been listening to in little bits for a while, but whom I've taken some time to get into. Part of the reason I like this song is its Michigan reference; Stevens is from Detroit, so I feel connected to the geographic landscape he's relating to. I also appreciate the feeling of love and longing he describes in "To Be Alone with You" [Seven Swans]
8. I just love this song from Jenny Owen Youngs, seeking some sense and order in a fragmented and often disruptive world we don't have much control over.
9. Somehow I only 'discovered' Elliott Smith recently. Under the guise of being reassuring, "Between the Bars" is a very dark and disturbing song about hiding from what we don't want to acknowledge. And I can't imagine who isn't tempted to listen to such voices at times of suffering . . . Incidentally, I just heard the Madeleine Peyroux cover of the song, too, which is cool, but I'm partial to the original. [Buy Either/Or]
10. The late Eva Cassidy's cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "Kathy's Song" is perhaps even more tender than the original, and just ever so beautiful with her sweet voice. It's a loving song, but also one about being separated from one you love. Thanks very much to someone in Audiography for introducing me to her. [Time after Time]
11. I believe I discovered the Scottish band Camera Obscura through the British music website last.fm, which I cannot recommend enough, simply by poking around bands similar to others I liked, and bands liked by people with similar tastes to me. The live acoustic version of "Books Written for Girls" couldn't be simpler musically, but I love the sound of it, and its sweet sad wistfulness. [album]
12. "Hope There's Someone" has a bareness musically that resembles the previous song, relying exclusively on piano and vocals. But the stunning and unusual vocal quality Antony brings to the music of Antony and the Johnsons has me rather mesmerized by this band. [catalog] [I am a Bird Now]
13. The repetitiveness of Patty Griffin's "Rowing Song" makes it rather like a lullaby, I think. The lyrics are gently reassuring despite the solitary and wistful quality of the song. [Impossible Dream]
14. The gem "Fuck Was I" by Jenny Owen Youngs is one I first heard from her when she opened for Vienna Teng at the Ark. I really like her G-rated video for the song, surprisingly, too. It's such a simple little song, but it's very catchy, and so immediately easy to relate to.
15. Only Vienna Teng could get away with writing an outsider's song about the disaster in New Orleans that doesn't come across as tacky, maudlin, or sugar-coated. "Pontchartrain" is simply haunting and brilliant. "Who drew the line, who drew the line between you and me; who drew the line that everyone sees?"
Dancing With Myself: Annotated Edition
So, since Audiography compelled me to write more about my mixes, I'll include the annotated collectors editions here too.
Dancing with Myself is a mix with lots of covers, some French, British, Irish, American, and Brazilian pop, a little R&B, some indie folk, a touch of electronica, and a smattering of bossa nova. Here is the tracklist; below are the notes. It's got a relatively upbeat sound. About as upbeat as I get, I think.
Anyone with copyright for these songs who wishes for your content to be removed, I will gladly do so immediately if you request that I do so.
Dancing with Myself -- Playlist
1. Jenny Owen Youngs -- Hot in Herre
2. Tricky -- The Lovecats
3. Camille -- Au Port
4. Aimee Mann -- Save Me
5. Fionn Regan -- Put a Penny in the Slot
6. Nouvelle Vague -- Dancing with Myself
7. Camille -- Vous
8. Nouvelle Vague -- Blue Monday
9. Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot -- Bonnie and Clyde
10. The Indelicates -- A New Art for the People
11. Postal Service -- Such Great Heights
12. Macy Gray -- I Try
13. Lauren Hill -- To Zion
14. Johnny Cash -- Hurt
15. Nouvelle Vague -- Ever Fall in Love
16. Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Astrud Gilberto -- Corcovado
17. Johnny Cash -- One
18. The Decemberists -- We Both Go Down Together
19. Regina Spektor -- On the Radio
20. Elis Regina -- Bala Com Bala
21. MC Solaar -- Inch'Alla
22. Regina Spektor -- Apres Moi
23. Aimee Mann -- Ghost World
24. Beth Orton -- Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine
25. The Decemberists -- Apology Song
Dancing With Myself -- Notes
1. Is the joke ever going to get old, that of listening to an attractive young woman reapportion an incredibly sexist song? Somehow I doubt it. I love Alanis Morissette's version of My Humps, and I can't get enough of Jenny Owen Youngs singing this one. She has an uncanny ability to deliver ridiculously silly with unfailing deadpan. I discovered her in concert opening for Vienna Teng. Luckily, it was the "late" show at the Ark, so I also got to hear her pottymouth, so hilarious paired with her sweet young exterior. What a find!
2. Tricky is just so bloody sexy, no matter what he does. This song is especially fun given its remarkable departure from the cure's original version. [purchase mp3]
3. Camille is COOL. She's an award-winning French pop singer with an experimental je ne sais quoi in her remarkable vocals sort of reminiscent of Bjork, along with play with hambone reminiscent of Bobby Mcferrin. As one reviewer calls Camille Dalmais' work, it's "hypnotic, exotic and distinct". She started her solo career after breaking away from Nouvelle Vague, also on this mix. [More critical discussion on her album as a whole.] [purchase Le Fil]
4. As far as I'm concerned, Aimee Mann's songs are evergreen pop classics. She says about the song: "I like to think of it as the song that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins and his cartoon monkey love song." She sings: "You look like a perfect fit for a girl in need of a tourniquet." Great lyrics, nice vocals, catchy songs, and often touching on a kind of human vulnerability that makes them seem pleasantly organic. [purchase Magnolia soundtrack]
5. Oh, Fionn Regan. Somebody on Audiography got me started with him, and I can't tell you how much I adore this song. It takes you so many directions you're not expecting with its playful, clever, yet soulful lyrics, and his voice is SO CUTE. The bare-bones acoustic sound, the conversational tone peppered with literary references, and the fantastical narrative arc of his story, to me, give the overall effect like you're hearing a song from that quiet, black-clad skinny kid you never thought to talk to in high school, with all his unspoken inner thoughts. (Only, in this case, he has a Dubliner accent.) This reviewer likens him to Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. His album The End of History was one of the 12 shortlisted in the UK for the 2007 Mercury Prize. [video]
6. "Nouvelle Vague" is French for "new wave," and the band's schtick is to take old classics of that genre, without listening to them, and remake them with a whispery, light sound drawing on bossa nova (which, by the way, is Portuguese for "new wave"). The effect is smart and sexy; at times, hilarious, and often dance-worthy. I dance in my kitchen to this song, adding another layer to some existential irony bank.
7. I was making this mix for some friends who had requested some Nouvelle Vague, and I really liked how the jauntiness of the previous tune shifted into this other song by Camille, with its continuing underlying tone (in one sense, the "thread" referenced in the album title) and its minimal, elemental quality: nothing but vocals with that single tone.
8. Though Camille isn't included in this iteration of the band as she was on the previous album by Nouvelle Vague, there's still a kinship you sense between her sound and the smooth, sultry vocals of Melanie Pain here.
