monoceros blogsMovable Type is giving this blog a few problems. Among other things, I can't access any entries beyond the recent five. Thanks to blog meister, Vanessa Tan, I can at least reach those five entries. I'm ceasing blogging until I decide what to do. I'm thinking of moving to wordpress so that I won't have server problems or other issues to deal with (I'm just not very good at such things). I'll send word out if I do move. I hope to preserve all the writing I've done here for nearly four years and it'll take some time if I want to transfer my files. The new blog will have a different name; I've already claimed a wordpress blog domain, but unfortunately, it won't be monologs. Someone else got first dibs on that and I had to think up a new username and blog title, but I kind of like it, and I hope you will too. Perhaps it'll be a good thing to start a new blog in another place, just like beginning a new life. And in that same breath, let me also mention that I'll be moving (literally) next month. (Finally!)
The girls - VT, DSD, FG - got me a dress for my birthday, and we arranged a dinner outing this past weekend so that I would actually have an occasion to wear the dress. As usual, I was late in picking up my godsister Aimai, who was to join us that evening. I was even more flustered when she handed me a sleek black clutch with bronze trimmings. The gift came with the demand that I use it that very night. "But I can't fit everything in here!" I exclaimed as I peered into the shallow depths of the little bag, wondering if it would miraculously turn out to be bottomless.
I dug out what I needed from my Condotti bag, something I hurriedly grabbed before stepping out of the house; it was the only one that would fit all my usual items and the Canon Powershot G5, which I love because it looks vintage, but it's also heavy and bulky. Aimai took over the wheel while I spent most of the drive taking things in and out of the clutch bag. It's a new thing for me, carrying so little, but I rather enjoyed the change. And it's a lovely clutch, compared to my nifty but inappropriate Condotti. (I've also decided that I can now use a small kimono-fabric pouch to store the Canon on fancy evenings out.)
So we were a group of five dressed-up ladies dining at Valentino, a superb Italian restaurant just off Rifle Range Road. The menu included Florentine steak with arugula, tomino cheese wrapped in parma ham, linguini al pesto, wild boar ragout, ravioli con funghi porcini, tiramisu, chocolate salami, and chocolate apple pie. We saved the alcohol for Wine Company at Evans Road, a posh location with wines at wholesale prices.
DSD insists that I show off the dress, essentially a white slip with a black lace overlay and a textured black sash. And my own red shoes, red watch, and gold Grecian-styled earrings. I'm lucky to have friends who pamper me so. Thank you all. Not merely for the gift of a dress, but the gift of all the years of friendship. And to my godsister also, who celebrated nearly every birthday with me since I was one till ten, stopped for a few years, and returned when I most needed her.
Photo by VT
Here is yet another music post, but it's one I must write because Tally Hall is a band from Ann Arbor, a band from my alma mater, the University of Michigan! Go Blue!
I always find out about the good stuff only after it becomes far less accessible. But at least I find out about it, thanks in no small part to Lim Jia, trumpet and harpsichord player who's in town to obtain her German student visa (she's about to begin harpsichord classes in Berlin). Her main squeeze, Jake, is friends with Andrew Horowitz, a former music student from U of M. Andrew and four other fellows make up Tally Hall, named for a closed-down strip mall in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
They don't have any particular style - that is, they do all styles - and they like to call their music "wonky" or "fabloo." A quick listen of their debut album confirms that you can't really pin them down to a certain type of music. There's the rap-like "Welcome to Tally Hall" and the Jamaican-sounding "Banana Man," whose lyrics are quite absurd but still catchy. It's a head-bopping, danceable song, like many of the others on the CD, and I cannot get the tune out of my head. And the music video is something else. It's filmed in Ann Arbor, and you really feel that the guys are tripping on something. Okay, probably tripping on the fun of it all. It helps that one of the band members was a film student; the short films on their website are hilarious and very strange.
They do enjoy what they're doing, and according to Jake, they got their degrees as sensible young men are supposed to, but they weren't afraid to indulge their crazy, talented sides, which have taken them pretty far. They've had appearances on national TV - MTV and late night shows - and had one of their songs play on an episode of "The O.C."
I also found out that although Andrew Horowitz was primarily a pianist at college, he also wrote collaborative pieces for tuba and piano, and alternative, world, folk music and rap. Those works go under the name of Baker Broz or (Bros). He's also won Hopwood prizes for fiction and poetry, and Hopwoods are the writing awards to win when you're at UM.
So the band writes their own music, makes their own videos, gives rad live performances, and have a made-up name - fabloo - for their particular style of music. And as much as I'd like to watch them in concert, I'll have to make do with their CD, which I begged a friend traveling to the US to bring back for me.
