When I fell down the rabbit hole of the UNESCO cultural heritage list last week, these were my favorite gems. Make sure to check out the slideshows and videos!
Polyphonic singing of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa
Isukuti celebratory dance of Western Kenya
Czech dances (from the land of my father)
Humanity is incredible.
[Photo: Santi Terraza]
In honor of the trip whose spark came from Stars, so, too, comes today’s motivational quote.
Stars always seem to get me, probably because they get the human condition in general. This particular verse has meaning for me far beyond the sphere of romance. It’s about leaning into and celebrating your vulnerability and flaws rather than hiding them or hiding from them. It’s hard for my overly-critical self to believe in a world in which weakness can become strength, but I love the idea of such a world.
And I got a little bit of evidence of its existence in Paris two weeks ago, when I nervously asked a waiter what amounted to: “Can we to has some the water, please?” He grinned like a Cheshire cat, nodded assent, and left. I was mortified at having messed up the most basic sentence in every way possible, but I couldn’t help feeling that the waiter had not really minded. I asked my friend, “Do you think that look was his way of mocking me, or an indication that he found my horrible French cute? She, too, thought he had been charmed rather than put off by my gibberish.
So there you have it – sometimes the things that make us feel the most inept can actually be our source of power.
Care of my brother, who plays it for my niece. I can’t wait til the day she attempts to sing along.
A compendium of the French music that has been introduced to me over the course of my twenty years (on and off) of studying the language:
Indochine
My first year of French, in eighth grade, the teacher would start each class with a few songs from one of her French albums. She played them on an actual record player, which is how I know it really was a long time ago. Indochine is the only music I still remember from that year. I loved it because it took me on a nostalgic trip back to the new wave of my 80’s childhood, but at the same time it was completely new and catchy to me. Call me crazy / 47 years old, but I do really think Indochine makes good music.
Here’s the album my teacher would play for us. My favorite song was and still is “Tes Yeux Noir (scroll forward to 35:47):
Diam and Koxie
In grad school I took a French class after ten years without formal – or really, any – study. For one looong and humbling semester I endured the snarky looks of barely-adult undergrads who had no patience for my halting mangled French. I made friends instead with the one other grad student (who also spoke much better French than I did – I was the worst in the class by a long shot). The one favor those haughty undergrads did for me was to introduce me to Diam and Koxie, both woman rappers of immigrant ancestry. At a recent Meetup I learned from the Togolese guy that Diam wears the hijab now and has stopped making music. Perhaps the two things are related, perhaps not – I leave that to you to Google if the spirit moves you.
Diam:
Koxie:
At another recent Meetup, Kery James was another French rapper recommended to me:
And at yet another one, I was told to listen to MC Solaar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n8kGW16RYs
And just for fun, since this has become a list dominated by French rappers, here’s a song from the (highly derivative) Busta Flex album I bought pretty much at random the year I studied abroad in Ireland and spent a day in Paris on spring break:
For good measure, a beautiful / spunky / easy-to-follow-even-if-you-speak-terrible-French song that Emmanuel sent to me, by Françoiz Breut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ4HNmzsQns
What do you think?
(Photo of Indochine doing the we-can-still-rock-in-middle-age thing: Laurent Breillat)
Over the weekend I saw Youssou N’Dour perform in Brooklyn. I don’t say this lightly: it was transportive. The music is so overwhelmingly life-affirming, and I’m chomping at the bit to go to Senegal. So I spent the entire show alternately blissing out in the moment and imagining myself living in Dakar in the near future, making a weekend routine of going out to dance to West African music.
The band kept announcing him as the “minister of the people” but I would more aptly call N’Dour the minister of tourism because within minutes of his arrival onstage I was ready to pack up and go.* Lo and behold, I just looked up his discography and he is indeed Senegal’s minister of tourism and culture as of 2012! That is both hilarious and entirely appropriate.
Sometimes I think I’m going to wimp out on my language sabbatical but then a night like Saturday’s reminds me of how much fun I will have and eradicates the fear. In fact, I spent a good part of the show wallowing in fantasy-land “logistics” planning: I’d move to Senegal next November and spend the winter months learning French eight hours a day, then visit every country in West Africa after becoming proficient, next head south to Zimbabwe and South Africa just because, then cut back up to Rwanda, then turn east into Tanzania and Kenya, and finally somehow end up in the south of France in time for summer. Oh, and there’d also magically be time and money for Mozambique and Madagascar. And then I’d move to South America for Spanish immersion.
It’s good to dream… And eventually, when the time is ripe, I will become a bit more realistic about my dreams and turn them into reality. (With God as my witness.)
* pending Ebola neutralization
I leave you with a clip from the show, taken by someone with a much better seat than mine!