9. Somebody posted this fabulous song of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot during the duets week on Audiography, and its sound won me over. The production delights me with the "wohoo-oo" periodically in the background, the combination of this pair's vocal qualities, and the whole French fascination with American bad-guys . . . [buy]
10. And speaking of bad guys. Well, this song speaks for itself. It shocks you completely with its nastiness, its . . . well, indelicacy. It's catchy if you're not listening to the lyrics. And if you do, you're open-mouthed. Where do you go from a beginning like "But for the come in your hair, the cocaine on your teeth, you'd be just like the girls that I kissed on the heath"?? "A New Art for the People" could be an anthem for those living the rock & roll lifestyle. And it's delightfully, self-referentially, about just that. Hooray for The Indelicates. [preorder their new album]
11. Veronica Mars (RIP) had this song on its soundtrack; I'd heard it before that, but that was when it grabbed my attention again. There's a way it seems to contrast the world of the objective and mechanical with the world of the subjective and organic -- both in its sound, with the highly digitized sounding electronic accompaniment and the vocals floating over it, and in its lyrics, with their attention to the human body and the intimacy of a relationship that others can't necessarily relate to at a distance. The video for the song reinforces this feeling. The Postal Service reminds me a bit of the wonderful magnetic fields in its sound, but it isn't as cheeky and ironic, at least in this song. [buy CDs & gear]
12. Macy Gray always catches my heart in my throat with the soulful, rich, growly sound of her voice, and who can't relate to the kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't feeling she describes in "I Try"? (It's one I especially empathize with at the moment.) Since this got lots of radio play, you probably know it, but I think it can't be appreciated enough. [buy]
13. I was just talking a couple of weeks ago with my friends (for whom I made the mix) about the wonder of pregnancy and childbirth, so I couldn't resist including Lauren Hill's stunningly beautiful song about her son, "To Zion." The friend who introduced me to the song years ago told me it made her cry, and it does me, too. It all comes back around, too, because that same friend is just about to give birth to a daughter, in the next couple of weeks. I like the way Macy Gray segues into Lauryn Hill, too, not only because they have some stylistic continuity, but especially because Hill's intense, joyful confidence and wisdom in "To Zion" gives a kind of nice resolution to the angst underlying Gray's "I Try"[buy The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]
14. Johnny Cash (happy belated birthday, Johnny!) brings us to a different kind of resolution, though, and his cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" has a way of crawling up inside me, giving me goosebumps all over. If you're not familiar with this version of the song, you should definitely see the video, with flashbacks of Johnny Cash's complex life and associations with his many diverse experiences. Having seen Walk the Line gives me even a deeper appreciation of this song, somehow. [buy The Man Comes Around]
15. If we're meditating on love, though, we can't get too dark. With their cover of Buzzcocks' "Ever Fall in Love," Nouvelle Vague remains thematically (and even lyrically) in a similar place as Reznor's song brings us, but their sound takes us back to the lighter side of things somehow anyway, in spite of it all. [enjoy the classic version]
16. And then we take a step back into Heaven with this classic bossa nova recording from Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Astrud Gilberto. "Corcovado" is one of my favorite songs of all time, and one that I was working on performing when I was practicing jazz and bossa nova standards with a guitarist friend of mine in Budapest before I came back to grad school. Is there a Sunday that is really complete without bossa nova? I believe it seriously lowers your blood pressure, with rhythms and gentle sounds that soothe no matter what kind of stress you're under. How can you not be happier when it's in your life? [buy Getz/Gilberto]
17. Ephemerality is a part of life (and love), too. Johnny Cash reminds us here with his lovely acoustic cover of U2's "One". This song in its original and this version is another favorite of mine, with its complex and multi-layered meanings. Is it about Germany? Is it about lovers? Is it about friends? Family? Are we ever to know for sure? The gravelly and slightly shaky sound of Johnny Cash's late-career voice gives yet another layer of meanings to this beautiful song. [buy Solitary Man]
18. Is the narrator of The Decemberists' "We Both Go Down Together" a madman and a rapist? Or just your average upper-class Victorian in a passionate romance with a working-class girl? Does either of these scenarios make this any less of a compelling love song, in its own completely bizarre way? The band's magical gift of fantasy and storytelling comes through with particular grace in this dramatic song, about unity in destruction. [Picaresque]
19. When you see the ever quirky and creative Regina Spektor standing in classroom in front of a public elementary school music class, directing little Black children holding rhythm sticks and then musical instruments, it's odd and a little unnerving, but also playful and somehow a little reassuring. She has a tidy little pop narrative that explains everything about life and love, and it isn't all easy, but it makes it all make sense anyway in "On the Radio." [Begin to Hope]
20. If you don't know the late Elis Regina, one of the superstars of MPB (popular Brazilian music), you should watch this wonderful video of her singing Jobim's song The Waters of March. Her popularity was incredible, and the news reporting of her death and the crowds her casket drew is reminiscent of what I've heard about Cuba after salsa legend Celia Cruz died. "Bala Com Bala" is positively effervescent.
21. Now, a trip into the "solaar system." Claude M'Barali, "born in Dakar on March 5th 1969," was raised in France from infancy by parents of Tchad origin. "'MC Solaar' is adapted from his old graffiti tags SOAR and SOLAAR which he used to spray on the walls of his local housing estate." (source.) For those of you who are American and aren't familiar with "housing estate," think "housing project." These suburban areas of Paris, where North African immigrant families (as well as second and third generation French of North African origin) are most densely concentrated, are some of the same areas where popular discontent over racial & socioeconomic issues has helped fuel riots in recent years in France. The discography of this talented French-African rap artist illustrates how incredibly prolific he is. His sound is very cool, with unusual, Arabic-sounding sampling, French-language singing and rapping, and a unique feel you should enjoy even if you can't understand the lyrics [video there too!] "Inch'Allah" is a phrase that gets transliterated differently in different countries, but that means, roughly, "If God wills it."
22. Oh, Regina Spektor, with her smart references (here, to Louis XV, and Boris Pasternak) . "Apres Moi" is suggestive to me of the wrongheadedness of isolationism, and the house of cards it really represents.
23. Aimee Mann's smart song "Ghost World", inspired by Daniel Clowes' fabulous graphic novel by the same name, paints a vivid portrait of the unique angst and uncertainty of high school adolescents, but in the process also sheds light on something more universal about ambition, desire, and human limitations, I think: "So I'm bailing this town, or tearing it down, or probably more like, hanging around." [review of Bachelor No 2. Buy Bachelor No. 2]
24. Beth Orton is a British vocalist who is so unassuming, with a breathy and slightly tentative way of singing that I find infinitely charming. I saw her in concert at the Austin City Limits music festival several years ago, and was struck by how shy she seemed; you would have thought she was a no-name performer. Some of her music falls squarely into electronica, some of her work incorporates those sounds but draws also on other genres such as folk and jazz, like her artful album Central Reservation. More recent work is more stripped down. This live performance of "Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine" is purely acoustic, foregrounding her subtle and sensitive vocals in this wistful song. [Pass in Time]
25. Sometimes I think The Decemberists just sit around and make up challenges for themselves, or perhaps take them from quirky fans, a la Strongbad, like "Oh, oh, I bet you can't write a good song about an ankle!" or, "Oh, there's no way you could make a plausible song about a stolen bicycle that likens it to a belovedpet girlfriend!" and then they proceed to do just that. "Apology Song" is just one of those fabulous examples of them proving, "Yes, we can, and what's more, we have done." [Five Songs]
Annotated version of Letters from Home to come. [EDIT: It has arrived!]
