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

Randomness Archives • Blogroll Me! • Atom XML Feed • RSS Feed

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Destination Two: Minneapolis

It's my last night in Minneapolis and though the time was short, it's been delightful. When Emily and I were going to college, much of our hangout time consisted of exploring the chocolate options in Ann Arbor; we continued our investigations when we became roommates, because somehow even though we lived in the same apartment we didn't actually see each other very often. It probably didn't help that I was (ahem, still am somewhat) nocturnal and she was up around 6:00am every morning for work. It's been three years since she got married to Dave and moved to Minneapolis, but yesterday Emily and I continued our tradition of chocolate exploration and indulged ourselves at Just Truffles, a tiny chocolate shop that has been featured on Oprah and the Food Network and is beloved of Pavarotti and Yo-Yo Ma. The expensive ($3.75 apiece) Just Chocolate and Bailey's truffles we tried were delicious. (Actually, that reminds me of the time we ate a cheap dinner of falafels and then went to a fancy dessert-restaurant-and-cigar-bar and split one piece of flourless chocolate cake that cost more than both our dinners combined. Mmmmm. It was worth every bit of the $8.00 a slice, though I haven't gone there since.)

Earlier that day we visited the Como Park Zoo with its neurotic polar bears--and I kid you not, they really are crazy, probably due to prolonged captivity in a small, concrete space. Emily's seen them ten times now, and every time one of the bears is prowling around on the lower section of the exhibit, pacing endlessly, and the other is in the pool in the upper section of the exhibit, pulling himself out of the water just enough to dive back in, swimming, and then repeating the cycle. She wasn't the only one who's noticed this phenomenon; we overheard at least two other visitors talking about how the bears never interact and are always in the same places doing the same things. As she says, it's a song waiting to happen.

That night we went swing dancing--yes, even Dave and Emily, since there was a short lesson--at the Minnesota History Center; Vic Volare (a Sinatraesque crooner) and his band were playing to a large audience sprawled on the lawn and concrete. (I'd asked some Minnesota dancers beforehand where I could find lindy while I was in town; unfortunately I won't be around for their regular dance night.) The weather was beautiful and the skyline of St. Paul, especially when the sun began to set, provided a picturesque backdrop for the night. I love how you can go to just about any mid-sized city in the country and find lindy hoppers, who are generally friendly, fun people.

Tonight I played at the Acadia Café--and let me tell you, the venue is wonderful. They provide a soundman (thanks Peter, and sorry for mixing up your name!) and a real stage, spotlights, everything. For its size, this is rare. Ted, the booker, is also great to work with, and the place is an interesting mix of theatre, wood floors, brick, café, and pub (they have a slew of beers on tap, even though the overall feel is coffeehouse rather than bar). The next time I make it out to Minneapolis, I'll have to play there again. Amaryah and Jenny Dalton, two local singer-songwriters, also played sets, and it was great to finally meet them in person after coordinating everything via email and Myspace.

Tomorrow will see me in Oshkosh and then back to Chicago (actually, Evanston) with almost nine hours of driving. And I should mention that all the driving with the manual doesn't just consist of stalling at inopportune times--I've also done quite well at points, once managing to parallel park perfectly in a tight spot without any trouble. It's been an incredible trip so far, not least because I've been able to spend three days with Dave and Emily, the most time we've spent together in years. (Funny story: Dave was at the show early helping me carry equipment and ended up volunteering to run the door--Ted asked if he was my boyfriend and I had to laugh, responding, "Actually, he's married to my friend over there.")

^ Top | 1:41 AM | | |

Monday, August 22, 2005

Reconsidered

Instead of scones, I ended up stopping at a restaurant next door to the cafe and ordering lettuce wraps, which I then ate in a park (it's beautiful outside). And being chased by a bee. He just wouldn't leave--apparently I smell good or something because he wasn't even interested in my food. Since he kept trying to land on me, we ran around a five-foot circle in the park a couple of times, no doubt amusing the people walking by on the street.

