Posted on February 29th, 2008 by Antiguit
Posted on February 23rd, 2008 by Antiguit
My darling sister and I will be at the Coachella Music Fest on the weekend of my 21st birthday! Look at this lineup:
Roger Waters, Portishead, Jack Johnson, Kraftwerk, The Verve, The Raconteurs, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Justice, Cafe Tacvba, Fatboy Slim, Gogol Bordello, Rilo Kiley, Chromeo, Dwight Yoakam, The Streets, The National, M.I.A., Metric, Hot Chip, Cold War Kids, Kate Nash, Danny Tenaglia, Pendulum, DeVotchka, Simian Mobile Disco, Flogging Molly, Mark Ronson, Midnight Juggernauts, The Cool Kids, Minus the Bear, Sia, Cinematic Orchestra, Junkie XL, Jens Lekman, I’m From Barcelona, Vampire Weekend, Architecture in Helsinki, The Bees, Yoav, and more, much more!
Excitement is one of those emotions I have a harder time curbing. Whoo!
Posted on February 21st, 2008 by Antiguit
I’m sure the Lebanese capital is wonderful (I plan on paying it a visit someday), but the Beirut I am enamored with is the band. Good grief! They sound like a mellow Gogol Bordello, and their vocalist does that sexy, effortless, lazy drawl singing voice thing. I found them on eMusic a few weeks ago and have both albums on constant replay since. Highly highly highly recommended.
The end.
Posted on February 20th, 2008 by Antiguit
When I first arrived in the States two years ago, I knew I had to make some adjustments: people would tell me the day’s highs and lows in Fahrenheit, and all the signs on long highways would indicate distances in miles. For two years I could deal with that, even if conversations, repetitious as they were, often ended with “What do you mean, ‘It’s going to be cold’? Twenty-eight degrees is perfectly—oh. OH.”
For two years I was happy to perform the mental acrobatics of converting miles to kilometers and ounces to millimeters. But my patience ran its full course at a Media Production class, when the Good Professor L announced that all tape decks on school were built for NTSC mediums. So I approach the Good Professor L at the end of one class and ask him if there were any PAL decks available on campus.
He sucks in his breath and shakes his head grimly. “No, I don’t think so. Do you have a lot of media on PAL?”
Yes. And my camera is a PAL camera, so I don’t want to chuck it away for the semester just because I can’t move footage on to a computer.
“No, of course not. Where did you get it?”
Singapore.
“Wow. Are you from Singapore?”
No, I’m Indonesian, but I lived there for a while. Graduated high school and all.
He gives me a beatific grin. “I love Singapore, it’s such a great place. I’ve been there several times for assignments and projects, and I love it. It’s so clean and…it’s great.”
I nod on dumbly. Should I tell him about the government stranglehold on free speech and a recent piece of legislation that the denied the overruling of a colonial-era law on homosexuality?
“I love the public transport system,” he muses on. “The train—what’s it called—the MAT?”
MRT.
“The MRT. Yeah. That was the only time I actually felt safe riding public transport late at night.”
That’s Singapore for you.
“But I do have a problem with those, uh, Singapore Slings.” He motions holding an invisible cocktail in one hand. “Twelve dollars for a drink? What?”
I shrug. That’s sounds pretty standard, actually. Where did you have it?
The Good Professor L smiles. A growing line of classmates have been waiting patiently to speak to him, and he is distracted by a boy who thrusts a question to his face. I take my cue to leave and slink away quietly.
“See you next week,” the Good Prof pipes over someone’s head as I walk away.
Bye.
Rats, he still hasn’t given me a solution to my PAL/NTSC woes.
Aiyah.
Posted on February 20th, 2008 by Antiguit
