Din lipsă de internet şi de chef, n-am mai postat în weekend, aşa că revin.

Melodia de zilele este “Homesick”, de la Parov Stelar. Parov Stelar ăsta este un fel de DJ care trăieşte prin Austria şi are o combinaţie ciudată, probabil în funcţie de ce fumează, de la jazz, funk şi groove, până la breakbeat (Prodigy style). Omul e foarte tare şi cântă şi cu orchestră. A fost astă vară în Bucureşti, dar n-am reuşit să ajung la concert fiindcă era la Kristal. Na!

Recomand în acelaşi sens şi Tricky, fost membru Massive Atack.

Tricky is probably one of the most underrated if not underhyped artists in British music, from his days with massive attack to being at the forefront of the trip-hop scene with Maxinquaye to last years Knowle west boy his albums although quite dark and haunting at times are always amazing productions.  And now he has given the task of remixing Knowle west boy to the South Rakkas Crew from the U.S.  who are well known for their work with dancehall artists  and are also part of Diplo’s mad decent crew. The result is a bass heavy album expertly produced definately worth a listen but can never match the brilliance of the original.

Here are my highlights:

Tricky meets South Rakkas Crew-Joseph

Tricky meets South Rakkas Crew-Baligaga

And from Trickys debut Maxinquaye

Tricky-Suffocated love

I’m lucky enough not to be alergic to any foods or plants or pet dander, but last year I discovered that I am alergic to something. That something turned out to be the paste used to make henna tatoos. I applied the paste myself when I was in art class in my senior year of high school, and you have to leave the stuff on for several hours in order for the design to get stained onto your skin, and then the “tatoo” will last for a few weeks. It’s pretty cool and easy. But after only a half hour or so my skin started feeling incredibly itchy, which I figured must be normal since the stuff was sort of drying over my hand. But then a little later, my hand started to turn red around the paste and it was almost hurting because it itched so much. I asked some of my friends who had gotten henna tatoos while on a school trip to India over spring break if this was normal. Hell no. Yet, I was determined for this thing to work, so I held out until I got home from school, and then I quickly washed it off.

I stumbled upon these hilariously artistic commercials on Youtube last week. All of them are pretty gay.

On the subject of Massive Attack, another stunner from Blue Lines in honor of today’s Thanksgiving. The whole album should be mandatory listening for anyone wishing to be a part of the human race. One of the best albums of all time for me.

Diggin’ the scene with a gangster lean..
From Discogs
Probably the best, certainly the most important , album of the decade, Blue Lines defined the sound of Britain´s carcass after Thatcher had finished with it. Blue Lines was the first representation of a certain kind of syncretic Britishness that would define the island´s music for the next decade.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cover of Björk's Homogenic (One Little Indian, 1997); image courtesy of slantmagazine.com

Cover for Björk's Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001); image courtesy of harmony-korine.com

When I began conceptualizing this blog in the ol’ brainspace, one of the first sections I came up with was “Records That Made Me a Feminist.” I knew Björk was going to get at least one entry. Homogenic and Vespertine each played a vital part of shaping my politics. So, I figured out I’d probably have to write about them together.

Pairing albums for this section of the blog is something I originally wanted to do this when covering Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, which I started listening to around the same time as PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. I liked the idea of dialoguing seemingly dissimilar work by female artists with one another, but I feared covering those two albums together would short-shrift the artists who made them. However, talking about two distinct pieces of work by one woman seemed easier. And essential. So here we go.

I must admit that covering Björk’s 1997 and 2000 full-length releases present its own political challenges that makes me think critically about how I understand and practice feminism. Both of these albums made me a feminist largely because of the boys I was preoccupied with at the time.

But while my initial reception and resulting connections to them were tied up with potentially normative feelings around romantic angst and heterosexual coupling, I feel the albums speak to my development at the time as well as transcend it. In other words, Homogenic and Vespertine may remind me of boys I used to date, but they speak to larger, more overtly feminist issues as well.

