playlist 1/13/09

One of the CD players was down and so was one of the computers so I should've pulled more vinyl. I was starting to wonder if people had stopped listening because my Internet listeners evaporated and I wondered if I had gone into overkill with the afrobeat kick I've been on. Anyways, I got two requests this morning so I didn't feel so bad.

And I forgot how much I like Portishead.

portishead - sour times / roads
ataxia - the sides
mark lanegan - out of nowhere
mission of burma - dirt (live)
the clash - police on my back
the funkees - akula
alice coltrane - blue nile
malatu astatqe - netsanet
jorge ben - ponta de lanca africano
nitty gritty - hog in a me minty
scotty - draw your breaks (harder they come soundtrack)
augustus pablo - lama lava
tuatara - dreamscape
southland singers - trouble all around
bill laswell - babylon site (request)
aricia mess - tentei
damien rice - 9 crimes (request)
the cure - pictures of you
twilight singers - last temptation / love
david usher - st. lawrence river

love is clockwork and cold steel, fingers too numb to feel...

Weekend in almost-hibernation. Finally met some of my neighbors. Thankful I didn't have to drive anywhere. Too nervous to drive with all the slush and ice. Massive block on the creative front is frustrating even though I did make some progress. Starting to figure out what you do as a bridesmaid when your sister is getting married. Drank a lot of tea, listened to music, chilled out.

I don't mind this whole winter thing as much as I thought I would.

almost unplugged

It's always interesting trying to explain how you're perfectly happy without Internet access or cable TV at your apartment.

To be honest, not having Internet bothered me at first, but now it feels liberating in a way. I'm in front of a computer all day so I have no desire to be near one when I'm home.

I come home and it makes me read, it makes me create, it makes me converse in a way that I hear someone's voice. It's a good thing.

Tycho Brahe was THE MAN

Crazy astronomers.

While a student, Tycho lost part of his nose in a duel with rapiers with Manderup Parsbjerg, a fellow Danish nobleman. This occurred in the Christmas season of 1566, after a fair amount of drinking, while Tycho, just turned 20 years old, was studying at the University of Rostock in Germany. Attending a dance at a professor's house, he quarreled with Parsbjerg. A subsequent duel (in the dark) resulted in Tycho losing the bridge of his nose. From this event Tycho became interested in medicine and alchemy.

For the rest of his life, he was said to have worn a realistic replacement made of silver and gold, using a paste to keep it attached. Some people, such as Fredric Ihren and Cecil Adams have suggested that the false nose also had copper.

Tycho was said to own one percent of the entire wealth of Denmark at one point in the 1580s and he often held large social gatherings in his castle. He kept a dwarf named Jepp (whom Tycho believed to be clairvoyant) as a court jester who sat under the table during dinner.

Pierre Gassendi wrote that Tycho also had a tame elk, and that his mentor the Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel (Hesse-Cassel) asked whether there was an animal faster than a deer. Tycho replied, writing that there was none, but he could send his tame elk. When Wilhelm replied he would accept one in exchange for a horse, Tycho replied with the sad news that the elk had just died on a visit to entertain a nobleman at Landskrona. Apparently during dinner the elk had drunk a lot of beer, fallen down the stairs, and died.

got a gut feeling...

I talked to my dad last night and evidently I've been getting all sorts of letters sent to my parents' address from lawyers who want to be my best friend and help me cash in and claim some kind of victimhood. I talked to my friend's lawyer yesterday and gave him the statement so that they could work on his claim, which is fine, because he's the one with the car that's smashed up, but then he starts feeling me out and smells a personal injury lawsuit waiting to happen. I was getting the bad vibes (I tend to trust these, they've almost never failed me) and he seemed shady as anything.

after talking to my dad and then my uncle who's in the insurance business, I'm not going to bother with the other. After a round of jury duty when I was 19, I don't have a lot of respect for ambulance chasers.

