I have the most random of Hallowe’en plans, which is that I’m going to a party at the Australian embassy in Paris. Yep. That’s me; Ms. International. But it’s going to be hard to top the costumed performance of my sister last weekend. She lives in China, as some of you may know, and she has a bit of a ‘Mando-pop’ obsession. As do I, now that she’s been feeding me things to listen to. I love music that’s good no matter what the genre, and some Mando-pop certainly qualifies (Leehom anyone?)
Now I can highly recommend Sodagreen as a band, as silly as the name sounds, it’s some of the most innovative music I’ve heard in a while–combining pop music with classical themes, and I’m hooked. Yes, I’m hooked on Chinese pop music. Welcome to expat life. It’s a bit random and global. But you can see the whole lime green hair thing. So then we have my sister at the concert:
These images were taken from a Chinese chat website or similar, where apparently my sister had become famous for wandering around Shanghai as an Anglo wearing a lime green wig. She tells me the comments are on the order of, “I spotted her on the subway” and she also appeared on the jumbo-tron during the bid for an encore, so clearly she became a ‘15 minutes of fame’ local celebrity in Shanghai. The full concert story is archived on a blog from her friend here, along with this photo:
Now two things are true. I have never been as creative as my sis, and I absolutely adore that she was wandering around Shanghai in this wig. And using it as part of a greater plan to be the lead singer of Sodagreen for Halloween. Second thing, I still don’t have a costume for Hallowe’en and I need help, being not as creative as my sis I’m a bit baffled at the moment.
Oh and maybe a third thing, I can’t wait until spring break when I’m going to China to see my sister’s life in person! Planning must commence immediately…
I have lived in the UK for nearly three years. I spent a great deal of time this summer abroad. When I returned to the UK from five weeks in America, I was not prepared for the culture shock, and I did not enjoy my first week back–even after three years here, I was feeling “comfortable” in the US and “uncomfortable” in the UK. But one of my “facebook friends” asked about the things I enjoyed here in the UK, the things that I missed after being away. I may not have been prepared to answer that question at the time, but I feel as though I can now detail the things that I truly love about living in the UK. My hope is to detail these in a series of posts starting now.
Buskers. Musicians. Mostly professional musicians, probably. In Minneapolis, where I hang my heart, the local street musician scene normally amounted to a guy with a saxophone playing bad “smooth jazz” standards on the street. In the UK, at least in the places where I’ve been, the street musicians are amazing. Recording contracts even come out of UK busking. Recording contracts for opera singers. In my local neighborhood, I have seen groups of buskers doing 8-part harmony. With dance moves. And CDs for sale. I have seen people singing opera, celtic fiddling, playing guitar, I have been awoken on more than one occasion by an accordion playing outside my window. I have seen fully supported 6-piece rock bands (with generators and full electrics), and tribes of people dressed as indigenous Americans making music .
There’s a dark side of this of course, not all of the buskers are doing it for fun. There are a lot of homeless people in my neighborhood. There is a toothless guy with a guitar who sings the same two Oasis songs on perpetual repeat. There is the apparently homeless girl with a dog who plays a plastic flute and is really not making music at the level of most of the others. But fortunately in my neighborhood these are the exceptions and not the rules.
The best thing about the busking phenomenon is the element of surprise. I have been walking around town near Christmas-time and happened upon a full brass band playing standard carols. Lately I’ve been encountering an accordion player with a trumpeter playing Mexican-sounding mariachi band standards and it has made me smile. So my first “good thing about England” is the culture that allows for, and even encourages, massively talented people to play music on the sidewalks. I’m pretty sure the locals, unlike the Americans, would notice if Joshua Bell was playing on the street.
