Trend-setter Charles Osgood goes all futuristic on this century

It's funny that I heard it on CBS Sunday Morning, an admittedly semi-geriatric television program (if that's what they're still calling them these days), not just because of Charles Osgood's stately tweed and bow tie ensembles, or the last 5 minutes of wildlife footage that's shamelessly lampooned for the Daily Show's "Moment of Zen," but really, the sole fact that the show starts at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings means it surely goes unwatched by the late slumbering 18-25 age group I fall into.

Alas...

It's on this old people's human-interest news hour-and-a-half that I've heard the consistent (two weeks in a row, and counting) use of "twenty oh -" instead of the old "two thousand and -". Now, granted, I'm not watching much TV these days, so perhaps there are other influential newscasters with similar semantic tendencies, but I do have to say, it's a bold move. Predictive, I must assume, of how my generation's children's children's children will go about saying their year in the 22nd century. "Two thousand, one hundred and eight" is way more of a mouthful I can handle. So props, Sunday Morning, for being so forward thinking. Now that our senior citizens are saying it this way, maybe the trend will trickle down.

By the way, if you were wondering (as I was), the border collie Lucy Lou ("The Bitch You Can Count On") won the canine mayoral election in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky on Tuesday. Bill Geist ran the segment last Sunday. This week, he reported on the New York Citywide Bocce Competition.

High tech low tech art in parks.

New York's got great public art, in great parks that people actually like to spend time in.

Baltimore's got a couple parks that are getting safe enough to warrant some hang out time (our squirrels also wear baseball hats, apparently), and a few noteworthy murals and some crazy things outside MICA and around the Station North "Arts District" or whatever they call it.

Both have their alien spaceship-inspired eyesores (New York's happens to be leaving soon, but Baltimore's seems to be stuck here forEVER, to the point where complaining about it's getting old, so stop already, you're annoying me).

Madison Square Park in New York was once my favorite park in the city, and it may still be, if only for Danny Meyer's Shroom Burger and to-go glasses of wine, and the doggies. But back in 2007, I loved it for the best and most beautiful choice of public art I've ever seen, anywhere (right). It was called "Conjoined" by artist Roxy Paine, and it was haunting. I heard rumors they were going to make it a permanent fixture, but now the trees are somewhere in Texas.

The new thing in MadSqPk is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's "Pulse Park": 200 "theatrical spotlights" pointed at the center of the parks oval lawn, controlled entirely by the heart rates of passersby. You walk into this booth thing and put your hands on these sensors (a la the elliptical) and the lights go on and off, mimicking your own heartbeat.

Pretty cool idea in theory. Also awesome when seen from above (though this would be hard to orchestrate, I imagine). But checking it out in person, on the ground, was a little less than awesome. Right next Jemmy's Run, the beloved dog park, is the installation's trailer-park-worthy "generator" on wheels. At night, when "Pulse Park" is turned on, the generator shakes, and the noise that comes from it is just unseemly. RrrrrrRRrrrrRRRrrrr. It doesn't sound like heartbeats. It sounds like dirtbikes.


"Pulse Park" is offset, thankfully, and interestingly, by Tadashi Kawamata's "Tree Huts"--simple, noiseless tree houses erected in trees around the park at level too high to ever conceivably climb to--there are no ladders, which is probably a safe thing. They are the daytime attraction, and standing beneath them, I was overcome with a feeling of childhood longing to climb and play inside. But you can't! No ladders. It's incredibly frustrating--not in the teeth-clenching, ear-plugging kind of way that "Pulse Park" is frustrating--more in a way that reminds you what it felt like to be small, and intimidated by tall trees, when tree houses built with shoddy plywood were the most magical houses ever.

Yogis for Obama

In New York this weekend, visitng my family...

The yoga studio I frequent in the city is called Laughing Lotus, and I like it, because in a city full of McYogas, it's easy to feel lost in the shuffle. Laughing Lotus is small enough to feel like a community, without losing any sense of legitimacy. The walls are bright pink and orange, and they have tea and cookies as you leave. Classes--vinyasa style (which links breath to movement and is often very flowy, moving at a faster pace) are challenging, and incorporate a refreshing variety of the more spiritual aspects of the practice--mantras (chanting in Sanskrit), pranayama (breathing) and meditation. Parker Posey does yoga here too, but whatever, in New York we don't care about famous people.

Before the practice started, our instructor, Alison, told us how one of her favorite students called her the other evening, saying, "I'm sitting in a bar eating a hamburger and drinking a martini...am I still on the path?"

It was nice, she was like "Do you think you're still on the path? If you think you're on the path, then you're on the path, you know, you take it step by step and learn to let go of things in your life when you're ready to. I smoked for two years and, you know, it was fun, but eventually I was like 'Fun? Or killing myself slowly?' So I quit. You do what you can."

