Dawn Xiana Moon: Intelligent folk pop with influences from jazz and traditional Chinese music. From Chicago.

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Monday, February 28, 2005

A Blog's Birthday, Part III

Happy Birthday, Randomness! Here's to three whole years of blogging and an average of two posts a week (according to Blogger stats). Thanks to all of my faithful friends and readers for making me feel like I'm not writing into the void.

Today's post comes from May 29, 2003:

Being in Paris is amazing. The architecture is beautiful (though I can't say that for most of the modern buildings); Patrick would go nuts, I'm sure. You perhaps wouldn't think it, but the French have a very different culture than Americans, and not just in the superficial "they eat a lot of cheese and drink a lot of wine" ways. When I first flew into the city on Sunday, traffic was backed up for miles. Why? Un grève--or for those of us who speak English, a strike. Apparently you're not truly French unless you've been on strike at some point. Needless to say, this happens often. That day I was told that in France I should forget one word: "efficiency". It doesn't exist here. The customer is not always right and people take their time. But it means that you're welcome to sit and talk for a long time in a cafe and that no one will hurry you out of a restaurant. Politics are more integral to French life than American; we're considered moderate--both parties--in comparison. On the political spectrum you have, starting on the right, the people who want to bring back the monarchy, the people who want to kick out all of the immigrants, and then you move into the moderates and where most of the American population lies. Then on the left you have various groups going all the way to the communists and even further (what can be further left than communism?) the Troskists. People here love to debate, love to argue politics. Separation of church and state as we understand it does not exist; it made national news that Bush declared a day of prayer in connection with Iraq. The idea of Congress praying before a session is completely foreign. You do not talk about religion or faith or God--it would lead to divisions in unity. In practice, it means that they are essentially anti-God; the vast majority of the country claims to be Catholic but only 5% are practicing. Catholicism has left a bad taste in the mouths of the French; everything here has a historical context, and its historical context is that of close ties with the monarchy, the Crusades, and abuses in the church. You'll also find that the French value their writers far more than we do (which I can definitely appreciate). They're an intensely literary people--writers are often interviewed, and people actually listen to what they have to say. When a writer dies, it's as though a huge public figure--a president for us, perhaps--has died. Thus there are bookstores everywhere and they're well-read.

Moving away from specifically French culture, we've started to spend time in the universities, where we will be most of the summer. Two days ago I was with my friend Megan, who was one of the kids planning to go to East Asia, who speaks a little French and a tiny bit of Mandarin; at dinner we met a girl from Taiwan and her friend who were studying for their masters degrees in music. They were fluent in Mandarin and knew a fair amount of French (they've lived here for two years) and a little English, so we ended up in conversation around the table in three languages, mostly meeting in French with pieces of the other languages thrown in for clarity. Just yesterday I was sitting with Yenna, who's also from our group, trying to practice speaking in French; we were about to leave the cafeteria when a French guy sat down and started talking to us (which isn't common; they're a very private people). He'd been taking Tae Kwan Do so he knew a couple of words in Korean--Yenna's Korean--and had studied English for eight years, though he was more comfortable in French. Thus we spoke in French most of the conversation with a bit of English thrown in here and there. It's been really helpful for my own French skills, and fun to try communicating in a variety of tongues.

You have to be careful in Paris--there are thieves everywhere, and they're really good. Apparently it's safer than a lot of American cities, but just now as I was sitting in the internet cafe (literally a few minutes ago) I saw someone caught stealing. The guy who saw what was going on yelled in English, "Whose bag is this? Whose bag is this?" and chased the thief out of the cafe; he came back in, warning everyone that thieves here are "like magic." Someone on the Metro was trying to open my bag and I didn't even notice; luckily my friend Chase realized what was going on and shoved the guy away. So one should definitely be on guard.

I've definitely learned a number of things by being here and my French has improved as well. I bought a French Bible the other day and plan to do all of my reading from here on in French, which will also help.