Dancing with Myself is a mix with lots of covers, some French, British, Irish, American, and Brazilian pop, a little R&B, some indie folk, a touch of electronica, and a smattering of bossa nova. Here is the tracklist; below are the notes. It's got a relatively upbeat sound. About as upbeat as I get, I think.
Anyone with copyright for these songs who wishes for your content to be removed, I will gladly do so immediately if you request that I do so.
Dancing with Myself -- Playlist
1. Jenny Owen Youngs -- Hot in Herre
2. Tricky -- The Lovecats
3. Camille -- Au Port
4. Aimee Mann -- Save Me
5. Fionn Regan -- Put a Penny in the Slot
6. Nouvelle Vague -- Dancing with Myself
7. Camille -- Vous
8. Nouvelle Vague -- Blue Monday
9. Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot -- Bonnie and Clyde
10. The Indelicates -- A New Art for the People
11. Postal Service -- Such Great Heights
12. Macy Gray -- I Try
13. Lauren Hill -- To Zion
14. Johnny Cash -- Hurt
15. Nouvelle Vague -- Ever Fall in Love
16. Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Astrud Gilberto -- Corcovado
17. Johnny Cash -- One
18. The Decemberists -- We Both Go Down Together
19. Regina Spektor -- On the Radio
20. Elis Regina -- Bala Com Bala
21. MC Solaar -- Inch'Alla
22. Regina Spektor -- Apres Moi
23. Aimee Mann -- Ghost World
24. Beth Orton -- Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine
25. The Decemberists -- Apology Song
Dancing With Myself -- Notes
1. Is the joke ever going to get old, that of listening to an attractive young woman reapportion an incredibly sexist song? Somehow I doubt it. I love Alanis Morissette's version of My Humps, and I can't get enough of Jenny Owen Youngs singing this one. She has an uncanny ability to deliver ridiculously silly with unfailing deadpan. I discovered her in concert opening for Vienna Teng. Luckily, it was the "late" show at the Ark, so I also got to hear her pottymouth, so hilarious paired with her sweet young exterior. What a find!
2. Tricky is just so bloody sexy, no matter what he does. This song is especially fun given its remarkable departure from the cure's original version. [purchase mp3]
3. Camille is COOL. She's an award-winning French pop singer with an experimental je ne sais quoi in her remarkable vocals sort of reminiscent of Bjork, along with play with hambone reminiscent of Bobby Mcferrin. As one reviewer calls Camille Dalmais' work, it's "hypnotic, exotic and distinct". She started her solo career after breaking away from Nouvelle Vague, also on this mix. [More critical discussion on her album as a whole.] [purchase Le Fil]
4. As far as I'm concerned, Aimee Mann's songs are evergreen pop classics. She says about the song: "I like to think of it as the song that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins and his cartoon monkey love song." She sings: "You look like a perfect fit for a girl in need of a tourniquet." Great lyrics, nice vocals, catchy songs, and often touching on a kind of human vulnerability that makes them seem pleasantly organic. [purchase Magnolia soundtrack]
5. Oh, Fionn Regan. Somebody on Audiography got me started with him, and I can't tell you how much I adore this song. It takes you so many directions you're not expecting with its playful, clever, yet soulful lyrics, and his voice is SO CUTE. The bare-bones acoustic sound, the conversational tone peppered with literary references, and the fantastical narrative arc of his story, to me, give the overall effect like you're hearing a song from that quiet, black-clad skinny kid you never thought to talk to in high school, with all his unspoken inner thoughts. (Only, in this case, he has a Dubliner accent.) This reviewer likens him to Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. His album The End of History was one of the 12 shortlisted in the UK for the 2007 Mercury Prize. [video]
6. "Nouvelle Vague" is French for "new wave," and the band's schtick is to take old classics of that genre, without listening to them, and remake them with a whispery, light sound drawing on bossa nova (which, by the way, is Portuguese for "new wave"). The effect is smart and sexy; at times, hilarious, and often dance-worthy. I dance in my kitchen to this song, adding another layer to some existential irony bank.
7. I was making this mix for some friends who had requested some Nouvelle Vague, and I really liked how the jauntiness of the previous tune shifted into this other song by Camille, with its continuing underlying tone (in one sense, the "thread" referenced in the album title) and its minimal, elemental quality: nothing but vocals with that single tone.
8. Though Camille isn't included in this iteration of the band as she was on the previous album by Nouvelle Vague, there's still a kinship you sense between her sound and the smooth, sultry vocals of Melanie Pain here.
9. Somebody posted this fabulous song of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot during the duets week on Audiography, and its sound won me over. The production delights me with the "wohoo-oo" periodically in the background, the combination of this pair's vocal qualities, and the whole French fascination with American bad-guys . . . [buy]
10. And speaking of bad guys. Well, this song speaks for itself. It shocks you completely with its nastiness, its . . . well, indelicacy. It's catchy if you're not listening to the lyrics. And if you do, you're open-mouthed. Where do you go from a beginning like "But for the come in your hair, the cocaine on your teeth, you'd be just like the girls that I kissed on the heath"?? "A New Art for the People" could be an anthem for those living the rock & roll lifestyle. And it's delightfully, self-referentially, about just that. Hooray for The Indelicates. [preorder their new album]
11. Veronica Mars (RIP) had this song on its soundtrack; I'd heard it before that, but that was when it grabbed my attention again. There's a way it seems to contrast the world of the objective and mechanical with the world of the subjective and organic -- both in its sound, with the highly digitized sounding electronic accompaniment and the vocals floating over it, and in its lyrics, with their attention to the human body and the intimacy of a relationship that others can't necessarily relate to at a distance. The video for the song reinforces this feeling. The Postal Service reminds me a bit of the wonderful magnetic fields in its sound, but it isn't as cheeky and ironic, at least in this song. [buy CDs & gear]
12. Macy Gray always catches my heart in my throat with the soulful, rich, growly sound of her voice, and who can't relate to the kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't feeling she describes in "I Try"? (It's one I especially empathize with at the moment.) Since this got lots of radio play, you probably know it, but I think it can't be appreciated enough. [buy]
13. I was just talking a couple of weeks ago with my friends (for whom I made the mix) about the wonder of pregnancy and childbirth, so I couldn't resist including Lauren Hill's stunningly beautiful song about her son, "To Zion." The friend who introduced me to the song years ago told me it made her cry, and it does me, too. It all comes back around, too, because that same friend is just about to give birth to a daughter, in the next couple of weeks. I like the way Macy Gray segues into Lauryn Hill, too, not only because they have some stylistic continuity, but especially because Hill's intense, joyful confidence and wisdom in "To Zion" gives a kind of nice resolution to the angst underlying Gray's "I Try"[buy The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]
14. Johnny Cash (happy belated birthday, Johnny!) brings us to a different kind of resolution, though, and his cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" has a way of crawling up inside me, giving me goosebumps all over. If you're not familiar with this version of the song, you should definitely see the video, with flashbacks of Johnny Cash's complex life and associations with his many diverse experiences. Having seen Walk the Line gives me even a deeper appreciation of this song, somehow. [buy The Man Comes Around]
