Festival of Nations

Today I visited the 2010 Festival of Nations over in St. Paul and had a nice crowded time. As always, there were hordes of people there, which gets on my nerves in trying to walk but also is nice in seeing such diversity.

Largely, the bazaar and cafe are where it's at. So of course, I spent a lot of time looking around at all the little buyables that are supposedly representative of their respective country (which, in many cases, aren't, but likewise in many are-- the Matryoshkas, for example). I ended up at the Tibet stand, where I bought a cute little knit hat (although summer is on its way) and a beaded bracelet. There I spoke to an older fellow from Tibet from whom I got the sense that he'd really like to go back but "(sigh)" he really cannot, "because China."  He was really a kind old man and pressed my hand warmly before I left, and I was happy to have spoken to an interesting person.

Speaking of interesting persons, I continued ambling along through the stands, and I spotted a blanketed instrument obviously of Indian origin.  I didn't know what it was, so I sort of stood and stared until the women took notice, then I asked them.  As it turns out, it's a veena, the ancient cousin of the sitar, and the national instrument of India.  They are 2000 years old and have a nice unique sound.  The woman who led the troupe of veena players and others was one Ms. Nirmala Rajasekar, who coincidentally was going to be playing that day a small set, so I went to watch her.  She was quite friendly, and really quite good, and reassured me that sitar "really isn't that complicated."  I'll take her word for it..

Anoushka Shankar at the Dakota.

Yesterday, the twentieth, my father and I went to the lovely Dakota Jazz Club to watch Ms. Anoushka Shankar play up her sitar, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.
Having been my first time visiting the Dakota, I didn't realize that I would be enjoying an entire dinner meal there and be waited upon all night. It was quite nice though, and the food was good.

Anyway, Anoushka and her fellow players came onstage and filled the place with wonderful music. They began with a traditional Indian style piece that was just lovely to the ears. Anoushka, sitting in center with a great stage prescence, led the songs, which varied from traditional ragas to psychedelic flamenco-esque pieces ("it's like flamenco--but not entirely") to interesting energized songs with her two percussionists going at it across the stage verbally. All the pieces were terribly impressive, what with so many plucked notes in rapid succession and much raking of the sympathetics alongside the tom dom tom of the tabla. She played a piece written by her father, as well (as she put it: "... I assume I don't have to tell you his name"). Later, she introduced her band-mates, and mentioned that she was actually playing a borrowed sitar, from a San Franciscan fellow named Kenji (who was standing up in the balcony above) because her own was damaged during transport. Oh dear. She wasn't very distraught, however, and seemed confident it was repairable. The last song they played before encore was a long jam of back-and-forth motifs wherein each player had his or her own solo bit. After leaving for a minute, they came back on to do the final song, which was a romantic Indian song that they "like to finish shows with." It was very pretty indeed, and left a good taste in my mouth. (Also the soup I had was delicious).
Here I am looking silly as usual with Anoushka's percussionists and flautist who I spotted on the sidewalk after the show. When I saw them walking out, I promptly succeeded in walking into a locked revolving door. Hopefully, they didn't notice.

Revival...

Now, I don't quite know just where I've been, but I plan now to revive my electronic rambling archive.
So what shall I say today? Well, there's so terribly much I don't exactly know with what to begin, or where. Perhaps I will just coo about the Sarangi.

I met it for the very first time some weeks ago. I had never seen anything like it. There's some zillion sympathetic strings, and it had quite the sound to it. And it is so slippery-slidey, the way you sidle up to those gut strings. So neat. More later, I will come back in time.

So Long, Decade One.

Wow !!

2000-2009

R.I.P. first decade of this century. You had a great run.

Monsieur Sitar

My newest buddy-thing. He's very complicated, but I love him.

Hopefully we will become good friends in due time...

Out on a Wintry Day

Rainy Evening on Hennepin Avenue, by Robert Koehler ca. 1902--hanging at M.I.A.

So, I did say in the Andrew Bird post that Saturday December the twelfth was filled with beautiful everything, and here I have those day time things. (I'm working backwards!)

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a wonderful place, and I've enjoyed going there a lot in the past few years. The resident-art is free to look at, and (save for a few over-zealous guards eyeing you down) an afternoon spent there is quiet and wondrous. I recommend it.

Anyway, currently, they have an exhibit of borrowed pieces of art from the Louvre. (!) My grandparents invited us to go look at it with them, and it is really nothing less than amazing. Although only the tiniest fraction of their art could be borrowed and brought across the sea, the ones that made the voyage are exceptional. There were archaic pieces, Da Vinci sketches preserved on their paper, and also there was The Astronomer. Present, in real life! Wow! This was a very special meeting for me! Do go, if you have the chance.