No, not Brighton Beach Memoirs, totally the wrong side of the world. I was in Brighton, UK this weekend for the Brighton Festival, which had one of my favorite modern artists, Anish Kapoor, as artistic director and featured one of my favorite jazz bands, The Dave Holland Quintet, headlining a fantastic concert. Brighton was almost too zoo-y for me to enjoy the festival, with a seemingly endless parade of girls in 4 inch skirts and 6 inch heels and their tattooed boy toys. But I managed to enjoy it just the same. Did all the things one does in a different British town, which is to eat at the same restaurants that are in your own neighborhood and shop in the same shops that are on your own high street. But oddly enough for England, the weather was uncharacteristically gorgeous and I ended up sunburnt from long walks on the beach esplanade. Not a bad bank holiday weekend, not bad at all.
I was at the gym tonight and I caught the tail end of the crazy video for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and was mesmerized… seriously, I totally blame Madonna for the ridiculous trend of women doing suggestive dances while wearing leotards in videos. And it’s really caught on over here, sigh. (Although Cheryl Cole’s bottom sets a new gold standard, ha ha ha.) After I got home I decided to find the video and watch the whole thing to see if I had gotten an odd impression by just seeing the end (where Beyonce and co. mime like they’re riding something and smacking their own bottoms) only to get the dreaded “We’re sorry, this video is not available in your country” message. I had forgotten about the war over music videos and youtube in the UK. Because, well, I spend so little of my free time watching pop videos online. But I was sure the music video was out there somewhere. Back to my search results, and four items down is the link to MTV and the video, which played just fine. So exactly how is the youtube ban helping? You can still see the video, just not on youtube. And the point of this is … ? In the end, although the song is catchy, I’m just not into the video, either in fashion or in dance. Or I’m just getting old and very uncool.
I watched the classic “South Pacific” last night and had one of those “ooh, US/UK different” moments when I realized that I’ve never heard anyone in the UK mention Japan in the context of World War II. And it’s not like the Brits are over WWII, it gets mentioned ALL THE TIME! If you ask an average American to quick say the first five things that come into their heads in the context of WWII, I would guess both “Pearl Harbor” and the Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombs would rank pretty high. Probably also Hitler and Anne Frank. My own grandfather served in the Pacific, as a Pharmacist’s Mate in the Navy. He got malaria and barely recovered in time for his wedding in late 1945. So the Pacific theatre was always an important part of my own WWII reading. (Amusingly enough, my sister and I found that our American History courses in school often started with the colonies in September, made it through the revolutionary war and then only made it just past the Civil war by June, at which point we’d break for the summer and start all over again the following year… if I was relying solely on my formal education I’d know lots about the American Revolution and nothing about WWII–thank goodness for books!) I’d love to know how much coverage the whole Japanese aspect of WWII gets in British schools, so if anyone can pipe up and fill me in, that would be most excellent. And in the meantime, although it’s not my favorite musical, the music in South Pacific is darned good. The plot doubly invokes my pet peeve about movies in which the characters supposedly fall in love while barely knowing each other (or in the case of Lt. Cable and Liat, not even being able to speak the same language) so it’s never going to become a true favorite of mine.
Earlier this week there was an article with ten key points on how to get served in a pub which seemed like making a complicated mountain over a mole-hill (although of course the academic study of British pub culture is part of the reason Kate Fox is famous…). I did chuckle over the whole paradox of Brits normally being queue-happy and how perfectly this contrasts, thus proving why being an expat is impossibly difficult in any country–the exceptions prove the rules. Regardless, if the pub is that busy, I’m probably at home, never having been one to like crowds and thus not a girl found in busy bars on weekend nights. I’ll also not get over the idea of buying a drink for the bartender instead of leaving a tip. But some of the new technology things sounded intriguing, space-age computerized pub technology to contrast the Victorian interiors?
Easter Parade from the brilliant 1948 Fred Astaire-Judy Garland movie of the same name:
I never, ever get tired of this movie, Holiday Inn or White Christmas not to mention a whole bunch of other oldies but goodies. These classic holiday musicals are timeless–if you haven’t seen this one, I highly recommend it!
