She's so dumb

You've got to be kidding me. No, seriously, what? I almost thought that this was a joke, but I think its actually real. She's just really clueless.

Quote of these interviews: "We have trade missions."

Arriving in London

The internet has returned to me! The series of tubes stretches across the Atlantic, apparently. Which brings us to my being in London. I'm here! This blog will now assume the task for which it was (quasi) originally intended - charting my travels. The tags for these posts will remain "Finding the American Dream in ______," Other posts will continue at a likely reduced rate.

First observation: London is really expensive (yah really). A shout out to my irresponsible lending-happy friends stateside for keeping the exchange rate abysmal. Banking failure is happening here too, and its plastered all over the free papers people keep trying to hand me. Thankfully there are (relatively) cheap grocery stores every few blocks. Unfortunately there are also plentiful (not-so-cheap) delicious restaurants, pubs and clubs just as frequently. Aside from grocery stores, however, there is a solution: Sizzling Bombay. Indian food wins.

I have been up to a lot of orientation/class oriented stuff here for the most part. This has meant a lot of free wine so that one can pleasently sleep while being told platitudes and things you already know in pretty English (they're not better than in America, just more soothing).

We took a tour of central London (where I also happen to live) to see the major sites - soldiers in funny hats, lots of beautiful parks, statues reaching for the sky, sites where Harry Potter supposedly takes place. I should have a photo album of this up at some point entitled "London Tour," but I'm having a problem uploading pictures at the moment.

Some of the pictures in that album will be from the Mayor's Thames Festival along the Thames river that night, which had cultural food and booths and shows you would expect at such a thing. Would have stayed for fireworks but we were sleepy...

A second photo album ("Sentiments and Speeches") of my tour of the gardens in nearby Regent Park and the many bookstores in the area. Its overcast most of the time here so unfortunately the pictures won't be as pretty as they would have been when I went on a run through the park yesterday.

I think that's enough for now.

Broken Flowers

Broken Flowers - In which a man who pretends that he is content seeing the human world only in-itself, or as human objects, awakens to how shriveled and miserable the human side of him has become by only paying attention to the animal. Quote of the movie: "Just because an animal wants something, doesn't mean you should give it to them," or it went something like that. I have not found so much thought in a movie in a long time. Recommended.

Iowa and London

This weekend I took a trip to beautiful Des Moines. Yes, that is a city in Iowa, which has more than corn fields (although a lot of those). It even has Jews! And Colleges! Specifically, Drake College, where my friend The G resides.

Des Moines is the state capital of the wonderful state of Iowa, and it actually does have a beautiful capital building. And a history museum, where you can have the real Iowa Caucuses experience! - with life-size cardboard cutouts.

Iowa would have been ftw if the guy at the Hy-vee had carded me...thanks a lot dude, I don't look that old. Whatever. I give Iowa a High-Fructose Corn Syrup/Cornfields. Great Job!

On an unrelated note: To the guys at the U.K. consulate in Chicago who won't send me my visa...wtf...just like, don't be lame? kthanks.

Dance music and indie

I have failed, in the past, to "get" indie electronic, or "House" music. I never really found listening to Daft Punk enjoyable, and had the same experience trying to like Ratatat before their concert Saturday at WashU. Without human warmth or lyrics, all I could pick up in the beats and unresolved movements was the occasional shift in mood. Not bad, but hardly fascinating or enlightening.

The Ratatat concert was sort of a revelation (before I go on - wear real ear plugs to these things). Anyway, the way they handle themselves life is great - working the crowd, shifting the volume - creating, at least in some limited way, a sort of musical ecstacy/nirvana. Then again, I don't find the argument for nirvana (not that it is something one can argue for) compelling or really satisfying, but at least in the moment, Ratatat was pretty compelling.

After that I went back to my albums again and found - still didn't really enjoy them much. But was listening to Daft Punk again - and Alive 2007 does some wonders with revealing how you can work a crowd. Recommended if you're into this sort of thing...

Review: Fleet Foxes : I dismissed this one at first and have tried (manfully) since then to like it. And now I (sorta) do. There's a lot of floating melodies and nature talk which is really useful mostly as mood music. But in the midst of some self-indulgent harmonies and hippy-shit there are a couple great tunes about human frailty ("White Winter Hymnal," "He Doesn't Know Why") and the nature settings sometimes enliven the human relations described within. American classic? No - Americana nook music, mostly, but great for its nook and not bad for this American. 17/20.

In other surprising developments, I wouldn't be surprised if Conor Oberst overtakes Distortion as my fav. indie album of the year - although Stephen Merritt's still has a fighting chance.