Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Short Blurbs

Everything has finally been recorded for the CD! We're currently in post-production--in other words, expect an announcement in the coming weeks with details on how to get yourself a copy. It's only taken (cough) a year....

I thought Miles O'Brien was a character on Star Trek (Chief of Operations on Deep Space Nine, Transporter Chief of the Enterprise). But no, he actually works for CNN. Who knew?

I moved back to my parents' house in Redford last week... and was in Ann Arbor four times that week for swing dancing, music rehearsals, UWorship planning, and general hanging out. That's a good 45 minutes in the car each way.... I'm starting to feel like a slug. Is this what "real" adults do?

Check out Gigs for details on Saturday's show at the Grand Cafe in Farmington. Hope to see you there!

^ Top | 2:50 PM | | |

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Le Black-out

I've been living in the middle of the biggest story on CNN, Le Monde, the BBC, and the other news sites for the last two days. Ann Arbor (where I live), Livonia (where I work), and Redford (where my parents live) were all affected by the collapse of the Niagara power grid that affected 50 million Americans and Canadians beginning on Thursday after 4pm; it's the largest blackout in history. Our total dependence on electricity is funny in a slightly fatalistic sort of way.

I was at work when the power went out. At first we figured that one of the offices connected to ours must have had the air conditioner running too high and had blown the fuse; after a half hour we found out that the power outage had affected everything from Detroit to the East Coast and that flights in Detroit were grounded because there was no power to run the security screeners. With no working computers, lights, phones (yes, I know, most people had working phones but for some reason our land lines were dead), we ended the day at 5pm and I battled long lines of cars on the freeway to get home. It took me 45 min. instead of the usual half hour, and I was lucky--had I been going in the other direction, it would have possibly taken an hour since the cars were barely moving. When I got into Ann Arbor all of the lights on Main St. were black, save one--which seemed random--though drivers were being particularly courteous and the police were directing traffic on certain streets.

I managed to get ice cream at the Washentaw Dairy, which was packed, soon after, unsure when the next cold anything would be available. At my house, my roommate Elise and I realized that we could hear news from someone's car radio parked in the driveway a few houses down. Callers included: 1. an irate woman from Wyandotte who complained that her power shouldn't be out since they had a plant and weren't connected to anyone else for electricity, right? (too bad all power plants are connected to the grid by law) and 2. another woman from somewhere in the Metro Detroit area who couldn't believe we supply power to Canada and them to us, because it's obviously stupid. Good grief. If they actually thought about it, they'd realize that a grid helps more than it hurts.

A few of my friends and I decided to BBQ since opening the fridge wasn't an option, so we headed to Busch's... and promptly left the parking lot as soon as we saw it (too crowded). Meijer looked normal until we got inside--they had generators so the half of the lights and--get this--music were on, but they'd cleared out the entire meat/seafood section and covered it in plastic wrap. Likewise, the deli and frozen sections were in what were probably hundreds of square feet of thick plastic wrap, as was half of the produce. One worker told us, "You can't buy anything here." Needless to say, we left and headed back to Busch's, which turned out to have fewer people than we'd originally thought and was functioning normally.

That night, the Detroit Free Press worked by candlelight and managed to get out a newspaper this morning. The city of Ann Arbor was in darkness, with the exception of a few select buildings, including a couple of parking lots. What amazed me was the university: the University of Michigan was functioning. Although all of the buildings were closed, apparently we have some well-thought out contingency plans because most of the streetlamps on campus were working and lights were on in most of the buildings that would normally have them, such as the art museum, parking garages, offices, libraries, and labs. Frazzled students filled the Diag, the center of campus, and sat on the steps of the Grad Library, studying for finals (summer classes) in the light. Seeing campus in such a normal state was almost disconcerting coming from the black void of the city and nearby Saline, where we'd eaten dinner and stargazed without the glow of city lights on the horizon. However, everything on campus was closed--all finals were also canceled for the day, which means that students in those classes will have no idea if and when a rescheduling will occur until Monday, and many were planning to leave town this weekend since it was supposed to be the end of finals. At that point, word from DTE Energy was that power would be restored in two days.

This morning, work was canceled and I got to sleep in, although at 9:30am my neighbors, who apparently had just acquired a power generator, started their machine as I tried to continue sleeping. Think: jackhammer. Admittedly I felt some triumph when power returned at 11:15am (heh, less than two hours after they'd gotten the noisemaker); coincidentally or not, I'd prayed last night that power would come back around 10 or 11:00am today. Literal thanks there to God. Most of the Detroit area now has power, although the system won't be fully functional until Sunday. (Though I find it amusing that some parts of the country--and the Metro area--had managed to restore power only to have another blackout when people immediately went crazy with air conditioners and other electronics.)

