/21/ Watsky

I didn’t get up to anything nearly as exciting in fifth week as going to a festival, but it was eventful nonetheless. Particularly exciting was the fact that a friend, Owen, and I went to see Watsky in concert. If you aren’t familiar with his music, I highly suggest that you watch the video below, because I think he’s an excellent musician. He’s a rapper and poet and is seriously the quickest, wittiest, and most emotionally resonant wordsmith I have encountered. To see him live was so much fun, and something I didn’t really anticipate ever getting the chance to do so, seeing as his audience isn’t huge and he is based in California.

         

capitalist swine

I’ve been making some rash impulse buys recently. I’m sure you’ve been through phases where for some reason or another your life just isn’t satisfying you and in some attempt to bridge the gulf between yourself and sanity you buy stuff. It’s a mundane activity, it involves little concentration but enough to occupy your mind, and you feel part of the world when you go into a shop and perform the simple task of buying something.

Like a ukelele.

Or festival tickets.

Or a poem.

Or a pretty CD and a movie about civil war in a central-African state.

Or wedge flip-flops.

I’m not proud of all of these purchases, especially the last ones. Wedge flip-flops for someone who hates heels and lives in England have got to be the most pointless possessions, but possess them I do and I will make sure to delight in them. I have recently come to the realisation that if you do something in order to make yourself happier, no matter what, even if it’s something as fundamentally ridiculous as buying frivolities, at least then don’t go on to deny yourself that happiness.

band crush: mama rosin

“Do you like to go to festivals?”
“Yeah, but I tend to just go to the ones nearby or the ones I can volunteer at.”
“But then what’s the point? Why go if you don’t know if a band you like is going to play there?”
“I prefer going to a festival having no idea who’s going to play.”
“Well that’s just stupid, not to mentioned a waste of time and potentially money.”
“What? I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you over the sound of… Mama Rosin.”
I’ve had this conversation several times in the last year, though I have to admit, without the suave ending. And I’m still not sure if the last line should be filed as ‘suave’ or ‘douchey’. Still, it’s a good summary of why I do festivals the way I do. Having no idea who’s going to play, and also going to smaller festivals, means you’re guaranteed an awesome experience meeting loads of new people – this is where the volunteering comes in! – and discovering some bands you might never otherwise have discovered.
Mama Rosin is this archetypical kind of “I went to this festival and discovered an amazing band” band. When I stewarded at WOOD Festival – an eco-friendly, small, folk and world festival held in a commune-owned field in the middle of Oxfordshire – I had several hours a day free, most of which I spent lying on the grass in front of the ‘main’ stage (a tiny construction of wood beams, smaller than an average truck). When Mama Rosin came on in the early evening I was blown away. I’m not very good at reviews, but I’ll try because I think they’re such an amazing band that they deserve a little effort.
This band is unfettered by needing to fit in to some mould. They do fit into a mould, but that’s not what defines them. Their carefree yet chilled out sound comes primarily from the lead singer’s raspy, slightly slurred, Louisiana-inspired voice combined in a delicious honey-mead with the the largely unrefined, slightly tipsy, gratifyingly simple arrangement of traditional American folk instruments upon which it rests. The banjo, the accordion, the guitar, the accordion, the washboard and the uncomplicated and imperfect harmonies pull together for a distinctly laid-back, smoky, weekend sound.
Mama Rosin prove that if you find something you love, something you can do well, you should just run with it. There is no straightforward reason why a Lebanese accordion player and a French-Swiss University drop-out decided to live in a duck farm in the Alps and spend their days making music which is plucked straight out of the Louisiana Bayeux, but I thank the powers that be that they did.
Anyway, that’s enough talking, so here’s a song for you!

It also bears mentioning that when I saw these three alpine neo-Cajuns hippity-hopping about on a stage made of sticks, I developed a minor crush on this guy:

Ok, I know that he’s not hot. Even I am not that blind -- but he is my type.
On second thought, he does resemble a skinny Wolverine with a tambourine.
Well, it’s like I said.
My type.

