Category: recipes

happy day of the dead to you all. the time stamping blogs are all done for this tour, nothing but real time blogs from now on. so no podcasts or photos, just attempts at pithy observations. i was shocked to have someone at the 12bar last night address me as “darlingen”, proving that people are actually reading this and my new language of ‘germglish’ is taking off (see below). oh the power!

a sweet if quiet show in london last night. hard to compete with the chance to dress up as monsters and sexy ladies…but thanks to the woman who brought me a pumpkin, and to the small but dedicated crowd. and people really seem to love the soaplands song. you have my husband to thank, as he forces me to keep it on the set list. it has grown on me definitely, and like all the new stuff i’m itching to get into the studio and demonstrate all the sounds that accompany me in my head.

i did in fact make it to the imperial war museum, which used to be the hospital of bethlehem. a formidable place, full of dark and heavy things. i and my brother-in-law and nephew went through the holocaust exhibit, which was sobering of course. i prefer the holocaust museum in berlin, which manages to be inspiring in its honesty and daring and beauty. the acknowledgement of so many specific jewish people, the fearful elegance of the monument….they achieve a solemnity that doesn’t rely on bloody details.

day of the dead indeed. i didn’t intend to stray into war remembrances. and so now i saunter off into the sunlight. i’ll make a play for the tate. til next, dearlings. Continue reading a sunny day in london town

good morning! i have awoken in berlin, after a sound sleep, and have lingered an astonishing hour over breakfast. this is one of the pleasures of travelling, the unexpected pockets of time. as usual, i have stockpiled some new yorkers for travelling (the magazine, not the dynamic people) and wanted to draw your attention to an article about novelists by milan kundera. this is a great piece of writing about the relationship of a writer to her work. it is in the october 9 edition, if you can find it take a look. here is a sentence that gave me pause: “This is the novelist’s curse: his honesty is bound to the vile stake of his megalomania.” and here is a paragraph that made me laugh out loud in the hotel cafe:

I was nineteen when, in my home town, a young academic gave a public lecture; it was during the first months of the Communist revolution, and, bowing to the spirit of the time, he talked about the social responsibility of art. After the conference, there was a discussion; what I remember is the poet Josef Kainar (a man of Blatny´s generation, also long dead now), who, in response to the scholar´s talk, told this anecdote: A little boy takes his blind grandmother for a walk. They are strolling down a street, and from time to time the little boy says, “Grandma, watch out – a root!” Thinking she is on a forest trail, the old woman keeps jumping. Passersby scold the little boy: “Son, you´re treating your grandmother so badly!” And the boy says, “She´s my grandma! I´ll treat her anyway I want!” And Kainar finishes, “That´s me, that´s how I am about my poetry.”

-Milan Kundera in the New Yorker, Oct 9 2006 Continue reading kundera in the new yorker