15. If we're meditating on love, though, we can't get too dark. With their cover of Buzzcocks' "Ever Fall in Love," Nouvelle Vague remains thematically (and even lyrically) in a similar place as Reznor's song brings us, but their sound takes us back to the lighter side of things somehow anyway, in spite of it all. [enjoy the classic version]
16. And then we take a step back into Heaven with this classic bossa nova recording from Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Astrud Gilberto. "Corcovado" is one of my favorite songs of all time, and one that I was working on performing when I was practicing jazz and bossa nova standards with a guitarist friend of mine in Budapest before I came back to grad school. Is there a Sunday that is really complete without bossa nova? I believe it seriously lowers your blood pressure, with rhythms and gentle sounds that soothe no matter what kind of stress you're under. How can you not be happier when it's in your life? [buy Getz/Gilberto]
17. Ephemerality is a part of life (and love), too. Johnny Cash reminds us here with his lovely acoustic cover of U2's "One". This song in its original and this version is another favorite of mine, with its complex and multi-layered meanings. Is it about Germany? Is it about lovers? Is it about friends? Family? Are we ever to know for sure? The gravelly and slightly shaky sound of Johnny Cash's late-career voice gives yet another layer of meanings to this beautiful song. [buy Solitary Man]
18. Is the narrator of The Decemberists' "We Both Go Down Together" a madman and a rapist? Or just your average upper-class Victorian in a passionate romance with a working-class girl? Does either of these scenarios make this any less of a compelling love song, in its own completely bizarre way? The band's magical gift of fantasy and storytelling comes through with particular grace in this dramatic song, about unity in destruction. [Picaresque]
19. When you see the ever quirky and creative Regina Spektor standing in classroom in front of a public elementary school music class, directing little Black children holding rhythm sticks and then musical instruments, it's odd and a little unnerving, but also playful and somehow a little reassuring. She has a tidy little pop narrative that explains everything about life and love, and it isn't all easy, but it makes it all make sense anyway in "On the Radio." [Begin to Hope]
20. If you don't know the late Elis Regina, one of the superstars of MPB (popular Brazilian music), you should watch this wonderful video of her singing Jobim's song The Waters of March. Her popularity was incredible, and the news reporting of her death and the crowds her casket drew is reminiscent of what I've heard about Cuba after salsa legend Celia Cruz died. "Bala Com Bala" is positively effervescent.
21. Now, a trip into the "solaar system." Claude M'Barali, "born in Dakar on March 5th 1969," was raised in France from infancy by parents of Tchad origin. "'MC Solaar' is adapted from his old graffiti tags SOAR and SOLAAR which he used to spray on the walls of his local housing estate." (source.) For those of you who are American and aren't familiar with "housing estate," think "housing project." These suburban areas of Paris, where North African immigrant families (as well as second and third generation French of North African origin) are most densely concentrated, are some of the same areas where popular discontent over racial & socioeconomic issues has helped fuel riots in recent years in France. The discography of this talented French-African rap artist illustrates how incredibly prolific he is. His sound is very cool, with unusual, Arabic-sounding sampling, French-language singing and rapping, and a unique feel you should enjoy even if you can't understand the lyrics [video there too!] "Inch'Allah" is a phrase that gets transliterated differently in different countries, but that means, roughly, "If God wills it."
22. Oh, Regina Spektor, with her smart references (here, to Louis XV, and Boris Pasternak) . "Apres Moi" is suggestive to me of the wrongheadedness of isolationism, and the house of cards it really represents.
23. Aimee Mann's smart song "Ghost World", inspired by Daniel Clowes' fabulous graphic novel by the same name, paints a vivid portrait of the unique angst and uncertainty of high school adolescents, but in the process also sheds light on something more universal about ambition, desire, and human limitations, I think: "So I'm bailing this town, or tearing it down, or probably more like, hanging around." [review of Bachelor No 2. Buy Bachelor No. 2]
24. Beth Orton is a British vocalist who is so unassuming, with a breathy and slightly tentative way of singing that I find infinitely charming. I saw her in concert at the Austin City Limits music festival several years ago, and was struck by how shy she seemed; you would have thought she was a no-name performer. Some of her music falls squarely into electronica, some of her work incorporates those sounds but draws also on other genres such as folk and jazz, like her artful album Central Reservation. More recent work is more stripped down. This live performance of "Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine" is purely acoustic, foregrounding her subtle and sensitive vocals in this wistful song. [Pass in Time]
25. Sometimes I think The Decemberists just sit around and make up challenges for themselves, or perhaps take them from quirky fans, a la Strongbad, like "Oh, oh, I bet you can't write a good song about an ankle!" or, "Oh, there's no way you could make a plausible song about a stolen bicycle that likens it to a beloved
Annotated version of Letters from Home to come. [EDIT: It has arrived!]
Monday, February 25, 2008
That other playlist, the unofficial "breakup mix"
Lailah reminded me that I forgot to post the mix we can, for short-hand purposes, call the "break-up mix". I didn't make it with that in mind, but I made it while I was feeling, and being, mopey and reclusive, and the more I listened to it while I was mopey and reclusive the more I realized that it was all about loss, alienation, people disappointing you in deep and existential ways, and seeking reserves of inner strength on solitary journeys. Huh.
Well, here's the list. As I mentioned to Liles, my external hard drive AND my laptop are acting up, and I can't access my music for the time being, sadly. So you'll have to wait for the tracks themselves until I sort out my computer woes, if you're interested in them.
I'll say some more about the artists when I can actually provide, but one thing I have to mention now is that tracks 2 and 5 are from an album of Kurt Weill songs sung by various artists that Dani turned me onto. Yeah. (Those of you who heard my mix I made in my cottage in Austin several years ago may see no small irony in its title, "September Songs.")
(new extended version added above to replace this old post!)
Happy Monday to y'all.
Well, here's the list. As I mentioned to Liles, my external hard drive AND my laptop are acting up, and I can't access my music for the time being, sadly. So you'll have to wait for the tracks themselves until I sort out my computer woes, if you're interested in them.
I'll say some more about the artists when I can actually provide, but one thing I have to mention now is that tracks 2 and 5 are from an album of Kurt Weill songs sung by various artists that Dani turned me onto. Yeah. (Those of you who heard my mix I made in my cottage in Austin several years ago may see no small irony in its title, "September Songs.")
(new extended version added above to replace this old post!)
Happy Monday to y'all.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Dancing with Myself
So, my dear friends, I have a new mix I've just finished for some friends, called Dancing with Myself, with a few requests, lots of unexpected, silly, and creative covers, some French pop and bossa nova. Maybe it's not totally perfect and seamless in its transitions, but I'm calling it done and I'm ready to burn it for them. And just for fun, I'll share it with you too. [EDIT: Having added lots of details, I'm sending you to the annotated version of the playlist!]
It's got a much more upbeat tone than the breakup mix I just made for myself when I was moping around the cottage a week or so ago. I'll share that one too, shortly.