Also, I've noticed that they "Om" louder in New York than they do in Baltimore.

At the 12:00 pm class (yoga is the perfect pre-brunch activity...as Christopher Hitchens says, one of the best parts of working out is the way a cocktail tastes after you're finished) on Saturdays, all proceeds go to benefit a certain cause. Most often, these causes are charities, they pick a new one every month. This month all proceeds go to benefit Barack Obama's campaign.

!

It's quite controversial (I told some Baltimore yogini friends and they were shocked...oh you New Yorkers, you're so openly liberal). But Alison did well tying in the spiritual with the political.

In order to make a lasting CHANGE in your life, it's necessary to make space for the new by letting go of the old. Every four years it becomes necessary to throw out the old administration in order to make room for the new one--we can't have two presidents, now can we? We have no problem doing this--esPECially this year. Yet why do we, Alison asked, in our quest to make change, insist on holding on to elements of the past--relationships, habits, past experiences, burgers and martinis--we no longer need?

Laughing Lotus's website tells us more:

Yogis and Hindus alike invoke and honor the elephant headed Ganesha at the beginnings of rituals and other undertakings. As many of us here in the U.S. seek new beginnings through voting in the upcoming election, we too ask for Ganesha's blessings as October's Love Saves The Day benefits the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Senator Obama embodies many values that yogis too embrace: compassion, honesty, and economic and social justice. Like yogis, he too seeks moksha, or liberation, though of a different kind. As he has said: "Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction." Obama advocates a yogic equanimity that is responsive rather than reactionary, and a humane morality, one that is not lost even in the face of fears about global politics and material well-being.

Your Next Halloween Costume*

* Perhaps more suitably worn to your witty friend's politically themed house party, and not, say, bar hopping down in Fells.

On the Corner of Roland and 34th

Last week's sign:
DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU WERE BORN?
TRY BEING BORN AGAIN

iTunes "Genius": Genius?

Usually I ignore those auto-update-install-latest-version-of windows on my computer, but in the interest of CHANGE, I recently decided to embrace progression and outfit my little white laptop with all the shiniest new accouterments.

Everything changed!! Here's iTunes:

CDs as crazy boxes (iTunes calls this "Grid View") and all sorts of confusing sidebars. But arguably the most alarming new feature, and the one that's garnered most of my attention since, is what Apple likes to call "Genius". Modest, Steve.

You select a song and, genius that it is, it creates a playlist--just for you. Like a glorified Pandora, but one you can skip through and modify at will.

So what I've noticed, is Genius is pretty good with the easy ones: Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous" sets me up with a bunch of alt-folk-rock:"Scythian Empires" by Andrew Bird, Brandi Carlile's "Throw It All Away", and "Mr. Ambulance Driver" by the Flaming Lips--which was great, because that's an album I'll usually pass over. So yes, well done Genius.

But I believe this could be because I have much of this kind of music in my library.

And of course, my goal is to out-genius Genius.

Youssou N'Dour, anyone? I highlight "4-4-44" off his "Rokku Mi Rokka". And, well, touche, I guess. Genius says, "Here are all the songs I recongize in your library that are sung in a different language." The West African Duo Amadou & Miriam, N'Dour's "Egypt", some of Seu Jorge from the Life Aquatic soundtrack, and a few from Milton Nascimento.

I'm not super impressed. I mean...duh, Genius.

What will Genius do when I throw it one of my favorite songs of the past year: Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" off of Mark Ronson's "Version"? Fairly mainstream duo, fantastic song...and Gasp! I get a cautionary exclamation point:

"Genius is unavailable for the song 'Valerie'
Choosing Update Genius from the Store menu will update your Genius results. If, after updating, iTunes is still unable to identify this track, please choose another song or artist."

I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I think it wants me to buy something. No way, Genius. I'm disappointed in you.

Anyway, blog-followers, throw some super ridiculous Genius playlists at me.

The Blind Boys of Alabama with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

DC -- grandiose headquarters of our nation that it is -- often alienates me with its too-wide sidewalks and homogeneous, politically-themed, business-casual dinner crowd...

...But I think the Kennedy Center is one of the most beautiful venues in the world to enjoy live music.

And putting some down-home-and-dirty gospel dixieland jazz on that stage will drag me in from Baltimore on an over-priced Amtrak train just to see what happens.

Sunday, August 29th marked the DC leg of the "Down By The Riverside" tour, featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, from New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was a musical jaunt, to say the least. PHJB played the first set, then the Blind Boys, then a soul-lifting encore of, what else, "Down By the Riverside". The show started promptly at 7:00 pm, and was over by 9:30, as promised... another reason I appreciate the Kennedy Center--punctuality.

