BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has banned disco and other dance music in private rooms of nightclubs and karaoke bars to curb the flood of illegal drugs into the capital's entertainment venues, Chinese newspapers reported Friday.
"Because many drug takers regularly dance and go crazy to upbeat 'disco' music in private rooms, police have specially requested karaoke machines not have this music," the Beijing Times newspaper said.
Club owners were now expected to delete disco and "other forms of vulgar entertainment" from karaoke machines in private rooms, the Beijing News said, as part of a "responsibility agreement" written up by police.
Friday, June 23, 2006
songs for summer
crazy by gnarls barkley:
i would have to highly reccommend this album to anyone who likes music. so there. i get c-low's voice stuck in my head and i can't get it out...does that make me cray-zay??? possibleeeee-eee.
postcards from italy by beirut:
beach song, travel song, summer song...this entire album is lovely. for all in boston area, this adorable 19 year old indie newcomer will be at the lily pad (where the zeitgiest used to be) in inman square tomorrow (24th).
everybody daylight by brightblack morning light
what i would imagine it would be like to smoke peyote and wander among the redwoods of california while being chased by a pack of bunnies. the guitar is lazy and warm, very atmospheric music. were it not for this song, i would not have thought twice about this band, since they are a 'tripped out band of hippies', but i was pleasantly surpised by the album. if you're not sure what to do while listening to the album, they've included a pair of paper rainbow glasses to give you a clue.
(plus, it includes flute playing by sweet friend robbie lee)
i would have to highly reccommend this album to anyone who likes music. so there. i get c-low's voice stuck in my head and i can't get it out...does that make me cray-zay??? possibleeeee-eee.
postcards from italy by beirut:
beach song, travel song, summer song...this entire album is lovely. for all in boston area, this adorable 19 year old indie newcomer will be at the lily pad (where the zeitgiest used to be) in inman square tomorrow (24th).
everybody daylight by brightblack morning light
what i would imagine it would be like to smoke peyote and wander among the redwoods of california while being chased by a pack of bunnies. the guitar is lazy and warm, very atmospheric music. were it not for this song, i would not have thought twice about this band, since they are a 'tripped out band of hippies', but i was pleasantly surpised by the album. if you're not sure what to do while listening to the album, they've included a pair of paper rainbow glasses to give you a clue.
(plus, it includes flute playing by sweet friend robbie lee)
Thursday, June 15, 2006
the only option is to blog...
i've been awake for 5 hours. here are some reflections on my day.
1. to the bus driver of route 95, mystic ave towards sullivan at 1225pm, who looked me straight in the eye as she passed my stop, while i waved my hands frantically like a fool, standing right under the busstop sign (where i had been waiting for a good ten minutes): i hope you have a miserable life...it's only a small consolation that you probably will. i hope that the next time you desperately need that raise, possibly around christmas this year, your supervisor will look over your performance record and see my angry email (and phone call) that i'm sending to the mbta, and deny you that much needed raise.
2. overheard this very sincere cell phone conversation when i finally made it to the train, after the bus so rudely passed me by: "i know, i love you too, but i'm still not in your top 8, it kind of hurts my feelings..." (at this point, there was a long pause in conversation, as if the person on the other end was trying to explain why she wasn't in his top 8).
3. two stops before i was to get off the train, a lady and her baby in stroller entered the train. the child, who was cute and curly headed, but looked much too large for his age, was screaming at the top of his little lungs, the most annoying scream for attention. his mother, who looked much too small and young to have had a baby that large, yelled to him: "sit back and be quiet, damien!!"
you named your child, damien?? i think that says enough.
1. to the bus driver of route 95, mystic ave towards sullivan at 1225pm, who looked me straight in the eye as she passed my stop, while i waved my hands frantically like a fool, standing right under the busstop sign (where i had been waiting for a good ten minutes): i hope you have a miserable life...it's only a small consolation that you probably will. i hope that the next time you desperately need that raise, possibly around christmas this year, your supervisor will look over your performance record and see my angry email (and phone call) that i'm sending to the mbta, and deny you that much needed raise.
2. overheard this very sincere cell phone conversation when i finally made it to the train, after the bus so rudely passed me by: "i know, i love you too, but i'm still not in your top 8, it kind of hurts my feelings..." (at this point, there was a long pause in conversation, as if the person on the other end was trying to explain why she wasn't in his top 8).
