Ten Albums that changed my life

In no particular order, here are ten albums that really stayed with me and changed my life.

1. Heart of a Saturday Night, Tom Waits

Reminds me of driving all night with my perfidious boyfriend, Kevin Krieger to New Orleans. And late nights as a bartender and dreams of living in New York and my life long love of talking to taxi drivers. Based on Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours of the Night.

2. Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, The Pogues

Another great album that I listened to over and over and over. As a half Irish-American, I feel a connection to Ireland (even though I had never been there when I got this album). The songs that I love the most are Dirty Old Town, the Sickbed of Cuchaillan, and A Man You Don't Meet Everyday. I once sang Dirty Old Town with the Irish Quick Response Force in Liberia on Saint Patrick's Day.

3. Tupelo Honey, Van Morrison

In my hippie days, I dreamed of a man who would love me and play Tupelo Honey to me on his guitar. We'd get dance to Moonshine Whiskey and You're My Woman and I'd wear flowers in my hair. I still dream of this. :) I can't believe I agree with Bob Dylan but yes, "Tupelo Honey' has always existed and that Morrison was merely the vessel and the earthly vehicle for it"

4. Green, REM

Lying on the beach in Surfside, South Carolina with this in my walkman in 1988. Conjuring up memories of lying in the backseat of my parent's car and coming home late on a summer night and the sound of the crickets and cicadas. Drowsy hot southern nights. Best songs Orange Crush, You are the Everything, I remember California, The Wrong Child....

5. Outlandos d'Amour, The Police

My favorite band of all time. Buying this album and listening to it over and over. Stings voice, Stewarts propulsive drumming, and Andys guitar. Beautiful Blonde British boys. I'm SO LONELY. SO LONELY. Singing this into my college boyfriend Nick's answer machine. Still the best album ever. Can't Stand Losing You might be the only song I still know all the words to- next to you! Roxanne! 

6. Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy

Oh learning about how different the world is from the eyes of black people as a privileged young white girl in South Carolina. Listening to "911 is a joke" and watching Flava Flav dance blew my mind. There was not a party in 1990 where we didn't play this album and dance. Fight the Power and Rosie Perez dancing inspired so many lame dance moves of my predominantly white group of friends. Sigh. 

7. Unforgettable Fire, U2

1984 was when I discovered this album. My father bought it for me as a cassette and I listened to it on my little boom box in my bedroom in the dark over and over again. The hazy romantic guitar and the clear voice of Bono calling to my teenage life. Wire, A Sort of Homecoming, and Bad are my favorites. 

8. Paul's Boutique, Beastie Boys

I love this album so much, the clown princes of Hip Hop. I had a huge crush on Ad Rock. SHAKE YOUR RUMP! An electric blast of coolness and New York for a girl from South Carolina. I'm just a beatnik chick wearing my smock but I wanted so much to be a New Yorker.

9. American Beauty, The Grateful Dead

Ah my Deadhead days in the early 90s in South Carolina. But the music and the lyrics of Box of Rain, and Sugar Magnolia, and Brokedown Palace still make me feel optimistic and hopeful and like putting on my hippie skirt and doing some circle spinning. 

10. La Revancha del Tango, Gotan Project

I discovered this album at a Borders in the early 2000s, I think and it changed my life. I love tango, have desires to learn how to dance tango, and have been to see Gotan Project in concert which was amazing.. Tríptico, Santa María (del Buen Ayre), Una Música Brutal - so evocative and haunting and powerful. One day I'll tango. 

Honorable Mentions: 

The Police Regatta de Blanc

U2 Joshua Tree

Arcade Fire The Suburbs

Van Morrison Astral Week

The Beatles Rubber Soul

Neil Young Harvest 

So Peter Gabriel

Lauryn Hill “the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” 

Kate Bush Hounds of Love

REM Life’s Rich Pageant

Tom Waits Rain Dog

The Smiths Strangeways here we come

The Smiths The Queen is Dead

New Order Substance 1987

Marvin Gaye What’s Going on

Blur Park life

Belle and Sebastian The Boy with the Arab Strap

The B52s - The B52s

Bjork Debut

kd lang ingenue

Sinead o connor the lion and the cobra

Crowded House: Crowded House

Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine

Steely Dan: A Decade ofSteely Dan

Favorite Xmas Songs (playlist)

Glitzy Christmas Trees of Bangkok

I made a playlist of all my favorite Xmas songs that I play on my iPod throughout the holiday season. I sort of have a thing for Xmas songs - mostly soul and country music but with a big dose of pop from the 80s! I hope you enjoy it!