After we finished poring over the pieces in there, I spent hours more wandering about the rest of the museum (one could easily spend a week there and not get bored). The building itself is beautiful. The place is immaculate.
I looked out the multi-storey wall of windows, and saw a lovely panorama of a wintry Minnapolis. In the foreground were kids and their trails left by their sleds on the gentle hill with trees scattered, up to their ankles in white snow. The middle had some city streets and the various apartment blocks and the back held the classic line of sky-scrapers. It was a very pretty sight.Later, after having left the musee', we went back to the grandparents' place, where I left to take a walk. The weather was good; the air crisp but not harsh, no terrible wind, the sun casting light along the trees and the structures. It was beautiful. I stopped for a moment to take a fellow's photo with his bike on the greenway, then walked uptown. It wasn't terribly slushy yet, so I went on to cheapo records, where the warmth fogged up my spectacles. The sky began to dim, so I strode briskly back, reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography to keep me company. I was met back at the grandparents' with grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate, paired (oddly enough) with a can of tropical fruit bits. At any rate, I think my day epitomized the romantic and jazz aura of the town. And it proves that it actually can still exist and happen in that way. It's very lovely.

Ornithology and Stained Glass

It has almost been an entire week now that I get around to writing about this, but Gezelligheid is still stuck in my mind.

Saturday, December the twelfth was filled with most beautiful everythings; notably, Andrew Bird at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. It was his third night playing his Gezelligheid shows here at this immaculate church plopped down in Loring, and the weather was crisp and promising. Sitting beneath the doubled Victrola was one bevested sock monkey. Andrew came on stage looking dapper as usual, albeit with a little five-o'clock-shadow about his face and mussed hair, with a slight limp, which he acquired the first night after smashing his heel in (as he told us). This show was largely instrumental, comprised of most beautiful melodies that Mr. Bird has been working on. He played these long, epic pieces, with masterful use of loop to layer under the cry of his dear fiddle, and the result was truly chilling. With every factor playing in, I venture to say that this was the most aesthetically beautiful show I have ever watched. I was stricken, at the time, by the realization of all the beauty. I try to paint it.

Try to imagine:
The all-encompassing sound of the violin loop, echoing off the ancient walls of this cathedral, and the quiet of all the listeners. Behind Andrew's sweet head was a startling wall of illuminated stained-glass ikons, illustrating some epic tale of yore, while this young man and the violin produced such sweet sounds that would make even Cremona's original inventors of the instrument proud. His elongated shadow jumped and twisted over the left wall, making a dark silhouette of a man and a bow in some passionate work. Projected on the immense beige walls behind were vibrant colors of cyan, magenta, green and white. Stephen (?) emerging to accompany Andrew on clarinet, then saxophone for the next song. Andrew knelt down to play and attend to the loop button, and Stephen (?) shaking while playing his sax madly, with insane other-worldly effects bending the sounds. Andrew's flowery and colorful gestures with his hands as he spoke to silent us. The shaking of his head while he whistled and plucked at the catgut. His ever un-conventional strumming of those strings and striking them, bouncingly, with the hard side of the bow. Natural Disaster. Stephen (?) on his standing bass, pulling and pounding his thumbs to rhythm. "Minnapolis has been like a home to me." An old song, from the Bowl of Fire days... The Swimming Hour-- so beautiful. And another new one, and finish with Scythian Empires. We stood and clapped and clapped and clapped and he came back out, and played a little Bob Dylan, with Oh Sister. My, was it wonderful. Very special indeed.

'And Russia was a Candy - Store.'

Recently, I visited the Museum of Russian Art, a lovely church-turned museum in Minneapolis, to look at their Nesting-Doll Exhibit. Indeed those little lacquer dolls are interesting little things, and this exhibit (though not overwhelmingly big) was quite nice, ranging from tiny painted peasant women to world figures to even tinier painted aristocratic women. While there, I also saw some startlingly beautiful old-ish and new-ish portraits and landscapes by Russian artists, and on the middle and tallest level, respectively.

