As I get older, I'm finding myself getting more and more interested in history. I think it's because I can learn it now on my terms, which means knowing what happened and the relationships between events, without the excessive memorizing of dates.
Although I have been oddly interested in naval history in the age of sail, I'm starting to find all history more interesting, including U.S. history. So when my friend Patricia and I got to talking about how we hadn't seen any of the historical places in Philadelphia, it turned into a Memorial Day weekend trip.
Philly was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed seeing Independence Hall and the other historic sites. I was glad I saw them not too long after visiting Boston last year, too. It helped me piece together things. And it was especially nice to go there by train — in two stress-free hours from Union Station in DC, we were there. It was odd to feel like I was on vacation without the grief and aggravation of getting there.
The photo below we took just as they were kicking us out of the room. In the background you can see the only actual period piece there — the chair George Washington sat in. More pictures are up at Flickr.
Still kind of shook by this fire. One of the things that has been oddest has been being on this side of a news story. When I went out into the parking lot Monday morning they were doing a press conference with the fire department. I looked as I went past but then I drove on to work.
I've been catching some of the news reports online. The nice big signs in the background for Halpine View were recently installed -- I think they were trying to spruce the place up. I initially couldn't remember them doing any walkthroughs of the apartments to check smoke detectors and the like, but I went through my apartment file and found this:
So the smoke detectors, theoretically, were checked in November last year. I haven't seen that anywhere -- the management company has been less than willing to talk to the press. So I didn't know quite what to do with it, and I thought I'd post it as my short-lived foray into citizen journalism. The building with the fire should have been checked on the same day as my building. It apparently hadn't been inspected by the pros in quite some time, though.
I'm planning to look for condos before my lease is up. Sprinkler systems? Suddenly a factor.
I walked out of my apartment this morning and was like, "why is there crime scene tape across the parking lot?" The further I walked, the more I saw. Turns out the apartment building next to mine was gutted by fire. One person died and other people had to jump to get to safety. It all happened in the early morning and I had no idea what was going on. Really scary.
Attempted self-portraits all looked funny, but here is a link to a photo of Eric's from my friend Chantal's birthday dinner with the full goth flapper look.
It was time for the annual chop. There was some hilarity last week where my friends and co-workers raised $500 in 70 minutes for me to shave my head (for the record, I did not, as Joe says, claim I would shave my head for $500 -- I said I was thinking it would take $500 for me to shave my head...turns out it would take a lot more, heh).
So I felt like I had to do something to my hair that, while short of shaving it all off, still reached some acceptable drama threshold (I mean, my co-workers pretty much gave me carte blanche to have totally unprofessional hair). So I got 7 inches cut off. The photo is from the same day as the cut. Today I dyed it blue black, which I've always wanted to do, but have been mildly afraid of looking too goth or Veruca Salt.
Turns out, blue black is not as dramatic as I thought it would be at this length, but still pretty fun (the water was the color of blueberries when I was rinsing, so I was a bit freaked out mid dye job). My hair is still recovering from the dye so I didn't want to style it, but I'll try to post pics when I attempt to blow it out as well as the stylist at the Aveda Institute did. Or, alternately, when I style it curly, which I think I might even like better than straight -- it makes me feel so much like a 1920s flapper that I feel like I should have a cigarette holder in my hand and know how to dance the Charleston.
It's been like 50 years since I posted here, so, uh, first off, I went to London. I know I just went to London in November, 2006, but when some friends here in DC sent out word about a trip, my initial reaction was: "I just went to London. I can't go back so soon." Then I thought about it, for all of about 30 seconds, and I decided: "Oh, I can so go back!"
So I got to take another outstanding trip to London. This time I wanted to catch the one thing I'd wanted to see last time, but had been closed — the London Transport Museum. It was closed for renovations last time, although the gift shop was open in a place in Covent Garden, so I at least wasn't deprived of Mind the Gap merchandise. The museum itself was really cool, and I'm glad I got to go and see the development of the world's first subway, from the early steam locomotives to the development of tube tunneling (and an early tube train). But there were so many out of control kids there, it was like a Lord of the Flies type situation — they were running totally wild — so that sort of took away from it.
I also wanted to see some things that I hadn't really been interested in the last time we went — a side trip to Portsmouth to see, well, everything, but namely the HMS Victory, and to Greenwich for the National Maritime Museum. Not surprisingly, none of the rest of our group had much interest in going to look at old ships, so I went to Portsmouth on the day they all went to the Tower of London, which I'd just seen. I found I felt really comfortable with moving around the UK by myself — the train system is so great and the signage everywhere is so good, it's easy to find your way.
Portsmouth didn't disappoint in the least — the Victory was worth the trip in itself. I have a ton of pictures on Flickr, so I won't go into huge amounts of detail, but I will just say that the Victory, in permanent drydock, was done up much more as a museum (albeit one where you had to duck your head on all of the decks, and that smelled of old wood) than the USS Constitution was. Which makes sense — the Constitution could sail tomorrow, if it needed to. I like that both of these ships, which each have huge historical significance, serve two different roles. But this meant that on the Victory, you got to go down to the Orlop deck and the hold — they really had much of the ship open to explore, and since it was February, they weren't running guided tours, so I got to take my time and see the whole ship at my own pace.
