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Tuesday, September 20, 2005 Editorial I keep forgetting to post links to my columns on RelevantMagazine.com; I'm the Deeper Walk editor, so I'm responsible for acquiring and editing the content for that entire subsection of the site. (Incidentally, if you're interested in freelancing for Relevant, check out the writers' guidelines--it's slightly out-of-date thanks to shifting things around for the new website; I believe we're now publishing fourteen feature-length articles a week.) Click the links: Hope in the Dark: The situation with Hurricane Katrina has raised a number of issues, but the one that has been most on my mind is that of hope. In times of trial or pain, how do we respond ourselves? How do we respond to others who are suffering? As a musician, my first instinct is to turn to song, but when I first saw the coverage of the Superdome, I had to wonder if music could bring hope in such circumstances or if it was utterly irrelevant. When you--and thousands of others--don't have food and water, much less a home, is melody rendered trite? Left Wondering: When we look at injustice and pain and failure, yelling to God, "Why?" he doesn’t just stand impassively, shaking his head at our audacity—-he grieves for us, with us. Even as we wonder why he doesn’t seem to be taking action. Happy reading, and let me know what you think of the columns. ^ Top | 10:58 PM | | | 
Saturday, September 17, 2005 New Music Online Just a quick note: check out Listen for lots of new music in the streaming section--I just uploaded live recordings from the Espresso Royale Caffe show at the end of August. They'll be downloadable at some point when I get around to doing that too. ^ Top | 1:00 AM | | |
Sunday, September 11, 2005 Football Saturday Written in a coffeeshop while observing the first Saturday of the Michigan football season. They are walking down the sidewalk, cardboard coffee cups in hand, marching in imitation of the band that trumpeted their victory--but they do not smile, adorned in the maize and blue that mark their allegiance. The win was not clear enough. The sunglass-clad policemen on the corner watch them, them and the line of vans and SUVs and cars punctuated by the occasional station wagon that have rained onto Main Street for hours. It is like the waters of New Orleans, never receding, ever pushing forward with steady nonchalance. And weaving through the sea of vehicular impatience, the students who stayed long enough to metamorphose into townies discuss the ambivalence of another fall in Ann Arbor--a town relaxed for the summer is once again hectic, dotted with clusters of anxious freshmen and their parents, returning upperclassmen who have speckled their front lawns with countless red plastic cups in a Saturday afternoon ritual of beer pong and kegs more religious than the man who meditates on the Diag, hands palm up on his knees even in the frigidity of Michigan winters. Parking is now a precious commodity. ^ Top | 11:50 PM | | |
Saturday, September 10, 2005 Detroit Jazz Fest It’s an annual tradition that I’d never been able to participate in--and since my time in this state is likely limited, on Labor Day I made sure to grab some friends and drive out to the Detroit Jazz Festival. Our evening commenced with the Blind Boys of Alabama, who, according to the announcer, have played their brand of gospel blues together for sixty years now. Thus it stands to reason that the original members are quite old, but although some of them looked frail in their new pink suits and sunglasses, they are anything but. The most fragile looking member of the group, an gaunt singer with white hair, actually jumped off the stage and sang in the middle of the appreciative crowd, belting his heart out--and when it was time to get back onstage with the rest of his band, two security guards lifted him up and would have brought him backstage but he waved them away and kept singing. And singing. There’s a reason they keep winning Grammys. Since I was there with dancers, of course we danced a few songs as well. And beyond just performing incredible music, the concert had the effect of walking into a vibrant black church; these guys are serious about their faith and are quite vocal about it without falling into self-righteous preaching. Now if only we could figure out how to do gospel music at URC.... After running into Ann Arbor favorite Mr. B (the guy who jams boogie woogie and blues on a grand piano in front of the Michigan League every Art Fair) and a random listener who started scatting and singing along to his now--accompaniment, "I’m the baddest boogie woogie woman in the world"--she was amazing and grew even more so after the crowd’s favorable reaction--we made our way to Hart Plaza for Dave Brubeck’s performance. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get very close to the stage so we settled on some grass that provided absolutely no visibility. After a few songs Ken discovered that you could see, if you were tall enough, from a point near the tree we were standing by. I wasn't tall enough. So I listened to one song on Mike D.’s shoulders, and then we both decided to climb the tree and sat there for the remainder of the show. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was in the same position as Zaccheus, too short to see Jesus and commotion below another tree 2000 years ago. ^ Top | 3:42 PM | | |