And I wanted to note that it was very cool of Bryan to let me have the run of his house for a night--he's currently in Mexico exploring Mayan ruins with a friend of his who's an archaeologist. Wait a minute, did I say cool? Actually, I hate him--I've been fascinated by the Maya since elementary school and Teotihuacan and Chicken Itza have been on my list of places to see ever since I had one. (For those that will ask, no, it's not actually written down. Unlike my reading list and list of CDs to buy.) I need an archaeologist friend. And money for a plane ticket.

^ Top | 2:52 PM | | |

Destination One: Chicago

Initially I had mixed feelings about traveling for so long on my own--I'm quite the extrovert, even though I do enjoy time alone--but thus far I've been enjoying the trip. Right now I'm in Evanston, and I'll leave in a few minutes to go to the Unicorn Café and hopefully pick up one of their chocolate chip scones (I had one the last time I was in town and it was wonderful) before I continue the journey. Yesterday before leaving Ann Arbor I stopped to grab a couple of bagels, and that ended up being the only thing I ate all day; I didn't have time to eat before the show, and afterward I was too tired to look for food. I'm surprised I'm not hungrier right now. Then again, spending hours in the car doesn't exactly take a ton of energy.

Adventures in driving a stick shift: for the most part, I was fine--but I did stall at two different tolls (once while waiting in line and the other after I'd paid the machine and the bar was lifting). No panic, but the first time one of the cars behind me apparently got frustrated and just looped around me. Last night I was telling travel stories to the audience at the Red Line Tap and they found some amusement in those foibles. And since Chicago is the refuge of Michiganders, there were a number of people that originally hailed from Metro Detroit.

Speaking of the show, I had a pleasure of hearing Becky Johnson and James Weigel, as well as one of James's friends, Pat, who played a few blues tunes and covers after the "official" part of the night. Becky has an incredible voice and writes melodies similar to mine--scary, isn't it? Hopefully she'll be able to come out to Ann Arbor as part of the coffeehouse concert series I'm booking. She's also planning to go on staff with Park Community Church, which is interesting because I have a couple of friends in the city that go there. Small world.

So today's itinerary includes an estimated seven hours of driving from Chicago to Minneapolis. Fortunately, I have two batteries for my cell phone, tons of CDs, including the music for the show I'll be acting in come fall, and a philosophy lecture series on tape (borrowed from a friend, so I haven't really looked at it yet, but I believe it's Philosophy of the Mind.) And off I go!

^ Top | 1:12 PM | | |

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Embarking

So it begins. In a few hours I'll leave Ann Arbor for my first "real" tour through Chicago, Minneapolis, Oshkosh (WI), and back through Chicago--according to Google Maps, this will entail 25 hours of driving, almost entirely by myself (a friend is going to join me for the return trip from Chicago, so that's four hours of company). Thankfully I'll be staying with friends along the way; actually, a large part of the impetus to tour to Minneapolis was to visit Dave and Emily, the couple I wrote "The Promise" for.

I feel blessed. Last night was a wonderful sendoff for the tour, a birthday concert at Espresso Royale complete with a substitute for birthday cake: homemade chocolate pudding pie-cake, flan, and brownies. Which was excellent, because I'm not a fan of typical cakes anyway. I was joined by Leena Gilbert on violin--it was our first real show together, and unfortunately she's moving to New York (where she will doubtless take the jazz world by storm)--and we had an audience that listened, something you don't always find in a coffee shop. So I've decided that every concert should be a birthday party from now on--that way I'll always have an attentive, full audience.

