Well it was indeed a weekend to remember. Kicked off with a well-matched lineup of three awesome bands on Friday night, parts of my family braved the crowds at Steven’s Pass for four feet of fresh pow while those of us who prefer not to sink to our necks in the soft stuff stayed in town for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker. For my four-year old, it was the first time participating in the Christmas tradition.
ByGD
A New View of The Nutcracker
ByGD
Pollyblog: When I Go Out With Artists (in Iceland)
Pollyblog: 1. When you don’t want to say too much, but 140 characters just won’t cover it. 2. Good ideas that haven’t got their legs yet.
Some people make things more interesting by adding “in bed” to the end of every statement. I use the phrase “in Iceland.” Anyhoo, this one time at band camp, I mean in Iceland, I interviewed many bands and it was very cool and I learned many interesting things. I am fascinated by what is, to me, the mysterious process of creating something new and beautiful. And the whole time I was doing interviews with bands in Iceland, this song was stuck in my head.
Here are the lyrics to “When I Go Out With Artists,” off the Crash Test Dummies 1993 album, God Shuffled His Feet. I copied them from this website because I’m too lazy to dig out my old CD and type them in.
When I go out with artists
They talk about language and the cubists and the dadaist
And I try to catch their meanings
And keep up with all the martinis
I don’t know which should be my favorite paintings
If I could see, if I could see, if I could
See all the symbols, unlock what they mean
Maybe I could, maybe I could, maybe I
Could meet the artists, and get to know them personally
If I were David Byrne
I’d go to galleries and not be too concerned
Well I would have a cup of coffee
And I’d find my surroundings quite amusing and
People would ask me which were my favorite paintings
What if the artists ran the TV?
All the ads would be for fine scotch whiskey:
Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, the whole single malt family
The artists of the future
Will make up new things and different nomenclatures
And they’ll stand amongst their pictures
And they’ll sing and laugh and quote from scriptures and
When they go home they’ll dream of brilliant paintings
ByGD
In Which I Finally Go to the Showbox Market
They didn’t bring the sitar, but they did bring the awesome.
Despite my best efforts not to act my age, I am occasionally reminded of just how long I’ve been knocking around this town. On Friday, I got to see The Cave Singers at the Showbox, a club my friends used to call The Shoebox, for reasons that were obvious at the time. It was only after I got my ticket scanned and went inside that I realized I had never been inside this swank multi-bar before in my life. I mean, it’s only been there for what, a couple decades? Read More
ByGD
Rúrí at Reykjavik Art Museum
Before the Iceland Airwaves Festival started, I spent a few days as a tourist in Reykjavík, mostly geeking out on saga and settlement history. But I did make a hurried stop at the Reykjavík Art Museum, which turned out to be one of many serendipitous epiphanies experienced in Iceland. Read More
ByGD
A Sign of Things to Come: Christmas Music
When my mother was growing up, she never had the kind of Christmas Hallmark sells, and she was determined that my brother and I would have a different experience. She was largely successful, but even so, not all of the traditions imparted were intentional. Some of her holiday ambivalence transmitted to me.
Case in point – our distaste for Christmas music. My mom and I both hate the commercial frenzy of the holidays anyway, but the Christmas muzak assault is the final straw that sends us both running to mail order. With extremely few exceptions, it is just BAD MUSIC that we are all force-fed for a month every year, and to add insult to injury, we are expected to feel nostalgic about it.