Tuesday, September 06, 2005 Destination Four: Chicago (Again) On the 26th I played at the Bourgeois Pig, one of my favorite cafes in the world; Patrick and I discovered it in May last year when we made a spontaneous road trip to Chicago (see how this is a theme in my life?) because we were getting antsy being in Ann Arbor. I was surprised--the small audience that night was incredibly attentive (one of them and I had a great conversation after my set), and after Jeanne Kuhns and I had played, we turned the stage over to her son Eli for a song--he was wonderful (and the black fedora he wore made him extra cool). After the show I had just enough time to make it to Java Jive, the University of Chicago’s weekly swing dance. And sure enough, I not only knew many of the people there, but when one lead found out that my birthday was the next day, the Chicago dancers followed time-honored tradition and gave me a birthday dance. The next day couldn’t have been better. I was curious as to how the millions of dollars had been spent on the project, so Bryan, Jane, and I headed to Millennium Park and explored the perfectly smooth surface of the Bean--literally, a giant silver bean that is coveted for its reflective surface and provokes silly posturing from onlookers, who wave their arms wildly to find themselves in the reflected distortions. And the multi-storied digital faces that usually spit water, but were unable to fulfill their function that day. We took crazy photos everywhere, climbing on (and imitating) sculptures, dancing on walls, and we were satisfied with that we wandered over to Summerdance, a free Chicago event that hosts live music and dance lessons outdoors in various styles. So we learned how to do zydeco, and since there was a half-hour break between the lesson and the band, went in search of food between the two. Returning, Jane and I decided the blues-tinged zydeco was perfect for lindy hop, so we started dancing (the song was too fast for me to lead, so we quit midway through). Later I found out that a fellow lindy hopper’s friend pointed us out, saying, “You should ask those girls to dance--they look like they know what they’re doing.” He looked closely and responded, “Actually, one of them looks familiar....” Which was me. So I spent the rest of the night dancing with the small group of lindy hoppers that had come out and Bryan doing salsa (or in my case, faking salsa). CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band even played a slow blues song, just when I wishing for one (see, he’s telepathic, like every good performer). Back in Evanston, ice cream from the Evanston Creamery (with its hilarious signs: “If you want something healthy, eat vegetables”) closed the night in lieu of flourless chocolate cake, which we weren't able to locate dispite Bryan's valiant efforts. And the next day I was back home, the same house with almost entirely new roommates and moving across the hall so that my old room could become a double (we have one more person living here than we did last year, for a total of eight: four guys, four girls). For the second time in my life, I’m living in the real-life version of MTV’s Real World. Though this time instead of two Joes we have two Dans, and instead of a slum lord we have a med resident that I was content with last year. One week, over 1400 miles, and history really does repeat itself. ^ Top | 10:55 PM | | |
Thursday, September 01, 2005 Destination Three: Oshkosh On Thursday morning I made my first visit to the cultural phenomenon known as Ikea, a veritable warehouse of interior decorating goodies that I wished I could buy, especially since when I got back on Sunday night I had to move across the hall (same house, different room--more about that later). Then I drove through hours of highway bordered by signs advertising--you guessed it--cheese. It's somewhat cliche, but Wisconsin is definitely proud of its cheesy heritage. Or at least the stores are. Oshkosh is a little town surrounded by farms and fields; as far as I can tell, you can't even get to it via the interstate. The New Moon Cafe is situated in the middle of downtown, which isn't far from the local university--unfortuately, from what I saw the college has terrible, office-building architecture while the town itself is quite traditional and cozy. For some reason that will continue to elude me, I was under the impression that Oshkosh and Madison are around an hour's drive from each other; this, I discovered during my first stop in Chicago, was totally false. (How on earth did I get that idea?) Madison is almost three hours away from Oshkosh. Yet I had the privilege of sharing the night with the wonderful Tracy Jane Comer anyway. (Check her out--she's been nominated for Madison Area Music Awards galore.) For the second time ever, I played an entirely improvised song created from words thrown out by the audience (the first attempt at this, in Minneapolis, was so fun I've decided to do it regularly from now on). After the show, loaded with an espresso brownie and coffee to keep my sleep-deprived self awake for the drive, I was off to Chicago (and of course, got somewhat lost on the way--luckily I had Bryan, now returned from Mexico and Mayan ruins, on the phone with a computer and online maps). ^ Top | 9:45 PM | | |
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