Favorite Xmas Songs (playlist)

Art, Music and Literature that made an impression in 2012

A few of the pieces of art, literature, and music that I liked and that inspired me in 2012. 

Literature: 

Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes in the Museum
William Boyd: Waiting for Sunrise
Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case
Hillary Mantel: Wolf Hall
Marguerite Duras: The Lover

Art: 

Contemporary Vietnamese Artists from Apricot Gallery in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City:

Trang Nguyen Dung 

Quach Dong Phuong

Hoang Hai Anh

Le Minh

Dai Hong Phong

Le Quang Ha

Ta Thi Thanh Tam

Tran Luu Hau

Ateneum in Finland: Helene Schjerfbeck retrospective

Modigliani and Soutine at the Pincotheque de Paris




Pre-Raphaelites in Tate Britain

Music: 

Austra: Lose It



Honey Claws: Digital Animal



The Civil Wars: Kingdom Come



The Storm: My Crown


The Frank Popp Ensemble: Breakaway!

and something a bit more upbeat

My friend Clay "Fumbata" wrote me a song. Its so awesome... he'll write you one too if you send him a clip of some sound and an image...

Here's mine. I think its awesome and I want to share it with you...

Riding on the khlong in Bangkok

 

 

So I commute to work on the khlong (canal) in Bangkok as in the video above.

• Today I'm in a sort of depressed funk. I think its due to a number of things:
• Romantic confusion;
• Realizing I don't have much zeal for returning to Afghanistan for work after missing (by two days) a suicide bomber attack on a hotel where I was staying;
• Knowing I have six months left on this job contract but not wanting to move again;
• Missing my friends in the US since it was the 4th of July and I didn't do anything special - I didn't even make my dad's famous potato salad. (however, I plan to do it for the weekend and have a bbq with my friend Carol).

 

So I'm trying to combat it by listening to some good music to change my mood. Here is the playlist on the canal this morning:

George Harrison - Give me Love
The Beatles - The End
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Refugee
Falco - Der Kommisar
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
Ludacris - Rollout (My Business)
Earth, Wind, and Fire- Boogie Wonderland
AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long

Between AC/DC and Ludicris - the mood lifted....

SlumDog Millionaire

I wish this had happened to me when I was in India

Happy Holidays from Amsterdam

Gotan Project in Amsterdam

I first heard of Gotan Project when I was visiting a journalist in Pretoria, South Africa. She was from Uruguay and she was playing it while we had dinner with her. I had Bajofonda Tango cd at home and immediately rushed to get the Gotan Project. I've been listening to them ever since. About a month and a half ago, I was in line to buy tickets to see Stereolab when I saw that Gotan was coming to town. I bought a ticket for 30 euros. I love Amsterdam's music scene. You can get into some amazing venues and see great music for really not that much money. Here they are performing my favorite song which they rocked tonight. enjoy!

Culture Clash

After almost six weeks in South Carolina, being back in Amsterdam has been a bit of a shock. First of all, it was about 98 degrees when I left Charlotte on September 7th and it was about 62 when I got here on September 11th. It's full on autumn. The trees are changing colors. Everyone is wearing scarves. I wake up cold everymorning - which I did in SC but that was because the air conditioning was on too high.

And then I am having a bit of a culture clash trying to readjust to some of the Dutch things that I had forgotten about. I met up with my friends Susannah, Naomi, and Emma for drinks and Jamaican food. Afterwards we went out with her friends and ended up in a Blues band. When I tried to tell the bassplayer that I enjoyed the show he cursed at me in Dutch and told me that he was on break. I got elbowed in the Albert Heijn. I was almost run over by a taxi as I rode my bike.