I wasn't quite as impressed by the National Maritime Museum — although it was good in its own right, it paled after the ships and museums of the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth. We were actually in Greenwich briefly earlier in the trip — on Wednesday, we did a tour to Leeds Castle, Dover, Canterbury, and Greenwich. At Greenwich, we had time only to walk the grounds of the old Royal Naval College a bit, and walk into the Painted Hall, before we took a boat cruise down the Thames back to London. Leeds Castle was impressive, particularly since it was a mix of the period furniture you'd expect, and of 1920s-era French decor. Some of it was a bit over-the-top, but still pretty cool. We stopped at Dover only long enough for photos of the white cliffs, and then on to Canterbury, where I was surprised at the size of the cathedral after others I'd seen (Westminster Abbey, Bath Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral) of similar structure.
But rather than rambling on and on, as I usually do, I thought I'd just post a link to tons and tons of pictures. Take your pick between the whole set of 500-and-some, or the highlights, which are closer to 80:
And yes, it was cold. Somehow, 45 degrees in London is not the same as 45 degrees here — it's a much damper, bone-chilling cold. Luckily, I took a fleece jacket in addition to my wool pea coat, and the two of them together generally kept me warm enough to be happy. Lots of ale in nice warm pubs also helped.
HMS Victory, oldest commissioned naval ship in the world
I run very hot and cold on the Killers. They usually manage to come out with a single or two that seizes my brain ("Read My Mind" leads my iTunes library with 433 plays) and will not let go. But they have so much more that I'm very "enh" on, even a lot of their singles.
But then there's THIS:
The Killers and LOU REED! Outfuckingstanding.
Watch your back, "Read My Mind." Your record is no longer safe.
There are some indications that the questionable-looking restaurant down the street from me might be a well-kept secret (yeah, it's in the Post, but not on Yelp) as opposed to just a very scary place. They just started selling sushi, too, though, which sort of seems to dilute their non-brand.
Speaking of branding, Apple is going to lose their counter-culture good-guys rep really quickly if they keep making asshole maneuvers.
I read this blog post on the NYT site and really wanted to post a comment, but comments are closed. So I thought I'd come here and make a post that I probably should have done awhile ago.
After suffering migraines for several years, I stumbled into l-tryptophan (yes, the stuff in turkey) this year. It was banned from the U.S. market for many years, so it hadn't even been available when I first started getting migraines during graduate school. I took Imitrex on the advice of my very smart P.A., who diagnosed the migraines in the first place, and it was generally successful, but only if I took it right as I felt the migraines coming on. Well, that sounds simple enough, right? Why wouldn't I just take the meds as soon as I felt the slightest twinge of migraine? Well, the side effects are not so great. It caused a strange, almost burning sensation along my scalp, and I felt screwed up neurologically for several hours. It became difficult to do things like type.
So if I missed the narrow Imitrex window, which I sometimes did, or if the headache was really severe, I was stuck with a migraine that lasted anywhere from several days to an entire month. Mine aren't classic migraines -- the lock-yourself-in-a-room-with-a-towel-on-your-head kind, with the aura and everything -- they're more like a sharp stabbing headache on one side of my head, so that isn't quite as bad as it sounds. But walking around with a constant headache for weeks still sucks.
Anyway, as I said, I stumbled in to l-tryptophan this year. It's an amino acid that you're supposed to get through your diet through foods like milk and turkey, but many of us don't get enough. It converts to serotonin, melatonin, and niacin in your body (low serotonin levels are linked to migraines).
Now that it's available in the U.S., I stopped at Vitamin World one day and picked some up. The first few days were kind of difficult — I felt really tired and I got these really bad tension headaches. But that's how I knew I was on to something — I rarely, if ever, got tension headaches after I started getting the migraines (one cause of tension headaches can be when the blood vessels are opened too wide, which is why caffeine helps...migraines are the opposite, where the blood vessels are constricted, which is why caffeine is a disaster).
So I kept taking the tryptophan, and the initial symptoms stopped. So did my migraines. I would start to feel a migraine coming on, but instead of developing into the full painful headache, I felt a tingling sensation down the "path" the pain usually traveled. Eventually (sometimes it took a good night's sleep), the tingling and the pain went away, and there was no headache left.
Speaking of a good night's sleep, it's rare that I don't get one now. I'm assuming that's because I've given my body more of what it needs to make melotonin. Another, slightly more odd thing — I don't crave carbs like I used to. It used to be I couldn't make it through the morning without a bagel. I have read about a carb-serotonin connection, so maybe it's not quite as crazy as it sounds.