The Kennedy Center Playbill calls the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band music "timeless", but I disagree. I think it transports us back to a New Orleans that was still more synonymous with Mardi Gras than Katrina. The tapes to their most recent album were partially lost in the storm, moving the group to name it "The Hurricane Sessions".

Joe Lastie, Jr. on drums, reminded me of an octopus. Frank Demond on T-bone has played for 40 years with the PHJB (I liked his red socks). Big man Walter Payton, on bass, sat back all casual-like until he came up to the mic to sing a song about shimmying... and shimmy he did.
Clint Maedgen on alto sax had the most delicious voice of the lot--he sang like a sax. And Ben Jaffee, director, on the sousaphone, the son of the original owners of Preservation Hall (one of whom was the original tuba player), who won my "best hair" award of the evening -- a giant, bouncy, white man's afro. He also had the best bounce.

"How many of y'all been to Mardi Gras in N'Awlins?" trumpeter/vocalist Joe Braud asked before their final number. A bunch of people clapped and "Woo"'ed. "Well for those of you who haven't, I'm gonna take you there right now." And so proceeded an "As the Saints Go Marching In" parade around the concert hall. Yep, they got the mostly-geriatric and rhythm-impaired audience up and dancin'.

The Blind Boys (whose Baltimore connection I'm sure we're all familiar with) give me goosebumps. I became a fan after their joint album with Ben Harper, "There Will Be a Light," which remains one of my favorite albums, and features one of my favorite songs.

Once five and now only three, they've been together since 1939, when they met at the age of 10 in a school for the blind. On Sunday they came out in those fantastic red suits (suits you'd wear to gospel church on Sunday in the deep South), sunglasses on and smiling, hands on each others' shoulders, being led onstage by their bodyguard and sighted band members. "We wanna make a joyful noise tonight!" said group leader Jimmy Carter.

"Down in New Orleans" is their new album, and it features the boys of Preservation Hall, hence the decision to tour with them.

Their first number was "People Get Ready," which won them their first grammy. And, well, damn. Them blind boys can harmonize.

The two groups--gutteral gospel and toe-tapping dixieland jazz--came together through their enthusiasm to spread joy and get people out of their seats. "We can't build your house back," said Blind Boy Carter, owner of perhaps the most adorable raspy old-man chuckle in the world, to the N'Awlins Jazz Band, "We can't use a hammer and a nail, 'cause we the Blind Boys of Alabama... but we can give you hope."

Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Sad day, yesterday. It was raining buckets in Baltimore, too, which seemed especially appropriate.
Paul Newman was the first crush I had on an actor from the past.

(Actually, that's a lie.  He was the second.  Gene Kelly was the first, in this movie, which was my favorite from age 4 to 7, approximately).

I'd say, however, that Paul Newman was the first serious crush I had on an actor from the past, and it brought up all sorts of new ideas in my thirteen-year-old head about the randomness of when people are born, and into which generation (i.e., why was I not born Joanne Woodward?).

While he’s wonderful and charming in nearly all his movies, my favorites remain:

-       Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – (1969) if only for his priceless face in the weirdish photo montage scene where Robert Redford is dancing with Katherine Ross, and Newman is sitting at his table, alone.  You just want to hug him.

-       The Long, Hot Summer – (1958, based on the short story by William Faulkner) because it kills me, the sweaty romantic tension between Newman and Joanne Woodward, his widow.  They met on set, and were married for fifty years.  In our voyeuristic world of momentary celebrity marriages, they were a low profile couple of class.

My family saw him at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when Japan played South Korea in badminton.  Apparently, he was known to be quite a fan of the sport.  Badminton!  I mean, he would.

Someone told me he was actually extremely short—a fact I try to ignore, because in my mind he was larger than life.

Is it just me...

...or do they look ready to make out here? McCain looks a bit unsure, maybe, but Barack is really goin' for it.

Ghana Snippet!

So in July, I led a group of 40 high school students on a community service/cultural exchange trip to Accra, Ghana with AFS.  I stayed with a "host family" - Sammy, a banker in his 30's, also a soccer enthusiast, and a new fan of The Wire (proud to say I got him hooked).

The trip had too much in it to be able to describe in just one post, so I'll throw out some snippets from time to time.

Like this one:

July 5, 2008

In Ghana, 22% of all fatalities of children ages 1-5 are a result of Malaria.

Up at 5:45 this morning to get dressed for Sammy's 6:00 football training (read:  "soccer practice").  We met in a yard, a mixture of grass and dirt and rocks (not in any sort of definable way); it was very uneven, but the ground was soft, where it wasn't rocks.