Monday and Tuesday were hard at work. I tried to keep my head down on Monday and just work but the organization's debate culture was alive and well and I soon found myself arguing over things I really don't care about. Back to just trying to make it through the day.

Monday night I cut Simon's claws and I cut one too close and he bled ALL OVER the apartment. I have bloody paw prints on everything. I didn't sleep at all because I was trying to stem the bleeding. I ended up having to dip his paw in flour after all my attempts to bandage it failed. Bandaging a cats foot is not as easy as one would think. One big shake and bandages fly off. He's fine now and I'm still traumatized.

So - let's see. I've been back since Thursday night and I've been a wreck. Hm. Let's hope things get better. Today's plan of attack includes eating a lot of chocolate, buying cheap flowers to brighten up the apartment (pink dahlias and white chrysanthemums), listening to cheerful music loudly (including Laid by James, Barracuda by Heart, Wonderboy by Tenacious D and Dancing Queen by Abba), and watching Mad Men (a show I became obsessed with in the States). Going to bed early and going for walks at lunchtime to eat soup seem to help too.

Sunny Sundays in Amsterdam

The sun is shining in Amsterdam. It's almost 75 degrees! After a crappy few weeks and months (returning reluctantly from South Carolina after taking care of my father who ws recovering from surgery, getting sick myself with a nasty upper respiratory infection, having dental surgery, and then hearing my sister fell and broke her leg while preparing for my father's move into her house in Columbia), I finally feel okay. Alyson seems to have the situation under control and some family members have offered to help her out while she learns how to use crutches (and deals with a broken air conditioner and a 100 degree weather June in South Carolina). I am going to make a presentation on sexual violence in Uganda and hope to be able to visit the DRC or Somalia briefly afterwards. And, I am enjoying my favorite day of the week, Sunday afternoon.

After going out with friends last night to a FABULOUS show, the West Hell Five, a "vegas grind jazz quintet" at a funky blues bar called Maloe Melo, I slept in (with a brief interupption to feed the monster Siamese some food to bribe him into letting me sleep). I'm listening to Lyle Lovett, with all the windows open and sunshine pouring into the house. There's a oven-roasted omelet with fresh mozzarella and basil from my balcony cooking on the stove. Sunflower seed bread is toasting and the coffee I brought back from Italy is percolating away. I've got plans to chat on the phone with my friend Bernice, my family, and then meeting my friend Esther for drinks later on. I'm going to go to the park and sit in the sun and read my books for a while. And then I'm going to make an early night of it and prepare for another week of work. But until then, I've got Sunday.

My trip to Paris....

French Guys are the hottest... check it out and see...

Funky music scene in Amsterdam

Thursday night, I was invited by my friend Celeste's husband, Eoghan, to go to Paradiso and see "The Ex" and Getachew, a Dutch punk rock band playing with an Ethiopian saxophonist from the 60s. Paradiso is an amazing club set in an old church. There are stained glass windows behind the stage and balconies lining the theatre. They have excellent acoustics and beer is 2 euro 20 cents (much cheaper than a similar US venue, I think).

It was a great evening but the band ended at 10:30pm. After the show, Eoghan took off with his friends and my friend Jen and I decided to hang out see what the next band was like.
The dj was spinning some very cool Indian lounge music and mixing it up with some really great Arabic music. We had heard that the next band was Shantel and his Bucovar Orkestar. I really like Balkan beat music and we had already paid to see The Ex and enjoyed it so why the hell not?

As Shantel hit the stage in his trackie suit and knit hop hop hat, he started noodling around on the keyborad. Then the Drummer took the stage with slicked back long thin hair, a red sateen vest reminiscent of the ones I wore in "Show choir" and a cheesy goatee. The trombone player, accordionist, and the rest of the horns took the stage and suddenly BAM! the party started... and what a party it was. At one point as Shantel poured vodka over us and we jumped up and down in the air chanting "Disco Disco something something" "Hup Hup Hup!" - Jen screamed in my ear - "THIS IS LIKE BEING AT THE FUNKIEST FUNNEST WEDDING EVER!"