3. two stops before i was to get off the train, a lady and her baby in stroller entered the train. the child, who was cute and curly headed, but looked much too large for his age, was screaming at the top of his little lungs, the most annoying scream for attention. his mother, who looked much too small and young to have had a baby that large, yelled to him: "sit back and be quiet, damien!!"
you named your child, damien?? i think that says enough.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
birthday gift action shot
my husband is possibly the best gift giver that i've ever met. he has, in the past, given me my beautiful and cherished theremin, a huge piece of green amber, an antique dragonfly pin that i coveted once in an antique store, a gold tipped fountain pen, and various other items that i love. this year, for my birthday, his gift was a bit late, but just a lovely. a 20 button anglo concertina, red. thank you love.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
national day?
i just want to know, how did these people obtained tax exempt status??
a '.org'...that means they're a non profit, right?
the devil has a non profit organization?
how quaint.
a '.org'...that means they're a non profit, right?
the devil has a non profit organization?
how quaint.
heroes
everyone should know that june (not only being the month i was born in) is NATIONAL ACCORDION AWARENESS MONTH!! please, there are at least two great accordion players that i know of in boston in the train stations, TIP THEM, especially if you usually don't. also, check out my favorite local accordioniste, mr.alec k. redfearn
VIVA ACCORDIONISTA!!!
VIVA ACCORDIONISTA!!!
Monday, June 05, 2006
beirut "mount wroclai"
i can't stop listening to this song by this 19 year old kid from brooklyn. it starts out beautiful, then just continues to get better, until it ends, and i just want to play it again. go to his myspace page, listen to it.
birth and death
this weekend i turned 31. since i have such cool and amazing friends, i made out like a bandit on the gift front. two small moleskines, a big bottle of limoncello, a cyanotype kit, lovely tribal necklace, books, and money from mother-in-law (which i quickly spent on line on cd's and books, of course). the weekend was lovely, although rainy, we spent the day looking at beautifully intricite, handmade glass flowers at harvard, and drinking expensive drinks at the oak bar in copley square.
usually, on my birthday, i would fall into sort of a sad slump, wondering where i was, how i got here, what i'm doing, etc, etc. but this year, i couldn't help but remember what happened last year on my birthday. it was the day after ernie's brother died very suddenly at the age of 23. no warning, he was very healthy, vibrant even, but happened to have an undetected problem with his adrenal glands. he was walking through the park with some friends, started feeling like crap suddenly, went to the emergency room, and a few hours later, he was gone. the day of my birthday, still reeling from the shock of it all, we helped his mother (he was an only child, he and ernie have the same father, different mothers) pick out pictures to make a collage for his funeral, and helped write his obituary for the paper, and basically walked around in a haze all day, wondering what the hell just happened.
so, this year, i resolved that i was just going to be genuinely happy to be alive. i really didn't care what i did on my birthday, i wanted to spend the day with ernie and enjoy living. i still couldn't get jason out of my head this weekend, but i guess that's a good thing. i suppose i'll always remember him on my birthday (as well as other days).
to lighten the mood of this post...here is a new picture of our hound.
how could you be in any way unhappy with a face like that around??
usually, on my birthday, i would fall into sort of a sad slump, wondering where i was, how i got here, what i'm doing, etc, etc. but this year, i couldn't help but remember what happened last year on my birthday. it was the day after ernie's brother died very suddenly at the age of 23. no warning, he was very healthy, vibrant even, but happened to have an undetected problem with his adrenal glands. he was walking through the park with some friends, started feeling like crap suddenly, went to the emergency room, and a few hours later, he was gone. the day of my birthday, still reeling from the shock of it all, we helped his mother (he was an only child, he and ernie have the same father, different mothers) pick out pictures to make a collage for his funeral, and helped write his obituary for the paper, and basically walked around in a haze all day, wondering what the hell just happened.
so, this year, i resolved that i was just going to be genuinely happy to be alive. i really didn't care what i did on my birthday, i wanted to spend the day with ernie and enjoy living. i still couldn't get jason out of my head this weekend, but i guess that's a good thing. i suppose i'll always remember him on my birthday (as well as other days).
to lighten the mood of this post...here is a new picture of our hound.
how could you be in any way unhappy with a face like that around??
