Je suis dans l'amour

Keep on with the force don't stop
Don't stop 'til you get enough!

"You know, all the American girls, they are very [brings fingers to the lips and makes a kiss to the air]...they are beautiful! But, it is too bad because, we do not speakeh Eeeenglish!"

The two silly drunken French boys (violinists) had their arms over each other's shoulders and were barely able to stand as they spoke to Rhys and me near the main building of the Château Moulerens, in between the cantina-style bar where we'd hang out on late nights playing Pictionary and stacking Orangina and Heineken cans and dancing to musical toys that came out of the Happy Meals we'd get from McDonald's at 2 in the morning when we were hungry and couldn't sleep. That night, it wasn't only the Americans and the Brits staying up, but everyone seemed to be wide awake. Most of us were leaving early the next day and I think the all-nighter attempt came partly from a fear of sleeping through the departure, but more than anything because it was the last night of the two weeks we'd all spent together in this little Gradignan château, not too far from the city of Bordeaux but in a good enough situation for come what may to happen. It was a place where you could practice in the woods, feed horses apples and sugar cubes in your spare time, watch cello teachers play with half a cigarette in their bow hand, and make friends with a half-eared cat named Olivier, a dog called Bartok, and a gimp pigeon unanimously named Edgar -- and at the same time, a place you could easily escape from and come back to as you pleased, with the help of foot paths to the supermarket and trams to Bordeaux.

The last night at the camp full of all the things you'd expect a foreign music camp to have -- kids staggering around in the fields after a little too much to drink, a Michael Jackson discolight dance party in the barn-like shack a few feet away (because everyone all over the world listens to Michael Jackson, dontcha know), final goodbyes of all sorts, ideas of "naked swimming" (as they say in Britain apparently), miniature scandals, and that strange happy sadness of leaving such neat people. I left the chateau at about 7:15 in the morning, and Lizzy helped me get my suitcases to the cab. I told everyone who was awake goodbye and the cab driver turned out to be a man with very good English and friends with Hans Graf, conductor of the Houston Symphony. Small world.

Things learned while in the country:
1. The American idea of of a lovely little French "château" should be taken with precaution, because chances are it will lack air conditioning,
2. When you're at a camp where your teacher's working, expect to learn many new things about him/her.
3. In France you get a ridiculous amount of food for every meal, almost always involving meat and cheese. Also, the average meal lasts about 1.5 hours and I think the average French person goes through one whole baguette a day.
4. In France very few fat people seem to exist. WTFmate?
5. English kids trying to imitate American accents are hilarious. Especially when they say things like "part-skimmed milk."
6. Don't be fooled by the value of the Euro.
7. If your English or minimal French fail you in the southern part of the country, try Spanish. It just may work.
8. Sitting through a never-ending tango concert is frightening.
9. Sitting through a never-ending klezmer concert is not so bad.
10. Men are all the same, no matter what country they're from. They just have different accents.
11. How to say "this towel smells like butt" in French.
12. The drinking age for alcohol is 18, and for wine it's 16.
13. French wine is stronger than in most places, in terms of proof.
14. Clubbing in Europe can be dangerous.
15. French emergency medical care is free, including the ambulance trip.
16. President Bush is a joke, and telling people you're from Texas immediately brings him up, along with, "Cheval, cheval!" (Horse, horse!)
17. Mariah Carey can actually be quite refined artist, according to Mateja. Right up there with Johnny Mathis. And George Michael.
18. Slow dancing is a refined art, also according to Mateja. Every musician should learn to be a good dancer, he says.
19. When going to the beach, try not to be too surprised by the topless sunbathers.
20. Kate, Lizzy and I do the best dancing ever. But probably more Lizzy than the rest of us.
21. You can dance to anything, including the Arpeggione Sonata.
22. Be prepared to eat bread, and lots of it.
23. French kids smoke loooots of cigarettes, starting around age 16.
24. The boutiques surprisingly almost always play music in English, or salsa.
25. Bordeaux can be just as weird as NYC at night.
26. Waiting for a tram at 4:30 AM is pretty sketchy.
27. You can probably get away without paying for a 4:30 AM tram anyway.
28. Cycling on roads is actually safe!
29. If your whole section quitely starts laughing in the middle of a concert because of one person, chances are it will carry through the rest of the orchestra.
30. Ice cream is cheaper. And better.
31. Beware of pianists tossing balls in the pool. You'll probably get hit upside the head.
33. Playing the Dvorak American quartet with a couple of British violinists and a French cellist can work pretty well.
32. There's nothing cooler than a chamber music concert while it's thunderstorming outside.
33. You can see alot more stars in the sky from Bordeaux than any city in America.

Plenty more pictures here.

Basically, yes, my trip was amazing, and this probably doesn't cover half of it. Not only did I cover so much musicially and get to see something new, but it was so nice to just get far away from the States for awhile. Even sitting in my room for a bit just reading without any preoccupations was nice. It was also great to just make so many new connections with people from all over the place, which is something wonderful about music festivals. You learn things from different people and places all the time.

On the plane ride home I thought of things alot, as usual. It usually happens on plane rides. When you think alot while traveling I think it's a symbol of some sort of progress, but I must have mentioned it before.

it's friday

Coming In From The Cold - The Delgados

When you're working backstage at a jazz concert, sometimes you just gotta let loose.

