Monday, November 05, 2007

If It's Monday, This Must Be Qaraqalpaqstan

Certain friends of mine would call this an "Of-Cooooourse-You-Are" post. So be it.
One of the reasons I love living where I do is that, being a "relatively affluent" but small university city, we get to enjoy many of the cultural events and performances that one would normally only see in the largest, most cosmopolitan cities. This also includes a lot of the film choices we have here in town, even though in this Age of Netflix, it's usually only a couple of months' wait before almost every film in the world is at everyone's fingertips.
Considering that I majored in cultural anthropology once upon a time, this is the kind of stuff I live for. I've also been taking advantage of a lot of it lately, it seems. A sampling of my upcoming and recent travels around the world undertaken without leaving my own backyard (and yes, I know that it's not really the same thing — please leave my Orientalist tendencies alone):
Tonight: Spiritual Sounds of Central Asia
Azeri vocalists, Tajik musicians, and Kazakh epic singers: Who could ask for anything more?

Sunday 11/4: El Calentito
At the SB LGBT Film Festival. Punks, lesbians, underground nightclubs, password-whispering transvestites, and a failed franquista coup d'etat: Who could ask for anything more?

Saturday 11/3: The Darjeeling Limited
I know this hardly counts, since it's a widely released feature film, but still, it's one that probably few people will enjoy. To me, it's everything I could want in a film. And have I mentioned how much I like Jason Schwartzman?: Who could ask for anything more?

Tuesday 10/30: Pilobolus Dance Theatre
Very muscular young men (and women) in tights. Oh, and amazing performances that made me feel even more out-of-shape than ever: Who could ask for anything more? I'm not really a "dance person," but the piece "Rushes" (shown) was as emotionally evocative as any painting or other work of art I've ever seen.

Friday 10/26: Mariza
The third time I've seen her; it's no exaggeration that I'm absolutely in love. "It's always been one's dream to be three-quarters Portuguese and one-quarter Moçambican" and to be able to belt out a rafter-shaking fado that can bring grown men to tears. Of all the CDs in my collection, Mariza's Fado em Mim is without hesitation the one disc I would have with me on a desert island. Yes, it's that good. And you should hear me sing along to "Oiça la O Senhor Vinho."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I prefer my post-Khwarezm transliteration of that autonomous republic with Ks rather than Qs.

Trevor Messersmith said...

i agree - college towns rock. I grew up in one (albeit a small, small, small one), and got spoiled early on by easy access to culture.

Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

Maybe it's a good sign or maybe it's bad that I'm with you 100% on Darjeeling and on Jason. Though my travels on trains in India in "first class" certainly weren't like that and involved funky, dusty dust packs and road weary REI clothing not those fancy bags and suits that those boys wore.

m00nchild said...

Mmmmmmmmmm Jason. I saw this, um, the same night you did or planned to. Weird.

And I left the movie wanting to find a husband that looked.just.like.him.