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September 29, 2007
Culture Fest Photos!
Here's a taste of what's been going on down at Culture Fest in Coolidge Park today. I was hanging out at the UTC tent and didn't want to stray too far from my duties, but I managed to catch these shots of the Mexican Folklore Ballet company from Dalton and the Dandasha Dance Company from here in Chattanooga, operating out of Zanzibar Studios.
There's a lot still going on-- I think the Indian Association just finished up and up coming will be some more dancer performances by various companies, music from the Andes, Steel Drum band, UTC chamber singers, and a lot of other cool stuff. There is still five hours of festival left, it would be a shame to not stop by! I had a lot of fun talking to people at various booths and seeing the performances. Plus I had the bonus treat of having Fletch stop by to say hello. He took me by surprise when he asked if I was Dee Dee, until I realized he was referring to me by the handle my mom gave me on her blog, standing for Dear Daughter.
Have a good weekend!
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September 28, 2007
COME OUT TO CULTURE FEST!!!!
Hey, Chattanooganites, come out to Culture Fest on Saturday from 11AM-8PM tomorrow if you weren't already planning on it. I busted my ass this week just to put together a few things for one of UTC's tables, so I can only imagine the amount of work the REAL vendors and performers have put into preparing for this really cool event. We are really lucky to have the kind of diversity we do in Chattanooga, and it is important to celebrate it, especially in this part of the country and at this time in our countries history, when education and anxiety have put a bit of a damper on poking our noses beyond our front doors. We're blessed in Chattanooga with a large Indian population, many Latinos, and others who have lived, worked, or emigrated from other countries. So take advantage of it this opportunity and enjoy Andes Manta (a cool band from South America), Dandasha dance company, and many others.
Posted by Spike at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friday Creature, Rather Autumnal
These funny little birds in the leaves at the foot of a tree are A) Really funny and B) My great plea for it to start acting like autumn around these parts. The equinox has happened, people, it's time for it to not be in the 90s and for me to be able to leave my balcony door open in the evenings while I watch CSI. Speaking of which, dissapointing season premiere. I can only hope the continuation of fleshing out the Grisam/Sarah thing next week is more...I dunno...tense than having her trapped under a car. I was never all that worried about Sarah, and that bums me out. Anyways, yes, I would like to have to maybe put on a sweater and enjoy my favorite season becuase I am so over summer.
Here's the rest of the (hopefully less sweaty than I've been) creatures on this week's Friday Ark.
Oh, and speaking of arks...one of my new favorite quotes is "It was amateurs who built the ark, but professionals who built the Titanic."
Posted by Spike at 09:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 26, 2007
Wordless Wednesday
(Except for photo credit to whoever was holding my camera at the time)
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September 23, 2007
GPS: Invest In Your Daughter
Am I the only one who thinks GPS's slogan that sometimes cycles through The Chattanoogan's refreshable ad column is a little creepy? Such a great sum up of the general attitude I get from that school-- backwards attitudes about women (I'm an investable commodity? Really?) disguised as pushing them forward (Isn't a prep-school supposed to prep you for an Ivy League these days?) while promoting antiquated ideas about status, class, and family values.
Every time I hear about the goings on at GPS, I am more and more weirded out by what kind of circus they're running over there.
Hey, at least they're still doing better than their botched slogan from a few years ago. A friend of mine from Ooltewah told me about a sample mug GPS sent over emblazoned with the new slogan, reading "GPS: Where Girls Come First." After a quick phone call from the recipient to the admissons department explaining the double entendre at work, I hear the new line of products were all recalled.
Posted by Spike at 09:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 22, 2007
Saturday Creature (Because I'm Tardy!)
Here's a dog from San Gimignano, Italy, that I saw over the summer. I know it's not Friday, but it seemed a shame to make this little fellow wait another week just because I got sucked into a timewarp of David Copperfield (the novel, not the magician). I'm only 72 pages from the end of that 882 page monster. Here's the rest of the critters on the ark. Have a good rest of the weekend!
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September 19, 2007
Wordless Wednesday
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September 15, 2007
Mindless Self Indulgence
It occurs to me it's a week tomorrow since the boyfriend and I went to see Mindless Self Indulgence at Rocket Town* in downtown Nashville. It was an amazing concert, and I think Alex put it best when he said "You really miss 50% of what this band is all about when you just listen to their stuff on CD." It's true-- they are a performance act, and even though I really enjoy their music, there is a whole other dimension brought out of the music by the onstage antics, the band's personality, the energy they inject into every show, and the energy the fans bring with them. If I had to guess what these guys would have been like in highschool, I would say frontman Little Jimmy Urine was that weird, hyperactive, sexually ambiguous theater kid who you were always a little bit attracted too, but also really put off by his bizzare stunts and drug-use. You know, that one guy who would show up to school in a dress no where around Haloween, just to get a rise out of the teachers and impress his friends, and then do a table dance in the caffeteria just for the fun of it.