Of course, being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t like boys or be hung up on them from time to time, so long as you don’t let them run your life. Which I don’t think Björk endorses in either of these records, even though she herself has an ambivalent relationship with feminism (though not with calling out the music industry’s sexist practices of attributing male engineers and instrumental songwriters).

Importantly, as both albums were prescient to my development, they also went over my head when I first listened to them. Debut and Post were more accessible and, as a result, I liked them almost immediately. It was hard for 10-year-old me not to fall for the girl dancing through New York City on a flatbed in the music video for “Big Time Sensuality.”

But Björk’s next two albums took more time to process. Both albums mark advances in the artist’s production sensibilities, approaches to music-making, and interest in electronic instrumentation. Thus, just as Björk had to evolve as a musician before creating these albums, I had to mature a bit as a person before liking them as a fan.

So, Homogenic came out just as I was starting high school. I don’t exactly remember when I bought it, but I think it was sometime toward the end of junior year. I completely ignored it at the time. Or rather, I listened to it once, went “ooh, so angry!” and put Post back on.

The particulars I’ll keep to myself for the sake of decorum. Suffice it to say that I dated someone for a little while, fell in love, we broke up, and I spent a little over a year trying to get us back together. It didn’t work out. Eventually I got over him and whatever I thought we were, but not without some pain and denial and then serious personal re-evaluation. The healing process involved some righteous anger, loud parties, several bottles of wine and other goodies, and burgeoning feminist development. After a rough start, 19 turned out to be a pretty okay year. Homogenic was its soundtrack.

Now, I have no problem acknowledging that this guy was a total jerk to me. But feminism isn’t only about recognizing and calling out chauvinistic bullshit. It’s also about self-empowerment, personal accountability, and un-learning heteronormativity and patriarchal co-dependence. It isn’t always just the guy’s fault, even when it is.

Thus, I also have to own up to being really needy and delusional at the time. I pinned my worth on whoever I was dating without questioning whether being with them was actually good for me. So I projected my own big feelings and insecurities on someone who clearly didn’t want to be with me. I was ignoring the reality of the situation and, as a result, my own well-being. I finally recognized what I was doing when confronted with the lyric “How could I be so immature to think he could replace the missing elements in me — how extremely lazy of me.” 

Kinda appropriate that a break-up record got me over mine, no? Apparently, Björk made the album after breaking up with drum’n'bass musician Goldie while they were working on their own project. Hence lines like “So you left me on my own to complete the mission, but now I’m leaving it all behind.” But it pretty much hit all the right notes of melancholy, indignation, rage, and feisty recovery for me. I’m a quarter Norwegian on my mother’s side, so even the line ”I thought I could organize freedom — how Scandinavian of me” in “Hunter” applied.

Attention must be paid to the album’s sound and how it marked a musical departure for Björk. Post was an eclectic mix that boasted songs like “Army of Me,” “Enjoy,” and “Headphones,” that opened up her sound to include state-of-the-art aggressive digital distortion and serene electronic minimalism.

While this was evident in the production work Tricky and 808 State’s Graham Massey did on Post, it wasn’t the focus. It would come to define the artistic work she began doing with producers like Mark Bell on Homogenic and would continue to do with Matmos on Vespertine. But I’d hedge that most casual listeners just remember Post’s ”It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was produced by Björk’s then-mainstay, Nellee Hooper, the man responsible for all the production on her breakthrough Debut. He was also responsible for “Hyperballad,” which I’d argue suggests the artist’s shift, which is fully evident on her next album.

Man, I wish I could post the music video, but WMG has apparently disabled the audio. All the more reason to check out Michel Gondry’s Directors Label DVD, or any of the other myriad DVD titles that have documented her videography.

