Coachella 2008

Humph. Or sniff. Or waaaaa. I didn't go. I missed it...and today I'm glad I'm not in Mexico City because I imagine everyone is talking about it. Fishermen stories. How Kraftwerk had never sounded so good... how Portishead live in the desert is the best thing to happen to mankind... how Dark Side of the Moon made the whole festival cry in joy. So, your mission, dear reader, if you wish to accept it, is to post a story in that little link that says COMMENTS. Enlighten this blog with a marvelous tale of music and lights from the magical polo fields of Indio, California. I would very much appreciate it.

Hot Hot Hot Chip!

It's been about 36 hours since I left the Commodore Ballroom with Hot Chip ringing in my ears. They're still ringing in my ears and I suppose it won't stop for a long time. Today I woke up and decided to play their new album. It just wasn't the same. Once you see Hot Chip live, the albums simply don't suffice.

My first experience with Hot Chip was at Coachella 2007. I walked into the Mohave Tent not knowing what I was about to experience and was soon immersed in a crowd that was dancing and jumping to And I Was a Boy From School. The entire place was vibrating and I remember forgetting for a second that we were in the middle of a desert, at 40 degrees Celsius. I walked out of the tent as a fan.

When their new Made in the Dark album came out I thought...well, it's a little less catchy and much more romantic. It even has some tints of R&B (just listen to "We're Looking for a Lot of Love" or to "Wrestlers") and a love ballad that could make Bono cry ("Made in the Dark"). The differences between songs are even confusing. As I looked at my ticket for the concert I wondered how on earth they would keep the live Hot Chip sound that I remembered. I predicted the concert would disappoint me.

Fortunately, I was wrong...very wrong. Hot Chip is hotter than ever and their live act is simply perfect! Once the lights went out and the first sampler was fired up, there was nothing but dancing on the wooden floor of the Commodore. The venue is amazing because it is intimate and comfortable, and Hot Chip proved to be masters in crowd control: they delivered three fully pumped dance songs and then let us rest with a slow romantic song... then they took it up a notch with new songs, gave us another rest, and finally exploded in endless loops of "I'm in no fit state, I'm in no fit state..." The crowd was in total rapture!

In contrast to their previous show, this time the concert was much more about love. They integrated their new romantic songs perfectly into their high adrenaline dance show and played with our full range of emotions. Couples shifted from dancing to hugging to dancing to jumping and then Over and Over like a monkey with a miniature cymbal. After this tremendous sweat fest, they singer announced the last song. Silence fell on the dance floor as he took a deep breath. Then the most unexpected of surprises: his voice erupted with "It's been seven hours and fifteen daaays." Yes! The Prince song that drove the brokenhearted world crazy and skyrocketed Sinnead O'Connor to fame. The crowd exploded in chanting and then the band blended-in their new "In the Privacy of Our Love". When the song finished and the lights came up, all I could see were smiles and general feeling of satisfaction. But any written description pales in comparison to the visual evidence:




And another one just to give you a feel of the energy that night:

Sun Run!

Yes! I participated in the largest 10k race in Canada. The organizers counted 59,000 athletes and I counted more than 10 bands playing live music while we ran along the empty streets of Vancouver with the mountains as a backdrop. After starting at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the route took us on Georgia Street towards Stanley Park, then through a couple of streets until we were running next to the beach and into Burrard Bridge. Then I got distracted by the people cheering and the masses of runners until I realized I was crossing the Cambie Bridge and into the finish line at BC Place Stadium... 52 minutes and 12 seconds later.

One of the things that I adore about races is the instantaneous silence that takes over the streets after the first kilometer (once you leave behind the speakers and noise at the start line). You're suddenly surrounded by hundreds of quiet huhh haaahh huuuh haaahs and the incessant tapping of rubber soles on the pavement. It is at this point that you realize you're really doing it, that you're really a part of this enormous group of people that defied the cold air and gathered for a morning of sweat and lactic acid. As any concert goer or sports fan knows, being part of a mass is empowering.

But the beauty of a race like this is that it's not about competition (unless you're part of the front teams) because almost anybody can run 10k. Unlike a marathon or a triathlon, a 10k race is also full of non-athletic people that show up simply to be a part of the race, knowing that they too can make it to the finish line. This gives the race a different tone of camaraderie, a certain air of equality. The race becomes a collective exercise in personal achievement. And that's what made me keep on running.

Do you need a tray?

Friday evening again. The connotations of those three words are enormous. In Mexico City it would first mean a fight to the death with traffic... then, if you emerged victorious (no headache or bulging vein on the forehead), the night could turn into anything. In a city with 23 million people and so many choices, you're always missing out on something...that's what makes it exciting.

Friday evening in Vancouver. This would normally imply either rain or live music, or an intermittent combination of both. Maybe a bowl of fabulous noodles and then a stop at Half Alive. But tonight it's snowing! Yes...at the end of April...snowing like crazy in Vancouver (you could say that the unpredictability of the weather is what makes this city so exciting). So I'm just in the mood for my couch, a book, and some takeout chow mein. And a little bit of comedy:




And some genius did this Lego version.

The Discovery

do not imagine that the exploration
ends, that she has yielded all her mystery
or that the map you hold cancels further discovery

I tell you her uncovering takes years,
takes centuries, and when you find her naked,
look again,
admit there is something else you cannot name,
a veil, a coating just about the flesh
which you cannot remove by your mere wish

when you see the land naked, look again
(burn your maps, that is not what I mean),
I mean the moment when it seems most plain
is the moment when you must begin again.


by Gwendolyn MacEwen

Best of Craigslist Vancouver

And in an accidental moment of binary code magic, Google sent me here. I thank thee, mine beloved search engine, for thou hast once again illuminated my life.

