Saturday, July 27, 2013

Grassroots in Pictures


Here's the full album of my pictures from the Grassroots Festival:

Grassroots 2013

Including Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, some amazing musicians from Mali, and pictures of my lovely family.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell at Grassroots


Emmylou Harris!


Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell right here at Grassroots, my hometown music festival.

!


I was this close to the stage:


And this close to them:


And right in front of the pedal steel player, unavoidably exchanging the occasional smile as he played, since after all I was right in front of him:


(And I swear there was a point, too, where Emmylou was looking right at me and I just couldn't help starting to smile, and she started to smile too.)

After the show, the mid-40s-ish guy next to me – we were both hanging around, hoping to snag a setlist from the show – told me, about Emmylou, "She's usually happy to chat... You can go on the bus..." Then he shook his head and said in a tone of wonder, "Last time, my wife let me go on the bus."

So I was hoping I'd be able to find her and maybe even ask her to sign a CD, but the backstage area was confusing and performer-wristband-only access, and then the sky opened up and sent an absolutely drenching deluge down, so there was no way anyone was going to be standing outside chatting and signing autographs.

But I got this!

(I also took a video of one particularly lovely duet, but can't get it to post to this blog. Technology fail... as in, I fail at technology and at being of my own generation.)

Monday, July 22, 2013

Kindercafés and Squirrels

Oh, gosh: I'm back at the café a block from my sublet in Ithaca, doing some work on my laptop, and a woman at the next table over is telling a friend this idea she has for a café where you could bring babies and kids, and there would be a corner with toys and things, and the kids could play and the parents could get a chance to have an actual conversation with another adult while the kids are occupied.

...Seriously, does this not exist here?? This is the business model for half the cafés I know in Berlin, everything from regular cafés that also have a small play corner, to dedicated "parent-child cafés" with ball pits and balloons and play equipment and events and even daycare offered during certain hours.

If no one has thought to do this yet in the US, then I suggest someone does, because they could make a killing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Unrelatedly – but delightfully – the other day I was walking through the neighborhood to my parents' house and passed three people chatting on the sidewalk. Just as I went by, one guy was telling the other two, "I was driving to work and a crow flew over my car... It had a baby squirrel in its mouth and it dropped it on my windshield."

Yes...he was driving to work, when a crow dropped a baby squirrel on his windshield.

I didn't want to hang around the corner too long and too obviously eavesdropping, but I stayed long enough to hear that the squirrel survived the fall, apparently, and the man was on his way to work, but called in some woman he knew of who specializes in wildlife rehabilitation, to see to the squirrel.

!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Come to think of it, those two stories actually are linked, through the common theme of me eavesdropping on other people's conversations. Oops. Time to get back to work!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Ithaca: Hot Days and Cold Coffee

Heat wave, ahoy!

I'm in Ithaca now, and when I got home yesterday around 4pm, it was about 93° Fahrenheit (34° C) but officially "feels like 105" (40.5°C). Oh, so that's why it was so unpleasant this afternoon biking around town doing errands!

Seems like maybe I picked the wrong week to decide I need to get serious about jogging again. Possibly.

(But twice now I've jogged to the top of Ithaca's steep Buffalo Street, just to see if I could. I can. Yay!)

Here and there, I've jotted down thoughts about being back here, but it's been so busy that nothing's really coalesced. So just scattered notes, like:

Heh. Those several moments spent trying to find the stove lighter, before realizing, Oh! This stove lights itself.

An apartment door that only locks behind you if you lock it! Why hasn't Germany caught on to this? (The joke in Germany – where you pull the door shut and it locks, but then you have to use your key to turn the deadbolt, so it's properly locked and harder to break into – is that if you just pull the door shut behind you, you'll be locked out, but thieves will still be able to get in easily.)

Every time I come to the US, I either forget to take ID to bars, or forget that open containers aren't allowed outside. Or both.

High 80s and 90s heat every day, yikes! (How come my building in Berlin is thick-walled, solidly built and cool no matter how hot outside, but upstate New York – which actually needs that kind of construction – doesn't have it?)

Enjoying: Ithaca, friends, lovely neighbors. Wondering: Why have I still not learned that full-time visiting-back-home-seeing-everyone-etc. + full-time long-distance working is not a good recipe for sanity?

Accidentally maximized my July 4th fireworks, since Oberlin's were before the 4th and Ithaca's were after.

Can't take a step around these parts without running into an old friend or aquaintance. Literally! Especially my first day in town: First I did some work from one café, where I saw various folks I knew or recognized, then went around the corner for a bagel and ran straight into an old middle school friend, who I probably hadn't seen in about that long. Reminisced for a bit over bagels.

Weddings count so far: Two down, one to go! (But the one still to go is the one I came here for.)

Oh, and thanks to the weather I've been experimenting with iced coffee – it turns out cold-brewed coffee is really good! – and now with iced Earl Grey tea (normal-brewed, but served chilled, with ice and lemon). Mm. One benefit to this insane heat wave.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Russia=Commies; Romania=Dracula, etc., etc.

Well, this is fun!