It was a fun and productive weekend, with lots of socializing as well as plenty of quiet time at the cottage. Friday was a quiet day of work on my FLAS (Foreign language and Area Studies) application to the Center for Russian and East European Studies and a brief meeting with a professor -- since our 101 lecture was canceled due to the heavy snowfall. I went to Kelly's going away party, since she's taking off to the field tomorrow.
I had had a super long day on Wednesday that started without power and ended with a class presentation I'd stayed up most of the night to finish preparing for. So Thursday, when I realized I was going to be outrageously late to Arc if I went, I stayed home and paid all my bills from my newly arrived paycheck, and worked on personal business and schoolwork until evening, when I went into Ann Arbor and went to watch the season premiere of "Lost" with Anneeth and her roommates. Anneeth and I went together to Hilary's going away party, since she's leaving the program. I spent the night with a friend in A2 because I was there late drinking, and was also expecting the storm.
After Kelly's shindig on Friday evening, which was an early get-together at Leopold Brother's, I came back home and collapsed into bed at 10 pm. When I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday, though, I realized I just wasn't going to fall back asleep, so I got out of bed and got moving. I cleaned out my inbox (it had gotten back up into the 600 email range from being empty a week or so ago) and sent out a whole bunch of emails I had been neglecting. I cleaned my kitchen thoroughly, vacuumed all but my bedroom, and did laundry, even the shower curtain and hand washables and things I usually skip. I organized my whole life and schedule, made new lists for myself, and sorted out files that had been neglected for close to a year. I took a little nap, then started my reading for Kriszti's class. Then I took off for more partying. I went to Alice's place, where we drank her fabulous pomegranate martinis and ate her homemade biscotti, a crowd of us went off to Vinology, and then I meandered over to Anneeth's party with Erika. I made it back to the cottage finally at 3 am.
So I slept until 2:30 this afternoon. Today's been a slow, quiet day at home, with some more emailing, a little reading, and a big grocery shop at COSTCO and Busch's. I came home and made several liters of beautiful, rich stock, roasted a pound of asparagus, baked banana bread, and prepared a modified sort of tabbouli salad with tiny grape tomatoes, Italian parsley, red onion, feta cheese, a mix of whole wheat couscous and brown rice, lemon juice, and lots of salt, pepper, and olive oil. I'm getting creative and experimental to see how well I can eat on a tiny food budget. It's a good thing I really love brown rice with a little butter and soy sauce, because I think I'll be eating a fair amount of that. Today I added a Japanese topping that includes toasted sesame seeds, seaweed, and a few other ingredients. Mmmm. It inspired me then to make a simple soup of carrots, onion, garlic, broccoli, and red bean miso paste. Mmmm, again.
Well, it's going to be another busy week. I need to make some calls & emails to Budapest tomorrow and write and submit my application for summer departmental funding for pre-dissertation fieldwork in Hungary in July and August. I'm dreading writing out a budget more than anything else. And I have to plan for teaching on Tuesday and write a quiz for the students, and hold office hours. And John Creswell, Mr. Mixed Methods, is coming to give a methods workshop tomorrow, so I'll spend most of my day at Rackham doing that. Tom and I are collecting questions from the GSIs and making the Anthropology 101 exam this week. And I got a message from the head of my program asking if I'd present my work at a brown bag in Social Work on the 15th, so I need to start thinking about what aspect of my research I'm going to talk about, and get a presentation together. Never a dull moment, clearly.
It's got a much more upbeat tone than the breakup mix I just made for myself when I was moping around the cottage a week or so ago. I'll share that one too, shortly.
It was a fun and productive weekend, with lots of socializing as well as plenty of quiet time at the cottage. Friday was a quiet day of work on my FLAS (Foreign language and Area Studies) application to the Center for Russian and East European Studies and a brief meeting with a professor -- since our 101 lecture was canceled due to the heavy snowfall. I went to Kelly's going away party, since she's taking off to the field tomorrow.
I had had a super long day on Wednesday that started without power and ended with a class presentation I'd stayed up most of the night to finish preparing for. So Thursday, when I realized I was going to be outrageously late to Arc if I went, I stayed home and paid all my bills from my newly arrived paycheck, and worked on personal business and schoolwork until evening, when I went into Ann Arbor and went to watch the season premiere of "Lost" with Anneeth and her roommates. Anneeth and I went together to Hilary's going away party, since she's leaving the program. I spent the night with a friend in A2 because I was there late drinking, and was also expecting the storm.
After Kelly's shindig on Friday evening, which was an early get-together at Leopold Brother's, I came back home and collapsed into bed at 10 pm. When I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday, though, I realized I just wasn't going to fall back asleep, so I got out of bed and got moving. I cleaned out my inbox (it had gotten back up into the 600 email range from being empty a week or so ago) and sent out a whole bunch of emails I had been neglecting. I cleaned my kitchen thoroughly, vacuumed all but my bedroom, and did laundry, even the shower curtain and hand washables and things I usually skip. I organized my whole life and schedule, made new lists for myself, and sorted out files that had been neglected for close to a year. I took a little nap, then started my reading for Kriszti's class. Then I took off for more partying. I went to Alice's place, where we drank her fabulous pomegranate martinis and ate her homemade biscotti, a crowd of us went off to Vinology, and then I meandered over to Anneeth's party with Erika. I made it back to the cottage finally at 3 am.
So I slept until 2:30 this afternoon. Today's been a slow, quiet day at home, with some more emailing, a little reading, and a big grocery shop at COSTCO and Busch's. I came home and made several liters of beautiful, rich stock, roasted a pound of asparagus, baked banana bread, and prepared a modified sort of tabbouli salad with tiny grape tomatoes, Italian parsley, red onion, feta cheese, a mix of whole wheat couscous and brown rice, lemon juice, and lots of salt, pepper, and olive oil. I'm getting creative and experimental to see how well I can eat on a tiny food budget. It's a good thing I really love brown rice with a little butter and soy sauce, because I think I'll be eating a fair amount of that. Today I added a Japanese topping that includes toasted sesame seeds, seaweed, and a few other ingredients. Mmmm. It inspired me then to make a simple soup of carrots, onion, garlic, broccoli, and red bean miso paste. Mmmm, again.
Well, it's going to be another busy week. I need to make some calls & emails to Budapest tomorrow and write and submit my application for summer departmental funding for pre-dissertation fieldwork in Hungary in July and August. I'm dreading writing out a budget more than anything else. And I have to plan for teaching on Tuesday and write a quiz for the students, and hold office hours. And John Creswell, Mr. Mixed Methods, is coming to give a methods workshop tomorrow, so I'll spend most of my day at Rackham doing that. Tom and I are collecting questions from the GSIs and making the Anthropology 101 exam this week. And I got a message from the head of my program asking if I'd present my work at a brown bag in Social Work on the 15th, so I need to start thinking about what aspect of my research I'm going to talk about, and get a presentation together. Never a dull moment, clearly.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Chocolate Cake Doppelgängerin
I am making yogurt, seven-grain bread, and broccoli mushroom quiche, while trying to think of what else besides Fionn Regan, Jenny Owen Youngs, Tricky, and Nouvelle Vague to put on a mix for Katie and John.
