Late night tracks / Jean Chaumont

From a September 2016 concert with pianist Michael Bond in Hopewell, New Jersey

Recently I've been on a bit of a jazzy kick, thanks to the movie musical La La Land. My feet have been tapping ever since I left the theater. That opening scene alone is worth the watch, but the rest of the soundtrack is a great repeated listen for its splendid fusion of jazz, pop, latin, and bits in between. For better or worse, I find that Ryan Gosling's character and I have a similar taste for big band jazz. I like my horns brassy, my rhythms quick, my saxes sassy. (Fun fact: No body doubles for that pianist!)

And yet, I'm drawn to tonight's listen: a more melodic and contemplative form of the genre, courtesy of French guitarist and composer. Jean Chaumont. It's not exactly music to fall asleep to. It's no Kenny G (thank goodness -- no offense, KG). Clearly it's kept me awake. It's thoughtful, sometimes challenging, hitting me in a way I can't quite place.

Miscellanea, etc. / 01 Dec 2016

Even though Christmas music has been blasting in stores since mid- or even early November, I haven't been ready. Hearing Mariah Carey belting "All I want for Christmas is yooooooou" typically brings me delight (particularly in this context), but these days I cringe. Forget "Jingle Bell Rock." My ears are only ready for gentler seasonal music like the Nutcracker suite, or possibly Vince Guaraldi's jazzy Peanuts Christmas soundtrack. That's about it.

I'm not usually a grinch by any means, as Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year for festive and religious reasons. I've just been tired of the overflowing intensity of the news cycle and our world in general. First there was the election and the frenzy leading up to it -- now still ongoing. Then Thanksgiving whirled by, with the holiday-ness of the holiday season being thrust upon us without as much as a pause.

But perhaps December 1st and the creeping crescendo of cold weather makes it more "okay" to embrace winter and Christmas to come. I am slowly coming around to it. It feels more okay not to be "ready." Advent started this past Sunday for many Christians, and I am embracing the side of it that is about the long journey to Bethlehem.

So as a reflection of my (and perhaps your) mixed state, in this edition of miscellanea you'll find some articles about and not about the holidays:

Late night tracks / Fantastic Negrito

These days if I can't fall asleep, the last thing I want to do is stare at a computer screen. There are all kinds of studies these days that talk about the havoc wreaked by screens and modern electronics on our sleep cycles (for teens and the rest of us).

But here I am again, and my music of choice tonight is Fantastic Negrito. I might have first heard about him on NPR, but those are vague recollections. It was his first single, "About a Bird" (above), that hauntingly drew me in. I bookmarked it. I also bookmarked an article on Consequence of Sound, detailing his life story and the genesis of his album The Last Days of Oakland. I read it. I was intrigued. I then kept going, listening to the album in its entirety. I took a chance on him.

A birthday observed

The Tall Man and Grandpa in 2013, celebrating their birthdays and love for blue checkered shirts

I've always been a birthday person. Or maybe it's more accurate to say I am a birthday observer.

When I was younger, I kept mental track of my family and friends' special days and always had a card ready to hand deliver. As people dispersed -- moved away, went to college, grew up -- I started mailing them. Then life got busier, and I started sending texts and emails, or the occasional Facebook wall post if I didn't have time for a longer message. The messages shortened and became littered with emojis, but the content remained relatively the same.

For sure, birthdays are special occasions to celebrate a loved one's life. But they've also become an opportunity to acknowledge that person's significance to me, to catch a glimmer of their life. For those I don't see very often, this "hello - happy birthday - remember when? - how are you?" has become the very gateway to keeping in touch, even if our last encounter was in a distant phase of life.

Rounding up with a slice of pi(e)

Apple pie from Petsi Pies, true to the spirit of the day.

For some people, yesterday was simply Saturday, March 14th, the year 2015.

Here at MIT, where mathematical constants play a part in most people's everyday business, it was

Super Pi (π) Day

Day: 3.14.15

Time: 9:26:53

the first day in my generation's lifetime when we would celebrate ten digits of Pi, twice in a single day (if you count AM and PM).

The next one won't be for another 100 years, so I was among the many on campus and in the Boston area who made sure to celebrate well and indulge in pie in all forms -- from traditional fruit-filled pies to custardy cream ones to pizza pies and even shepherd's pie served in the dining hall (arguably not qualified for Pi Day given its non-round shape, but we're not picky around here).