The Approach of University

Do you know why I haven’t written here for a while? It’s because I know what I’m like:

Apologies aside, let me tell you about my plans! I love planning. It’s like playing The Sims in my head. Except I can do it all the time, and nobody burns the kitchen down making cheese on toast.

Well, as you might know if you know me, University is approaching. I’ve probably complained about it enough that you're aware of what I’ll be studying (German, reluctantly) and where (Exeter College, Oxford). Additionally, if you’re a creepy stalker or a family member you’ll know that term begins on the 9th of October. Before that, I’m going on a two-week holiday to Catalonia in Spain, where I’ll visit a friend in Barcelona for a long weekend and then stay at my godparents’ house in a coastal village with some other friends. They like books a lot.

But, as the French horoscope which I read last Christmas in a run-down house in central Reykjavik with a French nursery teacher, a Belgian school teacher and a German saxophonist (see? I have a point about Iceland!) said, your life will begin in October. No, really. It was that specific.

So, what do I expect University will be like?

Firstly, I expect that it’ll be a lot of work. As in, I can’t imagine how much it will be because I can’t conceptualise writing two essays a week in addition to studying a hell of a lot of dense German garbage/literary gold. I hope that the fact that I am fluent in German will help me a bit, but I know that that’s not going to be enough. Even though I’m not much looking forward to the course, there are a couple of things which I reckon I’ll be able to enjoy – expressionism, the films, the medieval text, Rilke – and I’ve had a peek at the second year modules. I am convinced that an Old Norse module will make up for any amount of pretentious blathering by Nietzsche and Thomas Mann.

My third year is a year abroad, one which is intended to perfect your German, improve your experience of the German culture and – a gift from heaven – not really count towards your degree academically. I hope that I can persuade/bully/beg enough that I may spend at least part of my year either studying or working in a Scandinavian country (Iceland, here I come), and the other half either studying Scandinavian Studies in a German University or working on a cow farm in the Alps. Not quite decided yet. Swaying toward the cow farm at the moment, though.

I’m not going to University for the course, so I’m not going to push myself to extinction. Still, I know it’ll be very much thinking and writing and twisting and pushing and crying and hopefully some really gratifying discussions and illuminating trips. I’m going to go at this like an angry bull, and I’m going to win!

Oh, and then there’s the social life.

I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about people taking on too much and having a mental breakdown, or blowing hundreds of pounds on joining all the societies they’re interested in and never attending. I’ve also heard of friends who didn’t join anything and spent the year watching their toenails grow.

The result? After a vague poke through the university website, I’ve decided I will fill my spare time like this:

1) An LASR course in Spanish. Two hours a week for a year, I will learn Spanish. This is something I’ve wanted to master for a long time, and though I only started to teach myself about a week and a half ago, I think the time has come. Or should I say, llega la hora! 

2) Kayaking and Canoeing.  What sounds like more fun than splashing about the cold Thames in a wet suit? No, you don’t agree? I DO!!! When I lived in Florida, my Mum and neighbour took me kayaking a couple of times and I remember loving how close you are to the water, how smooth and small and integrated you feel, gliding through the Mangroves like a water bug. I’d love to kayak around Greenland, or down the Mississippi, or into Scotland. Also, I don’t mind falling in.

3) Shorinji Kempo. Not heard of it? I hadn’t either until I found it listed under the ‘Martial Arts’ section. A quick read-through gave me a good feeling – it’s based on what the Shaolin Monks did, but it’s non-violent and (compared to other martial arts) relatively non-competitive. It’s supposed to be almost like a dance, but it works your muscles just as any other martial art would. I used to quite like doing judo and I’ve still got my gi (the white suit). Here’s hoping it fits!

4) Music! Oxford’s music scene is very comprehensive, experimental and right up my street. I don’t want to spend the whole time there only with students from the university, so this is an awesome way of meeting other people who live in Oxford, and maybe join a group of musicians who like to have a good time playing instruments and writing songs. Even if this utopian mecca of musicians doesn’t appear, there are plenty of open-mic nights and other gigging opportunities so I’m going to sharpen up my singing and guitar playing and hopefully find a handful of others who I can play and write with.