I take the recommended dosage, which is about the same amount one should get in one's diet every day. If I'm having a stressful day, I'll take an extra pill (the dosage is three). I don't claim to be a medical professional, or that tryptophan is a good idea or will work for everyone. All I can post about is personal experience, and mine has been very good.
If you check my Flickr account any time soon, you'll find that there are a ton of new old pictures. I have been trying to clean off my hard drive and I decided there was no reason to have a 2 gig My Pictures folder when I pay Flickr money to host my pics.
So there are various trips and weddings posted there now. Odds are many of you have been involved in some of them, or at least know people who were.
Old family pictures may come next. But I'm tired of posting for now.
I'd forgotten about this one...from our first time kicking ass in scavenger hunting.
It's not out until October 16, but you can listen to the new Underworld album, Oblivion With Bells at download.com.
First impressions...Underworld has never been a group to play it safe, and this is no exception. There are sounds in here that are like nothing else in electronica, or music in general, new and completely unexpected sounds, and that, above all, is what I've come to expect from Underworld. Songs like Born Slippy and Two Months Off are as far from formula as you can get, and they shouldn't really work, but yet they do, so very well.
Some of the riskiest bits are when it gets downright dissonant — Karl Hyde, who is by no means tone deaf, kinda sorta sounds it at the beginning of Ring Road and Boy, Boy, Boy. They remind me of the vocals in Stagger, off Second Toughest in the Infants, but dialed up another notch. Like any Underworld album, you have to trust in the journey they take you on. And indeed, Ring Road rights itself artfully — it might be my favorite song on the album. It's an album that moves back and forth from harsh, angry sounds to lush, lovely lines, finally closing with my other candidate for favorite, Best Mamgu Ever, a sprawling, Second Toughest-esque epic with big, slow bass and impeccable little guitar bits.
It's always a little scary listening to the new album of a group you like this much. But it's clear Underworld haven't lost anything OR played it safe. Now I must listen to it again and again and get all the little details I've missed.
One more Underworld video...although I feel it's appropriate
Mmm... New York? I like you.
So here is the problem with going to New York for the first time ever to see an Underworld concert. The concert was so amazingly mindblowingly awesome that we got up on Saturday and went, okay, what do we do now? Because nothing New York had to offer was going to be as great as that concert.
So we moseyed over to Grand Central Terminal, which was really lovely. It was nice to see all the open space, as it hasn't been sliced into a mall like Union Station, as much as I love Union Station. Then we took the subway to where the subway construction started, and a shuttle bus to Battery Park, where we were going to pick up the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands.
A bit about the subway and our navigation of New York. MTA doesn't have a decent map posted of the New York subway. The one they have kind of looks like the London Tube map in the 1930s before they figured out that the linear map was the way to go, except they also try to put other geographical features in there to make it extra-confusing. We were able to find this one online which did enable us to get around, sort of.
On Friday, we decided on Josh's advice to walk to the concert in Central Park. It was quite a few blocks but it was a nice walk. We went past Rockefeller Center, stopped for dinner and kept walking. We passed the New York Library, with the lions in the front, as per Josh's instructions. Then we decided to stop for coffee right near the Empire State Building.
So if you know New York you know by now that we had been going in the wrong direction. For about 20 blocks, it turns out, starting somewhere after Rockefeller Center. I looked outside the window of the Starbucks and saw 33rd Street. We needed to enter the park at 72nd. Uh, whoops. Turns out there's more than one New York Library with lions in the front. We had thought it looked bigger in Ghostbusters.
We still had plenty of time to make it to the concert but we were not about to walk 40 blocks there. So we found a subway station and a train going in the right direction and got on. At about this point we're congratulating ourselves on our ability to find our way around a city via the subway, if not on surface streets. We take the DC Metro frequently, and have ridden the subway in other world cities as well. We are subway veterans!
And then the train starts going straight through stops. A lot. Turns out we were on the express train and it didn't stop until 125th. We got off at 125th, took a closer look at all my subway maps, and got on a local train going back in the opposite direction.
So it was a relatively minor deal when the subway stopped earlier than it should have with announcements that there would be a shuttle to Battery Park. In addition to various subway issues, the other lesson learned from New York is that you can't just hop on a ferry and head over quickly to see Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The shuttles are three decks and take forever to load and unload. You can't go up in the Statue of Liberty because of security concerns, so we stayed on the boat and took pictures from there, then got off at Ellis Island, nosed around the museum there a little, and headed back. Somehow all of this took several hours, we were hungry, and our feet were still suffering the aftereffects of the Underworld concert (and walking 20 blocks in the wrong direction) so we decided to bail on plans to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and took the subway back to the hotel.
We had some dinner and then — after another hilarious subway ride in which I thought Melvin had gotten off the train for reasons unknown, when he had, in fact, moved to the seat next to me (I was engrossed in composing a text message that would not get sent until we got topside) — met up with Josh and Kelly for drinks at this very cool place called the Flatiron Lounge. The decor was perfect in every little detail, and they had lots of good jazz and swing playing, with lots of delicious, creative drinks (although expensive, of course). We had a few drinks there and then headed to an Irish pub type place that I cannot remember the name of.