So Homogenic marks a transition from being a pop star to an artist who challenges her listeners’ ears and expectations with each release. By 1997, we also heard alternative pop stars like Beck and Radiohead establish themselves similarly with Odelay and OK Computer. We would hear Radiohead do it again in 2000 with the mind-blowing Kid A, where they really demonstrated their love for electronic instrumentation and experimental production techniques.

Björk was already on this path in 1997, but while Radiohead looked outward toward the fallabilities of modern life, Björk looked inward at the seductive pleasures and wobbly peculiarities of domestic life and partnership on her next record, rapturing at her voice’s clicks and finding percussive possibilities out of shuffled decks of cards. I don’t think these innovations went unnoticed when Radiohead went to work on In Rainbows. To me, Vespertine’s influence is all over a song like “Nude,” which was originally an outtake from OK Computer. This is further confirmed by the band’s rendition of Homogenic’s ”Unravel” as a tip of the hat. As if lead singer Thom Yorke’s backing vocals on “Náttúra” aren’t enough.

Hmmm. Maybe at some point, I’ll consider Yorke’s duets with Björk and PJ Harvey. Yorke is one of my favorite vocalists, a fact confirmed by a recent revisit of Hail to the Thief. If one of my friends ran a blog on male masculinity and music culture, I’d pen a guest entry in a second.

But I was afflicted with a troubled mind when Vespertine first came out. In addition to boy heartache, I was going through some considerable familial strife. I was also starting my first semester of college, so a tackier person might blame 9/11.

After seeing the music video for “Hidden Place,” I dutifully bought the album, along with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, another at-the-time inscrutable release, at the Tower Records by campus. I listened to the album a few times, but my head was not in the right place for it. It was too contented and quiet. I couldn’t hear it. And then for a little while all I could hear was Homogenic at full volume.

Stills from the video that convinced me to buy "Vespertine"; image courtesy of unit.bjork.com

To be blunt, Vespertine didn’t really make sense to me until I started having sex. Critics like Ryan Dombal would seem to concur. I remember seeing her performance of ”Cocoon” on Jay Leno and thinking that it was really quiet, but totally not getting how micro-embodied intimacy is the song’s entire purpose. While I had a good understanding of mechanics and had engaged in related activities before going into my first listen, I don’t think a song like “Cocoon” makes sense to a person unless they’ve experienced it, to speak euphemistically, in a corporeal sense.

BTW, yes that is Bill O’Reilly adjusting his tie. If he was actually listening to the song, I’m sure he’d be appalled by how delightfully, defiantly sexual this song is and that it was performed uncensored on network television. Watching it now, I can’t believe I wasn’t really listening. Maybe I should have been leaning into the television.  

Again, the particulars here aren’t really important. I was a week or so into being 20 and, frankly,  didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. The guy was someone willing, it was fun, and didn’t last very long.

In short, the romanticism and emotional connectedness that is often built into such an experience was not there, nor do I regret that it wasn’t. I would find that later, which would make my understanding of those aspects of Vespertine more profound and further develop my feminist principles.

I bring sex into the discussion because I, to borrow briefly from Arrested Development’s George Michael Bluth, find Vespertine’s complex eroticism one of its most key contributions to what made me a feminist. Though perhaps a stretch and certainly not without its own distinctions, I tend to think of this album in accord with Audre Lorde’s wonderful essay “Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power.”

And while I don’t know if this entry’s subject has read the essay, something tells me that the same woman who identifies as bisexual and recognizes the erotic potential in mundane activities would concur with much of the theorist’s thesis.

Of course, feminists must also have the wherewithal to recognize that eroticism, even ephemeral evidence like orgasms, are luxuries to some women and girls. Not everyone is given a space, a country, or a political system that allows them the safety and freedom to enjoy and explore these possibilities.

But eroticism isn’t about cataloging who did what to whom for Björk. As David Fricke gestured toward in his review of the album for Rolling Stone, it might be everywhere, at once tangible and theoretical.