5) Scandinavian Society. They organise Scandinavian movie nights. They love Scandinavia. There is NO reason for me not to make this club my life.

I’ve heard from so many people that the motto of the university isn’t actually Dominus Illuminatio Mea, but Work Hard, Play Hard. Sounds good to me!

Well, I guess I’ll see you on the flip-side…

xxx Fiona

A Man’s A Man’s A Man’s A Man For A’ That

Imagine my glee when I found out that Paolo Nutini (of A Pencil Full of Lead fame) has covered one of my favourite Burns songs. The combination makes me feel like I could jump from a mountain and not fall. I’m not patriotic by nature but this song makes me extremely happy and grateful to be Scottish.

 

A few days ago I applied to volunteer in a hostel in Oxford in the Summer. I reckon it’ll be a no, but if it is perhaps I’ll see if I can find something to do in Scotland.

Garden Party, it’s on me

You must have heard Joanna Newsom’s 81, and if not I recommend you go now. At first listen it appears very feminine (not usually my style), but once you listen to the lyrics and appreciate the Spartan arrangement of the harp, I think you’ll love it.

Somewhat inspired by that song, and also inspired by various other bloggers, I made a little video. Music by me. Que’est-ce que vous en pensez? // What do you think of it?

This outfit is what I wore today during my TopShop interview; they told me to wear ‘anything I like’ but to ‘bear in mind TopShop is a fashion retailer’. I hope I did ok; well, I like what I’m wearing! The interview went quite well, I think, though obviously I don’t really know. The first part was a group interview where we brain-stormed what people expect from TopShop, how to sell items of clothing according to their features and benefits, and what the perfect shop assistant is like. Then we were told to go find an outfit to fit a particular brief (mine was girl-who-has-recently-been-dumped-goes-out-on-the-pull-with-her-friends), and finally was the interview with relatively normal interview questions.

Not totally normal though; I was asked what my biggest fashion faux pas and my favourite animal are, but nothing about my previous work experience or questions like “How would you deal with a difficult customer” or “Tell me of a time where you’ve had to work in a team to solve a problem.” O.o To each is own. I’d love to get this job.

We’ll see!

Joanna Newsom’s 81

I once was a young fool like you

I gave in. Everyone needs a hipster hat. And I love this one, so I got it even though I thought I’d never find a hipster hat I’d like. but I do. Odd side effects though.

Not as in it makes me grow a moustache, but as in it makes me odd.

I applied to some more jobs today (Disney Store, West One, Topshop, The Entertainer, Anne Harvey) but to be honest I’m not holing any hope. If I don’t get a job, perhaps I’ll go do some HelpX work in the Shetlands.

Who knows?

I sure don’t. I’m just going to keep on teaching myself lucid dreaming, playing piano, writing songs, eating too much cake, reading foreign poems I don’t understand and wearing my fucking awesome hat.

xv 100 words

One hundred words make a blog in my opinion. I am listening to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0100ljr/So_Wrong_Its_Right_Series_2_Episode_5/. I had sushi for dinner and spent several hours researching microphones on ebay. I’m pretty sure I want the shure sm58 now.

Only 40 words? Really?

Ok, er... I watched the Graham Norton show. It’s always funny, much more so than you would thinking, considering it’s a talk show. David Tennant was on, as well as Catherine Tate. I love watching them as friends rather than characters or celebrities.

We also set up the piano today so I can now get that going again.

And... Success!

Spiffy!

No longer do I feel crap!

I feel spiffy LICK.

I wrote three songs, I snuggled up in my blanket, I made mint tea with real mint, I plaited my hair and wore flowers in it, I ate a spinach and feta omelette, I did the laundry, and I built a shelf out of a cardboard box lid and some tape.

Awesome.