For your enjoyment, I paste the review of his latest album and I encourage you to get out there and see this band if you ever get a chance!

Crazy eclectic mix of mutant funk, Romanian ballads, Balkan brass and freestyle electronica: Shanelt and the Bucovina Orkestar.

Follow up to the hugely successfull "Bucovina Club" - curated and hosted by Frankfurter Shantel - who's forsaken his old downtempo weedhop stylings for the manic music of the Balkans. The record's a sort of imaginary soundtrack to a defunct but amazing, vodka-fuelled, gypsy-rave all-nighter club, the Bucovina, that used to take place under the portals of an elegant old Frankfurt theatre.The album transports the mood of the Bucovina Club nights, which gives the audience the right feeling for a sweatdriven dancenight. These featured 15 tracks are the ultimate drenching floorfillers in the small hours when hundreds of dance-hungry people are still going strong.

On Bucovina Club 2, 5 of the 15 tracks are exclusive original recordings and 5 are exclusive mixes. SHANTEL’s own tracks featuring stars of the Gypsy and Balkan music scene: BOBAN MARKOVIC and his son MARKO, JONY ILIEV, VESNA PETKOVIC, the all-star line-up BUCOVINA CLUB ORKESTAR, the exclusive remixes feature MAHALA RAI BANDA, FANFARE CIOCARLIA, SANDY LOPICIC ORKESTAR & French-Romanian actress RONA HARTNER (of TONY GATLIF’s movie Gadjo Dilo) while the other tracks present a host of famous artists and some newcomers such as: DR. NELLE KARAJLIC, BALKAN BEAT BOX, SLONOVSKI BAL and GORAN BREGOVIC. SHANTEL’s crazily eclectic mix of Clubsounds, Future Funk, Roma Ballads, Balkan Brass and Freestyle Electronica is already legendary across the dancefloors of Europe. Digital teams up with analogue, beat embraces melody, tango goes lyrical – and it ain’t over til even the samovar sings. There’s no denying SHANTEL’s former life as a producer of Downtempo and Electronica – it’s an experience that has taught him to fly in the face of convention by treating local Eastern European and Balkan music in the same way as HipHop or all kinds of club music and making them just as much an integral part of today’s youth and pop culture.

There’s nothing clichéd about this new wave of music – and not a bobble-hatted world music purist in sight. Bucovina Club is pure, naked euphoria and brings together all ages and nationalities. Not in a politically correct, happy-clappy multiculturalists way – but by placing a direct and visceral punch that really gets people moving. The parties take up where the ecstatic raves of the House and Techno generation left off. This atmosphere is transferred into the second BUCOVINA CLUB CD. SHANTEL and his Bucovina Club is in great demand, not only at European festivals and Clubs. The big names of the Gypsy music scene jamed with him or have had their recordings produced by him or remixed by him: TARAF DE HAIDOUKS, MAHALA RAI BANDA, KOCANI ORKESTAR, ZDOB SI ZDUB, BOBAN MARKOVIC ORKESTAR, FRANK LONDON’S KLEZMER BRASS ALLSTARS, SANDY LOPICIC ORKESTAR, just to name a few.

On the Electric Gypsyland tour he played 30 festivals from France to Morocco and La Reunion, and he has taken his Bucovina Club to such in-clubs as the Nouveau Casino and Favela Chic (Paris), Futuro Flamenco/Nottinghill Arts Club (London), P.P.C. (Graz), the MTV Festival in Bucharest's biggest disco, the legendary Transmusicales in Rennes, to Tel-Aviv, the Balkan Fever Festival (Vienna) and even to such temples of high culture as the State Theatres of Vienna, Hamburg and Stuttgart, the Hebbel Theater in Berlin and the Vienna Festival. A large number of cities have now regular Club evenings like Zurich (Xtra), Nuremberg (K 4) and, of course, hometown Frankfurt (Schauspiel). Even vast crowds have been drawn into the world of the Bucovina Club: as the closing act of the Station-to-Station-Festivals in Florence, on the biggest square in Czernowitz (Bucovina) and at the summer open air events in Frankfurt. SHANTEL’s Bucovina Club has put the Balkans firmly on the map of contemporary pop culture, throwing overboard the stereotypes and clichés, putting a whole new slant on the way we think about the “wild east” and Gypsy culture. Bucovina Club is a heady mix of electronic club music and vibrant Roma music.