Sometimes you just need to make light

This is a different spin on the Late Night Tracks series.

It's been a bit of a rough few weeks, and sometimes when life gets thick and hairy, you just need a laugh.  To make light.  To find joy in the midst of trying circumstances.  To see yellow in the gray.  And music can be a great source of lightness, especially because it can go on repeat.

Although I'm not a big pop music fan (even though secretly you may find some 90's-to-early-00's boy band music on my Spotify), I somehow really truly like this song by fellow Pennsylvanian Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off" from her most recent album 1989.  One of my students mentioned the song to me, and now I watch the music video every once in a while when I need a laugh and something to bob my head to.  (Surfing YouTube will also bring you to some thousands of parodies of this song, too.  Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?  Maybe?)

(Edit: That viral 80s aerobics video plus the perfect soundtrack, with some insight into its genesis.  How come our opening ceremonies don't look more like this nowadays?)

I'm also occasionally nostalgic about my ballet days, so watching the dancing is a treat, too - like seeing a baby elephant among, well, ballerinas.  This outtake goes behind the scenes to see how Taylor and the dancers work together on the choreo.  I'm pretty wowed by the fact that she put so much effort into learning - then unlearning - all these different dance types.  The other outtakes are also worth a watch.

And because the album name is an ode to birth years and childhood, as a bonus I'll share a bit of myself from the wonder years:

Guess which one is me?

Late night tracks / Gueldy René

Another late night, and another singer-songwriter!  And lest you think my musical tastes run one genre wide, take a listen.  Gueldy René is different.  In his own words, "My guitar is my weapon, and peace is my goal."  He's fighting prejudice, injustice, corruption, and poverty with his music.  Whew -- makes me feel lazy in comparison!

Gueldy is from Bois Neuf on the outskirts of Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest slum.  The place has a violent reputation, but he and others are trying to change that.  I first heard about Gueldy from friends and acquaintances working in Port-au-Prince.  They launched an Indiegogo campaign to help record his first album, and with the help of many backers he's on his way to the studio!

While I've never met Gueldy in person, his charisma in the video above -- a song written in the wake of the 2010 earthquake (with a great little back up singer) -- and in others makes me like him a lot.  But it's his lyrics and the meaning behind his songs that really launch him beyond just "nice" music.



Here there is a clip from his song "Konbit," a Creole word for cooperative communal labor that is the essence of community and working towards a future together.  The lines that struck me the most:

"The winds of change are coming.

...

Konbit, konbit, to save our nation
Konbit, konbit to save our youth."

The song calls for education, for governmental accountability, for mutual respect, for "democracy free of demagoguery."  Even for clean canals and planted trees.  It seems like a laundry list of impossibilities, but there's progress being made through various communal efforts (like Konbit Soley Leve) and the help of outside organizations to get things rolling.

Back in 2011, I visited Haiti for a research fact-finding trip (or, a "I don't know what I'm getting myself into but here goes!" kind of trip).  The Tall Man (at the time my Tall Boyfriend) and I were too chicken to visit Cite Soleil during most of the week, but we finally threw reservations to the wind when we were given the opportunity to tag along with friends from Haiti Communitere, the NGO we were staying with.

What had I expected?  Maybe something scary?  I had been to various parts of other development countries before, but never in a post-disaster situation and never feeling so out of my element and exposed.  I have written a bit about this before but will write again that what I found was stunning.

One of my favorite photos from the trip

Clean, paved roads.  Planters with trees and saplings along the drainage trenches.  A nascent recycling operation to encourage people to clean out the clogged canals and earn some income.  This was accomplished with the initiative of a then-13 year old who was tired of having his shoes reeking with the stench of sewage and wanted things to be different.

So the neighborhood of La Difference within Trois Bébés in CS transformed over time with tireless work from the community, and more neighborhoods are undergoing change as you're reading.  (There is even a Cite Soleil Peace Prize!)

Change (chanjman in Creole) comes with a soundtrack, and one of those voices is Gueldy's.

Good night for now!

Late night tracks / Leyla McCalla

Once again, it's a late night and I'm lazing on the couch, listening to songs on repeat.  And maybe the night has a certain velvety atmosphere to it because just like last time, I find myself serenaded by yet another singer-songwriter.  (Nothing wrong with that!)

Tonight's soundtrack features the talents of Leyla McCalla, a New Orleans-based Haitian-American singer with her hands strumming across an ensemble-full of instruments: cello, banjo, guitar - and probably others that are slipping my mind at this hour.

