Siren and Coney Island

So there's lots to tell since I last posted, but I won't do it all at once. Here's a list of things I need to cover, and I'll try to get to them one-by-one:
1. Siren and Coney Island (0716)
2. Baby Arden and Uncle Boom, nihongo no jyugyoo (0717/18)
3. Neck Sprain and the Half-Blood Prince (0719)

So first thing's first:

Saturday, July 16, Brett and I went to Coney Island for the Siren Music Festival, a free concert sponsored by the Village Voice (and Budweiser, among other things). I was really excited because 1) I'd never been to Coney Island before 2) I'd enjoyed the last time I'd seen Ambulance LTD and expected to again and 3) Sid had told me about Mates of State maybe two years ago after seeing them at SXSW and I guess I was impressed enough by his impression of them that I actually remembered their name (which, if you know me, is saying something).

The weather that day called for intermittent showers with thunderstorms in the evenings, so we packed a towel. I also (thanks to my growing motherly sensibilities) insisted we pack gatorade, and it's a good thing too. AND, as *begin female details: skip if you're disgusted by this type of thing* my breasts had been sore for the past couple days and I hadn't had my period in two months, I also decided to pack a couple "feminine products," just in case. *end female details*

So we took the subway out and made it just in time for Ambulance LTD. The sound wasn't great, but you can't really expect anything amazing from outdoor concerts (and, really, I wasn't going to be too picky - two stages, 14 bands, FREE, sounds good to me). Their energy wasn't quite what it was the first time I'd seen them, but then, that was a smaller, more intimate venue where everyone was a fan. I will say that the guitarist didn't look quite so ready to have a siezure though, which was an improvement. And can I add that I really *really* wish the lead singer would put on some weight. Geez, boy, makes me sick looking at you. Anyway, so I don't *know* their album really well, but, as luck would have it, they opened with the three songs I *do* know well. Very nice of them. They played a few new numbers too. A down song called "Somalia" or summat, which I wasn't such a fan of. The one before that though had a sweet groove that got everyone around us dancing. If you ask me, it was really made for a line dance - not country dance hall style, but more like Humble High School big-booty style. I dug it.

Anyway, their set wasn't amazing, though I have a soft spot for them. Brett told me that they're having trouble appealing to the young midwestern crowd, though they do well in New York. Not really sure what the young midwestern crowd likes, but they have an interesting, strummy sound. I figured it would cross palates, but maybe not.

After Ambulance we did a quick tour of the little flea market and then tried to decide what to do next. There was a small crowd gathered in the lot around something we couldn't quite see but which clearly involved a woman with fake blood on her face (she moved like Julia Ressler, I could totally see her doing that). So Brett pointed to them and said "Want to see what's going on there?" But suddenly *begin female details* I felt a little shock in my abdomen and told Brett I needed to go to the bathroom to see if I was (to quote him) "broken," so I stepped into the Port-a-potty. When I came out, Brett said "You know that show I was pointing at?" At he indicated the group again. There was a guy with a guitar and ratty hair and two women dressed in a morbid-trashy style. They were holding a sign that said "Haunted Pussy," and Brett said "I guess we alread saw it." *laughs* *end female details*

We then headed to the Stillwell (i.e. not-Main) Stage for a glimpse of Be Your Own Pet. We got there 2:45ish, and they were supposed to be on at 2:30, so we thought we wouldn't miss much, but lo, they weren't even on stage when we got there. We hoped that maybe they were running really late, so waited around... past 3:30. No Be Your Own Pet. Too bad. I was interested in seeing the kids (literally, the bassist just turned 16) from Nashville. So at 3:30 Morningwood took the Stillwell Stage. Despite their amusing (though not-too-creative) name and the energetic female lead, I thought they were terrible. There are a lot of music blogs out there raving about them, but really, I didn't care much. We left after one or two songs and headed back to the main stage to catch the end of The Dears' set. Several months ago I went to a Head Set gig that The Dears were headlining. The had a big crowd there and lots of merch. They're from Montreal and apparently have a big following, but at Siren, I wasn't convinced. It was alright, not painful or annoying certainly, but I wasn't really motivated to pay attention to them either. We moved closer once they finished for Q and Not U's (final New York) performance (they just broke up apparently). There was quite a crowd there for them; the fans standing right near us were *particularly* excited, trying (vainly) to start chants and throwing their entire bodies into spastic dances. It was amusing to see. Then there were a couple girls standing in front of us who irritated me, with their makeup melting and running down their faces, exhaling their cigarette smoke into our faces, and (the most annoying part) throwing their trash on the ground. Come on people, I know there's already litter all over Coney Island. Would it really kill you not to add to it? As for the band, they were the best I'd seen yet. Had energy and confidence and catchy numbers, but... maybe it was just the sound system, it was very weird. Hollow-sounding. I could feel it hovering inches from my face, from my teeth around my face to just behind my right ear. But it wasn't getting inside. Maybe that sounds crazy, but that significantly detracted from my raving about them. Otherwise they were pretty cool. I probably would have been more into them back in high school, I know certain of my friends who definitely would have. They had something of a 311 energy to them, though they didn't sound much like them.