The show!

The show last night was wonderful! It was an interesting experience going to a Dutch rock concert... people openly smoke marijuana and get wasted on beer and noone cares. I haven't smelled so much pot since my last grateful dead show! Anyway, I had to sit alone but I still had a fabulous time. I splurged and bought tickets as close to the stage as I could find. They had some fabulous video screens so you could see closeups and Sting was as beautiful as ever.

Sadly, after the show was over, I went to the bar in the arena to get a drink and they were playing their final concert in 1984 and you could tell how much they had aged. But they sounded good if not as tight and falsetto-y as the 80s.

Here's the play list:

Message in a bottle
Synchronicity 2
Walking on the moon
Voices/World is Running Down
Don't stand so close to me
Driven to Tears
Hole in my life
Truth hits everybody
Every little thing she does is magic
De Doo Doo Doo
Invisible sun
Walking in their footsteps
One World
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
Encore: King of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You take
Next To You

My 40th birthday with Sting and the Police

My 40th birthday happened in August. Unfortunately for me, it occurred simultaneously with my giant housing disaster. I was panicked and anxiety ridden about trying to find a new place to live and the fact that I had to come up with more than a months salary to put down a deposit to live and was losing my deposit from the apartment I was currently in. Instead of renting the beer bike with my good Dutch friends here and having a riotous day of drunken debauchery, I had a small gathering with a few people in my apartment where I drank a bit too much wine on an empty stomach and tried to keep the anxiety at bay. My dream party - flying to New York City, partying with Brian and Kevin, Bernice, Alec, my sister, and other assorted friends and then going to see the Police on their reunion tour was not to happen.

So tonight, I'm going to do what I really really wanted to do - I'm going to go see the Police in concert. Unfortunately, I'm basically going alone because noone I knew wanted to go with me and another friend bought tickets to the event and never called to see if I was interested. But I don't mind. It'll be me and Sting singing to each other, making eye contact, and falling in love all over again like we did when I was 15.

Yes, I'm still bitter that my parents never let me go to the Police's final concert tour in Greensboro, NC because I was too young! I've seen Sting in concert a number of times but Sting's solo persona is a bit too blandly romantic for me. I prefer the sunbleached punk rock bassist with the sexy mouth from Zenyatta Mondatta, Outlandos d'Amour, and Regatta de Blanc. Synchronicity and Ghosts in the Machine are not my favorite albums but my favorite song comes from Ghosts in the Machine --"Every Little Thing She does is Magic" - coincidentally, those lyrics were presented to me by Gene Matthews my freshman year in high school when he attempted to tell me that he was in love with me.

I still remember listening to the first album of their's I ever bought - "Regatta de Blanc". I had to do a poetry project for my Junior year's advanced English class. I chose the song "Message in a bottle"and I attempted to paste photos that reflected my lonely outcast teenage angst feelings onto a wine bottle. In particular, I clearly remember photos from Iceland of a man that looked like Sting sitting in a lonely thermal pool in the mountains.

I sang "So Lonely" into my college boyfriend, Nick Leoncavallo's answering machine when he was away on a trip. I have consoled myself with "Can't Stand Losing" when life hasn't gone my way and cried to "the Bed's too big without you" when I have been heart broken. I analyzed "Wrapped around your finger" and told everyone it was written in Iambic Pentameter like the pretentious English major to be I was. I listened to "King of Pain" late at night in my bedroom. I danced riotously to "De doo doo doo, de daa daa daa" and wanted to be the subject of "Don't stand so close to me" with my English professor in college.

I can't imagine my life without the Police so here's to my 40th and here's to tonight.

This always happens when I walk down the street here.

Furry Happy Monsters!