This is where I think it’s important to consider the album’s production sensibilities and Björk’s particular uses of her voice. In addition to non-conventional practices like sampling and turning seemingly non-musical domestic items into instruments, the singer’s voice is the album’s real focus. Because of how closely she’s miked, you can hear every tic, breath, whispered turn of phrase, and any other sound coming out of her mouth. As a result, her voice becomes a varied and vital instrument, an idea she has continued to develop and that has continued to stay with me.

CD 1

1. Overcome
2. Ponderosa
3. Black Steel
4. Hell Is Round The Corner
5. Pumpkin
6. Aftermath
7. Abbaon Fat Tracks
8. Brand New You’re Retro
9. Suffocated Love
10. You Don’t
11. Strugglin’
12. Feed Me

CD 2

1. She Devil (Rough Monitor Mix)
2. Ponderosa (Dobie’s Rub Pt. 1)
3. Slick ‘66 (Commercial 12” Mix)
4. Overcome (Bungle Mix)
5. Brand New You’re Retro (Alex Reece Remix)
6. Black Steel (Been Caught Steeling Mix)
7. Aftermath (Version 1)
8. Just For The Hate Of It (Rough Monitor Mix)
9. Overcome (Acapella-Rough Monitor Mix)
10. Black Steel (Rough Monitor Mix)
11. Overcome (2009 Remix)
12. Hell Is Round The Corner (2009 Remix)
13. Black Steel (2009 Remix)

Maxinquaye is the debut album of Tricky, released in 1995. Expanding on the sonic template of fellow Bristolians Massive Attack, and featuring then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird on vocals, Maxinquaye is a dark, mysterious album featuring a combination of hip-hop, soul, dub, rock and electronica. The album was later released in America and received great critical acclaim.The album is named after Tricky’s late mother Maxine Quaye. The album is to be re-issued in the UK on 2nd November 2009 by Universal Island with a second disc of remixes as the Deluxe Edition. Deluxe Edition 25-track digitally remastered 2-CD album set – Originally released in 1995, Tricky’s seminal debut album now comes complete with a Bonus 13-track CD featuring B-sides, out-takes and 7 previously unreleased mixes including 3 new 2009 mixes of ‘Overcome’, ‘Hell Is Round The Corner’ and ‘Black Steel’

Today I was just told that “hey Ashish, you are gonna log user’s session state when the session times out”.

I thought- “Aha!! new opportunity.”

I am working on C#.net as my web development language..

It took just 5 minutes for me to come with a concept. Lets discuss that.

I thought say session gonna expire in next 1 second, I can make webpage get navigated to another page just 1 second before the session time out. There I can process the session variables and destroy them as those where to be destroyed in next 1 second automatically..for my case it was to enter variables held in session to some table.

I found 2 ways to do it-

1. META tag

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="10; URL=logmysessionvariables.aspx"/>

I wrote following lines in .aspx page although this can be done with code behing too with help of  HtmlMeta

 lets see one approach-
 I wrote following inline code in aspx file
   <%
   int timeout=Session.Timeout; // fetch timeout ducration in minutes.
    timeout=(timeout*60)-1;//converts timeout duration to seconds and subtract one second

   Response.write("<META HTTP-EQUIV='Refresh' CONTENT='"+ timeout +"; URL=logmysessionvariables.aspx'/>");
%>

2.

a. Declare the body tag in html window as server control by specifing runat attribute and give an id to that tag.

<body runat=”server” id= “body”>< /P>< /FONT>

b. In the code behind, declare this element as htmlgenericcontrol like this.

Protected WithEvents body As System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl

c. Finally add the following code in your page_load event handler, this will add the client side handler for body tag.

 int timeout=Session.Timeout; // fetch timeout ducration in minutes.
    timeout=(timeout*60)-1;//converts timeout duration to seconds and subtract one second

body.Attributes.Add(“onLoad”, “window.setTimeout(“”window.location.href=’<somepage>.aspx’”",”+timeout+”);”)

In logmysessionvariables.aspx

in Page_Load event I processed all the Session variable and saved their states and destored them (Session.RemoveAll(); //c# syntax).