A Bulgarian designer has created a book of satirical maps laying out in visual form the stereotypes that different nations hold about each other – you can see them at the Mapping Stereotypes site itself, or a selection in a Spiegel photo gallery (Spiegel understandably focuses on specifically European clichés).

(For example, in "Europe According to the French": traditional enemy the UK="Slayers of Virgins," and Russia="Napoleon's Dream"... Italy="Noisy Friendly People" and Greece="Noisy Hairy People"... while both Switzerland and Belgium count as "Semi-France" and Turkey as "Definitely Not Europeans." All of Northern Africa is simply "France Woz Here.")

The Mapping Stereotypes page also features various permutations of "The World According to the USA," which can seem alarmingly accurate (Eastern Africa="Hunger & Stuff," except of course for the part just labeled "Pirates.")

Take it with a grain of salt, of course, but they're really kinda fun.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Cheek Kisses (a.k.a., Americans Abroad Are Confused)

Being back in Oberlin, I'm running into lots of old improv/comedy/theater friends and over brunch some of them got to talking about their friend Jim Williams. He's another Oberlin grad, and now apparently a successful mime in Poland.

Yes, you read that right.

I only know of Jim through friends, not directly, so I was curious to look up his work. (He does stand-up as well as mime comedy). Searching for his name got me this fun little reflection on one of those cultural things that all Americans have to adjust to in Europe:



Hee. I'd also like to add that the Spanish and Italians kiss you on the cheek not only once they know you, but even the first time you meet – leaning in for the kiss even as you're introducing yourselves. (An American friend now married to a Spanish guy tells me that in the beginning, when American friends of hers met him for the first time, she would warn them, "He's going to kiss you now.")

Cheek-kissing is also one of those matters where Germany as a whole feels kind of culturally confused. Though traditionally a reserved sort of place where even close friends never moved beyond shaking hands, the younger German generations have definitely loosened up – but sometimes that means hugs and sometimes cheek kisses and I still haven't worked out any logic for what is when with whom!

In the beginning, I spent a while perpetually wrong-footed and confused about it, until I relaxed into the rather comforting conclusion that I am American and so cannot possibly be blamed for getting this sort of thing wrong.

Also true is that the number of kisses (one, two, even three) varies around Europe, as does which side you start on (I swear, my Greek friend goes a different direction from everybody else I know.)

Just smile and play the well-meaning yet slightly gauche American!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Oberlin Is Still Awesome (Mudd Library Edition)

Oberlin is awesome. I know other people's colleges are also awesome; this is just the one I happen to know well.

I went wandering the campus a bit today, which included a stroll through Mudd, our wonderful library that looks like some kind of cuboid cement alien spaceship that accidentally landed in the middle of a big flat lawn in Ohio.

Aside from a bit of nicely done remodeling, Mudd looks (and even smells!) just like it always did. All the beloved icons are still there – I found myself tickled to see one delightful library tradition still going strong: a bulletin board where anyone can scribble a note ("why don't you provide staplers by the copier?" "how can I find another copy of a book that's supposed to be in the library collection but has gone missing?" "why is there a door to nowhere on the second floor of the left side of the building?") and the library director – a mysterious figure known by his initials RAE – or a member of the staff will take time to hunt down a satisfactory answer and type up a reply.

Some questions, of course, get asked over and over, and these go on the QTND board – "Questions That Never Die." (The long-term existential stuff, like "Why is there a side entrance if it's never unlocked?" and "Does Mudd make money from the overdue fees on books?")

I laughed enough at "QTND #7 – A Sinking Mudd" that I decided to take its picture. (I'll caption each photo with a bit of explanation, in case the print is too small to read.)


Here's the original query: "Yo RAE – Y'know, I've always wondered, and now that I've graduated, I think I deserve to know the truth: IS MUDD REALLY SINKING?"


RAE, despite clear long-standing annoyance at the question, responds at length that no, it's just one of those legends (like the related one, "Mudd is sinking because the architect forgot to calculate the weight of the books!") that seem to attach themselves to some libraries, but with no truth behind it: "I've been here over a decade and, except for normal settling, Mudd is right where it's always been."


No surprise here; this is quickly followed by another hand-written query: "Ok, ok, so tell us – what constitutes 'normal settling'?"


And the delightful RAE answers: "It's what all buildings do when they're not sinking."

Thoughts from a College Town

Just a wee observation: There is nothing like a college town to make you feel old – even if you aren't!

From the undergrads earnestly discussing Big Life Topics at the café table next to me, to the realization that the semi-improvised serialized theater show I co-directed my last year of college was already over seven years ago... yikes!


The other thing I really notice when I'm back here is how much I miss learning – just getting to learn things as a full-time occupation. I loved that. I was awfully good at being a college student.


But it's surprising and lovely how many people I still know here, despite it being a college town and the rapid-fire turnover that entails. Yesterday I went to brunch with one friend, and ran into no less than three others. (All of them townies, with the exception of one who's an alum and back for the summer doing theater.) And that's quite aside from former professors, who I've also been running into.


Also? I planted the willow trees you see here. In the summer of 2005, when I had a summer job taking care of the garden and grounds around the environmental studies department. They were saplings then. Now they're taller than the building. Trees are amazing!