dumplingboy

Rainy Day

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Yes, this is really live and indicative of how I feel after such an extraordinary week.

from ryan & natalie. check it.

Electricity & Elephants

A few weeks back my friends started talking about Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark for some reason. I used to love OMD when I was little, but haven't really given them much thought for the past oh...10-15 years. So, I went searching for some mp3s and, while I'm still under the general impression that their later stuff just sounds like an adult-contemporary version of Erasure -- boring & gay -- their early work is fantastic. I found an mp3 of their first major hit "Electricity", and I haven't been able to stop listening to it. It's so awesome. Here's an interesting little bit of trivia to munch on while you're tapping your feet. Download Electricity.mp3 (let me know if this works...it's my first attempt at uploading an mp3 to my blog)

In other news...Last night after a festive banquet of dumplings w/ the camp crew, J, Carol, Rami, & I went down to the midtown tunnel against the will of some fellow bloggers and PETA protesters to see the rather surreal arrival of the elephants. Even though it was "a lot of fun", let's just say it was impressively anticlimactic. They were like baby elephants, and I was expecting wooly mammoths! They were pretty cute though and helped me get over the horrible lasting memory I had of my first elephant encounter at the circus when I was about 8 years old. One of them dropped a ridiculously large poo in the tent and we all suffered for the next two hours. The highlight for me was seeing the large sanitation crew that trailed the parade -- pretty hysterical. Oh, and what was with the miniature ponies? Sorry to all those I've offended with my curiosity. By the way, this great photo here is courtesy of the magnificent Jori Klein.

Of all living creatures,
the elephant is the most noble.
It will bury its own dead
with dust and earth
and green boughs.
It will not pass by the body of one of its own
without stopping to grieve at their common misery
and perform the rites of burial.

They are chaste creatures,
and monogamous,
and modest about procreation.
They will seek woods and secret places
and sometimes water--
lakes or ponds or streams--
and while they copulate
they turn their heads toward the East.

-From Charles Mee's Chiang Kai Chek (thanks J)

Recommendation: Play Without Words at BAM, until April 3 -- hot.