Last night I went to see Agnes Obel play Bowery Ballroom. She’s a Danish singer-songwriter whose lyrics are in English but to whom I was introduced by Philippe, my parler pal de Paris. So she feels appropriate to talk about on this blog even though technically she is irrelevant.
Anyway… It’s almost the weekend! And I need it, because two weekends ago was taken up entirely by moving and attending an editing workshop, and last weekend I spent one day in Vermont – and two days traveling to and from Vermont. Now I really want to just sit around doing nothing all day. And maybe catch up on anki and duolingo, which can feel nicely meditative and almost like doing nothing.
But – my plans to be lazy were foiled by my 2 1/2 year old niece in New Jersey, who wouldn’t give up the phone to my brother until he said he wanted to talk to me about when I was going to visit. That prompted her to ask me in her squeaky little voice, “Can you come visit me?” Which melted my heart and all my resolve to sit on my butt for two days in a row. I practically promised to come live with her if she would have me.
So, here’s to not being lazy after all, in the name of adorableness and adoration.
And here’s some Agnes Obel to start your weekend:
(Photo: Agnes Obel)
First, as is my Meetup wont, I delayed and dilly dallied. The result of this procrastination was 1. a très chic little black dress from a boutique within a stone’s throw of the Meetup location, and 2. the sinking feeling that the only French I would be hearing all night would be the lovely refrains of “Bonnie and Clyde.” I spent so long biding my time in the shop that the CD looped and the song played twice.
When I finally arrived at the bar it was 2 hours into the Meetup and I figured if anyone were left they would surely be packing up by now. I tried to make myself feel less guilty by reasoning that LBDs are a very Parisian concept, so even if I hadn’t spoken the language that night, I had still practiced cultural immersion. That logic was not very sound, but I’m happy to report that since there was a small but still-going-strong group of people in the bar, I didn’t have to make excuses after all.
Among the crew were a few people I had met before – Dykeman, Anney and Igor (the Parisian-bred teacher from this post).
Above: Dykeman and Rohan, a student from Beijing who was braving a Meetup after only a month of French study. Inspiring!
Above: Anney’s got a lovely smile, n’est-ce pas?
Here are two fun facts that I learned in the course of our conversation:
That’s Igor, above.
Speaking of American gun violence… here’s Luna’s cover of “Bonnie and Clyde” for your evening singalong.
Well, that was depressing. I watched the final World Cup game at a packed Argentine restaurant in Chelsea. After one brief moment of overwhelming elation when it appeared as though Argentina had scored what could be the Cup-winning goal – unwarranted, because it was invalidated as offside – Germany scored the only true goal of the game in the last minutes of extra time. The room I was in fell dead silent. The owner of the restaurant, who had been leading patrons in rowdy song just moments before, muted the TV’s. We somberly watched the Argentine players cry. I felt fairly awkward knowing I was surrounded by people whose disappointment and sadness knew no bounds, while mine would inevitably be forgotten within a day (though my pity for poor Messi lingers on).
One thing that, unfortunately, will not soon be forgotten as I’m sure it will be stuck in my head for weeks: a gleeful chant taunting arch-rival Brazil, which inexplicably was still considered relevant and applicable for the Germany game and hence was sung over and over and over again til I practically knew it by heart.
To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLAgyBHp-vE
So at least I learned some Spanish on Sunday.
The words:
Brasil, decime qué se siente tener en casa a tu papá.
Te juro que aunque pasen los años, nunca nos vamos a olvidar…
Que el Diego te gambeteó, que Cani te vacunó, que estás llorando desde Italia hasta hoy.
A Messi lo vas a ver, la Copa nos va a traer, Maradona es más grande que Pelé.
(Photo: before the game, when spirits still ran high.)
I made it to Meetup two weeks running, woohoo! Granted, I first wasted a half hour procrastinating across the street at Macy’s, which is pretty much the most hellish place in New York City aside from Times Square. This says bucketloads about how much I dread Meetups. Hopefully that feeling will subside once I make them more of a habit.
At this particular Meetup I spent most of my time talking to the two lovely folks above. One is the Chinese woman I had met very briefly last week. Her name is Anney and I found out she works in financial services. The other guy is from Mauritania and he told me he would sue me if I used his name on my blog. I think he was joking but better safe than sorry. 🙂
I was talking to him (let’s call him Pierre, because why not?) about our mutual love of West African music. Mine is a surface level love in that I only listen via a Youssou N’Dour Pandora station, and only once in a while – but I am transported when I do. Pierre recommended Baaba Maal, who I’ve just spent the last half hour bopping along to at my desk.
For your own listening pleasure, I leave you with this gem:
talk foreign to me 