It's been quite a lovely weekend, with Friday night dinner with Zac, Alice, and Victoria in Zac's new abode, a cabin in the arboretum, a drink at Bab's with Ms. Isolt, leisurely Saturday brunch at Angelo's with Jeremy and Erika, a visit to K & J's place and an excursion with them to the Detroit Auto Show, perfectly sumptuous mole enchiladas (like I hadn't had since Austin!) at El Barzon restaurant (with an ecstatic private celebration happening next door), then a drink at Baile Corcaigh (I think that was the one, right K&J?). They gave me the most incredibly perfect Irish coffee I've ever had, with thick, sweet Irish cream on top. Gorgeous.
I got back home to the cottage after all the fun and collapsed for a good twelve hours of sleep! Today I've been totally useless, playing around on the internet and considering reading for my course on Material Culture and the Built Environment, and for 101 this week, but not. I finally went grocery shopping at about 9:30, and that was the first I got out of the house at all.
There was something that happened on Saturday night that was so quintessentially of-my-life in that serendipitous way I can never quite fathom, but that always peeks out its head when I'm least expecting it. John asked me just as I was leaving Detroit, "Are you going to blog about that, or are we?" I said that I would. But I don't know that there is a way to capture it that really does it justice. Well, I will try. And John and Katie, you can do too, if you like. ;)
We were just arriving at the pub, settling our coats on the bench as we sat down at our small round tables nestled among the dark wood paneling and stained glass. And a man strode right toward me, saying: "Are you the chocolate cake girl?" I said, "No." He said, "Oh, my goodness, you have a double." And I said, "Can I be the chocolate cake girl?" He told me yes. Katie, John, and I sat, and after a minute or two of giggling about the oddness of this puzzling encounter, we had a lovely, intimate, far-reaching conversation with discussions and stories about life and relationships, work and Middlesex, friends and who knows what-all. We'd completely forgotten about the Chocolate Cake Fellow.
But then, just after we'd paid our bill and zipped and buttoned up our coats and jackets and were about to walk out the door, he came back, walking right toward us with a thick slice of luscious, rich chocolate cake on a plate with three forks. He said, "Wait! Don't you want your chocolate cake??" And we laughed with surprise, and still a good degree of puzzlement, and he said, "Let me wrap it up for you." I thanked him profusely, he disappeared and reappeared a moment later with the cake neatly hidden away in a to-go box, and I introduced myself, and he told me his name was Jeff. We left with the cake, never quite knowing what it was that I'd done to deserve the cake.
This morning, I had chocolate cake for breakfast with my coffee. It is so rich, I hardly made a tiny dent in it.
It's been quite a lovely weekend, with Friday night dinner with Zac, Alice, and Victoria in Zac's new abode, a cabin in the arboretum, a drink at Bab's with Ms. Isolt, leisurely Saturday brunch at Angelo's with Jeremy and Erika, a visit to K & J's place and an excursion with them to the Detroit Auto Show, perfectly sumptuous mole enchiladas (like I hadn't had since Austin!) at El Barzon restaurant (with an ecstatic private celebration happening next door), then a drink at Baile Corcaigh (I think that was the one, right K&J?). They gave me the most incredibly perfect Irish coffee I've ever had, with thick, sweet Irish cream on top. Gorgeous.
I got back home to the cottage after all the fun and collapsed for a good twelve hours of sleep! Today I've been totally useless, playing around on the internet and considering reading for my course on Material Culture and the Built Environment, and for 101 this week, but not. I finally went grocery shopping at about 9:30, and that was the first I got out of the house at all.
There was something that happened on Saturday night that was so quintessentially of-my-life in that serendipitous way I can never quite fathom, but that always peeks out its head when I'm least expecting it. John asked me just as I was leaving Detroit, "Are you going to blog about that, or are we?" I said that I would. But I don't know that there is a way to capture it that really does it justice. Well, I will try. And John and Katie, you can do too, if you like. ;)
We were just arriving at the pub, settling our coats on the bench as we sat down at our small round tables nestled among the dark wood paneling and stained glass. And a man strode right toward me, saying: "Are you the chocolate cake girl?" I said, "No." He said, "Oh, my goodness, you have a double." And I said, "Can I be the chocolate cake girl?" He told me yes. Katie, John, and I sat, and after a minute or two of giggling about the oddness of this puzzling encounter, we had a lovely, intimate, far-reaching conversation with discussions and stories about life and relationships, work and Middlesex, friends and who knows what-all. We'd completely forgotten about the Chocolate Cake Fellow.
But then, just after we'd paid our bill and zipped and buttoned up our coats and jackets and were about to walk out the door, he came back, walking right toward us with a thick slice of luscious, rich chocolate cake on a plate with three forks. He said, "Wait! Don't you want your chocolate cake??" And we laughed with surprise, and still a good degree of puzzlement, and he said, "Let me wrap it up for you." I thanked him profusely, he disappeared and reappeared a moment later with the cake neatly hidden away in a to-go box, and I introduced myself, and he told me his name was Jeff. We left with the cake, never quite knowing what it was that I'd done to deserve the cake.
This morning, I had chocolate cake for breakfast with my coffee. It is so rich, I hardly made a tiny dent in it.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Magnetic Fields -- Distorted
For those of you who love Magnetic Fields as much as I do (Oh, 69 Love Songs -- who can resist lyrics like "I can keep it up all night, I can keep it all day; let's pretend we're bunny rabbits, until we pass away")!? you can listen to their new album, Distorted, for a limited time streaming on their myspace page. And, other exciting news -- they'll be on tour soon. Perhaps worth a drive to Chicago. hmm.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Laura and I couldn't get enough of listening to Do Right Woman - Do Right Man in the car on the way back to Yosemite. So I've gone back to the great, thanks to an unexpected find in my mother's music collection -- The Very Best of Aretha Franklin - The '60s. In a selection that also includes several Kenny G CDs, loads of Christmas music by various unnamed artists, a good dose of Julio Iglesias, plenty of Faith Hill, and Dolly Parton, I'm always surprised to find something I really love to listen to. I probably sound like quite the music snob to some, but well, I just have different tastes than Mom.
But there are some generational crossovers, those greats we can all appreciate.
So, here's to Aretha, the Queen of Soul.
But there are some generational crossovers, those greats we can all appreciate.
So, here's to Aretha, the Queen of Soul.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Radio -- NPR, Radio C, and the whole world at your fingertips
I love radio.
When I was younger I never really understood the point. I was irritated by most radio announcers who seemed to have little to add to any conversation. And why just listen, when you can watch, I thought? TV seemed infinitely superior to radio, which seemed like its ugly cousin. And why would you want to listen to the music someone else had selected, anyway, when you could choose it yourself with tapes and records and then, wonder of wonders, CDs? (Yes, kiddies, I'm that old.)
Well, I've come around completely, and for many years now radio has been rather an obsession. I think I "discovered" (American) National Public Radio when I was on a road trip -- maybe when I was driving up to northern Minnesota with Mom and all we were able to find was the worst top-of-the-charts country, some evangelical Christian talk radio, and NPR news.