Hanging out with friends was definitely the best part of our Saturday in New York. I guess that's the thing about it — most of the really touristy things are just really touristy, and I'd already seen them a bazillion times on TV and the movies. We had no desire to go to Times Square, for example, although the Empire State Building would have been good to do if not for my raging fear of heights. But New York does have so many great places for eating and drinking.
Which is good, because, if not for Josh and Kelly, we would have probably been better off continuing on to Boston for another night of Underworld.
And now for an extremely long and detailed post about the Underworld concert. There will be a later post on New York. Sometime.
So I posted earlier that the Underworld show in Central Park completely exceeded my high expectations. Most of the reason for that was Underworld, but part of it was the venue. We were at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, which was much smaller than I'd expected. Underworld isn't nearly as big in the US as in Europe, but still, they played the Hollywood Bowl for their Los Angeles show, and Paul Oakenfold opened for them, so they're not exactly small, either. They've been gravitating toward outdoor venues, so maybe that's the only place in New York that was outdoors and worked.
For whatever reason, it was a much smaller venue than I'd expected, and we were maybe 100 feet from the stage. So instead of watching an outstanding show where we could barely see the stage, we were close enough to see everything and really really feel the thump of the bass.
The thing — well, one of the things — that makes Underworld different from other electronic acts is that they do an actual live show, and they have an actual front man — Karl Hyde. There's nothing pre-recorded, and the setlist isn't set in advance (well, except everyone knows they're going to play Born Slippy), so Rick Smith, the other half of the duo, is up there piecing together little snippets throughout the show. In the pictures I link to later in this post, you may notice a third guy up there, on the boards with him — that's Darren Price, their DJ for the live shows. Add to that a huge video screen in the background, synched to the music, and you certainly have the makings for a hell of a show.
Here was the official setlist:
1. Luetin 2. New Train 3. Crocodile 4. Pearls Girl 5. Biro The Leggy 6. Two Months Off 7. Rowla 8. Glam Bucket 9. Rez / Cowgirl 10. Born Slippy Nuxx 11. King Of Snake 12. Jumbo
There's some confusion as to whether it was Biro the Leggy or Beautiful Burnout, off of the new album Oblivion With Bells. It sounds like Beautiful Burnout may be Biro the Leggy's younger brother. Here is an unofficial setlist, put together by someone who has better memory than me:
1. Luetin 2. Dark Train 3. "HMH Untitled-2" improv 4. Crocodile 5. Improv 6. Pearl's Girl 7. Improv 8. Beautiful Burnout 9. Two Months Off 10. Rowla 11. 5 Foot 5 12. Glam Bucket 13. Improv 14. Rez/Cowgirl 15. Small Conker and a Twix 16. Born Slippy .NUXX 17. King of Snake 18. Jumbo
Luetin was an interesting choice to kick things off. It's not one of my favorites, but with a slightly slower beat it gave the crowd a chance to warm up. Karl read the lyrics off of a music stand, which cut back on the energy of the piece a bit. It was the only sign all night that they were at all out of practice. Although, to his credit, Luetin doesn't really make any sense, so he can't really be blamed, except for writing it in the first place.
Luetin video
They followed Luetin with New Train, which is some variation (perhaps in name only) of Dark Train. It was a great choice, and one the crowd definitely appreciated. During Dark Train, the video screen behind them kicked into overdrive with a barrage of images, clipping through them at an incredible pace. The screen continued to change throughout the night, sometimes showing live video of Karl or Rick and Darren, sometimes filmed video of Rick and Karl, sometimes photos or other video, and even vintage Atari games — Asteroid, Space Invaders, and finally Pong.
New Train/Dark Train video — this is the cleanest video I've been able to find out of the concert, although you can't really hear the big Underworld bass.
Crocodile sounded great live. It was very danceable and the crowd responded very well to it. Definitely the next Big Underworld Dance Song.
Crocodile video
It took the crowd a little while to catch on to Pearl's Girl, but it still sounds as good as it ever has. I really liked the multimedia screen during this one — words in varying font sizes flashing across the screen so fast I wondered what Underworld was subliminally dropping into my brain.
Pearl's Girl video — this is the best one I could run back across but I feel like I've seen one that's less jerky and lets you see the video better. If I track it back down I'll replace it here.
Beautiful Burnout / Biro the Leggy was a little slower and a little heavy on the vocoder for my taste, but still definitely danceable. I'm very curious to hear how it sounds on the album. I think there were some layers that didn't translate well live, and some of my favorite Underworld songs are just too intricate to really work live. They play Dirty Epic rarely (although they did play it in Denver...Denver also got Moaner — so jealous) and I don't think Banstyle/Sappys Curry ever left the studio.