Tomorrow is my last day as an AFA intern. The kids are going to sound awesome, because if they don't then Dr. Evan's buttkicking will have gone to waste and he will shoot the percussionists with a maybe a flying baton. I think it would be fun. If you would like to see a very good concert or a very angry flying baton come check out the concert at Episcopal HS off 610 and Bisonnett at 6 pm. There will be some Bernstein, Copland, Mendelssohn and Weber goin' down tomorrow evening.

I'm going to miss working with AFA, in spite of lugging chairs, stands and percussion equipment (especially marimbas that don't like fitting through doors) on multiple occasions. The intern group was great, and when you listen carefully you do hear the difference between the orchestra when it started 5 weeks ago and the orchestra now. It's really such an amazing opportunity for the kids who play here, even when things seem so overwhelming at first. Things aren't impossible, you know.

I should perhaps start packing sometime soon. I don't like packing very much at all. By Monday afternoon I will be in Bordeaux, unless I run into another disaster at one of the airports.

Today Amandar and I went to Hong Kong City Mall for pho and bubble tea. When we were walking out I saw three young slightly off-the-boatish Vietnamese guys with big smiles going past us, all wearing matching blue flip-flops. Something about their giant grins, the way they walked, their floppy white t-shirts and short khaki shorts and most of all how their blue shoes coordinated (the cherry on top) made me laugh really hard in the car.

being foreign

So on All Things Considered yesterday they did this really great story on an Iraqi-American musician by the name of Amir ElSaffar, who started his career in New York City clubs as a jazz trumpeter. However, as his interests in Middle Eastern music began to expand, he decided to go to Baghdad and later London to study traditional Iraqi music. Now, after having released a CD of Iraqi music, he 's writing music that mixes the elements of Iraqi maqam with jazz.

On a different part of the music spectrum, last night a few of us interns went to Helios and watched Joel do his concert. In all the time I have spent with AFA I have never heard him actually perform before, but I definitely was impressed. This is the man who taught us about composers and chords for the longest time. He's pretty darn good.

I've been in havoc this week. The fourth of July involved fluttering through the museum district and downtown Houston with my parents, a dozen mosquito bites and sitting on a hill in the rain in midst of several drunk Texans for the fireworks show they do in Reliant Park every year. I guess the fireworks were good, at least. I've never been much of an Independence Day fan, nor any American holiday in general. American holidays always seem to involve beer, barbecue, fireworks and television specials. My family doesn't do barbecue.

In general I guess American culture has really baffled me over the last week. Yesterday before going to Helios I went to an Astros game with Christine. We were in Minute Maid Park, which seems like an equivalent to the Roman colosseum filled with its wall of nearly 50,000 fans all in attendance. People who go to ballparks here like singing songs like "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and loud booing at players from the opposing team who screwed them over in the World Series last year and doing The Wave around the stadium three times over. The kids in the red monogrammed baseball caps sometimes start this little choir of "Let's Go Astros" in imitation of their parents and wave pennants while paying meticulous attention to everything going on in the field. The end of the game involved fireworks too. It wasn't bad overall, but I felt very foreign being there.

American culture hasn't been the only thing that has felt foreign lately. Maybe because I've actually been driving these past few weeks. When you're in driving in a car by yourself everyday for over an hour everything feels a little distant. This is ironic, seeing that a vehicle is what physically brings you from one point to another. I think it must be one of those other inexplicable human phenomena that no one really thinks about. Sometimes I wonder if people cyclically feel like this all throughout their lives, or if it's just because of some strange prolonged phase.

maryam, this is your life

While I don't always mind Houston so much there are times when being in this city drives me crazy, especially because I live in this little craphole called Alief where the nearest thing to walk to for entertainment is the gas station at the corner. I think I'd like to live in New York for as long as I can. People tell me it probably sucks to live there, and I usually respond, Yeah unless you're a student I can pretty much see that, but I don't know how much I believe it. I mean, of course you need some sort of substantial income to live there but if it ever becomes a possibility, I am staying there.

The kids had their second concert yesterday, pulled of in an amazing five days. Firebird sounded beautiful (and Wes did a great job filling in as concertmaster at the last minute, especially given that his pages were out of order and I didn't notice at all -- that kid has come such a long way). The combos from the jazz program were pretty much kickass. Laura, Christina and I kept dancing backstage while Chaz, the percussionist from the orchestra, kept shaking his head and laughing at us. Who says you can't have fun when you're backstage?

Yesterday, on the way to picking up my dad's car to go home, I was talking to Danny about how when I was little my mother used to throw shoes at me if I couldn't fulfill little errands she'd send me on. Usually they involved doing something like putting newspaper in a recycling bin or finding something impossible like a nonexistent tub of mayo in the fridge. I think he found that a bit strange. His mother never threw shoes at him, he said. I think that's totally understandable.

Today I'm feelin' pretty lame, I think, because my nose likes to think it is a water faucet. Another reason why Houston also sucks sometimes because it gives me allergies in the summertime.

Lyric-wise, I still think We Have The Facts and We're Voting Yes is great, even if Death Cab has probably fallen into suckage over the last seven years.