I don’t know these people but this is what today felt like.

How far away do I exist?

I had some thoughts on a train and wrote them down in a notebook I keep in my purse. They're not directed at anyone in particular, so if you have an answer, an inkling, or an epiphany, let me know. :)

“How far away do I exist? Only within this skin? Is my physical body truly the extent of my existence? What about over there, in the air on that empty seat? Over there, on the luggage rack by the door? Do I exist in Munich or in Iceland… in Fiji?”

Is my fingertip where it all ends? If it is irrefutable that from my brain to my liver, the only person there existing is me… then do I really stop where the keratin of my fingernail meets air? Who is there between you and me? Is that the space which ‘God’ inhabits, or do we timidly, cautiously, clumsily overflow somewhere in the middle? Are the lines between us blurred, or do they blur as we talk more and more?

Are the lines between now, and next, and just gone by also blurred? Do I still exist in the pigsty in the field by the river, or did I fade from there years ago? Will I still exist here on this seat in five minutes?

And in time, when you continue to be far away and I remain physically distant… Will we separate like oil and water over the years, or will you always exist a little bit in the millimetres around my navel, the watermark on my knees, the hush behind my earlobe, the skin on the nape of my neck?

Does it matter when I’m gone? Will I ever come back?

---

Today I woke up too late, raged and railed at The Way Things Are, painted the Universe and then a fauvist elephant, watched the wrong person win an award, shook my musical egg as I thought about where I could find a xylophone, and read The House of the Spirits.

It’s a long book and I’m still not done. :) Goodnight!

Advent 2010 IX: Ready to Say Goodbye

I’m off tomorrow, and I think that saying good-bye has never been easier… But I know that when I’m in Reykjavik, my access to the internet will be briefer and more infrequent than it is at present. So partly as a celebration of my last day, and partly to make up for all the days I expect I’ll miss, I took a photo an hour today to show you how I spent it. I hope you enjoy the photos, and the song above which is currently my earworm.

My alarm was set for 8:00, as it has been for over a month. And for over a month I have not been out of bed before 9:20.

Last Adventbreakfast of this style, and I ate a roll with Nutella. The world outside has been eaten by fog.

Writing letters and birthday cards to friends and family. ‘Shanastasia Olavale’ is of course not a real name; it’s a mixture of two of my friends who are so close they’re practically one person!

Setting my earphones in their rightful place, ready to listen to outpourings from the world of British comedy as I go one a walking mission to Selfoss.

Stopping off at Lóa’s shop to have a cup of coffee.

After trying to buy Euros at the bank (and being rudely repulsed as I have no flight ticket to a Eurozone country!) I posted the letters I had written earlier.

The fog has really eaten planet Iceland! You should be able to see a mountain! Walking through the fog in utter silence and solitude, I pretended first that I was a deity and I had just created the world and I was the only person and the birds flying through the air were only there because I had just invented  them with a thought a moment before and that this small foggy patch of land was all there was in the whole of existence. When that got boring I pretended I was playing Myst or Riven, because it felt like one of those hyper-realistic RPG games. I love Myst and Riven.

Then my brain went WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH PACKING. I was shaking the whole time… but that might be because I’d had three cups of coffee an hour or so before.

All packed! it only took one and a half hours. The reason is I didn’t have to spend ages deciding what to take or what to leave. It just all went in. And I made it fit.

Fini! Fertig! Búin! Done.

So, wish me luck and see you soon.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Fröhliche Weihnachten & Gleðileg Jol!
xxxF

Advent 2010 VIII: Imagination

Today’s photograph is not something particularly Icelandic: my iPod.



The reason for that is that I spent today cleaning windows. My last day here, and I literally cleaned windows for 6 hours. Inside and out. Yet even though my hands are dehydrated, raw and so numb I had to massage them for quite a while before they regained the ability to type, it was quite a pleasant day thanks to my iPod. If I could actually post a photograph of what I saw today it would involve extracting an image from my imagination and that’s not really possible.