Done

Martina Topley-Bird, que ontem (e sábado) fez a primeira parte do concerto dos Massive Attack, no Campo Pequeno, e fez os vocais de alguns dos clássicos da banda, como “Teardrop”.

Ex-colaboradora de Tricky (outro senhor do trip-hop britânico), esta cantora tem uma voz… grande, grande, grande.

Ouçam-na aqui.

Make it strong.

Tricky (Nearly God)  – Black Coffee

Today’s photo is another shot of the Gloucester River Falls area and is a view from the waterfall in yesterday’s photo. The view is of the river further downstream. It really is a beautiful location.

The climb from the waterfall to the base and further downstream can be a little tricky – especially when there has been some rain about and the river is running higher than normal.

20 Watts played Asobi Seksu, DJ Shadow and more on WERW

Eric, Chris and Caitlin are in the studio this evening spinning an hour of new music, an hour of trip-hop and an hour of local songs! Tune in by opening iTunes and selecting radio > college radio > WERW or by clicking this link. We’ll be in the studio until 1 a.m.!

Want to talk to us or request a song? IM werw1570, tweet @20_watts or call (315) 443-1278. The third caller gets Chris Parker’s voice on their voicemail… it doesn’t get much better than that.

New tracks are in bold, local artists are italicized.

And don’t forget to tune in to 20 Watts’ Audiocandy+ shows on Wednesday and Thursday from 9-11 p.m.!

artist: Asobi Seksu [read our review of Transparence]
title: New Year
album: Rewolf

artist: Echo and the Bunnymen [13/20 watts -- read the review]
title: Life of a Thousand Crimes
album: The Fountain

artist: Omar Rodriguez Lopez
title: Azoemia
album: Xenophanes

artist: Pants Yell!
title: Rue de la Paix
album: Received Pronunciations

artist: Wale [15/20 watts -- read the review]
title: Chillin’
album: Attention Deficit

artist: Yeasayer
title: Ambling Alp (Memory Tapes Remix)
album: Ambling Alp

artist: Memory Tapes
title: Bicycle
album: Seek Magic

artist: Future Islands
title: Little Dreamer
album: Post Office Wave Chapel

artist: Grizzly Bear
title: Slow Life
album: New Moon OST [read our coverage of New Moon]

artist: Bibio [16/20 watts -- read the review]
title: Lovers’ Carvings (Leatherette Remix)
album: The Apple and The Tooth

artist: Arcade Fire [by request -- thank you for listening!]
title: Lenin
album: Dark Was The Night Compilation

artist: Atlas Sound
title: Doctor (Five Discs Cover)
album: N/A

artist: A Sunny Day in Glasgow
title: Shy (Ernest Gonzalez Remix)
album: N/A

READ THE 20: YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO TRIP-HOP

artist: DJ Shadow
title: Midnight in a Perfect World
album: Endtroducing

artist: Portishead
title: Glory Box
album: Dummy

artist: Massive Attack
title: Unfinished Sympathy
album: Blue Lines

artist: Tricky
title: Hell Is Round the Round the Corner
album: Maxinquaye

artist: Kid Koala
title: Fender Bender
album: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

artist: Portishead
title: Machine Gun
album: Dummy

artist: Rob Dougan
title: Clubbed to Death
album: N/A

artist: Blockhead
title: Triptych PT 1
album: Music by Cavelight

artist: Wagon Christ
title: Tally Ho
album: Tally Ho

artist: Red Snapper
title: Like A Moving Truck
album: Making Bones

artist: Becoming X
title: Sneaker Pimps
album: Sneaker Pimps

artist: DJ Shadow
title: What Does Your SOul Look Like Pt. 2
album: Preemptive Strike

