China soundracks, part II

Another video about getting around in China. More specifically, experiencing China as an outsider, with a foreign soundtrack. For this one, wanted to give a sense of how jazzed I get sometimes going from place to place here, even if it can be a bit overwhelming at times.  The music this time is "Jing Jing", (Firefly), a traditional song from Okinawa, performed here by Shoukichi Kina with Ry Cooder. Enjoy!

Cookie Monster tells it like it is

"Who are the ones that we left in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers.."

Maybe it's just me, but Cookie Monster seems to be not only channeling Tom Waits on this video, but a couple of Old Testament prophets as well.  (Wonder if Jeremiah & co. had as much fun...?)

Once we start seeing each other, we just can't stop

Higher Ground | Playing For Change from Playing For Change on Vimeo.


One encouraging thing about the world as it stands is that it seems that many people around the world are making connections with each other that are more horizontal and global, if that makes any sense.  Is shared interest taking precedence over narrow self interest after all?  Are we starting to use the internet to create a global culture?  I'd like to think so (he says with fingers crossed...) 

And at least we're getting some really cool music out of the deal in the meantime.  (Is it just me, or is this the Best Stevie Wonder Song Ever...?)

Greetings from In Between!

So for all of you out there that haven't been following me on their personal GPS trackers, I'm now sortof back in China.  I say "sortof" because I've been here for only two days and the beginning of a third, and the afternoons of both of those days have been spent in a jet lag haze with me trying desperately not to fall asleep and generally failing. 

Which means that Zekey and Ysa and I have been awake for long stretches in the middle of the night at varying times, with the general rule that if a kid's awake, I'm awake.  At least there are no diapers or 102° fevers involved...

Which further means that the kids and I have been spending some quality time in the third country we inhabit, the Free and Autonomous Republic of the Internet.  Or better said, the land of the imagination...?



An example: an early film of the pianist Glenn Gould going completely hyperballistic (in a good way) on a Bach - two part invention? (help me out here, piano folks)  Zekey and Ysa were bored with this one until right in the middle, when Gould's hands simply explode on the keyboard, eliciting whoops of joy and serious giggles for the next fifteen minutes of playing and replaying the clip.  And is it my imagination, or does Glenn do some serious channeling of Harpo Marx during the piece?

The video comes courtesy of The Kid Should See This, a web site that I highly recommend, even for grownups.  As the author puts it:

"There's just so much science, nature, music, arts, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here."

Even if they're not jet lagged.

Google beatboxing

It had to happen sooner or later. Click "listen" once you get to the site.

Would if it were only so...

"I thought that if I ate the food of the area I was visiting
That I might assimilate the point of view of the people there
As if the point of view was somehow in the food
So I would make no choices myself regarding what food I ate
I would simply follow the examples, of those around me
I would study menus very carefully
Making note of important differences and similarities
When shopping at the supermarket
I felt a great desire to walk off with someone else's groceries
So I could study them at length
And study their effects on me
As though if I ate their groceries I would become that person; until I finished their groceries
And we might find ourselves going to the same places
Running into one another at the movies
Or in a shopping mall
Reading the same books
Watching the same T.V. programs
Wearing the same clothes
Traveling to the same places
And taking the same pictures
Getting sick at the same time
And getting well again simultaneously
Finding ourselves attracted to the same people
Working at the same job
And making the same amount of money
Living identical lives as long as the groceries lasted"

From The Knee Plays (#4 - Social Studies), by David Byrne

Some things go viral for a reason...

...including this way cool video that's been making the rounds lately. I played it over and over again yesterday (umm, for the kids, of course...), and am going to show it to my classes. Just Because.