Erykah Badu's latest album, New Amerykah part two: Return of the Ankh, dropped on Tuesday, and boy is it great! I've had it on repeat for the last three days. It is super groovy, funky, and fun; a welcome departure from her challenging 2008 release New Amerykah part one: 4th World War. Return of the Ankh is joyful in sound, but perhaps at times a little woebegone in lyrical content. The feeling I come away with after listening to the smooth and bouncy songs is that of optimism, as if Badu has been through a dark patch and is finally overcoming that weight, remembering what it's like to feel whole again.
Perhaps I'm reading into it all wrong, but I'm sure of one thing: This is one hell of a record. Personal favorites from Return of the Ankh are Turn Me Away (Get MuNNY), Love, and Window Seat.
Song of the Day: Hurry On Now, Alice Russel - I also purchased Pot of Gold by Alice Russel on my visit to the record store. This song is what turned me onto her music. So great.
Quite sometime ago I created a Youtube account for the Kung Fu school, planning to post videos of what we do at the Black Dragon Kung Fu Society. I envisioned all of the school's forms, countless examples of self-defense training, sticking hands, and sparring, maybe even tutorials and lessons. Now, two years later, I am finally getting around to it. So far I have seven videos posted with three examples each of self-defense and focus mitt training, and this video I posted yesterday of the Choi Lay Fut form we do called Siu (small) Moi Fah (plumb blossom) Kuen (fist):
I'm currently trying to rustle up some help with this project. Off the top of my head, I can think of Thirty Four(!) different forms that are done in our school. I can't do that all alone. Well, maybe I could, but I don't want to. Not to mention that most of what we do in our school is two person exercises, and I would like to get as much variety of people as possible. Wish me luck!
Song of the Day: Live at the Amphitheatre, Double Trouble - This is a clip from the fantastic 1982 Hip Hop movie Wild Style.
So, this band has been blowin' up all over the internet for the past week, and I've been following it every step of the way. I'm not sure what to say about them: they are South African. They're strange. They have attempted to mix Rave with Rap. . . I dunno. For all intents and purposes, I should not be at all interested in them, they are not actually producing good music, they are rapping about topics completely alien to me, and at times they are completely offensive.
But Goddamn they are really compelling. I can't stop listening to them. I can't wait for them to release their album $O$ later this month.
Here, this is a good, and hilarious, sample of what they are about:
Crazy, right? Anyway, I just thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and finally blog about it myself.
So, the lady I'm seeing participates in an activity known as Blues Dancing. On Tuesday night I went with her to one of the many blues dancing events that happens regularly around Portland. What a blast. Blues dancing is a slow to fast, more-or-less free form, partnered dance, set (usually) to blues music. I was told that it is what Swing and Lindy dancers do after midnight.
This video (shot in Portland) is a good example of the range in Blues Dancing. Watch the figures in the foreground as well as the dancers in the back.
Here is another. This one was shot in the very ballroom that I danced in on Tuesday
I've never done any sort of partner dancing before so was a little nervous about it beforehand. I found blues dancing to be especially easy for me, though. The movements are not defined by set steps, but rather the mood of the music and connection with the partner. There is certainly a recognizable aesthetic to Blues Dance, but it is an extremely loose form, open to a wide variety of interpretation, something that is shown well in the first video above. Several people were amazed that I had never done any sort of paired dancing before, let alone Blues. I figure that I did so well because Blues Dancing is pretty much exactly how I dance solo, but instead with a person. The major point of Blues is to feel the music and express it in a way with your body that your partner can pick up on. This task is fairly easy for me because of a) I know how to shake my booty to a beat, and b) my extensive martial arts training has, I believe, taught me how to interact with another individual in a very physical way.
This is perhaps a silly observation to anyone who has been involved with any sort of dance scene, but I really enjoyed this environment that allowed me to meet a lot of people in short micro-sessions. A simple, "care to dance?" and the next few minutes are spent (usually) quite enjoyably with a complete stranger. I had some amazingly intimate moments with people that I will likely not see again. I drew comparisons to speed dating and those strange cuddle puddle groups that meet solely for the purpose of human connection, though Blues Dancing seems a much more sane and productive sort of interaction than either of those.
The event I attended is every Tuesday night at Lenora's Room hosted by The Portland Blues & Jazz Dance Society. There is a crash course instruction for beginners starting at 8:30pm, Dancing starts at 9pm, it really gets going 'round 10pm until 1am. Six dollars at the door, free to first timers.
let's see here. I've moved into a new place, The Slanty Shanty, with The Shag and Tracer. It's good to be back in the 'hood where I grew up. Notably cool is the fact that my backyard happens to be the Kung Fu school. Hooray. (Though, as I write this, Monday night class is starting without me. I'm about to go watch a Blazers game. I am very bad)
Also, in 2010, I've been kissing a girl. But that's private.
I am a guy who was born in Portland and still resides there. I love it. I would like to talk to you about food, martial arts, and printmaking. Let me know if I start rambling.