Two small bits of admin, I’ve updated the Expat Blogs page but if you know of others I’ve missed (or if I’ve missed or mis-handled yours) please do leave a comment… especially for US/UK blogs out there. Also, a quick note on my twitter fiasco. I tried to join twitter a few months ago (time flies!) and ended up with the truncated name “notfromaroundhe” which I hated; last week I deleted the account and replaced it with “notfrmroundhere” which is slightly less worse. I then tried to install the twitterific app on my iPhone only to have my phone freeze and die due to some problem with the iPhone app store, which I think now was because my US credit card was frozen after I tried to use it to buy a plane ticket last week and had it declined. (Seriously, now my ever-reliable US card is not working? My luck with credit cards and banking is not so good…) So although I do intend to start tweeting, I’m still just trying to get it all organized. Talked to the credit people yesterday and now have to have another go with the app store. Ah, modern technology! So at the moment I’m mostly status-updating on facebook but eventually hope to obtain nirvana by getting that to read twitter too… it’s a technological challenge that I may or may not be up for!!!
One of the legacies of the one year I spent in Virginia before moving to the UK is a role as an enthusiastic supporter of a singer-songwriter named Danny Schmidt. The story of how this came to be is nothing short of bizarre: new in town, I was invited to go to the concert by my new boss along with his wife and some friends–those who know how the year unfurled will appreciate that this was the one and only time we ever interacted socially! The concert was Danny Schmidt at some tiny coffee house in the middle of nowhere, and I was absolutely mesmerized. Have a look and see if you agree:
I bought two CDs that night, and two more since, the latest one of which was just released, called “Instead the Forest Rose to Sing”–it’s available on iTunes and I cannot recommend it more highly.
Why am I writing this? No, I am not being paid by this guy to do publicity I always find it interesting when you discover some rather un-famous but extremely talented musician, it makes me want to just shout it from the rooftops. It’s not like I’m not a fan of big name artists–after all, that year in Virginia was also when I saw Vince Gill for the first time, and the Violent Femmes (who the Brits seem to have never heard of, I’ve discovered!). But the smaller ones somehow need the fanbase to be mobilized and organized… so Danny Schmidt is one of my Facebook Friends, I get the email lists, will try to check him out when he has concert dates in the UK, and I’d absolutely love it if even just one more person discovered this unique talent through my shameless but heart-felt promotion by blogging about him. Any time you go to a show and see several hours of just a guy with a guitar and you leave with that sense of wonder, it’s worth the price of the ticket and worth passing along to anyone who might be listening.
Today I did not want to get out of bed, and I was a very bad girl and did not go to the early sessions of the conference that brings me to Glasgow. My bad. I awoke in final form about noon (oops!) and read news on the internet for a while before heading over to the conference site to register and get details sorted out. I then saw a sign, pointing at the covered walkway in front of the conference center, that said “city center” so I decided to check it out. I knew I was close to the center of Glasgow but I had no idea where I was going, as I had quite unusually not had a chance to buy a guidebook for this foreign place. I went into town with a mission in mind, to buy a guidebook and figure out what I needed to see.
As I was walking down Sauchiehall Street, I saw the announcement for a concert, for the band Sugarland playing here in Glasgow tonight. This is where I stepped outside of my normal personality to be a bit adventurous. After all, Sugarland is one of my very favorite bands, especially since I got the country music bug living in Virginia, and when would I have the chance to see them again? So I went into the venue and asked about the concert, is it here? Are there tickets left? And I was stunned to find that there were indeed tickets and they were only £17.50. I handed over a twenty pound note and got my ticket. (NB the concert t-shirt I bought was £20 so this was an amazing bargain!) I asked the lovely cashier where the closest taxi stand was–I had walked there from my hotel but knew I would not want to walk back at night alone. The concert was set for doors opening at 7 pm, this was just before 5. I went a few blocks away and had a lovely dinner at an Indian restaurant I had spotted, then went back to stand in line for general admission at about a quarter to 7.