I was the only white person, and the only girl.  I was also the only one wearing a baseball hat.  The rest were fit Ghanian men ranging in age, I'd say, from 13 to 45.

The majority of them didn't look at me twice--the ones who did asked their

 friends in Twi who I was, and then they'd turn to me and say "You are welcome," in English.  They say this not like we respond to "Thank you," but in the literal sense.  Anyway, I was able to keep up.

Sammy took us to town later, and I feel like I understand how the trotros work a little better.  Trotros are rickety old vans packed to the brim with passengers.  There are no schedules, no maps, no tickets, and they'll often blast either highlife or hiplife (I love hiplife), which both provide an up-tempo soundtrack for long, sweaty, dusty rides into town.

When going into the center of Accra, trotro "mates" lean out the bus and point forward repeatedly, yelling "Accrá Accrá Accrá Accrá"  the "a's" blending together into one long "aah" with "cra's" in the middle, so it's more like "Accrácrácrá...".  To get to the Circle junction, get on the trotro with the mate who leans out and yells, "Cé cé cé cé cé cé cé" sticking his hand out like a claw, and turning it back and forth, as if twisting a jar open really really fast.

Accra reminds me much of Brazil, with

out the drastic contrast of a visible upper class.  It makes the poverty seem more appropriate.  There are wealthy ones here, for sure, but they're not as many, and not as obnoxiously visible as they are in Salvador.

The market is every bit as frenetic and overwhelming as I thought it would be.  Today, I bought a towel for 6 Ghana Cedis (=$6, these days), seasons 1 and 2 of The Wire for Samuel (Baltimore in Africa, bootlegged all the way from China) for another 6 Ghana Cedis, 2 mangos, and like a million oranges for 2 more GCs.  I ate two oranges tonight.  Oranges are green here.  I told Sammy how funny I think this is.  He goes, "Why?  What color are yours?"  The mangos probably won't be ripe until Monday or so.

I saw the ocean this morning, and will see a prettier version of it tomorrow, when we go to the beach.

After getting off the trotro that took us back to Adenta, our neighborhood ("Adentádentádentádentá..."), walking back down the dirt road that already kind of feels like home, Sammy bought us both grilled ears of corn from a wrinkled woman sitting behind a simple barbecue.  We ate them (tough, and more like popcorn than our sweet, 4th of July cobs...very texturally satisfying to chew) and walked home, tired, through the piles of stones and dirt, until we hit our house, its branches of small magenta flowers hanging over the gate.

Goodnight, bullfrogs.

MARKET CRASH

(Not that one, relax.

I work at a restaurant, and as I led a couple to their table last night -- he balding, with round horn-rimmed glasses, she with a shapely head of red hair and a tiny waist -- she turns to him and says, in a thin, accented voice, "Zay keep zaying eet ees like ze sirtees.  Vat happened een ze sirtees?"  He pulls out her chair, and sighs, heavily.  "Well, in 1929...")

Down here in Baltimore, the dark buzz of Wall St. is about as present as an overheard dinner conversation.  You could listen if you moved your chair over just a smidge, but you'd rather stay at your table and talk about the topics at hand.

I mean, we're more interested in other markets.  Like the Waverly Farmer's Market.  I recently moved away from my Hopkins ChuckVillage haunt, but not too far to walk to our favorite Saturday morning local food fest.  And despite what economic naysayers may tote about Michael Pollan and Alice Waters trying to overturn the global economy, I walked out of there feeling like I'd scored quite the deal.  2 huge zucchinis for a DOLLAR, (see below, and use my hand as a reference.  Also, I have very long fingers, to give you some perspective)

 6 peaches for $4 (a tad steep, but peach season is nearly over, and come October I'll be wallowing in their absence), and a 1/4 lb of local sharp cheddar for $2.30, which I will give to my neighbor, Dave, as soon as I tire of picking at it.  This weekend, buying locally won.  And the woman who sold me my cheese was just so nice.... More to come later on the economics of farmers' markets...

... But for now, onto other markets that are void of economics entirely:  The Baltimore Free Store

held a free (!) market on Saturday from noon til 3 pm at the 2640 Space , which was where Dani held his solo show in June, and also the site of my first urban bike accident (a woman opened her car door on my leg as I rode past.  Left quite the nasty bruise).  Admittedly, my roommate's and my mouths were watering at the thought of free stuff!

I lasted like fifteen minutes.  Surplus supply + surplus demand + everything is free = give me my rusty candelabra and Duke University Reunions tote bag and get me out of here.

My roommate and I did make out with some lovely kitchen accouterments, however, including a balancing single wine bottle holder, retail value $22.  Na-hice.

So yes, all you economists, I see how markets can be stressful.