Anyway, after that we were feeling pretty disillusioned, so we left the stages and went for a walk. Ended up on the Ferris wheel. Brett was not thrilled about the swinging car. It wasn't as cool as I'd hoped, but not worth the fuss he was making. ^_~ Of course I have to tease him about it. Then we had some Nathan's Hot Dogs (most inefficiently run fast-food place EVER) and cheese fries. Yummy. We even stopped in and checked out the "old-fashioned" Circus Side Show. There was a sword-swallowing girl and a firebreathing woman (who I caught practicing poi between shows... she couldn't really do it) and a blockhead who also did Nicole's juggling-two-knives-and-an-apple-while-eating-the-apple trick (he wasn't *nearly* as cute). The best part was the old guy who stood outside in the hat and suit reeling people into the theatre in a very charming old-fashioned way.

We went back down to the Main Stage to see Spoon, the much hyped Austin band, but we couldn't get close enough for it to be worth it, so we mosey-ed on over to the Stillwell Stage for Mates of State. They were, hands down, the best thing we'd heard all day. Good songs, good sound, good blend, and they kept playing when people asked them too. Very cool.

By the time their set ended my back was killing me and Brett was bright red (it never did rain), so it was time to call it a day. We came back to Manhattan and watched the first half of Spirited Away while munching on Pocky (and, in Brett's case, Wasabi peas). All-in-all, a very satisfying day. I really liked Coney Island. Hopefully we'll get to go back and ride the wooden rollercoaster (also called the Cyclone, just like at Astroworld).

88 Orchard

The wi-fi is free here. How cool is that? And they are currently going through a Modest Mouse album (and just finished Elliot Smith). Have I mentioned that I <3 NY? And fresh-squeezed orange juice and a cranberry yogurt muffin. Oh man... *sigh*

and closer

Woot! Getting somewhere with the bibliography. Check it out: http://lurch.cs.princeton.edu/~idatta/Final/bibtexfile.php
Hot, isn't it?
(Yes, I know it's meaningless right now... and don't actually click on the PDF links... they all lead to my not-so-stellar IW paper.)

I think that's the bulk of the work actually. Now comes the painstaking part. *laughs*
I laugh because that implies that the work so far hasn't been a pain, but, y'know...
But seriously, it's more tedious from here on out, because I have to scrounge together all existing articles and, if they don't have BibTex entries, write them myself (write a script to do that? hmm...), and hunt down links to the papers online. fun fun.

Meanwhile, I've resigned myself to becoming a daily blogger (for now, I can blame it on the fact that I sit at a computer for >=8 hrs a day)...
and as far as I know, only two people read my blog. *sigh*

If you put it on

Didn't want to post *again* today, but a couple funny things I wanted to share...

First of all, the network was down for quite a while today, so I wasn't able to do any real work until about 4pm. Besides reading (shameless plug) PhDcomics at http://www.phdcomics.com and checking email obsessively (but what's new?) I visited (ashamed to admit it, but here I go) http://www.cosmopolitan.com. Yes, the girlie magazine, but let's not dwell on that. The funny thing is that smack dab in the middle of an article on how women have poor body image, there was a large animated advert for (get this) Wendy's combo meals.
FANtastic.

Secondly, was talking to Fuji online, and he informed me that Wal-Mart, the home of family values, old people to greet you and make you feel warm and fuzzy, and censored albums, now sells
ecchi and soft-core hentai.
Yes, that's animated soft core porn.
Way to go, Sam.

And on a more positive note, I've decided that I should listen to PJ Harvey more often. Check her out. My collection isn't extensive, but songs that have caught my ear today include:
Rebecca (always been a favourite actually), Is That All There Is? (also a consistent goodie), Dress, This Is Love

Tiding me over 'til I can actually have The Head Set's new album.
And what are Tool and APC up to these days? I couldn't watch Tool videos while the network was down because the Macs I prefer working on are missing some RealPlayer component and I am not a system administrator. Phooey.

(Funny, earlier today I was just thinking about how narcissistic I am - of which, by the way, I just checked the spelling and thereby stumbled upon "egotism" and "egoism" and was much interested to learn the distinction between the two - and here I am posting a long blog entry despite thinking maybe I should change that about myself. Funny haha or funny sad?)

So you thought my last dream was weird?

