Thursday, April 28, 2005

Weekends, Here and There

Some of you have heard me explain that Mapquest is irrelevant in Beirut, Amman, and Cairo. Further proof. When I was in Beirut I once asked for directions to a church I had heard about. “Oh,” he said, “just tell the taxi drier “al balad” and he will take you there. It’s a white church with a steeple.” He seemed generally unconcerned with these directions, so I figured that the church would be obvious upon my arrival at al balad.

Well. Al Balad means, sort of, “Downtown.” The driver dropped me off downtown. Downtown is huge. I must have looked confused, or lost, because the driver reassured me that this was, in fact, al balad, and this was, in fact, where I had said I wanted to go. So I got out. I never found the white church (and when I did find a church to go to, which happened to be white, it was nowhere near al balad.) Downtown Beirut on Sunday morning is, um, quiet, and the few people I asked had no idea of any church, anywhere, so I ended up following a French woman to her church, a very nice, if somewhat bewildering for an American Protestant, French Catholic service.
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There’s this club downtown called the 9:30 club and Martin and I went there last Friday (because the Washington Post recommended it.) Despite its name, the concerts do not start at 9:30, or even around 9:30, but the doors are open by then, at least. It was well on its way to being 11 and I had finished my Dos Equis by the time Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra sauntered onto the stage. And what an orchestra they were: we left at 2:30 after two long, practically uninterrupted sets of, well, Afrobeat. The standing-room-only crowd seemed only slightly enthused by the vehement political statements intermittently made by the long-legged trumpet player: they were there for the rhythm, disco ball, black walls, beer, and opportunity to dance however you want. At Meg’s high recommendation, I plan to return for Aqualung on May 9.

In other, more cultured, news, I saw original Toulouse-Lautrecs! At the National Gallery! I am a huge fan. One of my disappointments (albeit minor) in Paris was the small number of original Lautrecs in the Musee D’Orsay. But now I have seen them, and they are wonderful and huge and colorful and I wanted to look at them all day. It might go back: it’s free, after all.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Bollywood

Washington has blessed us this week with positively balmy weather and flowers of every color bursting out from window boxes, corner plots, and hanging baskets. The restaurants have opened their patios and the seersucker-clad crowds start trickling in at 5. They only start to dissipate at 11, and the night is still warm. Women are ignoring pantyhose, their hair is getting blonder, their shoes are getting brighter, and their suits are getting slimmer. Men are seen walking home after work, swinging their briefcases to the tunes on their iPods. It sure feels like summer.

As if to complement this summer garden-party atmosphere, the DC Film Fest is held this week. Fatema and I went last Sunday to see Black, an Indian movie based on the Helen Keller story. I do like Bollywood, though I’m not at all an expert and cannot discuss it intelligently at all. But we went, and the crowd was incredible, mostly from S. Asia. I felt very white, but very cultured. And Amitabh Bachan (who played the deaf/blind girl’s teacher), arguably the most famous Indian actor, made a guest appearance. And the crowd went wild. Especially when he recited lyrics from one of his movies to a girl from the crowd: shrieks of adoration. I hope the crowds at tonight’s Film Fest installment are equally exuberant.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Things to discuss at your next party

A random assortment of links. For your viewing pleasure:

College students with a lot of time on their hands.

An interesting article about Intelligent Design and why we shouldn't be afraid of it. I don't give much credit to evolution, but I agree with the author's viewpoint, particularly the point that science is all about questioning, and the more you question, the more likely you are to find the truth.

Something to do with all your leftover grocery bags, perhaps. I applaud his creativity.

A good way to protest is to throw salad dressing at your opposition.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Saturday, or, Everyone Loves Cherry Blossoms

I've been busy. I haven't even uploaded Saturday's cherry blossom pictures yet. But aren't Fatema's nice?

The day really was idyllic. The weather was perfect, just beautiful, with a clear blue sky and faint traces of clouds and a slight breeze. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect nap-on-the-grass-forget-responsibility weather. We started off at the cherry blossom parade, complete with very impressive drummers, all sorts of dancers, a flying burrito (again, I refer you to Fatema's pictures), a few odd floats, and an a capella spiritual (I'm not sure how that's Japanese, or cherry-blossom related, or really related at all to the parade, but they sang one of my favorite spirituals, "Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel?" so I didn't mind the irrelevancy.) Followed by an outdoor fast-food sushi lunch that would have tasted better with more ginger and a Sapporo beer. I always enjoy sushi for lunch, though, even without the appropriate amount of ginger.

Now, you have to understand that the entire state of Maryland was at the National Mall that day. I think Virginia might have been there, too, and maybe West Virginia. So we followed the madding crowd across the green Mall, around the Washington Memorial to the Tidal Basin and took photos like a bunch of tourists while secretly taking pride in the fact that we live here, that these are our cherry trees and we somehow deserve them more than these tourists. What was originally a rather large group of girls from Fatema's dorm dwindled down to Fatema and me, but we ran into fellow CSISer Linda on our way around the long, long, paddleboat line. We winded around the basin and ended up at the Jefferson Memorial, where we sat on the grass, got sunburned, and discussed what we were going to do with our lives. When it reached 4 PM, we still hadn't decided what we were going to do with our lives, so we headed back around the tidal basin and to the sardine can, I mean, metro.

I have seen metros that crowded before, once in Cairo when the metro stopped for 45 minutes and the crowd on the platform gathered until there was no room for anyone else on the platform, let alone in the two women's cars. And once in Paris, during one of the entirely too frequent metro strikes. But I don't think I've ever been stuck in the metro, hemmed in by four baby strollers and three crying babies. I would have cried too, if I had been in their situation. In fact, I'm surprised some of the grown-ups didn't start crying.

I came home with that nice, gritty been-in-the-sun feeling, an oddly shaped sunburn, and tangled, windblown hair. I felt like a kid who had just come back from a day making sandcastles on the beach.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Stolen Photos

I know this is a total cop-out, but I haven't had time to post the photos of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. I intend to, soon. But until then, Fatema has done an excellent job and I refer you to her marvelous site.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Tea Food

Lisa blames me for always blogging about food and making her hungry. Well...maybe she's right. (I may yet decide to focus my blogging entirely on all things edible.) Here's another food-related post.

Are you as shocked as I was to hear that Cookie Monster would be turning healthy on us, with a new ditty, "Cookies are a sometimes food"? This is in reaction to the soaring obesity rates among children. Ok. Sesame Street is known for giving sage advice and teaching children good things, like the letter K. I still know all the words to "I gotta new way to walk" and, "Sing a song." But Cookie Monster's cookie habits did not make me obese, and I thought it was unfair to blame the poor guy for obesity trends. I was glad to hear that he is not foregoing his cookies entirely, just slimming down a little. But I doubt that this Monster's new diet will affect the obesity rate.

Smucker's wants to patent the good old PB&J.