I'm also thankful for my community, an international assemblage of friends and family that have promised to pray for the trip. So many of them have helped throughout this musical journey of mine: in just a sampling, TB Douce and Alex allowed me to borrow their cars on a consistent basis; Anna, Dan, Brad, Ben, and Bethany devoted hours to recordings both new and old; Tom E., my (now former) pastor gave me free reign to steal his guitar almost weekly; my brother likewise let me steal his guitar and car; and Ricke is donating his time to engineering the upcoming full-length and loaning his car and guitar for the duration of the tour, which is the reason I learned to drive a stick shift this week. (If you haven't noticed the trend, I'm usually both car-less and guitar-less, rather a problem when you're a working musician.) It's worthy to note that much has changed in a year--at this point last summer I was dealing with a number of issues, the primary being a loss of community when my closest friends all left town at the same time. But I'm again in a place where I am incredibly grateful for the people in my life, both in Ann Arbor and beyond.

^ Top | 8:32 AM | | |

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Popularity at 23

In the last couple of days, more than one friend has told me that I'm popular. It's a funny thing for me to hear for a number of reasons going from elementary school to the past year--I tend to argue that popularity loses much of its meaning after the immaturity of high school, but it's true that in some ways the world operates more like high school than college (meaning: the idea of popularity never quite disappears).

I was the second most-disliked person in our elementary school class. How do I know this? When captains got to choose their teams for the various games and sports we played, I was always among the last chosen--and when we got to choose our own partners for various activities, I was always stuck with Kristy Hill, the number one most-disliked person in our class. And to make matters worse, we couldn't stand each other. Somewhere I have an old journal entry complaining about our gym teacher getting irritated at our inability to get along. But I never did figure out exactly why I was the outcast; then, as now, people had various theories, but who knows what went on in the minds of those kids? It was something of a relief to go to college and find out that many of the other students at the University of Michigan had been outsiders--I wasn't the only one.

Things got progressively better as I went through school, culminating in college--but I maintain that it's difficult to be "popular" at a large university because there are so many students and so many different groups that while one might be popular in one group, when taken out of that context you'd be on the same level as anyone else. Sorority and frat types might traditionally be considered popular, but in my experience most outside of the Greek system ridicule the ones inside and have no desire to join. In college there's a place for the goth kids, for the hippies, the geeks and the artistic types--the field is more or less level, and no one group has more power than another; if anything, it's the ones who do well in classes that are respected more highly. I'm generalizing somewhat here, but you get my point.

Since I've always been an extrovert, I'm comfortable interacting with new people on a constant basis--I love getting to know friends of friends and making them my own. And random people. Somehow this has evolved into what appears to be a large social network--I'm not sure if it's really that I know that many people or that the people come from such different places: I have friends from music, InterVarsity, theatre, the Residential College, Christians United, swing dancing, the University Musical Society, church, and a host of other origins. And since there are less than six degrees of separation in Ann Arbor, people are always surprised to find the connections between themselves.

But even with these numbers of friends, last summer I lost my community and it took months, even a year, to gain a new one. It's the nature of a highly transitional city--you form deep relationships with people who then graduate, move, get married, or sometimes just drift in some indefinable way. And without being part of a community, even a large phone book can't dissipate feelings of disconnectedness. Belonging and depth takes time, so in many respects I had a rough year.

However, it's true that both times Bryan's seen me in Chicago I've introduced him to different friends and he hasn't yet seen the same person twice (that makes seven people I've either brought with me or met up with in the city, I think). And I generally don't lack for people to take road trips with or spend time with here or there--it's unusual that I'm sitting around, bored. My friends are also very generous in loaning precious necessities like cars and guitars, so I've definitely been blessed. Incredibly so. Yet to think of myself as popular is an utterly foreign concept.

It's similar in some ways to a realization I had last summer--after 22 years, I discovered that I knew how to flirt and had never been conscious of it. And that guys were interested. Said guys never believe me when I say that few of them ever approach me (perhaps some of that is for the best), but it's true--it was rare until last year (granted, a couple of serious relationships didn't help, but that's still two years out of say, eight, counting from the age of 14). Again, I don't know why--it was just the way things were, and though I've changed and grown somewhat in a year, the change hasn't been drastic by any means.

So: paradigms shifting.