In loose relation, I want to also bring up another startling beauty I found in the the music of one Nesey Gallons. He popped up awhile ago now, over in Elephant Six-land, and I am really taken with his songs. He has out one LP officially--Eyes & Eyes & Eyes Ago (ignoring those home-released discs, although I hope to see them too, someday)-- and it is just wonderful. I recommend it to people. (Incidentally, I actually spotted Mr. Nesey at a show once, [he's cute, too] but I was too bashful to say anything.) Anyway, his circles are released by his record label called Hurrah for Karamazov ( Dostoyevsky is brilliant) and much of his work tangles back to Russian themes. You see, there IS a connection. At any rate, his music is just so chillingly nice, sung in a forlorn, soft-spoken wail, with his guitar and dear Julian's accompaniments of saw, chord organ, and countless things. All together, it makes a big stew of niceties to the ears. Indeed melancholy may seem the mood, but when I hear Nesey's music, I always feel happy and hopeful. He is sort of the new kid, but from what I have been fortunate enough to hear, he's as marvelous and seasoned as the rest of that wonderful old collective. That's quite a nice thing.

It was a Cliché.

Today I saw something delightful.

I was walking through the hallway, and I saw a poor girl misstep, and she slipped and fell on a banana peel!! The cliche banana-peel fall, and in all genuineness! It made me laugh and smile all day.

Fragments and Droplets of Wonderfulness.

Swingsets :: Grandparents :: Old family photographs :: Ginkgo trees :: Shared deep thought :: The package waiting for you in the mail when you return :: Sitting in trees on windy days :: Spinning for a long time :: Suliko :: Books, especially with characters that are you :: You :: Wonderful, wonderful kind people :: Strawberry freezer jam on homemade bread :: Psychedelia and it beautiful music :: Joe :: A stream of water running over hands :: Connections with people, especially strangers :: Feelings of things :: A good fountain pen :: Papers of different types :: Librarys :: Old things :: Crackles and pops on records :: Rainy stormies :: Bicycles :: Newspaper :: Fruit :: The jarring and beautifully ethereal singing of Julian :: Being with Julian and Co. while he sings :: Bananas :: Finding the first music you really really love :: Soft broken in jersey knit fabric :: Closed eyes :: Relaxing your entire self into a soft bed :: Hot oatmeal with milk :: Brilliant colors in leaves and skies :: Lying in some grassy sunshine :: so many things...

The Scary Zone

Halloween, with eerie sixties twilight zone-esque family photos. I wish everyone much fright.

Tom Rush at the Cedar

At the beginning of the week, my father presented me with a concert ticket of one of his very favorite artists, Tom Rush. In all honesty, I knew nothing about Mr. Rush's music. I think I knew one song. Darn young people these days.
So the shindig last night took place at the Cedar Cultural Center, where I hope to visit numerous times more in the future. I shook hands with Tom himself before the show, and he seems to be quite a gentle fellow (and I think he bears slight resemblance to Mark Twain). He played a long set, (none of which I knew--oi!), with one intermission. I must say, being an objective listener, he's got loads of talent. Whether you're into folksy-folk or not, to stand up there with only an acoustic guitar like he did and make songs have substance, and real bottom, takes musicality. And he's funny, telling jokes and sardonic stories of past times, nonchalantly talking about a bus trip he spent with the likes of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Buddy Guy, to name a few. One song in particular stuck out, "Panama Unlimited," I think it was called? He made his guitar sing so nicely, you could really hear its voice. Very smooth indeed.

As an afterthought, I couldn't help feeling a little out of place. The atmosphere gave me a vibe of an era long past, where everyone who saw its heyday was trying to resurrect it. Even people talked of way back when, when such and such bar was still open. It gave me just a hint of melancholy. I've not even yet entered my "golden age" yet, but I'm already feeling sad about how things will be once it has passed. Change happens, and it's inevitable, I suppose. But traces of those eras still linger in the city culture and people. It's interesting, and makes me mumble, "H'm...."

Furry eared things and other interesting bits.

I have a new object of affection. She's named Pebbles, and she's the sweetest little baby bunny ever. I love her so much. And she's getting fat.
I've been having such an unhealthy obsession with books as of late. I love books, I love them. I love everything about them, I love reading them, and holding them in my hands, I love their smells. It's just so good. I want to read so many, so many. There's not time enough though right now, I'm afraid. So many books I want to get in; I don't even know about half of them yet, I'm sure. I want to be the keeper of an enormous library full of books in every language of every genre. That would be so very wonderful.
It has been making so much wind here, I flew a kite last week. It was so amazing. There were stormy gusts of wind to knock one over, and they caught themselves under that kite and took it as far as the string allowed. We really did run out of string. It was so high above the trees, it could have been a hazard to air traffic. It really was just the best. You know, I believe that it was the Chinese who invented the kite. The Chinese invented lots, they often don't get the credit, though (I'm looking at you, movable-type being credited to Gutenberg). But I digress. Either way, I recommend kite-flying to you, regardless of your opinions on movable-type.