It started in this high school-ish setting. Linda, a rather chubby girl with a sweet face, is walking through the hallway (my perspective is hers, sort of). She's not blind, but she walks with a cane because she thinks she needs to know what it feels like to be blind... or something. Everyone at school thinks she's ugly and weird; she's not very popular. There's this one girl in particular, S (don't remember the rest of her name), who is always leading the teasing. Linda has very bad self-esteem as a result. But there's one guy, M, who always defends her. Linda doesn't understand why. Anyway, eventually Linda and M "fall in love"/start dating. S is furiously jealous.
Cut to a scene at home. Linda is cleaning, going through her stuffed animals, she comes across a strange one, a rather ugly, misshapen teddy bear. As soon as she touches it, it springs to life and attacks her. They wrestle around for a while, and she finally manages to pin back its arms, but it keeps talking - saying cruel, vulgar things, laughing maniacally. Linda seizes a kitchen knife and starts hacking away at the bear. The knife isn't very sharp, and it takes long, painful sawing motions to do damage. During all that time the bear continues to verbally abuse her. It's laughing at her efforts, telling her the knife won't help her. Nonetheless she tries.
First his ears, then his head. His arms, his feet. His shoulders.
In my mind's eye, Linda's always sawing toward herself. There's an ever-present fear that she's going to start hacking away at herself. At some point she does carve through her knuckle, but she doesn't stop sawing at the bear...
The bear is calling her fat and disgusting; she hacks away at its butt.
He yells that he's going to rape her, so she stabs and carves up his groin (but he seems to enjoy that).
He tells Linda that S made a deal with him, that he helped disguise S as Linda, and now S is pregnant with M's child. Linda is devastated and bawling.
She's ripping the stuffing from the bear.
The bear is still laughing,
headless.

I wake up.

The devil all around

Artist: Cat Power.
Album: What Would the Community Think?
Song: Water & Air.
The strangest sensation. I think I'm going mad. Had I never noticed this before? How?

Johnny Depp was in my dream last night. In the old house. (Lots of dreams set in the old house lately.) Except that my room was downstairs, in Julia's Scully room. Just as it is, with me sleeping on the futon mattress beneath Julia's bed. Only there was more stuff in the room. Stuffed animals of every variety lined up against the back wall. All Julia's. At some point in the dream we put Johnny (only that wasn't his name of course, and he was younger, more his Benny & Joon character, only he was the crazy one, not Joon) on the sofa bed upstairs, in the game room, beside the pool table (as in our old house). He was very grateful, very shy. The next "morning" Julia woke up and was getting ready for the day, and I lay awake on the futon mattress, wasting time on my computer. I can't remember what we were talking about... love? Julia's crouched at the foot of my mattress embracing a giant platypus. She somehow looks like a giant bunny rabbit wrapped around a platypus. Very weird.
Johnny knocks. Julia lets him in. Apparently they're working (on what, I don't know) together today. Julia starts shuffling in and out of the room to get ready for her day. Johnny stretches himself out on the foot of my mattress, still clearly nervous, closed in, holding himself back somehow. He seems afraid of me but curious too. I'm just smiling, cynically, trying to make conversation, looking at him out of the corner of my eye. He's beautiful, like death. Maybe he's not Johnny Depp. Maybe he's Death.
I make a joke. He touches my leg, cautiously, as if to see if I'm real. Asks if I know what it's like to be crazy. I glance at him and say,
"Maybe you'll tell me about it sometime."
I smile. He seems confused.
I wake up.

I <3 NY

I've really come to love the city. Had a great time this weekend and was sad to leave today. Well, will be back there in less than two weeks and for a longer stay too... but that means saying goodbye will be that much harder in August.

So lucky.

Like a just-hatched wet chick

So Thursday, on my way to the Lower East Side, I'm down in the subway (which gets freaking hot and stuffy in the summer). She's standing on the platform next to me. This girl/young woman (difficult to discern age, dramatically shorter than me but quite filled out, though maybe just chubby) in a black t-shirt with the following quote on the back:

I watched for something
like a just-hatched wet chick.
Yet my heart beats;
I am alive.
-- Banana Yoshimoto

Yes, that's Yoshimoto Banana of Fruits Basket fame.
A whirlwind of mixed emotions. I'm shocked and appalled, impressed, disappointed.
Impressed because it isn't just the manga, the cartoon, the artwork, the image. This girl, and her peers/friends I assume, knows who Yoshimoto Banana is, has been touched enough by the work to take an interest in the creator. That is great. That makes manga more than a faceless phenomenon, and it is a statement about the creator's abilities.
But... why Yoshimoto? Her work is fun, yes, but it's just a little vapid (like so much Shoujo manga out there). Oh sure, if I were to study it, I'm sure I could come up with all sorts of cultural connections and repercussions, but... if I remember my readings correctly, she doesn't even consider herself an artist. She's a celebrity, a money-maker, a Shania Twain of the manga business. But her name and her words are on this girl's shirt...
in New York, one of the cultural centers of the world.

The other day Ryan was complaining about InuYasha. I haven't actually seen it, but from what he tells me, it's not so special. It's like all the other bad anime being well-received in this country. And I'm frustrated. I want anime, manga, comic books to be held to the same artistic standards as other media. I realize there is bound to be crap out there, but why should the imported stuff be crap too? Has it gotten to the point where it's cool because it's Japanese? Why can't it be cool because it's good, clever, meaningful? Ironic, isn't it? That globalization brings different cultures together, seemingly breaking down boundaries, but then causes consumers to become more aware of those boundaries.
*shudders*

Things to ponder in Tokyo.