Music, munchies and more.
I. Munchies
When shopping Saturday at Whole Foods Ms. S. and I stocked up on tempeh (Lightlife, I believe) … that wasn’t intentional, really, just that we split up once in the store to buy our own things, and separately we each picked up a couple packages. It’s pricier (pound for pound) than tofu but considerably tastier, and it’s out culinary discovery of the year, as I’ve mentioned before.
This evening we finished off a package of the “3 grain” tempeh, and I prepared it in a simple mixture of Bragg’s and vinegar (part apple cider, part balsamic), then pan-frying it in a little oil and then letting it soak/bubble in the marinade. One half I kept tender, the other I made more of a “tempeh bacon.” That and a creamy tomato, roasted pepper, and gouda soup provided the pillars for dinner.
II. Music
A. No Doubt released then yanked the video for their new song “Looking Hot,” but copies are still available online, and I cached one for showing Ms. S.
Two words: Hot Mess.
Four more words: What were they thinking?
B. I like finding the most generous interpretation or perspective when I can, so I like to imagine that somebody had interesting ideas connecting the lyrics to the concept, but between storyboard and filming things got muddled, and then later in editing the ‘ideas’ went out the window. But that’s too generous.
That having been said, I listen to the lyrics, look at the cowboys & indians theme, and think that in the hands of someone armed with critical theory on the one hand and a penchant for mindf**kery in their artistic vision on the other there was social commentary to be had.
C. This wouldn’t or at least shouldn’t even have flown during No Doubt’s early years, or during the success of ‘Tragic Kingdom’ (which always reminds me of college, and for which I have a soft spot).
It’s there’s a band that could have addressed native issues in a smart manner, it wouldn’t have been No Doubt, but rather Midnight Oil, though there we’re talking about Australia, not North America.
D. Again, who thought this was a good idea? That having been said, Ms. S. and I found it productive … it took us places. By association we thought of the recent Doctor Who episode ‘A Town Called Mercy.’ There’s also Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ coming up. I’ll ignore the latter for now. The former, for example, did the right thing by not having a town of settlers in the west and then having the ‘alien’ — by definition an ‘other’ or ‘outsider’ — show up as a Native American surrogate, some sort of perceived savage or primitive, noble or otherwise. The episode played with notions of who the ‘good guys’ and who the ‘bad guys’ were, about guilt and who can absolve one of it, if anyone, and so on and so forth.
It is a matter of privilege — not of ‘overt’ racism (‘overt’ being another problematic marker for another time), etc. — insofar as it’s about something invisible to most people take for granted, and it’s a matter of objectification. It’s when ‘other’ characters are there as plot objects, accessories, regardless of whether they have ‘character traits.’ They are functional, they are there to aid the advancement, change, or development of the protagonist. It’s the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ and the ‘magical negro‘ tope and so on.
Heck, we just had Halloween and thus an anniversary of sorts of “We’re a culture, not a costume” … but irony cuts like a butter knife.
E. As a palate cleanser I offered up Tommy Seebach’s Euro Ethnic Disco Drag cover of “Apache” followed by The Shadows’ “Apache” (1964) and, for what turned out to be an unfortunate comparison and continuation, the Sugarhill Gang’s “Apache (Jump On It).”
No doubt about it: “Looking Hot” now seems tame. But “Apache,” in all its forms, at least has a memorable tune.
III. More
And to move beyond unfortunate music, I retreated first to the joys of Moldavia’s 2011 Eurovision Song Contest entry, “So Lucky” … a true palate cleanser. Pointed hair hats, woman in white on a unicycle, seizure-inducing visuals, a quaint bridge to go with the punkish main verses.
But that part of the world made me think of one of my favorite bands, The Transsylvanians, a Hungarian-German affair (I saw them perform at the Humboldt University in Berlin), purveyors of “speed folk.” Over the past few years more performance clips have made their way online, e.g.:
- at a record release Berlin 2004 (I love this song)
- at CastleFest 2009
- “Apa Cuka“
- “Èdesanyàm” (acoustic, live: beautiful)
- “Tulipàn” (song, no video)
- “Janoska” (song, no video … very catchy)
To round things out, the twee yet catchy Skyrim video with Peter Hollens and Lindsey Stirling.
And then ask yourself, are you doing anything with as much passion as Lindsey Stirling and The Transsylvanians are? Are you having that much fun?