Hurricane Katrina and Lebanon

I have been back from Lebanon for a week now (with a side trip to Paris and Geneva). This weekend, I watched Spike Lee's documentary on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. It was so disturbing. I don't understand why it took so long to help the people in the Superdome. Having watched the 1 million displaced in Lebanon receive help and assistance and then watching the government fumble about in New Orleans was shocking. I want to write more about this but I'm tired and my brain is foggy.

Beirut Mon Amour, redux

Ahhh. I took down the last post because I inadvertently wrote about my new friends in ways they didn't appreciate.. Sorry y'all! So, here's a re-creation of that post.

Our 'last supper' in Beirut was strangely anti-climatic. We were all so tired and worn down. It hadn't been so obvious durint our birthday parties but it just felt harder at this dinner. Maybe because there were more of us. Maybe because it was three weeks later. It just felt like we were all drained and exhausted. I think many of us had just seen too much or were at the edge of burnout. the usually lively political discussions were not as carefree. We ate too much and barely drank any wine. Everyone wanted to go home early. No Malcolm Lowry's were consumed.

SO I got home, had indigestion from trying to out eat Nir with the hummous. Fell asleep and woke up at 2:30 am where I then sat and watched the sun slowly come up over Lebanon before i left. I felt very sad. I felt like I made intense attachments in that short period of time. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was fully engaged in this misison , unlike others where I was teetering on burnout myself. I'm feeling obsessed with the injustices in this part of the world. I"m reading Robert Fisk's "Pity the Nation" and I'm so angry - at Israel, at the Palestinians, at the many different factions of Lebanon. Its' probably good that I didn't read it before I came. I had almost a naive, innocent appreciation of everyone.

Now, I feel rather helpless and hopeless. How does one act as a humanitarian in such a context? I push forward my pathetic points about what the international community should be doing, knowing now, that its just the latest installment of a long, bloody, pathetic history.

Okay. That's it. Happy One year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Listen to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Listen to Tom Waits. Listen to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Sidney Bechet. Remember the people and the beauty of the music, and mourn the passing of this beautiful, dirty, awful, American city.

Bridget Jones in Paris

Well here I am in Paris. It's cold (although not raining like Geneva) and I'm staying in some sort of backpacker neighborhood with lots of "mexican" restaurants and "Irish bars". Yeah - I really want to drink Guiness and eat Tex-Mex in Paris. I suppose though, if you lived here, you'd want the variety. Anyway, There are lots of bars and clubs here. And I kind of want to go out but I'm tired... and not motivated to bust my way in and sit alone in some bar in Paris. So - I'm drinking wine in my hotel room and listening to jazz until I get a buzz and then I'll head out.

I deleted a post about my last day in Beirut because I wrote about the people I met in Lebanon and used their names and got an email saying that thye were worried that someone might read it. Hmm. Since none of y'all ever leave comments (except for you Colin, Heidi, and Kevin - REPRESENT!), I didn't think anyone read this thing. So drop me a line, yo. I'll try to recreate the last day in Lebanon post but since it was written at 5am as the sun rose and I was so tired and sad, I don't know if I can.

But I've been reading Robert Fisk's book "Pity the Nation" and that may put me back in the right frame of mind. I'm listening to the awesome Cd that Serge made adn Natto gave me. "Different for Girls" - an old Joe Jackson cover. And some Steely Dan "Dirty Work". Gotta put myself in that early 80s, black leather jacket, frame of mind and get out there. I find myself craving to talk to someoen about this experience in Lebanon but I'm all alone here. When I get back to the US, I feel shy about talking about what I saw and felt. I don't know why. Maybe the experience of being surrounded by my normality makes it seem further and further away.

Anyhoo.... 1/3 of a glass of wine to go. And a bar with photos of Marlon Brando in it to explore. To bring a book or not to bring a book?

I miss my iPod

It´s official, I am an addict. I walk down the street wishing I could spin that little wheel and change the soundtrack of my day. Wouldn´t Lila Downs have been divine in the Frida Kahlo house? How about `red army blues´ by the Waterboys in Leon Trotsky´s depressing fortress? I´m in an internet cafe now and listening to U2. I am overwhelmed with a desire to listen to nothing but Bono for the next week. But my iPod is gone. Enjoy it, asshole, enjoy it.