artist: Massive Attack
title: Inertia Creeps
album: Mezzanine

artist: No Connection
title: The Weight
album: Lovely Devils

artist: Lemuria
title: Mechanical
album: Get Better

artist: Mayflower
title: Movie Quotes & Inside Jokes
album: Awesome Stuff

artist: Alex Kerns
title: Clamor On
album: Lovely Letters

artist: This Day & Age
title: The Bell And The Hammer
album: The Real Stuff

artist: Goo Goo Dolls [by request -- thank you for listening!]
title: Iris
album: Not Good

artist: The Screw-Ups
title: Don’t Care Much About Reggae
album: EP

artist: The Felice Brothers [see photos from last night's show]
title: Greatest Show on Earth
album: The Felice Brothers

artist: Moustache [by request -- thank you for listening!]
title: That French Song
album: Love is French

When trip-hop became safe music that were played by the litterati at the vernissages and the slams, pioneered by the assault of Massive Attack onto the pop charts, one of the former members was working on an album that was going to turn my head.

Adrian Thaws, also known as Tricky, released the album in Maxinquaye, a swirling dark record that took from a bit of everywhere into a experience akin to the wall of sound made famous by Phil Spectre in the seventies. Swoshing beats, industrial patter, mechanical clangs blend on the record to form something quite unique.

This is a record that’s stayed with me since I bought it in 1995. I’ve had to replace it a few times, but it still has a given place in my CD-rack, or any CD rack that wants to call itself eclectic.

I’m happy that it is being re-released now, because it will allow younger generations to discover the record, and inspire because it’s up there with more popular artists’ records that lay claim to be groundbreaking. Prince’s Purple rain comes to mind.

Bajos, guitarras, voces palpitando. Me mueven por dentro.

Principio sin fín.

Velvet Underground.Venus in furs

Simplemente bueno.

Bauhaus.She’s in Parties.

Mántrico.

.

Tricky. Evolution Revolution love.

The Bristol sound, also known as trip-hop, was born from the British hip-hop and house scenes of the mid-1990s. Artists like Massive Attack, DJ Shadow and Portishead took the hybrid genre and turned it into a hip-hop-influenced electronica that harnessed a fanbase that reached between the Atlantic. The listening experience, likened to a “musical trip,” is one intensely focused on the abstract, atmospheric qualities of the genre. It has grown over the years to encompass turntablism, acid jazz, electro and dance into a hybrid genre that continues to expand into the contemporary hip-hop scene.

So what’s the very best of trip-hop? 20 Watts’ JOHN LUPOSELLO has the answer in our eighth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!

Place a slice of bread on the surface of our planet at excatly the same time as someone on the opposite side.

Based on a project by Ze Frank, map your efforts on their website.

Bonjour à toutes et à tous

Premier article pour le tout nouveau blog de Rock N Pages.

Rock’ Pages c’est le magazine littéraire qui aime la musique, diffusé un mercredi sur deux à 19h30, sur Divergence FM 93.9 FM à Montpellier

La Vérité sur Marie de Jean-Philippe Toussaint édité aux éditions de Minuit en cette rentrée littéraire 2009 est un roman magistral, tout droit issu du Nouveau Roman.

La Vérité sur Marie fait suite à “Fuir” et “Faire l’Amour” sortis en 2005 et 2002 toujours aux éditions de Minuit.

Sans vous en dire d’avantage, le but étant que vous écoutiez ce qui suit, sachez que dans Rock’n Pages, vous trouverez l’interview de l’auteur, la play list que j’associe au roman, et le titre choisi par l’auteur, lui-même pour évoquer son roman, en musique et sans mot.

A vos casques, bonne écoute.

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Pour les amoureux de musique qui lisent la playlist !