Beautiful Burnout / BTL video
Beautiful-whatever-it-was was well-positioned, because the next song was a huge, sparkling version of Two Months Off, which had the crowd jumping up and down and screaming, "You bring light in, to a dark place." It was sometime before Two Months Off that they busted out these giant inflatable air tubes to video of Rick and Karl messing around with them in a giant field. The air tubes seemed a little weird at first but they became part of the show, repositioned by the crew periodically and lit up to go with the music, and they worked remarkably well.
Two Months Off — The audio is really fuzzy, but you can see the air tubes and the bouncy crowd
When I finally heard where they were going after the improv period, I exlaimed "Rowla!" Talk about a song that translates well live — it lost the delicacy of the album but was driving, booming, and very danceable.
Rowla video
Glam Bucket was dense and experimental, something to sway to, which was good, because I realized at this point just how much my knee hurt. Normally, if Karl's on the guitar, it's just one of many layers of sound, but you could definitely hear it in this one. I love those little guitar moments in a lot of Underworld songs, so this is another one I can't wait to hear on the new album.
Glam Bucket video
Glam Bucket gave the crowd a chance to rest up, which is good, because Underworld was about to launch into an impossibly spectacular string of songs. Before I go into those, though, some general observations:
1. Underworld puts on a multimedia show. Granted, it's a multimedia show where the music is the obvious star. but between the music, Karl Hyde's crazy antics on the stage, the lights, the smoke, the glowy air tubes and the video screen, there's a whole lot going on. Combine that with dancing and I was in total sensory overload for two-plus hours, but that was part of what made it so oustanding.
2. Karl Hyde is awesome. I knew this already, but I finally got to see it in person. He looked like he was having an absolute blast up there, dancing around. If you saw him bust out some of the moves he pulls at a club, you'd probably stare and go, "what's up with that guy?" Because, let's face it, we're all a little reserved and always trying to make sure we don't do something uncool. But Karl Hyde comes out in front of thousands of people with his arms flung up in the air, dancing around like someone who doesn't care what anyone else thinks about his dancing. And he pulls it off with such joy, such willingness to just embrace the music, that you feel jealous, and then realize that you're released to do the same thing — throw your arms in the air and just go with the music. It's a very powerful feeling. Karl didn't stay in the spotlight the whole night, though. He generally hung back by the deck whenever he was playing the guitar, and sometimes went to the back of the stage and danced there. It made us focus on Rick, who was Very Seriously bent over the deck the entire night like he was doing surgery, and Darren Price, who kept darting around with a hand on his headphones.
So with that said, now it's time to descend into the brilliance that was the best version of Rez/Cowgirl I've ever heard, and I don't say that lightly. Out of a big booming improv bass-y piece, they pulled out the lyrics "everything, everything," over and over again, and it really seemed like they were going to play Cowgirl without Rez, which is pretty much sacrilegious. The loop slowed down and the lyrics distorted, and they slid in the twangy beginning to Cowgirl, and I thought, "wow, they really are going to play Cowgirl without Rez," and I honestly felt a little cheated.
Oh, me of little faith. Out of the twang came just the slightest few electronic pops, and then it slid perfectly into the beginning of Rez, at which point I started screaming and turned to Melvin and yelled, "You can't play Cowgirl without Rez!" with a giant grin on my face. The crowd was already super riled up at this point, and when the song hit that big Rez crescendo, which will never, ever, get old, they went apeshit, myself included. I didn't even consciously think about it — I just HAD to jump up and down and wave my hands in the air with the rest of the crowd.
The transition to Cowgirl was flawless, and Karl sounded great. The crowd was singing along with him — thousands of people yelling, "I'm invisible, I'm invisible." If it wasn't already, it was clear at this point that despite a long hiatus filled only with scattered concert dates, online-only releases and soundtracks, Underworld hasn't lost a thing (or a beat, if you prefer a bad pun). The crowd had huge energy, all the way through to the end, but how could they not?
Rez/Cowgirl 1 — don't turn the volume up on this one too high because it's pretty fuzzy, but it's the only one I've been able to find so far that has the Cowgirl tease at the beginning, through to Rez. I am so hoping that they release audio of this concert, particularly this song.
Rez/Cowgirl 2 — the Cowgirl half of the above video. Again, don't turn it up too high.
Rez with cleaner sound (although less bass)
I was a little sad when they started the opening to Born Slippy Nuxx, because I figured that was it, save maybe for an encore, and the concert would be over soon. But then it kicked into gear and I got caught up in the music, telling myself to just enjoy the hell out of what was left.
Some bands, I think, play their big hit with a little weariness, maybe even a little contempt, like they can't believe they have to trot out the damn song every night. There was none of that with Underworld. It was more, here it is, we're all having so much fun, we know you guys love this song, and it is what it is. And of course the crowd went nuts, jumping up and down, fists pumping the air, despite the fact that we'd all just expended so much energy during Rez/Cowgirl. It goes without saying that we all shouted "Lager! Lager! Lager! Lager!" when the time came.