I just don't feel right about it even though technically there's nothing immoral or wrong about it either. I know that's what insurance companies are for, but I walked away from this accident with a stiff back I could have gotten after spending all day at Cedar Point and a black eye that is gone now. I'm not even emotionally traumatized. I'm more cautious on the road, sure, but I can drive I-90 without having a panic attack. I don't want to sue anyone or try to get something out of this because it's money I didn't earn and I feel that by doing so I would be perpetuating something that's gotten pretty messed up about my country.

playlist 1-6-09

erykah badu - penitentiary philosophy
gnarls barkley - who's gonna save my soul
d'angelo - spanish joint
celestine ukwu - okwukwe na nchekwube
kittu - baby let's dance together (bollywood)
soul coughing - super bon bon
morcheeba - on the rhodes again
the verve - rolling people
oumou sangare - djorolen
cat power - cross bones style
his name is alive - your cheating heart
alice russell - someday
dorothy ashby - games
malatu astake - asmarina
don isaac ezekiel combination - amalinja
amadou & mariam - c'est comme ca
joe strummer & the mescaleros - bummed out city
the clash - one more time
U2 - the fly
wanda sa - meditacao
randy watson experience - morning bell
folk implosion - no need to worry

I lost my playlist from last week but here's a smattering of what I played.

the roots w/ roy ayers - proceed
tribe called quest - we got the jazz
kid koala - third world lover
shiffai - never forget
roy hargrove w/ d'angelo - i'll stay
funkadelic - you and your folks, me and my folks
jurassic 5 - break
common - the light
tricky - joseph
femi kuti - beng beng beng
althea & donna - uptown top ranking
cafe tacuba - tengo todo
various 60's era African vinyl
his name is alive - this world is not my home
tanya donnelly - heart of gold (neil young cover)
REM - orange crush
king tubby - meets the rockers uptown

starting it off right...

New Year's Eve was not as epic as it probably was for some, as me and the roommate came home from work too tired to think about going out anywhere. So we had a couple people over, picked up some pomegranate 7-up because there was no more sparkling grape juice, and watched a Bollywood movie.

I had taken the previous day off to hang out with Ryan and one of his awesome friends so I was ready for a chill night.

Hung out on New Year's Day with the family and the future in-laws. My dad had Friday off so we went down to Hoopples to hear Glenn Schwartz play. I've always heard he was an amazing guitarist and the preaching isn't going to bother me as much as it would some, so we finally satisfied our curiosity.



When we got there, he'd just started, and was whispering hymns and old blues tunes into the microphone, crazy preaching about repentance, the blood of Jesus, and loose women and how we've polluted the earth with our cars, but as he got going, it was amazing to watch him shred away as he climbed up on his amp and dragged the strings of his guitar across the signs hanging from the wall. We watched his first set, but then he started ranting about women and Dad and I figured we'd quit while we were ahead. Still, I don't know how I went that long without seeing the guy play because it was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen.

Here's David Byrne's film of it last time he came through.

I still haven't processed that night completely, it reminded me of walking into a short story by Flannery O'Connor where everyone involved is messed up in one way or another but there's something kind of redemptive about the whole thing in spite of ourselves.

Friday, we went to Oberlin and found cool jewelry and hung out with my friend Naomi, and I got to see her baby girl for the first time. We came back and watched 'Black Orpheus' which was sad as anything especially knowing the original story.

But the ending is beautiful.



The highlight of the weekend though was the birthday party for the kids I hang out with on Saturdays. We had a New Year's/birthday party for them (if you don't know your birthday, you're given January 1 when you go through immigration).

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being over 200 people, between the volunteers and refugee families from two different churches on the west side, seemingly everyone in this city from that tiny country.

my first time enjoying skewers of goat meat fresh off the grill



The kids love it too:



We did games, and they made us all this food, and two pinatas got destroyed, but the best part was watching the kids get to sing.

Click on this one to watch

From

I'm still in awe. 2009 has started way more interestingly than I ever dreamed.