I became a real junkie around the time I started commuting by car between San Francisco and Emeryville to a job at Avalon Travel Publishing years ago. And I've never looked back. When I was in Hungary, and the streaming technologies were just getting going, and I had an incredibly crappy ISDN line for internet, I used to lie on the parquet floor underneath my desk where my laptop slowly and laboriously downloaded a program in fits and starts and I would tingle with emotion, a strange mix of homesickness and relief.
KQED was my most beloved station for a very long time, and even when I spent two years listening to KUT in Austin, I longed for its programming and schedule, which had come to feel natural as a heartbeat to me. When afternoon rolled around and I didn't hear All Things Considered, I felt irritated, slighted. Didn't they understand it was the time for that unique blend of quirky, funny, heartfelt, and off-the-beaten-track you find there?
Lately, though, I think I've been won over completely by Michigan radio, which has some wonderful programs I had never heard back in California. Through it I've discovered the joys of Lynne Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table, Dick Gordon's The Story, which often leaves me open-mouthed with wonder, and the ever-incisive Diane Rehm, who has an amazing knack for keeping her finger on the pulse of the American zeitgeist.
Since radio broadcasts have started becoming available over the web, it adds a whole new level of possibilities. Downloading podcasts for long drives, or walking commutes. . . it's a wonderful world. But I also really appreciate the streaming capabilities, particularly with non-US-based radio stations. One day, just for the hell of it, I decided it would be quite interesting to listen to a radio station in a place I know next to nothing about. So, I settled on Namibia. And then Besim, who was sitting on the couch wondering what was going on, directed us to Trinidad and Tobago. You can go most anywhere to listen to both majority and minority stations at RadioStationWorld. You might be surprised what you find.
One station you won't find there, though, as of yet, is one that is very near and dear to my heart for a variety of reasons, one I sometimes tune in to, thanks to streaming technology, and turn on at full blast on my favored PC in the doctoral lab when it's late at night and I'm there by myself trying to finish a paper. Rádió C, short for cigány, or the Hungarian word for "Gypsy," is a station that started several years ago in Budapest. It's been plagued with financial troubles, accusations of corruption, and loads of other troubles, but for now it's still in business. Sometimes I think I need to write at least a bit about it in my dissertation.
Why is it great to listen to? Well, think about Romani musical talent, for a moment, whether or not you buy into the "it's in the blood" ideology that even Roma themselves often promote. And then think, don't musicians always listen to the coolest music of all? Well, I sure think so. There's lots of Hungarian Romani music, for sure, but they also play unexpected jazz, plenty of pop from all over the world. You even hear Hindi filmi music sometimes. And sure, yes, they announce in Hungarian, and have some talk-radio shows. But most of the time it's music, and a mix you won't hear anywhere else. Check it out. (Just choose your preferred media player and format under the heading "Élő adás!")
They say about themselves: "Budapesten és környékén körülbelül 200,000 cigány ember él (ebből csak Budapesten több mint 100,000!). 2001. október 8-a óta létezik egy rádió, amely közvetlenül nekik szól, az ő nyelvükön, az ő problémáiknak hangot adva. Ez a Rádió ©."
"In Budapest and its environs, about 200,000 Gypsy people live (out of which, in just Budapest, there are more than 100,000). Since October 8, 2001, there has been a radio station that speaks directly to them, in their language, giving voice to their problems. That is Radio C." (translation by yours truly.)
If you find yourself wanting a Hungarian-English dictionary while looking at the site, I recommend the SZTAKI dictionary. However, given the intricacies of Hungarian grammar, with its prefixes and suffixes, and all, it probably won't get you very far. So, I'd encourage you instead to ask your favorite Hungarian-speaker to help you navigate, if you get as far as their website! :)
You may think that this is what those Romani musicians look like.
Well, maybe they do when they dress up in costumes to perform in a square for a Hungarian public. (I took this photo in Budapest at the Spring Festival in Erzsébet tér in 2003.)
But when they're just hanging out, playing music, they're more likely to look like this.
These are my friends Orhan (on accordion) and Dragan (on guitar), at the Amala School of Gypsy Language and Culture in Valjevo, Serbia, in August of 2003.
Orhan is (or was, back then) a director in a Romani theater in Skopje, Macedonia. (I've lost track of him and would love to know what happened to him if you know him!)
Dragan Ristić is the head of the band Kal, which he founded with his brother Dušan. It has an album out that has become immensely popular in Europe, according to my friend Sani Rifati, founder of Voice of Roma. Yup, and they've even made it onto Wikipedia. I should be up on these things, but I've been hiding out in my little world in Detroit & Ann Arbor. But lucky for us, Sani is helping to organize a tour for them in the United States in fall of 2008.
Okay, now, um, back to the task of grading undergraduate papers, which I'm doing a very good job of avoiding here, clearly.
When I was younger I never really understood the point. I was irritated by most radio announcers who seemed to have little to add to any conversation. And why just listen, when you can watch, I thought? TV seemed infinitely superior to radio, which seemed like its ugly cousin. And why would you want to listen to the music someone else had selected, anyway, when you could choose it yourself with tapes and records and then, wonder of wonders, CDs? (Yes, kiddies, I'm that old.)
Well, I've come around completely, and for many years now radio has been rather an obsession. I think I "discovered" (American) National Public Radio when I was on a road trip -- maybe when I was driving up to northern Minnesota with Mom and all we were able to find was the worst top-of-the-charts country, some evangelical Christian talk radio, and NPR news.
I became a real junkie around the time I started commuting by car between San Francisco and Emeryville to a job at Avalon Travel Publishing years ago. And I've never looked back. When I was in Hungary, and the streaming technologies were just getting going, and I had an incredibly crappy ISDN line for internet, I used to lie on the parquet floor underneath my desk where my laptop slowly and laboriously downloaded a program in fits and starts and I would tingle with emotion, a strange mix of homesickness and relief.
KQED was my most beloved station for a very long time, and even when I spent two years listening to KUT in Austin, I longed for its programming and schedule, which had come to feel natural as a heartbeat to me. When afternoon rolled around and I didn't hear All Things Considered, I felt irritated, slighted. Didn't they understand it was the time for that unique blend of quirky, funny, heartfelt, and off-the-beaten-track you find there?
Lately, though, I think I've been won over completely by Michigan radio, which has some wonderful programs I had never heard back in California. Through it I've discovered the joys of Lynne Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table, Dick Gordon's The Story, which often leaves me open-mouthed with wonder, and the ever-incisive Diane Rehm, who has an amazing knack for keeping her finger on the pulse of the American zeitgeist.
Since radio broadcasts have started becoming available over the web, it adds a whole new level of possibilities. Downloading podcasts for long drives, or walking commutes. . . it's a wonderful world. But I also really appreciate the streaming capabilities, particularly with non-US-based radio stations. One day, just for the hell of it, I decided it would be quite interesting to listen to a radio station in a place I know next to nothing about. So, I settled on Namibia. And then Besim, who was sitting on the couch wondering what was going on, directed us to Trinidad and Tobago. You can go most anywhere to listen to both majority and minority stations at RadioStationWorld. You might be surprised what you find.
