Jens

Last night I headed up to Portland to see Jens Lekman in concert.

It was amazing, better than I could have ever hoped. The wait outside the venue was cold and I missed the chance to meet up with the Portland crew – it turned out that their midterm was 5-8pm. Inside, though, the opening band was good (Throw Me the Statue), and I slipped forward into the crowd as they played.

Shortly after they finished, Viktor Sjoberg came out and started to mix a bit on his laptop – it built up until Jens and crew came out with piccolos and flutes flashing and started off the set with Into Eternity. Here’s the rough setlist (the order is a bit jumbled):
Into Eternity
Opposite of Hallelujah
Your Arms Around Me
Sipping on the Sweet Nectar
The Cold Swedish Winter
Maple Leaves
Postcard to Nina
You Are the Light
A Strange Time in My Life (partial)
A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill
Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo
You Can Call Me Al
Shirin
Pocketful of Money

I danced along to all of it, throughly enjoying the matching outfits, amazed at how faithful to the albums the performance was, but even better, which I didn’t think was possible.

I’m not sure how to put into words how happy it all made me, but, it did, beyond all reason. Here’s one reason, which the happiness is beyond, but which it rests squarely upon: I had the sense that as polished as the performance was, mistakes were ok, and more than that, being a little goofy, and able to laugh at the world and one’s self in a non-depricating way was really important.

That may not make a whole lot of sense, and I thought I was going to be able to write about the experience a bit more coherently, but I’m not sure that I can. Suffice it to say, it was entirely worth the very low ticket price, and the gas money and time committment of driving up from Eugene.

And now, off to sleep, having decided against the study abroad option, as hard as it was. Wish me luck on my structures test tomorrow…and wish me even more luck in getting through the rest of the semester – I think its really going to ramp up from here as we move towards the final.

To Estonia and back

The big news this weekend is that 12 of us headed to Estonia for two nights. We left Friday afternoon and got back this evening. I’m currently using the internet in my room in my apartment, although it’s clearly having some issues, so is probably not ready for the next Flickr upload.

So, Estonia… We landed in Tallin and managed to go from a pretty decent position in the passport line to dead last because of the apparent disregard other people had for the line we were forming. When we finally left the port, we headed to Old Town, and as soon as we walked through the city walls it really did feel like we were in a different world. Between our hostel and the city gate, which were no more than 3 city blocks from each other, we strung out in a line taking photos of the turquoise trim on the chartruse building, the herringbone basement doors, the extremely tall church tower and the extremely bumpy cobblestone streets. We checked into the hostel, enchanted, made up our beds and went out to find some dinner.

Our first dinner was at the African restaurant, which we found after a significant amount of walking around looking at posted menus (an activity that seemed to be a theme of the weekend). Having eaten on the boat, I held off, tasting only a bite of Michael’s lamb kabobs and drinking a rather large beer. Post dinner, we headed out on the town to find a suitable place for drinks. Along the way to the beer hall we stumbled into a little chocolate shop and got little truffles. They had a great big window seat, outfitted with lovely cream and brown felt pillows. So I had my dessert before dinner, since I then ate a bratwurst at the Beer Hall. Despite the fact that the tap built into our table dispensed mostly foam, we had a great time at the Beer Hall, taking another batch of photos in the low light, and laughing at the Austrian dancing wait staff.

The next morning Michael and I headed out on the town, stopping through galleries, churches, the medieval market in the Town Hall Square, and many, many museums. We climbed the Town Hall tower, visited the former Dominican Monastery, and watched glassblowing before running into some friends and heading to the Texas Honky Tonk for lunch. After a third meal that comprised an Estonian take on another country/continent’s cuisine, I vowed to eat Estonian for dinner. Our afternoon was more enjoyable than our morning – we visited the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design and the Museum of Estonian Architecture, then walked back through town and up to the Toompea area, where we happened to walk into Aleksander Nevski Katedraal during a service. There, with incense thick in the air, we stood in awe, listening to the incantations of the service in silence and feeling the intensity of the sacred space.

After a suitable time, we ambled back down the steep street to the square to meet up with the rest of the group. Although we had plans to eat at Old Hansa, the medieval themed restaurant just off the square, we looked at the menu an rethought the plan. I think we did a pretty extensive loop after that, scouring the menus for a combination of a) somewhat authentically Estonian food, b) vegetarian options, and c) a reasonable price range. In desperation, we headed toward the Italian place someone had noticed that afternoon. Determined, though, I continued to look at menus all along the way, and found one that seemed to match our stringent requirements right around the corner from the Italian place. When, after everyone else had seated themselves, Michael and I announced that we were going to head to the Estonian place, four of the six at the table decided to join us.

We ate a very tasty meal at Kloostri Ait, and enjoyed the relaxed ambiance after the long day of sightseeing. It was one of those experiences that you wanted to just last a little bit longer. After dinner, we walked back around the corner to pick up our friends at the pizza restaurant, who were standing to leave just as we arrived. Everyone agreed to return to the chocolate shop, where we thoroughly overindulged, and then we ended up in the town hall square at an outdoor cafe with beers in hand by another round of sidelong consensus building. We had a short stint of carousing, then headed back for another nights’ rest.

This morning, we slept in, then went to Kompressor for authentic Estonian pancakes. Michael and I shared so that we could split a smoked turkey and a raspberry and sweet milk. Afterwards, we went to Kadrioru park to visit the KUMU. We agreed that it was very much like the Kiasma in a lot of ways, but I thought that it was a little more difficult to relate to some of the art, in part because of an even greater cultural divide than at the Kiasma, but also because I think there was a larger collection and we saw it much more quickly.