If all this sounds intriguing, I'll warn you, I can imagine some people being put off by MSI's abrasive lyrics. The words "nigga" and "faggot" get bandied around a bit, as well as references to incest and a lot of sex. But I don't think you can pin the band as purely shock rockers, they don't present that material in the same way as, oh say, Marilyn Manson* puts forth similar themes. These words and concepts are presented in the way my generation communicates. Everything is a reference to something-- we quote viral YouTube videos, drift down memory lane to recall that great episode of Nickleodian's "Salute Your Shorts", and refer to movies we know everyone has seen. It's self-advertisement and commradery all in one-- by what you reference you're making your tastes as clear as if you were posting your "favorites" on a Myspace page, but also connecting with your peers with a bunch of huge, culture-wide inside jokes. We're active mirrors of pop culture, and MSI does something similar. I'd say the coarse langauge and themes are just the kind of stuff bandied about everywhere from the rap records they probably listen to on the tour bus to MTV shows to real glam and shock rockers from the 70s and 80s. MSI is a salute to modern adolescence, and the influences that run through it.
Little Jimmy Urine joked on stage about the audience masturbating to Disney's The Little Mermaid and then quipped, "this next song is The Little Mermaid on methamphetamines!" This is just the kind of nostalgia for childhood and then irreverent self-separation from that family-friendly time and connection of those innocent influences to more current, shocking ones like sex and drugs or violence that tiltilate the minds of people trying to push themselves into adulthood. I hear this kind of thing on campus all the time, I make jokes like this myself with my roommate every day. I don't know where this aspect of my generations culture came from, but I salute MSI for somehow tapping into to the influences my generation has in common, from increasing awareness of urban culture, to the ubiquity of rap music (just check out the YouTube video "White Chicks and Gang Signs") to references to Nickelodian's Clarissa Explains It All to sampled sounds from old Atari games.
*Even as an aside, I just have to put in a plug for the venue though, because it was one of the coolest places I've been to for a concert. They bill themselves as a "venue, skatepark and coffee bar," and I wish I'd had a place like that to hang out in high school. It was like the freak kid club house, with art shows, classes/tutorials in things like rapping and DJing, big comfy seats upstairs and a well-laid-out venue downstairs. Plus the staff seemed pretty intent on making it a safe hang out for underground kids, making a little announcement at the beginning about their policy on crowd surfing (sadly, can't do it there) and that if anything came up during the concert anyone felt they needed to talk about with an adult to just come grab a staff member.
*On me and Marylin Manson: I haven't been to any of Mr. Manson's concerts, and I wouldn't say I'm more than a casual listener, but I would also say I really respected what he had to say about how his appeal to his audience on Bowling for Columbine when asked about the accusations of his influence on that shooting. So with that preface, my somewhat uneducated opinion is that Mr. Manson is a pretty good example of careful marketing and revamp of shock rock. That's not a dis, but I do think it's stands in contrast to MSI's being very concious of who the audience is that is attracted to them (a LOT of gothy teens and college students with a smattering of others outside that box like me) and actively acknowleging and making fun of that in concert. More simply, they acknowlege who a lot of their fans are and where they are coming fromby seperating themselves from that, rather than folks like Mr. Manson who play into it. I.E. Jimmy Urine teasing the audience about goth stereotypes like all goth girls being fat and all goth guys being skinny, rather than just glorifying the goth image.
Posted by Spike at 02:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friday Creature
Sorry for the late Friday Creature, I've been under the weather this week with some kind of bizzare outer ear infection and a mysterious cough. Something is going around. I feel better this morning though after a horendously lazy day yesterday. The roomie, the boyfriend and company and I watched movies all afternoon and then moved downstairs to have some nostalgic Nintendo 64 shoot 'em up action. I've missed 007 Golden Eye, and it was especially fun just having watched the most recent Bond flick, Casino Royale. Which is totally awesome, I might add.
This Friday Creature is, of course, the family's faithful hound, Nonnie. Folks stopping by from my mom's blog probably recognize her big brown eyes, as she's been the Friday Puppy several times, as well as making appearances on other days of the week. We've very fond of her, even if she is completely spoiled.
You've probably already seen yesterday's menagerie, but in case you haven't, here's a link to the rest of the ark, all more timely creatures than mine, I'm sure.