^ Top | 10:42 PM | | |

Sunday, February 27, 2005

A Blog's Birthday, Part II

For those that are just jumping in, in honor of Randomness's third birthday I'm resurrecting some old posts for the next couple of days. Today's entry comes from November 20, 2002:

There are some times in life when you just have to do things on the spur of the moment, when you have to be a little crazy. Monday was one such day. I'd planned to see the meteor shower on Tues. morning (5:15am) with some friends--we thought we'd just drive out of town and into the country a few minutes away, so we wouldn't have to deal with city lights--but on Monday the weather reports weren't looking promising--they predicted rain and clouds for the entire night. So the excursion was canceled and we (Rachel, Tait, Derek, and myself) decided to get together for Colliders at Rod's (think Blizzards with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream) and study. Too bad, the meteor shower only happens once every 130 years. Between mouthfuls of frozen goodness, Derek jokingly suggested that we could always head out west of Chicago to see it, outrunning the clouds, and I took him seriously: "Why not? I'm in a crazy mood." Realize here that we're in southeast Michigan; this was absolute madness.

Somehow we all decided to go for it--a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity, right?--and grabbed blankets, Alex, who'd gotten wind of our plans via cell phone, homework (yup, we're definitely U-Mers), and pillows. We hopped in my car at 11:30pm and drove to Derek's house on the western side of the state to whip up some homemade hot chocolate and get updated weather reports from the internet (ever feel like a storm chaser?) so we could plan the best route. Throughout the trip, there were sporatic attempts to do homework by flashlight--reading a novel for me and Latin for Alex and Tait--which added another touch of hilarity to the situation. Around 5am we ended up by Champaign, IL, incredibly flat land--the Great Plains, actually--and drove down a random road in the middle of what was probably a cornfield; it was hard to tell since all of the crops had been harvested already. We got out, bundled up in blankets, and sipped hot cocoa. It was freezing, so we used the car to block the wind and all five of us laid down on the gravel road. "Wouldn't it be funny if a car drove by right now?" For an hour, we watched shooting stars. They were absolutely gorgeous--Derek and Tait were the only ones counting, with Derek's total hitting 310 (Tait, wearing glasses, saw just over half that) in the short time we had.

Finally, we hopped back in the car so we could make it back to Ann Arbor in time for (most) of our classes (hey, we're college students, and reality calls). On the way back, we stopped at the Burger King where Derek's brother works to get some food; incidentally, we didn't have to pay for it since Derek had worked there in the summer and the manager, glad to see him, said our food would be on the house. Nice. We eventually made it back to A2 at 11am. Rachel was especially sleep-deprived, which turned out to be an interesting combination of grumpy and slap-happy:

Me: How many points if I run over the girl with the bike?
Tait: A hundred if you can get her to fall off without touching the bike.
Me: Hmm... how could I do that?
Rachel: Don't run over anyone!!
Me: (laughing) I'm joking, dear.
Rachel: Don't joke with me when I'm tired!

So what have you been up to lately? :-)

^ Top | 1:42 PM | | |

Friday, February 25, 2005

A Blog's Birthday, Part I

In honor of Randomness's third birthday, the next few days will resurrect some of my favorite old posts. Today's entry is a bit of creative writing, an untitled story in a sentence posted on April 5, 2003:

It begins because you long for acceptance, then companionship, then affection, then love, and then you realize one day that you’ve been trying to satisfy a need your young voice never recognized was there, a bitter beehive you can’t sweeten with one-night stands and we’ve-been-dating-for-months-so-it’s-about-times that just make the honey worse, because dry mornings when they’re gone you sit enveloped in the bareness of your room wondering if there isn’t more to love then sweaty palms and parted mouths because isn’t this supposed to be deeper than the physical—you’re shriveled like an apple but don’t know how, you don’t want to turn away, even that one time in the bathroom of that restaurant and now you joke and laugh that you were so drunk but somehow you know you’ve given another piece of soul away but hey, it’s ok to have a little fun and you say that’s all you want but when the vodka clears you chew again on day-old conversations in the kitchen; Josh said God is love but is his different, unconditional?