What I enjoy the most is the simplicity of the instrumentation and yet the richness she is able to achieve with such elements.  Some of her songs are in Haitian Creole (kreyol ayitien), some are in English, some are folk songs or based on Langston Hughes poems, but all are soulful and lilting.  It's like having a living room jam session, Nawlins-style.  And something more.

From her new album released earlier this year, Vari-Colored Songs, one of my favorites is "Mesi Bondye," a folk song sung to the jaunty tenor banjo.  Some lyrics (kreyol and English):

Mesi Bondye, gade kijan la mize fini pou nou. 
Mesi Bondye, gade kisa la nati pote pou nou. 
Lapli tonbe, mayi pouse. 
Tout timoun ki grangou, pwale manje. . . .

Thank you God, look how misery has ended for us. 
Thank you God, look what nature has brought for us. 
Rain has fallen, corn has grown. 
All the hungry children are going to eat. . . .

The conclusion is: let's dance!  That should be the conclusion to many things, right?

I didn't find a great video of this song, though, so included a different kreyol song about the Arbonite region of Haiti, with great instrumentation (plus, just watch the musicians get into the groove!).  And here's another:

I discovered Leyla through the Twittersphere, which is serendipitous and makes me feel indebted to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who happened to hear her music in his friend's car.  (Yes, 140 characters can contain this much information.)  This little episode showcases one of the reasons why I even joined Twitter in the first place: the ability to discover unexpected new things, like bread crumbs in the forest when you weren't even looking for food (or a trail).

Late night tracks / Blair Bodine

Blair Bodine — Rosaline from Michael Batchelor on Vimeo.

This is one of those nights when the Tall Man goes to sleep before I do, and I'm whiling away the time with a mix of business and miscellany.

If you're like me, you have a gazillion tabs open at once, like a "reading/watching" list that always seems to grow when I'm not looking.  Well, these late nights are good for reducing those tabs and actually paying attention to those links I opened to "save for later" (when "later" sometimes means "never").

Well, if I could choose someone to croon me to sleep, it would be Blair Bodine, a singer-songwriter and non-profit gur current residing in Nashville.  If you listen to the video above from a recent recording session with Kettle Pot Tracks, you'll agree!

I remember meeting Blair my freshman year in college, when she became my suitemate.  We discovered that we had grown up just 10 minutes away from each other.  Her smile and mighty bear-hug laugh could fill any space.  Her room was the "loud" one in our suite, with late night jam sessions spontaneously bursting out in the wee hours and, during the day, the activity of an equally loud other suitemate who liked to knock the rhythms of Christmas carols on the wall between our rooms.  My own roommate ("Anne from Japan") and I ("eLo") were a bit more mellow in comparison and attempted sleep at 10 or 11pm each night.  We mocked for going to bed soo early for college freshmen, but that just meant that we got nearly nightly serenades from Blair.

Take a listen ... and another ... and be both inspired and rocked into a happy, soulful slumber.

'Tis the season to...

... love.

Do I think about this, now in the season of Advent leading up to Christmas?  Sometimes, but not particularly.  I've been occupied with wrapping gifts and writing cards, scheduling dinner dates and planning our honeymoon.  None of these are bad things, really, and they do give joy to others and even myself.  But in midst of this, I'm reminded that there are still more opportunities to show love, maybe to those I don't think of first: the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the marginalized, the powerless.

A video by Advent Conspiracy, with a song by Chris Tomlin on the topic.  Enjoy!

[yele] A retroactive "tour"

As I was combing through the files on my computer, I came across a slew of video clips I had taken while in Yele this past January. This one in particular brought back some good memories of the village the eLuma team called home for 3 weeks:

 

Sights seen include the local primary school and shops around the main Junction, or intersection in the village.  The ride is a bit bumpy, but that's because of the rock-filled roads and not because of Anna's driving :)

This is coffee!

Came across this great little period film on a favorite brew.   Enjoy it!

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thanks to Swiss Miss for the find

The poetry of pavement

Some days it might be worth walking around looking at our feet.  To spot the variations and poetry in the pavement that is our walking surface, Johan Rijpma gives us his short animation "Tegels" (or "Tiles).