^ Top | 5:20 AM | | |

Saturday, August 13, 2005

On the Windy City

It feels like I just spent a weekend in Chicago, but my "weekend" was sandwiched in-between two real weekends, one filled with concerts and the comfort of an old community, the other filled with concerts (I'm sensing a trend) and dancing and newer community. I'm moving toward Patrick's conclusion that Chicago is the greatest city on the earth; although I don't quite agree there--Paris still holds that title in my mind--I've developed a definite fondness for the area. Which he was happy to note, since he's been trying to convince me to move there instead of New York (one of my other favorite cities) for years. Somewhat ironically, Pat doesn't live in Chicago himself yet--he's spent a lot of time there, but the immediate future calls him to Boston and Harvard (a.k.a. "The H-Bomb" for the reactions you see when you tell someone that you're going to grad school there--most of said reactions are quite amusing and he'll avoid telling people at all when he can help it).

The Chicago I'm getting to know now is different from the one I knew visiting with parents and sometimes even friends--that Chicago consists primarily of Chinatown (Singaporeans are very concerned about food and will drive hours out of the way for excellent cuisine--heck, exiles will return to Singapore for visits in large part for the food), the Magnificent Mile, and the museums; it's great, but touristy. In the last month and a half, I've been to the city three times (and will be back twice more in August since it routes my tour--music and dancing are good reasons to travel), which, while bordering on excessive, has shown me more of the other side of Chicago, the neighborhoods, the beaches, the architecture and cafes. Some of this I'd discovered last year with Patrick and dancing at the Windy City Lindy Exchange two years ago, but it's much more solid now in my mind. It's a result of staying with locals and walking around with them. And Evanston, where my friend Bryan lives, is beautiful and home to the most delightful used bookstore I've ever seen, Bookman's Alley (another find on the trip was Myopic Books in Wicker Park)--it's something like Ann Arbor with larger streets, Chicago on its border, and beaches; walking a few feet into the park that runs into Northwestern University, you can forget that there's a city next to you and pretend that you're in the country. Even to the point of watching stars hover over the darkened waters.

^ Top | 1:01 AM | | |

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

A Short Update

Wow am I overdue on an update. I'm currently in Evanston, fitting since Chicago seems to have become my new home, having played at Uncommon Ground last night for the Just Plain Folks showcase. It was fantastic hearing so many musicians and putting faces to the emails--coming from Ann Arbor, I was the first out of town performer (and probably the youngest), though the man who came from San Francisco won for traveling the furthest.

But to summarize the last couple of weeks:
1. EatME (Too!) in Ann Arbor, otherwise known as the Ann Arbor Lindy Exchange. We hosted around 300 swing dancers from all over the country for a weekend and danced without ceasing. For photos click here.
2. Higgins Lake. After an exhausting but fun weekend running such a large event, the Exchange organizers needed a break--so we went to Higgins Lake, MI and relaxed, playing poker, watching the stars (the best part was a Friday night so clear we could see the Milky Way, and good conversation at the same time), reading, and playing in the water (I went tubing for the first time, and it took my arms days to recover).
3. The Acoustic Avenue Showcase. I played this singer-songwriters-in-the-round concert in Ferndale with Annie Capps and David Nefresh, who are both wonderful musicians. It was the first in-the-round show I've done, and I'm looking forward to doing more.
4. Magdalena's Tea House in Lansing. On Saturday night I was privileged to share the stage with Todd Martin (from Boston), Chris Dorman, and Ed Englerth. Even though we had a tiny audience--from the sound of it, everyone was at a jazz festival instead of at our venue--they listened the entire time and it was a great night for music. If you can't make money doing this--and if you're going into music for the money, you'll be sorely disappointed--you should at least be having fun. And that we did.
5. Reunions. Over the last few days I've been able to spend some time with three of my close friends that have moved to other states, and it was refreshing, like snuggling into an old sweater when the fall's first hints of frost appear. There's something comforting about regaining your community, knowing that these people understand you better than almost anyone that you usually interact with anymore.

^ Top | 4:37 PM | | |