^ Top | 8:52 PM | | |

Monday, February 14, 2005

What's in a name?

Happy Valentine’s Day. Or is it Valentines Day? A quick survey on the web shows no easy consensus. Perhaps it’s the English major in me, but the apostrophe is important: with the former spelling, the day belongs to its patron saint, Valentine, who apparently performed marriages for lovers when Claudius II had outlawed marriage for young men (he believed they would be better soldiers if they were single). Other stories suggest that what he actually did was help Christians escape from certain torture in Roman prisons. Or perhaps the possessive has nothing to do with Valentine at all: perhaps it refers to the object of one’s affections, the valentine of the day.

Then again, there’s the possibility that the latter is the correct spelling, entirely sans apostrophe. In that case, today is the day of valentines, whether human (the cute girl next to you in the computer lab) or not (those paper things you passed out in second grade). The day would thus belong to no one, although it would honor whatever you call a valentine.

Or as my roommate Mara says, perhaps the entire name is wrong: it’s Single People Awareness Day.

^ Top | 12:57 PM | | |

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Unofficial Bio

It seemed appropriate to write an Unofficial Bio in earnest. Here you go:

You could say that music is one of my passions, but those words aren’t entirely adequate—music is a part of me, one of the ways in which I both express and define myself; for me, home is a piano in a dark room. I’ve been singing, writing, and playing that instrument for almost my entire life.

But there’s a problem with classical training: the ability to improvise doesn’t come naturally. You spend so much time learning how to read someone else’s music, how to interpret the piece correctly based on compositional style and era that you don’t learn how to create the tapestry yourself, no matter how strong the Muse. Enter my freshman year at the University of Michigan and a new instrument: the guitar. I’d wanted to play for years, but when I finally sat down with the strings I found total anarchy—suddenly there no key signatures on manuscript filled with black dots to guide me: all I had were chords. “But how do I figure out how I’m supposed to strum this?” “Just do what seems to fit.” What? After my confusion passed, the proverbial new world opened its doors to me. Two months later, I performed my first original song.

Now this singer-songwriter thing has consumed a large part of my life, and I’d be happy to have it overwhelm more. Five years after I first picked up a guitar, I count 70 songs in my catalog. And I released my first album in October, a four-song EP entitled First Verse (why only four songs? Because studio sessions are expensive). The rest of my time goes to a “minor” obsession called swing dancing—I’ve danced in cities around the country and taken workshops and lessons with nationally and internationally respected instructors; writing both articles and creative work; freelance graphic/web design; a bit of modeling; and University Reformed Church, where I’m on staff working with worship/music (surprise, surprise) and the arts. I graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Language & Literature and Theatre & Drama—concentrations considered impractical in the so-called real world, but hey, I haven’t hit the real world yet. And I hope I never do.

^ Top | 8:19 AM | | |

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Tournament Results

Well, the competition is over and Randomness will resume its regularly scheduled programming. For full details on the contest results, click here.

Overall, all the judges were notably impressed by my writing, especially in Treading Water, but had differences of opinion on Randomness's design (from "I'm intrigued by this--Dawn has set up a blog here that integrates well with her overall website. Everywhere I look here, Dawn's personality and interests shine through" to "I'm sorry, this is really just TOO unbloglike"). Oh well, you can't please them all. One judge held back points due to my lack of sidebars, which aren't going to appear anytime soon--they tend to make pages rather cluttered. Most blogs have to cram all sorts of information onto what is essentially one page, whereas I have plenty of space to work with and the focal point of this site is not my blog. Though I do have the distinction of updating this thing since February 2002--that's right, Randomness's third birthday is coming up!--which is far longer than most bloggers have been posting. But I will say that by request, trackback functionality will likely appear here soon. [Edit: We now have trackbacks, but we've lost all of our previous comments switching from YACCS to Haloscan.] It's also interesting to note that the other contenders for the kingship focus more on political commentary and informational material while I (obviously) write more personal stories with the occasional dose of commentary.