Born Slippy Nuxx — the sound's about as good on this one as you're going to get, although every video I've found of Born Slippy looks like complete and utter chaos because the cameraman is getting jarred so badly.
Born Slippy Nuxx (different clip)— I mentioned smoke earlier when I was talking about multimedia, and you can see what I was talking about here. The smoke and the lights in time with the music look outstanding. Turn down your volume, though, because it's pretty fuzzy. Lager! Lager! Lager! Lager!
When Born Slippy was over, it quickly became clear that they still weren't done, and then, after a transition period, they brought out King of Snake, and the crowd went nuts again. It was an extremely high energy version, with the big I Feel Love bass line cycling around quickly, Karl spinning around in the back of the stage and the camera, like, Blair Witch close on his face. I was dancing on adrenaline at this point — the music sounded so good, there was no way I couldn't keep moving.
King of Snake 1 — The sound's reasonable on this one, and it's even pretty still.
King of Snake 2 — Second half of the above clip
They really did end it after King of Snake, although they were back quickly for an encore. It was Jumbo, which is actually my least favorite Underworld song. But I wanted the concert to keep going, and I actually liked the song much better when it was live and I was there, swaying and clapping with the rest of the crowd.
Jumbo 1
Jumbo 2
Jumbo 3
Jumbo wasn't nearly enough to unwind my brain. As we followed the stream of people out through the dark, tree-lined paths of Central Park, I felt stunned. My feet were so sore I could hardly walk, and I kept asking myself, "did that really happen?"
Hands-down the best concert I have ever been to. I thought that seeing them once would be enough, but if they come back to the US again, I am so definitely there. And if they don't, well, I can think of worse reasons to go to Europe.
So this weekend I did two things I've yet to do in life. One was visit New York (not sure how it came to be that I never made it there before now, but I didn't), and the other is see Underworld live.
So Melvin and I took the train up to New York, where we went to a concert that was AMAZING. I tried not to get my hopes up, because Underworld hasn't done much more than play scattered dates in the last few years, and because I thought that nothing could possibly live up to my expectations of their live show.
Turns out they WAY exceeded my expectations and completely blew my mind. There will be much more later, when I get my truly mammoth blog post done, but I wanted to at least get a post and a picture up now. Sadly, I didn't want to take my digital camera because I had visions of it being crushed or smashed underfoot, so I got a little disposable job. Despite 1000 speed film, most of my pictures didn't come out, and those that did are still grainy (I think I am done with film). Fortunately, I realized that out of all of those people holding up digital cameras in front of me, at least some of them were going to post their photos on Flickr. And they did. So there will be links, and lots of them.
We heard that a lot during our cruise, as we apparently rode a fine jet of globally warmed air throughout Canada and New England. No rain, a little fog, and a lot of sun (too much in Boston).
I've already posted 360-some photos, so I won't go too detail-crazy here, but I thought I'd post a little about each of the ports and the cruise itself.
Portland, Maine
My parents had already been here several times and they really like it. Our tour started with Victoria Mansion, which I don't have any photos of because nearly everything inside is antique or a painstakingly done reproduction, but this crazy-ornate mansion was really interesting to see.
The rest of the tour was totally disorganized, although kind of hilarious. It consisted primarily of the woman who was our tour guide trying to decide where to go next, and then telling the bus driver when it was almost too late for him to do anything about it. She was all, "Turn here! Wait, no, turn left there!" We kept waiting for the driver to turn down a street and get stuck, thus having to back out. That didn't happen, but he did run a red light, and at another point the tour guide actually shushed my sister, who was not talking loudly at all. The whole thing did beg the question — hadn't they done this tour before? And if not, why didn't they plan it out in advance.
Portland, though, was very nice, despite our chaotic route through it. After the tour, we walked around and did some shopping. I bought blueberry wine, which I've yet to drink, but I find very intriguing. One thing that was really cool about Portland is that most of the shops and even the restaurants allow dogs. As a result, there are dogs EVERYWHERE. Most of them were very quiet and well-behaved. It's too bad we didn't have Rex for this portion of the trip. I told my Mom she'd just have to bring him back.
Bar Harbor, Maine
There had been a little bit of fog heading in to Portland, but nothing like what we woke up to heading in to Bar Harbor. It was solid fog, and the ship was sounding the fog horn regularly. The fog was so bad that when we got there, they had to delay the ship's tenders (Bar Harbor was the only port where the ship couldn't dock). We had an early tour and it was canceled because no one could get to shore. No, I don't have any idea why they didn't just delay it.
Because we still had tour tickets, we were able to take the first tender once they started running them, and got on an Ollie's Trolley tour of Acadia National Park. The Park was really beautiful, and we were lucky that the fog lifted enough for us to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain (which is really more of a hill, but is still apparently the tallest point on the east coast) and see.