First of all, I finished listening to Villette by Charlotte Bronte, which my friend Lola recommended to me months ago… and it has taken me months to finish it. The ending was bittersweet and suited the tone of the whole book. This morning I walked through pretty French town houses and gazed at elaborate religious ceremonies celebrated in the traditional French Catholic style.

Then I moved on to – I won’t lie – my preferred aural digest. The BBC produces many wonderful programmes, the least of which is not The Infinite Monkey Cage, where celebrity physicists and mathematicians-turned-stand-up-comedians battle wittily and thought-provokingly about the purpose of philosophy, the meaning of ‘modernity’ and the development of probability.

I finished the day with a good old slice of Stephen Fry’s boundless glory, which is how I plan to continue the evening. I’m going to babysit Magnus at 7, but I will convince him to sleep and then watch part two of his (Stephen Fry’s, not Magnus’s) very personal The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. I spent half of part one marvelling at how much mania sounds like traditional madness, and how foreign and frightening it sounds… and the other half nodding in rapturous delight at hearing an iconic figure describe some of my most personal anxieties.

Eugh, can you tell that his style of speech is rubbing off on me? Well, I’ve just spent over half an hour being told that language is an art form intrinsic to all of us and yet one often laid aside in favour of a harp or a paintbrush. So I took up my linguistic easel, and tried to paint you an image of my day.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Fröhliche Weihnachten & Gleðileg Jol!

xxxF

Rosh Hashana (2 months late)

Right, guys it’s Rosh Hashanah time.* No more wiffly wabbling about how being an au pair isn’t all peaches and cream – by the way, yum – no, I’m going to tell you about some things which make me happy. Things like:

… walking on the beach of black sand on the bank of the broad river outside the house, slipping on the frozen puddles by the water, laughing aloud in the stillness, find in a stream which steams and dipping my hand in it to find it’s the temperature of lukewarm tea.

… watching Forrest Gump for the first time.

… eating heart-shaped spice biscuits which taste of my German childhood Christmas.

… reminiscing about the summer and about how much I loved the group I spent the two best weeks of my life with - Johanna, Ginta, Katka, Chelsea, James, Melanie, Wiebcke, Ainara, Marcos, Joaquin/Spain, Akino, Kazuko, Masu/Tatsuhiro/Taxi, Gin and Hélène.

… the little music player on the right. Go on, have a look. :)

… Gary Sinise in this photograph:

… Amina’s words about learning to respect yourself. She may not even know or remember that I was listening, but they rang true to me. I am happy and proud to be who I am most days, and on the days I’m not I still love and forgive myself. Because if there’s one person you have to be able to rely on, it’s your very own self.

And just in case someone mysteriously goes missing, you can probably rely on Gary Sinise to brood on Manhattan rooftops, pace camera-wards, clench his jaw and find the killer in a thrilling, hectic and ultimately successful chase.

Ahhh, CSI.

*To avoid confusion, I’m not Jewish.

Jealousy is a sad emotion

Warning: introspective post about myself. doesn’t make much sense.

I’m feeling weepy in this moment, listening to Khamsina – that’s Stevie to you and me – sing her beautiful songs. She makes me think of Enya, of Susan Enan, of Kate Rusby, of Leonard Cohen, of Eva Cassidy. And they are all dear favourites of mine.

So where does jealousy come into this? Well, something few people I now count as my friends know about me is that I used to sincerely wish for a life singing and performing on a stage, and something which nobody knows is that that’s still a dream of mine. And now Stevie is fulfilling it. I really like her, both as a person and as a musician, and I can see she deserves it seeing how hard she works at it, so my jealousy is tempered with shame and regret, because I know I never pushed myself enough and was never brave enough to show people that it was my dream.

I don’t talk about it because I haven’t got a lot of confidence in my musical skill. I have a decent voice but it’s almost totally untrained, and I’ve never had the dedication to practice playing the guitar or piano until I reach a professional standards. Even though I feel I have a few songs which are really good, it’s not like I can sit down and just write a good song – it seems totally haphazard when something clicks and 99% of the time what comes out sounds wrong. Not like what’s in my heart. Lyrics are something I really value so I spend a lot of time working on them, and they’re the one thing I am relatively proud of.

