Being There with Wilco

Once upon a time (in the early 1990’s) a dude I was smitten with took me to see a band called Uncle Tupelo at Liberty Lunch in Austin, Texas. My date was always broke and had a radio show on the student station, so I know we must have gone because he was on the list!

At the end of the show, I remember my pal walking up to the stage and handing Jeff Tweedy what was (at least in Austin slacker circles) the early 90’s business card of the gently employed. That improvised business card was a torn off portion of his deposit slip-- the part with his phone number on it —for the next time the band was in town. They chatted for a bit while Tweedy was packing up his gear, and my date and I left.

The early 1990's was a time when alt-country was just starting to become a going concern. I may have hopped on the alt-country bandwagon a little more easily than some.

You can take the girl out of Pasadena, but it's hard to take the Pasadena out of the girl. Growing up just outside of Houston, I heard a lot of country music before I was old enough to drive. How chicken-fried was my upbringing?  My orthodontist was across the street from Gilley’s, the bar made famous by the movie Urban Cowboy.

The aftermath:

After the Uncle Tupelo show that night, I was impressed enough went out and got Anodyne, the Uncle Tupelo album that the record store had in stock.

Once Tweedy and Jay Farrar of Uncle Tupelo went their different ways, I stuck with Tweedy.

Sounds of the Budapest Subway....

One of the things I loved most about Budapest was the sounds that the vintage subway made. It's the cutest subway in the world!
I have no idea why these sounds aren't offered as standard text tones on the iPhone!

Samurai Culture is in for Christmas

 A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to spend nearly the whole month of December in Japan. I fell in love with Japanese food--not just sushi--and realized just how little I really know about Japanese history and culture.  (Sure, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, I'd taken a class on "Japanese Literature to 1600" but that was really just hitting the highlights!)

During that time in Japan in 2009, I was even lucky enough to spend most of a day exploring Himeji castle, which is located not terribly far from Kyoto.

Coming back to the US, it took a long time for me to reconcile my own impressions of Japan with the way that culture is portrayed in America.

Last week when I stopped by Target, I noticed that several toy designers were also influenced by Japan. And while I'm no more than a tourist in Japan, I was gobsmacked by this piece of colored plastic. Partly because as far as I can tell, it looks far more like a version of a back-lot Chinese castle than it does a feudal Japanese defensive structure.



Just a few toy displays over, I was completely dismayed by the aesthetic choices behind the Samauri outfit that Barbie's main dude Ken was wearing. Why had they put him in dreadful red satin, not in some nice cotton, linen or silk hakama or even in some decent robes?

Exploring Food as Culture

Drinks at Haddingtons in Austin, Texas

My husband and I have a modern mixed marriage. My husband cares a great deal about food, while I do not.

Much to my surprise, I am one of those people who goes through the day forgetting to eat. I literally have an alarm on my phone reminding me to eat lunch, though sadly that usually doesn't work. 

If I lived alone—or if my husband cared a lot less about food—I would have peanut butter sandwiches every night. If he didn’t cook, I would store sweaters in my vintage oven.

Since I do not live alone, I often end up in some of the city’s best dining rooms.

While I appreciate a good meal that someone else cooks, there is no way that I can write about food the way that most writing about food is done.

However, I spent a long time as a theater critic. I write about culture and society. For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing what passes through my brain when I go out to eat.

This morning, I came across a passage in Sam Sifton’s account of his two years spent reviewing restaurants for The New York Times:

All criticism is argument. Mine has been from the start that restaurants are culture, and that there is no better perch from which to examine our shared values and beliefs, behavior and attitudes, than a seat in a restaurant dining room, observing life’s pageant in the presence of food and drink.

 

Inspired by Sifton, I am going to make more of an effort to write about the fancy restaurants that I often end up in. I will not be writing about the food—you can get better food writing from a Yelp review than you can get from me—but I will make the effort to cover the culture from a dining chair.

If you want a drink like the one in the picture, head to Haddingtons.
Their grub is way better than a peanut butter sandwich.

CMJ: Someday I am going to be inside you.

After going to SXSW for the last 10,000 years, I've sometimes thought about going to the CMJ Music Marathon  in NYC. Since I'm usually double-booked in October, my going to CMJ is more a fantasy than anything else.

Sure, it's partially because I love the City--because I'm an urban creature and NYC is the urban I love the best-- but that's not all.

I totally admit that I have a bad habit of living in the future. Most of what's on the radio is music that I associate with the past, not the life I'm living now. As such, I'd totally be pleased to see new things at CMJ, and revisit a few old favorites.

TRIAL RUNS: BANDS I HAVEN'T SEEN

If I were going to CMJ 2011, I'd totally want to check out:  super-cute Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr  and the Miniature Tigers (who both played ACL 2011, though I was busy elsewhere)  Fresh Millions, Givers (whom my friends have been raving about), Metronomy, Wild Flag, Morning After Girls, The Wombats, Locksley and J Mascis (whom I'm kind of ashamed that I've never seen, even though I've loved Dinosaur Jr since the dawn of time.)

SECOND CHANCES: BANDS THAT HAVE GOOD PRESS BUT I MIGHT HAVE SEEN AN OFF SHOW

At CMJ I might check out bands who didn't blow me away the first time, but whom I have real hope that the intervening years might have taken to the next level: Titus Andronicus (sloppy and possibly drunk the first time I saw them at a late show on Saturday night at SXSW 2009--which I'd REALLY been looking forward to-- but they've gotten lots of buzz since then), Heloise & The Savoir Faire*, Robbers on High Street (I totally love one of their albums, but, again, they were sloppy and I suspect they were drunk the first time I saw them, years ago at a Fun Fun Fun Fest preshow at the Mohawk in 2008.)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are nice, and I'd likely catch them again. Truthfully, I don't know how much effort I'd make to see them twice, though I enjoyed them at Fun Fun Fun Fest.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Fun Fun Fun Fest