Friday, June 02, 2006
hoola-la
this past memorial day, ernie and i decided to have a quickly planned, sparsely organized cookout. i invited pretty much everyone i knew, and figured upon maybe 6 people showing up. we ended up with 20 and not enough food. but, where the food was lacking the drinks were plentiful. by the end of the night, most of our precious 'charred moonshine' (a mason jar full of moonshine that is aged in jack daniel's barrels, a family members special concoction, smooth as bourbon, with tripple the fury) was gone, and we had ended up getting rid of some of the white lightnin' that had been in our fridge for almost a year (mostly because we keep meaning to put strawberries or peaches in it to make it more, 'palatable')...
as you can imagine, it was a lovely cookout.
at some point in the evening, the subject matter floated over to hoolahooping between myself and my friend amy. since i own a hoolahoop, i had to bring it out. as i tried to hoola hoop in my back yard, listening to bridgitte bardot croon over my shoulder and watching some of my guest get that glazed look in their eyes that people get when they drink a couple shots of tn mountaindew, i realized two things:
1. i have a pretty damn good life right now, and
2. i really really must take up fire hooping (ok, ok, it's mostly done by hippies, but it'll be killer at parties)
as you can imagine, it was a lovely cookout.
at some point in the evening, the subject matter floated over to hoolahooping between myself and my friend amy. since i own a hoolahoop, i had to bring it out. as i tried to hoola hoop in my back yard, listening to bridgitte bardot croon over my shoulder and watching some of my guest get that glazed look in their eyes that people get when they drink a couple shots of tn mountaindew, i realized two things:
1. i have a pretty damn good life right now, and
2. i really really must take up fire hooping (ok, ok, it's mostly done by hippies, but it'll be killer at parties)
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Saturday, May 06, 2006
to live and die in dixie...
Your Linguistic Profile: |
40% Dixie |
40% General American English |
15% Yankee |
5% Upper Midwestern |
0% Midwestern |
Friday, May 05, 2006
must love cheesy internet tests...
so, i was bored...
Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)
| INFP - "Questor". High capacity for caring. Emotional face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 4.4% of total population. |
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Friday, April 21, 2006
miss edith
(click on pics)
i am, and have been, hugely a fan of miss edith piaf (madame lamboukas). her music not only inspires me, if i can be so cliche, but also makes me the happiest girl on the train when i pipe her voice into my ears during my commute. it's like eating soft white cheese with honey (my new favorite treat)...and when in paris, i had to find her.
my visit to pere lachaise cemetary was a surreal one...but i
didn't expect it to be anything but surreal. firstly, it's amazingly huge. i had no idea...but should have, what with all of the amazing minds and voices buried on those sacred grounds. i thought that i would have no p
roblem finding her grave. So, as soon as i came up from the train station, i went to the nearest florist, bought a pink rose and started aimlessly walking into the great cemetary. after about a half hour of wandering around the beautifully creepy crypts, i gave up, and went to the little man at the gate to buy a map. i found, with the map, that i was no less than a mile away from her. in my boots (which are such a bad idea on cobble stone...poor ankles), i walked and climbed for another hour, wandering in and out of the artistic crypts, which 
seemed more like walking through a quiet, lovely neighborhood, than a graveyard. trees lines 
the cobblestone streets between the crypts, most were the size of large closets, complete with locked iron worked doors and incredible stained glass windows.
walking into the newer graves, i wondered what hers would look like, how beautiful would hers be...the little bird of paris that moved the world with her voice? of course, it didn't come as much of a suprise that when i did find her grave, it was rather plain, by pere lachaise standards. i wasn't the only one looking for her, there were at least three other people roaming around the same area when i finally came across her. so, i w
aited, i let 
them have their time...and then i went up and lay down my rose, sat down and said a small prayer in french, with the few words that i know (because maybe thats what she would have wanted), and walked away.
i couldn't leave the cemetary without, of course, paying some respect to others that were buried there...so i went off to find oscar wilde and marcel proust. the oscar wilde grave/monument was so odd, being covered tip to top in lipstick. yes, lipstick. mostly kisses, but also handwritten notes in lipstick. i wonder who started this trend. of course, the penis was missing from the statue..i wonder how much that's selling for on ebay.
proust grave was very average, i'm sure he would have wanted nothing grand.
the wonderful thing to see, was not the graves of the famed, but the graves of others. i came across many graves that were statues of the actual people, laying on top of the grave, just as they were in the coffin itself. this was my favorite, since they found it fit to bury him with his cane, tophat and spats....notice, if you will, where
the bronze has been worn down on the picture...crotch
, shoes, mouth. bizarre.