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September 12, 2007
Wordless Wednesday
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September 11, 2007
Madeline Albright In Chattanooga
Madline Albright speaking in Chattanooga = awesome. Whoever the Serbians were who declared her "Elderly, but dangerous" were totally right.
Declaring the REAL Axis of Evil to be Poverty, Ignorance, and Disease = beyond awesome.
In other words, it was an excellent discussion and I'm relieved to have first-hand evidence that there once was a time when politicians could speak gracefully and move through a variety of topics with eloquence, intelligence, and ease. Oh, and a lot of class. I'm really glad Chattanooga got an opportunity like this, and I'm impressed with the turn out we had to give in return, as well as the excellent questions put in by folks in the audience.
Posted by Spike at 08:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 07, 2007
Friday Bug
Here is some sort of insect from Slovenia. I forgot I had so many Friday Creatures waiting in the wings from that trip, so expect some more Swiss, Italian and Slovenian creatures in the next few weeks while I try to find some new Chattanooga startlets. I do have that butterfly I was going to put up today, but I think my mom beat me to the butterflies this morning with her Aquarium specimines, so mine is just going to have to wait another week.
Check out the ark, and hopefully I'll have some interesting pictures from the Mindless Self Indulgence concert Dear Boyfriend and I are going to on Sunday night.
Posted by Spike at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2007
MEATLOAF, Live, In Atlanta
So I spent my labor day off to good use. My dad and I drove down to Atlanta to see Meatloaf in concert. I've been sort of ridiculously enamored with Meatloaf and Jim Steinmen since having been ceremonialy introduced to Bat Out of Hell (numero uno) by my parents when I was 13 or 14. I had mentally put Meatloaf on the depressingly long list of "Bands Who I Would Love To See But Are Probably Dead or Broken Up." But here he is on tour again, and I'm ecstatic I got to see him. His singing voice is not what it was 30 years ago, but that's no surprise. The famous oomph he puts into his performances definitly lived up to the legends though, and even though he wasn't going near some of the high notes, he was belting his heart out.
I always love seeing what different bands put into their live shows to give it that extra something, and Meatloaf's approach that night was to throw in some pretty funny comedy and asides between sections of "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and even throwing on a long wig that transformed him (at least appearance wise) into 70s era Meatloaf. He seemed like a pretty good natured guy, and I have to give him kudos for doing the same stuff for 30 years and always honoring the fact that the fans have stuck around for that long too. And ah, the fans. There was a really funny group of "Meat Heads" as my dad dubbed them who were BEYOND into Meatloaf. They kept jumping up piggyback on one another's shoulders and crying out "I FUCKIN LOVE YOU MEATLOAF" and they couldn't resist woohooing after every scentence he said in his comedic interludes.
As for the photos I took, I don't usually care much for concert photos. The interesting lighting doesn't have much to do with my skills as a photographer, and never really translates the way I want it to. Generally I just took these to have a personal record of a performer I've wanted to see for a long time, but I'm actually really pleased with a couple, namely the one just of Meatloaf and the other of one of his tarted-up backup singers. I think the colors and lighting came out a bit differently from the other photos I took, so I figured I'd throw them up here and see if anyone likes 'em.
Check out my two favorites after the jump.
Continue reading "MEATLOAF, Live, In Atlanta"
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Wordless Wednesday (Or Thursday, at this point)
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September 03, 2007
Ocoee Rafting Fun
I think I mentioned Friday that I was going white water rafting with some friends. It ended up being a lovely time, and I met a lot of cool new people. The whole thing ended up organized thanks to Guarav, a guy from Georgia Tech who my friend Dan met in Germany over the summer. Guarav and some of his friends wanted to go rafting, and he had told Dan he'd give him a call if he was ever going through Chattanooga. So it was a nice reunion for them, and I got to meet some new folks with interesting stories to tell about sky diving and white water rafting in India with burly guides from Nepal.
Anyways, the main point of hashing all this out to you, the dear reader, is to share some of the photos the raft company's photographer took of our group as we shot through the "Double Trouble" rapid section. It's really cool we got some proof of our mad rafting skillz, or at least the funny faces we made when confronted with walls of water slaming headlong into our faces.
(in case you were wondering, I'm the deathly pale one in the back in front of the green-helmeted guide.)
Posted by Spike at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monday Flower Blogging
Happy labor day, and here's a flower, I have no idea what kind, that happened to grow in a field behind the wall behind my cottage in Oxford. I went to a lot of trouble to get this flower's picture, as it was growing on a wood pile that had another tenant in the form of some sort of stinging nettle. I sat on the woodpile to get the picture and ended up with some stinging welts on my rear for the trouble. All was well after an hour of sitting on only one cheek though, and now I have a great story about the pitfalls of nature photography.
Have a happy labor day!
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