Générique : The Chase, Butterfly

1/Tricky, Hell is around the corner extrait de Maxinquaye

2/Beethoven, String quartet #16 in F, Opus 135 – 3, Lento Assai, Cantate E Tranquillo

3/Arcade Fire , Neighborhood # 1 (Tunnels) extrait de Funeral   

South Rakkas Crew has teamed up with the raspy whispering lyrical styles of Tricky to give his last album Knowle West Boy a heavy makeover newly titled Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew. The combo is amazing. I couldn’t find any leaks to DL but here’s a teaser and damn I want more. Tricky’s Knowle West Boy by itself is a sick album and you can get it here

The full record Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew drops November 30th.

Un día como hoy (3 de noviembre) de hace 30 años, el grupo M (así, a secas) o lo que es lo mismo, Robin Scott, publicó un single, “Pop Muzik”, que pasaría a formar parte de esa cruel lista llamada “One Hit Wonders”.

Según su autor “la canción pretendía ser un resumen de 25 años de historia del pop”, englobando todos los estilos del género, tanto el rock como la música disco.

El éxito fue tanto de la canción, que llegó a número 1 en Norteamérica, como del vídeo, en el que se hacía una parodia del play-back.

Gracias a esta notoriedad, M pudo publicar su primer álbum “New York-London-Paris-Munich” y la anécdota más graciosa durante la grabación es que David Bowie es el autor de las palmas que hacen de base rítmica.

Y después de “Pop Muzik”  ¿Qué? Pues nada, que nunca más se volvió a saber de M o de Robin Scott, pero su canción ha sido versioneada hasta la saciedad (U2, Tricky, Devo, entre otros) y con remixes discotequeros en cada década desde que saliera en los 70.

Así que se puede considerar a este pastiche un clásico, aunque ya nadie se acuerde de su autor.

“Pop Muzik” – M

We previously asked readers of this blog to guess the Mission: Explore mission for this draft illustration. Here it is..

How far can you get while sucking on one polo? Who can get the furthest?

Det er helt merkelig hvordan jeg ikke klarer å skrive når det er folk i nærheten. Om det sitter en fyr på sofaen 8 meter unna nøler jeg skikkelig med å skrive, og jeg føler alt jeg skriver blir teit og nøler også med å legge ut. Skjønner ikke helt hva som er så vanskelig egentlig, jeg har vel litt mer sosial angst enn det jeg selv får meg til å tro.

Dette er Tricky, han er litt av en luring.

Soundtrack: Massive Attack – Man Next Door

It is a tricky thing, being a foreigner in these parts;  tricky for the mind. We all perceive each other in such different ways and what I have come to learn and realize, even in my short time here, is how happy people are despite what they do not have. When I was walking around the school on the island facing Bushara I was conflicted. One part of me wanted to rush back to Canada, raise funds and return with computers, decent desks and tons of books. Then I stopped and realized that aid is a very complicated thing. Yes, the school was poorly funded and pupils were writing exams on the seats of chairs; certainly the library was small and insignificantly stocked; but the kids were laughing, smiling, happy and taking their studies very seriously. On the whole they were very happy to talk to me and let me snap photos, only two girls refused and asked for money and those two will probably end up running a municipality in Uganda.
Running in with arms laden with supplies is not the answer. Who would ever help themselves if people are always there to run in and save the day? This school was better than most, there were plenty of notebooks and pens, something that many schools lack, yet coming from my high tech school complete with smart board and IT lab, I did wish they had access to computers. Perhaps a better answer is to enable and inspire students to find the tools to empower themselves. They can work for what they need, figure out whom to ask, learn how to raise the funds and purchase their own laptops.
Like I said, it is a tricky one. I did wonder, after meeting so many happy people, if perhaps we are the ones who have it the wrong way round. Rather than rush in and tell them what they need, it might be those that live with less who will the last ones standing when the earth implodes under the weight of tossed ipods, computers and appliances.
One area that does need some kind of assistance is in the realm of opportunity. I met one young man who anxiously wants to go to University. Unless he is either very wealthy or comes top of his class, his chances are slim.