The US (more specifically, the mayor of New York) is currently blaming Canada for the outage; Canada is blaming the US (more specifically, Cleveland). Who needs terrorists? We're perfectly capable of screwing things up on our own.

^ Top | 1:21 AM | | |

Monday, August 11, 2003

Des Nouvelles

Some interesting headlines from CNN today:

About 50 dead in Paris from heat wave, doctor says: I'm so glad I got back when I did. About 50 people have died in the last four days from heat-related causes as Europe suffers from record temperatures. And the weather right now is actually fairly mild for Michigan at this time of the year.

Christian camp revived as 'learning farm': A Methodist minister is reviving a Christian camp in Tennessee as a place to combat racism, bring healthy food to the inner city, teach youth, and create a sustainable economy through farming. Actually, he's onto something; if only more people would take seriously putting faith into action, think how different our world would look today.

Unabomber asks government to return bomb, books: Yes, you read that right. University of Michigan alum and convicted unabomber Ted Kaczynski wants a pipe bomb, books, and personal papers back--but hey, at least he wants them sent to U-M for research. Research on what? I swear we graduate the strangest people....

^ Top | 10:04 PM | | |

Friday, August 08, 2003

La Danse

When I started dancing consistently in April I planned to go out about once a week and either swing or salsa. I haven't done any salsa since James went back to Florida for the summer, but I've developed an obsession with swing that I would have never predicted. Case in point: I went dancing three times last week. And you thought swing was just a fad. Well, the fad is long over--I'd say it died around 2000--but in Ann Arbor there are still a number of amazing dancers and Wednesday nights at the Union are full. And I'm discovering things most of us never knew existed--like Lindy Exchanges, where dancers from around the country or even the world can register for a weekend of dancing literally until you drop (the events at the St. Louis Blues Lindy Exchange last from "12:00am 'til everyone passes out" or 7:00am; unbelievable) and more-or-less free housing is provided by locals in the city where the exchange is held. I.e., things become pretty affordable.

One thing that's fueled the obession is that I can tell tell I've gotten better and I've been told by a couple of guys I dance with fairly regularly that I've improved. If improvement doesn't keep you motivated, little will. And now I've gotten some friends into the action: Anna Draper, Tait, and Rachel Mathews have all been persuded, and Daria, who started dancing in high school and stopped, is now taking swing lessons. In other words, InterVarsity, a group that at the University of Michigan is composed primarily of introverted engineers, may finally have critical mass to get people dancing. Amazing. My friend Darren and I talked about planning a swing dance two years ago but it never panned out because we realized that once we put everything together, either no one would come or a handful would show up and only a couple of them would dance. So things are looking up--and we finally are getting more non-engineering types (not that I don't love our engineers, but there's truth to the stereotype... for guys anyway).

So the moral of this blog is: Eating chocolate on chicken is a bad idea. Nah. Get out there and go swing.

^ Top | 2:39 AM | | |

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Se Doucher

The shower in the upstairs bathroom has been gradually losing water pressure over the last month--the reason for this is totally unknown--and about a week ago I gave up showering upstairs and retreated to the downstairs bathroom (where the water pressure is really good). Apparently Tait also decided that the upstairs shower is hopeless; in his words, "It's as though someone's peeing on me."

^ Top | 6:55 PM | | |

Saturday, August 02, 2003

La Jeunesse

Now and then our culture's obsession with appearance and celebrity proves itself to be exactly that: obsession. While one would think that newspapers would cover current issues, politics, natural disasters, wars--you know, things that seem like they matter--the largest article on the front page of Thursday's USA Today was "Makeovers change lives, not just looks; On TV, the transformations are a thrill." The long article, complete with testimonials as to the importance of hair, fashion, and physical appearance, was full of testimonials from people whose lives had been changed when they changed their look. Come on, people--is this really front-page news? We're looking at a newspaper, not an issue of Entertainment Weekly, for crying out loud.

Of course, the article does more than highlight the materialism and superficiality of our society--it also brings forth the implication that physical appearance is more important than other attributes. While there's truth to the proverbial "if you look good, you'll feel good too," there's always the lurking danger of pampering the parts of ourselves easily seen and neglecting to develop qualities that will outlast the years that our youth-obsessed culture tells us are our only chance of being productive. I may be young, but even I know that wisdom takes time to grow.

^ Top | 4:00 PM | | |