Choice design quote: "The comments feature amused me--it appears to have been a French-language plug-in aimed at musicians with websites to allow folks to submit comments on a song. Nice adaptation." Actually, the commenting feature is intended for blogs. I changed the language to French around two years ago (geez, has it really been that long?), about the time I came back from Paris.

Choice submitted post quotes: "Powerful, gripping, emotional essay...." and "Deeply personal and moving.... She expresses herself very well--the writing is fluid and effortless to read.... Dawn lets us in to her heart and spirit instead of her mind, and I'm giving it a 5 because it was done so well."

Choice Challenge Question quotes: "Her crusade to rid the blogosphere of grammatical errors makes the Grammar Cop and the English Teacher lurking within me stand up and cheer... and the thought of beheading webmasters who continue to use multiple animated GIFs and horrific color combinations and poor layout and... *ahem* anyway, I like what this Queen has to offer." "Threatens to purge the blogosphere based on aesthetics instead of politics. Also manages to sidestep Murphy's Law by NOT having a grammar error in a post criticizing grammar errors. This girl is hardcore, and if I'm ever whacked by a disgruntled KOTB contestant, Dawn would make a good replacement judge."

And my favorite quote: "On a personal note, Dawn has the prettiest lips in the world to which I am not married."

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the poll! I lost by the tiny margin of one point.

^ Top | 10:33 AM | | |

Thursday, February 03, 2005

The following is a response to the King of the Blogs challenge, "You have just been chosen as the King of the Blogs. Write a speech beginning you[r] reign of terror."

Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together today: marriage, that blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream. Oops, wrong speech. Ah yes, I was supposed to prepare my coronation address.

Coronation Address

Friends, Romans, countrymen… lend me your ears.

Anyone who just groaned shall be summarily beheaded. No pardons shall be issued, and no mercy shall be granted. Thus begins my reign in the blogosphere. If you were content, even complacent before, tremble now. My authority is unquestionable and whatever I say shall be law.

As king, my first, most important, priority shall be to rid the internet of native English speakers who, for some reason unbeknownst to their former teachers, never mastered the fundamentals of the English language, as evidenced by their atrocious writing. Nobility and peasantry alike, this cannot be tolerated. When one cannot tell the difference between “whether” and “weather,” “waist” and “waste,” “herd and heard,” the complete and utter downfall of the kingdom is at hand. Typos are understandable, if not entirely excusable, but the inability to use correct syntax is despicable. All such bloggers shall be beheaded. The mainstream press is also to be executed when committing such violent injustice to the English language (yes, I did read an article by Fox News confusing “precedent” with “president"). Off with their heads!

My second order of business shall be to rid the internet of gratuitous animated gifs, wildly busy backgrounds, and neon colors incoherently piled on top of one another. Animated gifs are not bad in and of themselves, but when one page sports two instances of ten hopping bunnies in a row, something is wrong. There is no excuse for backgrounds that make text unreadable. And like the gifs, neon colors are not bad in and of themselves, but when a blog’s color scheme looks like something created by template in the stone ages of the web, again, there is no excuse. All such pages shall be wiped from collective memory and their creators shall be sent to design school.

Third, I wish to reward those faithful companions that have allowed me to rise to kingship. Notably, Bad Example, News from the Great Beyond, and The Smarter Cop, judges in their most excellent tournament, shall be recompensed with my eternal gratitude and positions as governors in my illustrious kingdom.

You will find me to be a stringent potentate, but a worthy one. May my reign, and the glory of the blogosphere that shall be revealed, endure forever. May the Force be with you.

^ Top | 6:25 PM | | |