If I had to choose... I'd say that,

This one made my day:
"(...) Have you never had to clean dog shit out off of a pair of New Balance runners before? Maybe you should take a look at how many ridiculous grooves there are in the soles."

I felt empathy for this public transit hater:
"(...) Trying to make it sound like you're some hot-shot in a high-rise, well we all know your secret. If you're a hot-shot in a high rise then what the fuck is your ass doing riding a bus?"

But my love goes to this one:
"(...) I know that you love your boyfriend. You know HOW I know that? Because you've told me that. Five times. In the last two minutes."

Also, don't miss the 2 effective methods for bathing a cat.

And my brief photographic tribute to the cherry blossom around the block:

Stephanie Says

Some people get very creative and imaginative when it comes to procrastinating. I decided to investigate what kinds of activities or non-activities people invent to pass the time while evading their work...and I received some fabulous answers. Here are my favorite five:

5. Spend all morning in a hip music store, just to upgrade your scenester lingo.
4. Spend half the day on Expedia ... just in case the prices of flights to Europe suddenly drop for a second and you're online to take advantage of this unexplainable window of opportunity.
3. Visit the beach with a frisbee in hand... because it's a pity to be inside when the sun is finally out.
2. Go on a quest to find the best deal on highlighter pens in the city...to use them for studying, obviously.
1. Finally start reading that book that you've been setting apart all year.

As for me, I've found this to be the most enjoyable substitute for work:

The last all-nighter?

It is 5:48 and I have just typed the final period of my penultimate essay of this term. I compared the use of verbs in Langston Hughes's "Harlem" to the lack of verbs in Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro." So what? Well... the reason I had to pull an all-nighter (apart from the fact that I'm a master procrastinator) is that I couldn't get Lou Reed out of my head. Yesterday at 9 pm, when the essay was in its first page, I couldn't concentrate because "it's so cold in Alaska, it's so cold in Alaska" wouldn't stop ringing in my ears. So I grabbed my guitar and spent about an hour figuring out how to play it. Then, out of the goodness of my heart, I decided not to annoy the neighbors and resumed my writing. But as I was halfway through the second page (at around , 1 am), I was hit by some "Pale blue eeeeyes" on an incessant loop. Damn you Nico.

Nostalgias y cherry blossoms

He estado ausente de la blogósfera por motivos de salud académica (el fin de semestre es canijo), pero me han pasado diversas maravillas. Primero, el viernes pasado participé a medias en una protesta estudiantil en contra de un desarrollo privado que quieren hacer en el campus. Y digo a medias porque cuando vi a los policías con cara de "no estamos fucking around" me acordé de mi estatus migratorio (y que segurito aquí en B.C. tienen un equivalente a nuestro querido artículo 33) y me salí de la bronca. Habrá otro post con más sobre la protesta... pero por lo pronto les cuento que arrestaron a 19 estudiantes y el debate sobre la privatización de los espacios públicos se está poniendo sabroso. (Si les urge saber más, el grupo en Facebook se llama "WE CONDEMN the VIOLENCE of the RCMP, VPD, and VFD at the UBC TREK PARK") Los videos más mejorcitos son estos: fuego y arrestos. Y en este salgo yo en el minuto 1:17 en la orilla derecha.


Anyway, hoy conocí nada más y nada menos que a Douglas Coupland... el artista, escritor, escultor, diseñador, visionario, que ayudó a popularizar el término "Generation X" en su libro del mismo nombre. Resulta que vino a dar el "Last Lecture" a los estudiantes que se gradúan este año de UBC y me pidieron que me hiciera cargo de las fotos del evento. Las fotos quedaron re suaves y su plática estuvo genial. En vez de ser la clásica plática de fin de año extremadamente positiva y plagada de one-liners tipo poster de autoayuda, Coupland le dió un tono ligeramente pesimista pero sarcástico, bromista y a la vez muy serio. Nos contó cómo le costó trabajo encontrar algo que le apasionara en la vida y luego nos advirtió: "if you spend all of your twenties doing 'other things' and taking 'side jobs' while you look for what you REALLY want to do, by the time you're thirty you'll BE those things." Pero luego agregó, "the good thing is that by 25 you already know that you're not gonna be a rockstar."

Y me acabo de dar cuenta que mi título no tiene nada que ver con lo anterior. Pero como me rehuso a cambiarlo, tendré que confesar que, aunque acaban de florecer todos los cherry blossoms y me emociona ver Vancouver pintada de rosa...extraño a mis jacarandas.

"No estaba muerto, andaba de pachanga"

Bueno, ni tanto. Hoy se me hinchó la piel como queriendo decirme algo, y me di cuenta que no había escrito en este espacio en más de una semana. Fue como una alarma preventiva que me decía, "Jorge, en la blogósfera es importante dar señales de vida seguido porque si no, parece que estas muerto." Cierto, con tanto gadget y conectividad inalámbrica, la clásica excusa "no estuve ni cerca de una computadora en toda la semana" levanta sospechas (aceptémoslo, casi siempre es mentira). Es casi como irse de viaje y no hablarle a los seres queridos y luego tratarles de vender la idea de que "no encontré teléfonos públicos". Mentira.

¿Será que el dicho "no news is good news" no aplica para los blogeros? En fin, estoy vivo.