A New Favorite: The Take Away Show

In doodling around YouTube, I've discovered this wonderful series of performances on La Blogotheque that includes The Shins and Andrew Bird singing their way through Paris (different episodes), Jose Gonzales in Marfa, TX (check out "Storms"), and REM in Athens.

Here another of my fave musicians, Beirut, appears to happen across a band that's playing his song as he's singing it.

Andrew Bird

Very few videos get at how cool he is live and otherwise. This one's pretty good. He's usually much more dapper than the second one, but his loops and playbacks and virtuoso violin/guitar/whistling is really inexplicable and amazing!

"Fiery Crash"


His signature song "Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left"

Dumb Signs

Okay, one of the quirks-- or perhaps a result of my own culture shock-- is odd signs out here on the southwest frontier. Here's a sampling:
While these are certainly not dumb signs, they are also definitely not what I would expect to see at a bathroom break along the highway.

This one's from the same rest stop, and stands in the middle of a grassy field.

This one's actually in Arizona, but I don't doubt its applicability in many places in NM.
And the illustrious THE THING? (WHAT IS IT?) roadside attraction near Texas Canyon, AZ (exit 322 off of I-10). This thing has haunted my imagination ever since I would drive from San Antonio to Northern California for undergrad. I'd see road signs hyping it for hundreds of miles. I think when we moved down here, we saw billboards for it as far as Missouri.

I didn't pay the dollar admission to see THE THING? itself. Sorry. Not my thing.

Surrounded by Giants

So I skipped classes at the end of last week to attend the national American Studies Association annual conference three hours to the north. I return with renewed vigor for my own writing and dissertating. At one point, I was in the audience watching Avery Gordon introduce Hazel Carby, and I turned around to see Siobhan Somerville (whom I admire and adore, having commuted 2 hours to take a class with her at a different university) waving at me, and behind her Judith Halberstam was sitting next to Lisa Lowe. Behind me the other way, Andrea Smith was sitting just a row away. I have stars in my eyes! Also in attendance were E. Patrick Johnson, Lauren Berlant, Lisa Duggan, Jose Esteban Munoz, Elaine Kim, Eva Cherniavsky, Mimi Nguyen, Martin Manalansan, Linda Trinh Vo, and even more!! I literally clicked on every letter of the alphabet of the online schedule of presentations to see who was coming. After half a semester in a new place, getting bogged down with grading 81 freshman compositions every couple of weeks, this was really helpful in getting me back on track.

In short, it was a wonderful, invigorating jolt of juice to my brains (even though it was equally exhausting physically!). To see the critical scholars who populate my essays and bookshelves-- as people who joke and have to drink water mid-presentation-- as audience members of other scholars' panels (Jose Munoz and Lisa Duggan attended Judith Halberstam's hugely popular session on queer punk, and laughed at all the right moments).

Okay, on a more corporeal note, there's nothing to eat at the convention center. Nothing worse than a couple stands hocking Starbuck's and stale pretzels and bagels. Coffee breath on top of an empty belly is AWFUL to have at a crowded conference. And then there's the mortification of having audible hunger pangs during a presentation. I know. I had them. During a panel on food, no less.

Happily, within a couple of blocks of the convention center in Albuquerque is Sushi King!! We went three days in a row! I highly recommend the New Mexico roll (green chili, avocado, spicy mayo), the veggie tempura maki, and the vegetable maki. They were great and even brough me extra spicy mayo on the side!

There's also a great New York style pizzeria that we visited on the last day (I can't believe I am capable of being sushi-ed out!)-- called JC's New York Pizza Department.

And more beautiful local pomegranates... now in season

All my vitamin C in a basket. Local green tomatoes, local pomegranates, and a couple of limes.

Albuquerque Balloon Festival. sans balloons.

Since we live only 3 hours drive from my parents, and since Albuquerque hosts the world's largest international hot air balloon festival, we decided, "What the heck?!" and trucked up there last weekend to see it. Of course, ordinarily hot air ballooners take off at the a**-crack of dawn, so we decided to try to get into the spirit of the thing. The thing is, regardless of how rare it is to see me rise, Romero-zombie style, pre-dawn, the weather would not cooperate. So this jumble of toy hot air balloons were practically the only ones inflated to be seen. We witnessed the sad attempt of several MASSIVE balloons to inflate, but the winds were too strong (I was so worried the winds would cause the flame to ignite the fabric of the balloons themselves). Later in the day it actually hailed for a spell!
Here our pinwheels demonstrate the reasons the balloons could not do the mass ascension we were all there to see. sigh. I don't know how much this makes me want to try to do this again!
And a mechanical model of how the hot/cool air currents lift propel and return the balloons to Albuquerque offered the only other sight of balloons in motion. Here's a lovely shot of what we should have seen. But didn't. Maybe next year.

New Favorite Places: Tucson, AZ

We took a roadtrip to Arizona several weekends ago, just to see what we could see, and discovered the wonderful 4th Ave. district near the U of Arizona. A great place to blow your paycheck is independent bookseller (and t-shirt seller, poster seller, and doo-dad seller) Antigone Books. They have a wonderful selection of graphic novels, political bumper stickers, notecards, and gifts. I found myself purchasing a rechargeable (hand-crank) cat-shaped flashlight. It'll come in handy, I know it. A wide array of japanese paper design notecards. Entirely too lovely and expensive.And a happy discovery (not in the 4th ave. neighborhood, but happy nontheless): Lovin' Spoonfuls is an entirely veggie restaurant. I ordered a chili dog, and Zips had a turkey club. A nicely stocked menu. Lots of critter-friendly choices! We can't wait to go back!