The venue was just a big room with a stage and a bar at the back, and the bar had American beer on tap (Miller!) so I grabbed one and went to stake out a place as close to the front as I could. It turns out that worked fairly well. The opening act was Holly Williams, a daughter of Hank Williams, Jr.
She was okay, but needs to learn a few more chords on either the piano or guitar. That’s not to say that I won’t buy her albums–the vocals were great but a bit on the simple side, and started to sound repetitive even in the short pre-game warmup. Then came the main event: Sugarland.
It was a high energy, fun and generally amazing show. I had befriended the people standing around me, clearly up near the very front (hooray general admission tickets!) and we had such fun taking photos. Thank goodness I was in tourist mode and had at least my minimalist camera with me! But oh, can I say, these two are sexy… he rocks the guitar and mandolin…
And she makes me wonder if my affection for “Kissing Jessica Stein” is outside hetero- boundaries…
All I kept thinking at the show was that “my sister would be so proud of me” for doing something so brave and unexpected as to take a spur of the moment chance to see such a concert. And I kept thinking in other moments that I can’t believe I’m seeing these two American country stars in the UK when I never managed to see them in the states even though I can sing along with every word, and “whoda thunk” I’d see country music in Glasgow, with no fair warning. It was an amazing concert, “Totally Brilliant” (that’s written with a Glaswegian accent).
I have been buried in editing a book (sorry, a technical work, nothing interesting about life as an American in England!) for the last few weeks. So it was very amusing to me to become aware of this: (warning, contains NSFW language)
So after editing more than 300 pages of technical text, not all of it written by native speakers of English, in answer to the question, “Who gives a f*** about an Oxford comma?” I say, well, I most certainly do!
Anyone who knows me will have seen my conversion from a normal human to a Mac Person a few years ago; it was when I was at MIT for a few weeks in 2005 with my Sony Vaio that I discovered exactly how bad my windows machine was doing in terms of combatting intrusion hacks. I bought a Mac laptop when the Vaio started having more premature electrical problems (that machine was adorable but a headache from start to finish–shortest time I’ve had a laptop in my life, although a bad Dell was a close second) and now I run a fully Mac life–computers sync’ed with iPods and the mysterious “cloud” — except the phone. I still have a Blackberry although I love my iPod touch. Regardless, I knew that when I started with the Mac stuff I was unusual, this was the age of the iPod and I got the new laptop as a convert long before I got an iPod. But now I’ve had four, two of which are in the rotation these days. I love having the option to get instant gratification by legally downloading a CD that sounds interesting. And I’m on my second laptop and contemplating a new machine in the office. But today was one of those days where even after years of Mac-ness, I was stunned into silence. My favorite new game: pick the song that matches your mood, and click the new iTunes “genius” playlist button. I could spend hours examining the reasons why the Genius picks songs–it’s not genre, clearly, as in any one genius playlist it’s pretty random. The same artist can show up with a song on several different and seemingy unrelated lists. It’s like hours of entertainment for the geek insomniac set (me). The strange thing is that somehow it works–the mood I’ve been going for has so far been captured every single time. I’m dumbfounded. I used to listen to the same song over and over when in a particular mood, and did not realize that I had several more where that came from! But now I must run, I’m desperate to see what Genius thinks of the Dresden Dolls…
I always find it interesting when you discover some rather un-famous but extremely talented musician, it makes me want to just shout it from the rooftops. It’s not like I’m not a fan of big name artists–after all, that year in Virginia was also when I saw Vince Gill for the first time, and the Violent Femmes (who the Brits seem to have never heard of, I’ve discovered!). But the smaller ones somehow need the fanbase to be mobilized and organized… so Danny Schmidt is one of my Facebook Friends, I get the email lists, will try to check him out when he has concert dates in the UK, and I’d absolutely love it if even just one more person discovered this unique talent through my shameless but heart-felt promotion by blogging about him. Any time you go to a show and see several hours of just a guy with a guitar and you leave with that sense of wonder, it’s worth the price of the ticket and worth passing along to anyone who might be listening. 