One station you won't find there, though, as of yet, is one that is very near and dear to my heart for a variety of reasons, one I sometimes tune in to, thanks to streaming technology, and turn on at full blast on my favored PC in the doctoral lab when it's late at night and I'm there by myself trying to finish a paper. Rádió C, short for cigány, or the Hungarian word for "Gypsy," is a station that started several years ago in Budapest. It's been plagued with financial troubles, accusations of corruption, and loads of other troubles, but for now it's still in business. Sometimes I think I need to write at least a bit about it in my dissertation.
Why is it great to listen to? Well, think about Romani musical talent, for a moment, whether or not you buy into the "it's in the blood" ideology that even Roma themselves often promote. And then think, don't musicians always listen to the coolest music of all? Well, I sure think so. There's lots of Hungarian Romani music, for sure, but they also play unexpected jazz, plenty of pop from all over the world. You even hear Hindi filmi music sometimes. And sure, yes, they announce in Hungarian, and have some talk-radio shows. But most of the time it's music, and a mix you won't hear anywhere else. Check it out. (Just choose your preferred media player and format under the heading "Élő adás!")
They say about themselves: "Budapesten és környékén körülbelül 200,000 cigány ember él (ebből csak Budapesten több mint 100,000!). 2001. október 8-a óta létezik egy rádió, amely közvetlenül nekik szól, az ő nyelvükön, az ő problémáiknak hangot adva. Ez a Rádió ©."
"In Budapest and its environs, about 200,000 Gypsy people live (out of which, in just Budapest, there are more than 100,000). Since October 8, 2001, there has been a radio station that speaks directly to them, in their language, giving voice to their problems. That is Radio C." (translation by yours truly.)
If you find yourself wanting a Hungarian-English dictionary while looking at the site, I recommend the SZTAKI dictionary. However, given the intricacies of Hungarian grammar, with its prefixes and suffixes, and all, it probably won't get you very far. So, I'd encourage you instead to ask your favorite Hungarian-speaker to help you navigate, if you get as far as their website! :)
You may think that this is what those Romani musicians look like.
Well, maybe they do when they dress up in costumes to perform in a square for a Hungarian public. (I took this photo in Budapest at the Spring Festival in Erzsébet tér in 2003.)But when they're just hanging out, playing music, they're more likely to look like this.
These are my friends Orhan (on accordion) and Dragan (on guitar), at the Amala School of Gypsy Language and Culture in Valjevo, Serbia, in August of 2003.Orhan is (or was, back then) a director in a Romani theater in Skopje, Macedonia. (I've lost track of him and would love to know what happened to him if you know him!)
Dragan Ristić is the head of the band Kal, which he founded with his brother Dušan. It has an album out that has become immensely popular in Europe, according to my friend Sani Rifati, founder of Voice of Roma. Yup, and they've even made it onto Wikipedia. I should be up on these things, but I've been hiding out in my little world in Detroit & Ann Arbor. But lucky for us, Sani is helping to organize a tour for them in the United States in fall of 2008.
Okay, now, um, back to the task of grading undergraduate papers, which I'm doing a very good job of avoiding here, clearly.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Band - The Weight from The Last Waltz (1978)
This beautiful rendering of The Weight by the Band got my attention thanks to a friend thrice removed.
Boo hoo, I want to be sleeping, but my tummy is hurting. I forgot to take my medicine this morning so I didn't get it until evening and am wondering if that could be the culprit -- or if it's something I ate. Hopefully the bicarbonate of soda & ginger/chamomile/mint tea will kick in soon and allow me to return to bed.
I still owe you an email, dear Marcell . . .
Thursday, November 29, 2007
A half year of bad hair days
Bah. I miss my old haircut. And my life in Budapest. And my fabulous friends there.
Just blog-surfed my way to Ingrid Michaelson. Like the sound. I really do love most of the music on Grey's Anatomy, so that caught my attention, when I noticed that her songs been featured there. (It's hilarious, too, how many people seem to be devoted to documenting who's being played there It's proven handy to me, though, because it's ultimately what got me hooked on fabulous, fabulous Regina Spektor.) Ingrid Michaelson has a really freaky clown video though. Clown romance. Eep.
My head-fog is very slow in clearing the past couple days. My students yesterday raked me over the coals with questions about their papers, and I still felt rather bewildered at 3:00.
Interesting and appropriate, my tarot card of the day according to Facebook:
(The Fool desires to achieve great things in life, but does not always anticipate the hard work required. Full of curiosity and searching for answers, the Fool symbolizes a new beginning and endless optimism. He must be careful in the decisions he makes, as his lack of experience is often a hindrance. While others may avoid taking on insurmountable odds, The Fool will attempt to accomplish near impossible goals with almost reckless abandon.)
Just blog-surfed my way to Ingrid Michaelson. Like the sound. I really do love most of the music on Grey's Anatomy, so that caught my attention, when I noticed that her songs been featured there. (It's hilarious, too, how many people seem to be devoted to documenting who's being played there It's proven handy to me, though, because it's ultimately what got me hooked on fabulous, fabulous Regina Spektor.) Ingrid Michaelson has a really freaky clown video though. Clown romance. Eep.
My head-fog is very slow in clearing the past couple days. My students yesterday raked me over the coals with questions about their papers, and I still felt rather bewildered at 3:00.
Interesting and appropriate, my tarot card of the day according to Facebook:
(The Fool desires to achieve great things in life, but does not always anticipate the hard work required. Full of curiosity and searching for answers, the Fool symbolizes a new beginning and endless optimism. He must be careful in the decisions he makes, as his lack of experience is often a hindrance. While others may avoid taking on insurmountable odds, The Fool will attempt to accomplish near impossible goals with almost reckless abandon.)
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
European Integration and Franco-German R&B
Sometimes I just have to think that Europeans do it with more style. I can't say I love the R&B number that the French and German foreign ministers have just recorded on the theme of European integration, but the concept of working with artists and new media to demonstrate a sentiment is one that I can subscribe to, and there's a freshness and a candor about their message of inclusivity and the appreciation of cultural diversity in the new Europe that I can't imagine too many of our politicians generating.
As they explained on the PR Newswire, "Steinmeier and Kouchner brought two messages with them as they met and exchanged ideas with the young people in the studio in Berlin's diversNeukolln neighborhood. "We are not here to learn how to sing," Steinmeier said. "We want to show that we benefit from the abundance of cultures. Even with all the mistakes, the omissions in the process of integration, there are successful cooperations," Steinmeier said. The second message, he said, is that young artists tell their own people: Learn German, get training." There's something intriguing about the promotion of German language here too . . . and something telling in a French minister singing along to the German lyrics.
The song, by the way, was written by Muhabett, a German-Turkish musician, and a 17-year-old budding artist, Sefo. The style is apparently a newly emerging one called R'nBesk, which "combines American R&B, Turkish Arabesk and Pop with German lyrics" (PRNewswire).
And just for your enjoyment, here's a video of the ministers jamming with the musicians and a handful of other energetic youngsters. It's even better than the clip I heard on PRI's The World the other night on my car radio (pretty much locked in place on NPR).
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