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via Polis

Transforming a life with garbage

Screening @ MIT on Monday 2/6, 6:30-8:30 (32-123)

(right before the UCO Reg Day service at 7:30pm, MIT Chapel)

Sugar plums dancing in our heads

I've sadly missed it for this season, but the Nutcracker (particularly the Balanchine version - sorry Boston ...) has always been a personal favorite.  When I think about Christmas, coming close after Jesus in the manger are images of party scenes, battles between mice and toy soldiers, and the Sugar Plum Fairy.

When my brother and I were young, the Nutcracker made my family crazy.  For 4-5 years, we were both in the Nutcracker at the same time and running around to various rehearsals and performances, I as a child dancer and he as a vocalist.  His boys choir would sing the signature "ahh's" during the Snow scene before the end of the first act, and my ballet school trained the children who performed with the Pennsylvania Ballet.

Young kids didn't have a particularly difficult part to play - unless you were Marie, Fritz, or the Nutcracker/Prince - although I loved being on the same stage as some of our ballet heroes, the principals (and now artistic staff) of the company.

There was a distinct hierarchy to the roles one could play, though.  The youngest and smallest were always angels, who came out at the beginning of Act II as a prelude to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.  The party girls (of the house scenes*) and polichinelles (emerging from the impossibly immense skirt of Mother Ginger) were the most coveted roles.  The rest of us would become toy soldiers and even mice for the battle scene.

At the time I never understood why certain girls - the same girls - always got what seemed to be the "best parts."  Was it their skill level?  Or maybe their body build (preference given to the not-too-tall and slender)?  Or did they have the most connections?  It wasn't clear to a small Chinese girl with what she thought was a too-round face and a too-curved body.  These questions about body image bothered me as a child, but I later came to terms with the fact that I didn't have the build nor the desire to become a ballerina - and so laid aside the discipline of dance for the disciplines of design and music.

But I still had the fun opportunities to perform as an angel, the soldier trumpeter, and then as a soldier wielding a saber.  As an angel, we paid a small price for looking cute.  We wore heavy gold crowns that stayed on only with the help of bobby pins and hoop skirts that restricted our foot movement to small shuffles.  If you took one real step, there was the danger of stepping on your skirt and then falling flat on your face (whoops) - something that did happen many times in the rehearsal studio but fortunately few times actually on stage.

Being a soldier was probably one of the most fun roles.  We got to throw foam cheese blocks at the storming troops of mice, slash fake plastic swords at fat mouse costumes, and eventually be carried off kicking by the mice when the toy soldiers lost the battle.  Our cheeks were emblazoned by bright red circle stickers that sometimes came off in the heat of the tussle.

And although I've moved on from that part of my childhood, I still can't help but play Tchaikovsky's score over and over again for the entire month of December (or longer).  The choreography has faded in my memory - and I've become a bit long-winded in my reminiscence - but the Nutcracker itself never will stop being part of my Christmas.

Inventional season-ing

MIT's official holiday greeting - featuring one of my professors (Walter Hood, visiting from Berkeley last semester) and some of my residents (in Ohms)!

Season of preparation

Season of anticipation.

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via Thomas

Faux pas in another language

This video reminded me of my summer days in Beijing all those 5+ years ago.  Perhaps you, too, can relate to the anguish of erred tones and "dui bu qi ..."  - or, on a more universal level, just trying to learn another language and have a native speaker give you a quizzical look (or worse, one of utter horror) when you try to say the simplest of sentences.

The tune sounds just like a Chinese pop song, too. Good job, guys!

And for another rendition of struggling "wai guo ren" attempting to master Chinese (because ... I guess I am in that category despite my deceptively Asian looks) :



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First video courtesy of Stephanie, second courtesy of Diana - all of us ABC's (American Born Chinese).

Tools in everyone's hands

I especially like the compressed earth block machine.  Pretty amazing (and faster than a concrete block maker, too)!  See the ArchDaily post for more information and an informational TED talk video of the founder and his vision.

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thanks to Ann for the reference

1 litre, lanterns of light

In any conversation about working in developing countries, the term "capacity building" comes up time and time again - but what does it really mean, or begin to even look like?  And what is the role of our education at MIT in relation to locally-grown knowledge?

In our eLuma project meetings, there has recently been quite a bit of discussion about training and knowledge transfer.  As a possible exercise or real life example of 'capacity building,' one of our teammates brought up the example of the "bleach and water light bulb" - which I didn't quite understand until watching this video:

For more information about the MIT-seeded, community-grown initiative, check out the organization, called Isang Litrong Liwanag.