After the museum, we headed back to the boat, where passage was even less eventful than the trip to Tallinn, due to better weather and the knowledge that we needed to be at the beginning of the customs line. So, all in all, a solid trip, despite some difficult to categorize feelings about the Tallinn city museum and thanks in part to the luck of hearing the organ playing in Oleviste Kirik.

One of the great things about going away is that it can make a place that you’ve only lived in for 10 days seem like home. Tomorrow morning I head out on a site visit, and studio finally starts in earnest. This past week we had lectures from Juha Leiviska, a current Finnish master, and Samuli Miettinen, one of the principles of the up and coming JKMM Architects. We visited Leiviska’s Vallila Library and Daycare Centre to sketch, and drew some Aalto buildings, as well.  July 4th we celebrated by grilling on a disposable grill over a stormwater grate next to the bay and playing a riotous game of frisbee late into the evening and then watching a few brave classmates jump into the evidently quite warm bay.

I’m hoping that studio will really kick in to gear this week, since we don’t have that long to design, and have an extensive and complicated program to balance while working with a partner. Anyway, life is full of twists and turns (we’d originally planned to go to Åland this weekend), and I’m sure tomorrow will be no different.  I better get to bed…

Lucky Dog

Hey, it all comes together -
I just read that with 2006 being the year of the dog in Chinese zodiac, I was bound to have a rough year, since I am a dog. Evidently, when your year comes up, you’re in conflict with the god of ominous, so you have an unlucky year unless you take precautions in the first 15 days of the year. So, watch out every 12 years for your unlucky year…

Actually, the year went well overall for me, despite the rough patch this last semester. After all, I had a fantastic time in Vermont, got into grad school, drove safely across the country, settled into life in a new part of the world, and made lots of new friends. This time of the year you remember how many good old friends you have, too. Last night Ryan called, and I’ve recently talked to Hans, Joe, Stefan, and Tad. The list of folks to call is even longer, but I can’t help but feel warm and happy about getting a bit of time to catch up with friends. I guess it’s my fault for not being on MySpace, but I feel a bit old fashioned about that whole thing with the unreality aspect of it all, plus I think I’m a bit squeamish about being too accessible.

Which leads me to a recent two-part revelation: 1) I just want everyone to love me. Therefore, when boys ask me out or make a move, I get nervous that if I go out with them, other people won’t be able to love me as much (an irrational fear, I know). 2) I just really like to spend time by myself and not be accountable to anyone else for that time. That means that when boys ask me out or make a move, I get nervous that they are the type of person who will want to spend significant amounts of time with me and have me think about how I ought to spend time with them.

These two qualities lie at the base of my perpetual singledom, and they’re in my power to change. What a nice Christmas present to self. Yay for overanalysing situations. We’ll see what this revelation means for my future love life…

Ok, and the other topic I wanted to cover today: the rough draft of my playlist.

1. Wayside (Back in Time) – Gillian Welch – Soul Journey
2. Passing Afternoon – Iron and Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
3. Pink and Blue – The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
4. Swansea – Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender
5. The Stranger Song – Leonard Cohen – Field Commander Cohen Tour 1979
6. Girl in the War – Josh Ritter – The Animal Years
7. Ship out on the Sea – The Be Good Tanyas – Chinatown
8. Homesick – Kings of Convenience – Riot on an Empty Street
9. Bed is for Sleeping – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Superwolf
10. Whiskey in the Jar – Belle and Sebastian –
11. Santa Claus (Instrumental) – Bill Monroe – Bluegrass 1959-1969
12. Train, Train – Dolly Parton – The Grass is Blue
13. Just to See You Smile – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – More Reverie
14. Wagon Wheel – Old Crow Medicine Show – O.C.M.S

It’s my Countrified playlist, and I’m in the process of cutting down my Citified playlist, which is more ambient/indie. I was going for a mix of traditional and indie folk, but it’s got a bit of tweaking before it’s ready to run – particularly whether I’ll keep “Just to See You Smile” or trade it out for another Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy song.

Coming soon: the final cut of the two volume set of musics that I like very much, plus, reflections on the last semester, and maybe even the whole year.

Music, culture, distracted posting

Just sitting around at home, trying to work on a mixed CD for the folks at school.  We all promised that we’d make a mix of our favorite songs and then share, so as to increase our musical horizons.  When you listen to 10+ hours of music a day, sometimes you have to have someone inject some new sounds into your repertoire.  When I’ve got a resonable playlist, I’ll post it here, so you all can oh and ah at my fantastic musical taste.  I’m going to try to keep it pretty folky, since there was an original idea to have each person’s mix be one genre, and since much of my music falls into that very broad category.

I’m going to a conference call today on how my mother’s church can work with the new Orlando Performing Arts Center.  Kind of exciting to think that Orlando might have an answer to Playhouse Square.  It’s not nearly as much of a cultural wasteland as you naysayers out there may think.  Or at least it won’t be in five years.

Actually, when you think about a new performing arts center, you realize just how much interesting culture there is in a place.  I think that once it’s consolidated, people will take quite a different view of the city, and perhaps the city will take a different view of itself.

I’ve got to get going so that I can drop mom at work and have the car to get to this meeting later.  I got a new licence, with a horrible picture, for this very moment.  So, more on cultural development and Orlando next time.

Postscript is that I’m staying at mom’s until Monday night, so photos won’t be up until Tuesday at the earliest.