After the tour, we went to a little sandwich stand for lobster rolls. I believe it's called the Lobster Claw, but I could be wrong on that one. If you're ever in Bar Harbor, definitely go. It's not much in the line of space or decor, but it reinforces that theory that the best seafood is in the the places that look like a hole. We got the rolls that are just fresh lobster on lettuce and bread, with some butter on the side to drizzle over it. Definitely the best lobster I've ever had.
Fortified for shopping, we did just that. Bar Harbor is a small but really charming town. It reminds me of a cross between Key West and Put-in-Bay.
Saint John, Canada
So, in hindsight, an error in strategy. My Dad, sister and I, as the family beer drinkers, had pegged the city highlights and Moosehead beer tasting tour as something we wanted to do. Tour + beer = good.
So the tour starts with us going over to the Reversing Falls. Now, the Reversing Falls is a really interesting phenomenon, caused by huge tide changes, but you apparently have to see it several times in one day (at high tide and low tide) to really get the impact. When we went, it was slack tide, which means we just saw a big boring body of water. Also, what we didn't realize about the Reversing Falls is that on the opposite side of the river from the viewing platform is a giant factory, which was dumping something into the river. I have no idea what that something is and if it's okay or bad for the environment, but the whole thing is not very picturesque. Does Canada have an EPA?
After the Reversing Falls, we drove around some and then the tour dropped us off at the market. The market is extremely old and was built by a wooden shipbuilder (the ceiling is just like an upside-down ship). It was bigger than Eastern Market in DC and definitely bustling.
Then it was time for the beer tasting. I'm all for beer tasting, but I think we all agreed by this time that we would have been better off just skipping the tour and going to a bar and drinking Moosehead. Perhaps with a trip to the market or some more fresh lobster.
Halifax, Canada
We did a hop-on, hop-off British double decker bus tour here. I originally thought this was going to be on British-style double-decker buses. But they actually turned out to be old London buses, complete with Transport for London stickers and the driver (and exits, somewhat dangerously) on the wrong side for Canada. Awesome.
I like hop-on, hop-off better than standard tours, because if you like things, you can stay as long as you want, and if they're lame, you're not stuck there. Our first stop was the Citadel, and it was actually the best one. The Citadel is a fort on the top of a hill, and it vaguely reminded me of a smaller Tower of London, except with no crown jewels. There were "soldiers" (all of them were actually civilians) drilling in kilts, and a series of mini-museums in the walls of the fort on various aspects of Canadian and British warfare. It was very well-done.
Our next hop-off was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which had a lot more hype — maybe more than anything could have stood up to. It was still nice, though. There was a signal ship, the CSS Acadia, that you could walk through, and a series of exhibits. One of the exhibits was on the Titanic (Halifax was instrumental in the rescue effort, and many of the dead are buried there). People were quick to point out that none of the items in the museum were pulled up from the ship — they're all things that were found floating during the rescue effort. I personally was hoping there'd be a little more of a British bent to things. Maybe I'll have to go to Greenwich some day for that.
We finished our day shopping at Pier 21, which was where the cruise ship docked. It was a major immigration center for Canada.
Boston, Massachusetts
It was HOT in Boston — we heard it got up to 100 degrees, and I'd believe it. If it hadn't been so hot, I'd say that the tour we took was not the way to go. Boston, like any major city, has major traffic, and our tour bus spent a lot of time navigating that traffic and not actually covering a lot of ground. But it was air-conditioned, which was a major bonus.
Our first stop was a Trinity Church, but only briefly. The tour guide said that if you'd seen any of the major churches in England, it wouldn't be very impressive, and he was right. After last year's London trip, I felt pretty eh about it.
The tour went over to Cambridge to the Harvard campus. The campus itself, at least the old portion, wasn't as expansive as I thought it was going to be. My sister wondered why it looked so much bigger than the movies. Memorial Hall, though, was very impressive — it looks like a church, but was built as a memorial to alumni who died in the Civil War. In addition to the memorial, it houses more pedestrian things like a cafeteria.
The next stop was at Old North Church, where the church sexton hung a lantern on the night of Paul Revere's ride to warn everyone that the British were coming. At that point it was the highest place in Boston. The inside of the church is still much as it was then, and although it's not as large or grand as even Trinity Church, I enjoyed it because it had such a role in history and was so well-preserved.
We got a glimpse of the USS Constitution before the tour dropped those who wanted to get off at Quincy Market. We opted to get off there, and grabbed some lunch. There was going to be some definite shopping involved after lunch by my mom and sister, but as I'm a ship nerd, I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see the Constitution, so I walked over to see the ship. It was HOT, but it actually felt really good to walk on land.
The Constitution was hands down my favorite thing from the trip. It is the oldest floating commissioned ship in the world, at 209 years old, and it is just amazing to me that something that old not only floats, but actually goes out for the occasional sail, and even has her guns fired occasionally. I did the guided tour, which meant we got to go down to the gun deck and the berth deck.