The thing I lack is other people. People who I can ask to honestly critique my music rather than just feel too impolite to say “that line is a cliché” or “you shouldn’t try to sing that high”, and someone who can make suggestions because my music is like most things I think about or create: at its birth, private, but as is my nature I want to share, so I seek input from those I love and trust. I also need people to play with, to write accompaniments with. It’s like the old saying: “one hand can’t clap on its own”. When I am in creation with another, I have ideas falling over themselves. It’s as if the interest of another in my self and what is in my soul frees my tongue and fingers and mind to reach a hand to my heart.

I want to write songs with others because that’s when I am happiest. It’s a beautiful thing to write a song with a friend and I miss it so much. Music is poetry and art, yes, but it’s also the highest expression of human perception of and relation to the world and its inhabitants. Doing it alone is self-destructive. Someone with a beautiful voice, and someone else with a knack for poetry, and another with a genius sense of rhythm will create something far more beautiful than a lonely ambitious girl with clumsy fingers and tears in her eyes.

Oh, fuck. None of that makes sense, does it? And I have so much left to say… why do I find it so hard to write what I feel?

It’s just… I love music and can feel it missing in my life. That’s all. Even if it’s just singing in a choir, I need that again. It’s almost like music takes the place of religion in my heart and I… I can feel it missing.

Run

When I was running away today --
Away from the town where a prison of water is loved
Away, to the fields between a livery and a forest
I was sweating and aching calves, and the brambles yielded no sweet harvest
And in the trees under which I used to lie
There was a grave.
(Dead candles, and letters in plastic bags, and three small jars of earth.)
-- I approached the wolfram helmet
and watched it shudder away from my conscient thought
“I will be in Iceland soon."
I was powerful and kind
In Iceland I will also glisten and my calves will also burn and the barren land will yield no berries, sweet or other
But it is an island ghosted by exonerated winds of absolution, where struggles are not struggles
And if they are they go unresented
Instead they go by firmity and patience
Limitless halation will succeed a waterside doused in cast off salt
So, in my potent and sinew-bound spirit
Wisdom can flourish.

 

Yeah sorry I’ve been writing weird stuff like this for days. Don’t worry, I’m not even going to try to call it poetry.

Well, I hope I can get it out of my system before it becomes chronic.

Or maybe I’ll get better.

Listening to: ‘Voice in my Throat’ by Pearl & The Beard

Draw a new face and laugh

OK. Ten seconds ago I was grumpy, but I just watched a cat try to catch a butterfly and it ws so cute I can’t be grumpy now.

I was grumpy because the album of covers I have been trying for weeks to record is just not coming together! It’s because I have neither a microphone, nor an electro-acoustic guitar, nor any audio software other than Audacity. I hate that having money means your music CDs are of higher quality.

The songs I’m recording are the seven (or eight) songs which are the playlist of the SEEDS camp:

• Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
• Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama
• Jason Mraz – I’m Yours
• Á Móti Sól - Rangur Maður
• KT Tunstall – Through the Dark
• Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
• [The Babel Project (Me) – May]

So now I’ve just deleted everything I’ve done over the past weeks and am starting again. No more producing, or editing. I’m just pressing ‘record’ on my camera (which has a video setting) and playing the songs. Then I’m going to extract the audio from the video, cut it up into eight bits and shove it on a disc.

I’ve checked with my host (Anna) if I could rather be an au pair than that student ghing and she basically said fine so it’s all good for the time being :) I love how easy-going and kind she is. I’m really looking forward to seeing the people I met there again – James of course, but also the Annas, David, Arna and Big Magnus and their kids, and cute Little Magnus… and of course that’s not everyone! I’m really looking forward to meeting SJ, Anna’s granddaughter, for whom I will be the au pair.