my visit was time well spent, and more beautiful than any of the museums i went to (except for maybe the rodin museum, but that's another day). the cemetary was definitely an amazingly beautiful and ceremonial waste of space, comfort for the living, not the dead.
after
my search among the dead, i went to visit her birthplace...apparently on 
the steps of the rue de belleville in belleville (which is today, kind of like the parisian chinatown). it's not really marked, except for a plaque commemorating the fact that she was born here on the steps, in abject poverty, and there are no signs (i was told there is a small museum in her honor a few streets away, but it's by appointment only, and i just didn't have the time). it's funny, how we search out these things...it's not like you're going to find any great insight from visiting a persons birthplace, or their g
rave for that matter...but, there's something that feels good about taking the time and giving some respect to a life that means so much to you now.
i am, and have been, hugely a fan of miss edith piaf (madame lamboukas). her music not only inspires me, if i can be so cliche, but also makes me the happiest girl on the train when i pipe her voice into my ears during my commute. it's like eating soft white cheese with honey (my new favorite treat)...and when in paris, i had to find her.
my visit to pere lachaise cemetary was a surreal one...but i
didn't expect it to be anything but surreal. firstly, it's amazingly huge. i had no idea...but should have, what with all of the amazing minds and voices buried on those sacred grounds. i thought that i would have no p
roblem finding her grave. So, as soon as i came up from the train station, i went to the nearest florist, bought a pink rose and started aimlessly walking into the great cemetary. after about a half hour of wandering around the beautifully creepy crypts, i gave up, and went to the little man at the gate to buy a map. i found, with the map, that i was no less than a mile away from her. in my boots (which are such a bad idea on cobble stone...poor ankles), i walked and climbed for another hour, wandering in and out of the artistic crypts, which 
seemed more like walking through a quiet, lovely neighborhood, than a graveyard. trees lines 
the cobblestone streets between the crypts, most were the size of large closets, complete with locked iron worked doors and incredible stained glass windows.walking into the newer graves, i wondered what hers would look like, how beautiful would hers be...the little bird of paris that moved the world with her voice? of course, it didn't come as much of a suprise that when i did find her grave, it was rather plain, by pere lachaise standards. i wasn't the only one looking for her, there were at least three other people roaming around the same area when i finally came across her. so, i w
aited, i let 
them have their time...and then i went up and lay down my rose, sat down and said a small prayer in french, with the few words that i know (because maybe thats what she would have wanted), and walked away.i couldn't leave the cemetary without, of course, paying some respect to others that were buried there...so i went off to find oscar wilde and marcel proust. the oscar wilde grave/monument was so odd, being covered tip to top in lipstick. yes, lipstick. mostly kisses, but also handwritten notes in lipstick. i wonder who started this trend. of course, the penis was missing from the statue..i wonder how much that's selling for on ebay.
proust grave was very average, i'm sure he would have wanted nothing grand.
the wonderful thing to see, was not the graves of the famed, but the graves of others. i came across many graves that were statues of the actual people, laying on top of the grave, just as they were in the coffin itself. this was my favorite, since they found it fit to bury him with his cane, tophat and spats....notice, if you will, where
the bronze has been worn down on the picture...crotch
, shoes, mouth. bizarre.my visit was time well spent, and more beautiful than any of the museums i went to (except for maybe the rodin museum, but that's another day). the cemetary was definitely an amazingly beautiful and ceremonial waste of space, comfort for the living, not the dead.
after
my search among the dead, i went to visit her birthplace...apparently on 
the steps of the rue de belleville in belleville (which is today, kind of like the parisian chinatown). it's not really marked, except for a plaque commemorating the fact that she was born here on the steps, in abject poverty, and there are no signs (i was told there is a small museum in her honor a few streets away, but it's by appointment only, and i just didn't have the time). it's funny, how we search out these things...it's not like you're going to find any great insight from visiting a persons birthplace, or their g
rave for that matter...but, there's something that feels good about taking the time and giving some respect to a life that means so much to you now.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
many of the carousels were kept up supremely, but i found a few that were very old and quite falling down...as this one was, all beautiful and handpainted, filled with irritated looking pigs and cows as well as the usual horse and carriage. i was unable to get more pictures, as they had just closed the gate when i arrived.
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