Seeing "Old Ironsides" is probably the most literary geeky thing I've ever done, but I am so glad I went. The ship is contemporary to, and even part of one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and to actually stand in it and get an idea of the perspective of the ships already so well described by O'Brian was awesome. That aside, it's a huge part of United States history, and really a miracle of preservation.
The cruise ship
We were on the Grandeur of the Seas again. We previously sailed on that ship two years ago to go to the Caribbean (it sails out of Baltimore, so it was convenient then, and was even more convenient now).
This time, though, I actually got seasick for the first time in six cruises. It was on the day I was walking around in the heat in Boston, which may have been a contributing factor, but my sister got sick as well. We were both sitting "backwards" at dinner, and the more the ship moved and the more I ate the more I felt like I might throw up. Generally I have no problem with rough seas -- I didn't get sick at all on the Century when we went through a storm with pretty big waves for a cruise ship to handle. But in this not-very-rough sea, the ship had this weird side-to-side vibration thing going. Normally the thing to do if you're getting seasick is to look at the waves and the horizon, but the waves and horizon weren't in synch with the motion of the ship. Ugh.
Although I've had a lot of fun during the cruise portion of our previous cruises, I think this was the one that reinforced that land-based vacations are really more my thing. Royal Caribbean, at least on this ship, is a little light on entertainment, particularly decent music performers. Unlike on land, you can't just go to a bar and drink. You can just go to a bar and drink on a cruise ship, but you'll have to listen to the easy-listening duo cover "I'm just a gigolo" for the 405th time. Uh, pass on that. I don't know why more cruise ships don't do what the S/S Norway did, which is to create an actual club and play actual good music during hours that make sense. The Norway's club didn't have any windows, and it actually looked like a club — you really felt like you were in a real land-based club.
The food was generally good, but there's always a certain point in a cruise where I actually get tired of eating. Except dessert. Heh. This is actually one of the things that amuses me about Royal Caribbean, though. You see their commercials and it's all, "You're exercising! You're jet-skiing! You're climbing a rock wall! You're walking on glaciers! You're not a normal cruiser!" And then you get on the actual cruise and people are all like, "What time is the midnight buffet?" This is actually a legitimate question, although cruise directors never fail to make fun of it, because the midnight buffet NEVER ACTUALLY STARTS AT MIDNIGHT. Anyway, maybe the people on Alaskan cruises are more active or something.
There were definitely some enjoyable things on the cruise itself. The Grandeur had a very good Beatles cover band (I think they make a loop on the Royal Caribbean ships in the area) the last time we were on the ship, and they played again. A Beatles cover band is a great idea. There should be more. But only if they don't suck. I didn't read quite as many books as I'd brought, but I got through quite a few, often in the "Solarium," a very nice enclosed pool, or in a lounge chair on the lower side deck.
So, all in all, a great trip. Now I need to start planning a new one. At this time last year I still had London to look forward to. Guess I need to get back to work on learning to speak Italian.
So if you were thinking to yourself, "I think Carrie's family cruise is coming up soon. Maybe I'll get a postcard from her." Well, you were partly right. The cruise was last week, however, no postcards because I am a lazy slacker. Sorry. Heh.
Okay, how glad am I that this didn't happen while we were in the arch?
Seeing that article reminded me to post about something else, though. For whatever reason, lately I seem to have been involved in a lot of conversations as to whether or not Ohio is actually in the Midwest. At the time, though, the only other option for Ohio was to be in the East. Ohio is definitely not in the East. I lived there for 26 years and now live in Maryland and, yeah, definitely not the East. At the same time, there are clearly a lot of states in the Midwest that are way more Midwestern than Ohio
So I have been doing some thinking about this and I think the issue is with trying to take Ohio as a whole state and stick it somewhere. Because really there are two parts to Ohio.
There is the area up around the Great Lakes. Let's call it the Great Lakes Area of Demarcation, or GLAD. It actually extends pretty far south, even into the Akron area, which is where I grew up. I would venture to say that the GLAD extends west at least into Michigan, if not through all of the Great Lakes border states. Chicago is definitely in the GLAD.
There are some easy ways to tell if you live in the GLAD. If you get lake effect snow, can see seagulls, and know at least 25% of the words to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," then you live in the GLAD. You get extra GLAD cred (and possibly cancer many years from now) if you have not only been up to the lake frequently, but have also swam in that nastiness.
The GLAD helps explain things like why everyone in Northeast Ohio thinks the state stops below Canton. Also, why only some people in Ohio will get it if you make a joke about the gales of November coming early.
So that leaves us to work out the rest of the state. That part I would call the Southern Midwestern Unidentified Shit, or the SMUSh. I am taking suggestions for something better that starts with Sh.
If you live in the SMUSh, you definitely not in the GLAD, or the Midwest, or the South. You are in some odd middle ground that has characteristics of each, but no true identity. Cincinnati falls squarely in the SMUSh, but the SMUSh extends south through Northern Kentucky, until you get into the true South.
The only part of this theory I can't really reconcile is Columbus. Columbus is a freak.
