Happiest song: Romania<\/b> Ilinca ft. Alex Florea, \"Yodel It!\"<\/a>
Best overall video: France<\/b> Alma, \"Requiem\"<\/a>
Best atmospheric: Belgium<\/b> Blanche, \"City Lights\"<\/a>
Most haunting: Finland<\/b> Norma John, \"Blackbird\"<\/a> (content warning: suicide)
Minor trends
Songs blatantly about lust: Sweden, Montenegro
Drowning women: Malta, Finland
News headlines widely report that Italy is odds-on favorite to win, but I find their song too offensively orientalising to support this year.
Albania<\/b> Lindita, \"World\"<\/a>
What fantastic jewellery! The necklaces! The belt! They're covetable. Oh, and loads of CGI SF\/steampunk\/ruins settings, but those were less interesting. A shouty heavy metal number. I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics, except the repeated singing of \"impossible\", given steampunk airships flying over a wasteland of ruined archways. (But I can look up lyrics later: \"What's this fight all for? \/ What's the cost of life In this world? \/ All I ever really waaant \/ Is let the love unite us all...\")
Armenia<\/b> Artsvik, \"Fly With Me\"<\/a>
There are colors in this video! It is such a relief to see some color! It's a fairytale-ish setting with a powerful singer dressed in something either folkloric or pseudo-sfy and singers with red\/orange-painted faces. The song doesn't stick with me, only the relief of color. (\"Wanna tell a story, \/ About a girl with history. \/ Take it from my heart it\u2019s gonna be your beat, \/ Take it from my soul it\u2019s gonna be your heat.\")
Australia<\/b> Isaiah, \"Don't Come Easy\"<\/a>
What an appealing song! (I write, after having listened to about ten others so far before this.) Especially with that lovely little use of silence near the beginning and the soulful harmonies and the lyrics about how falling in love again is complicated. A focused video with a limited color palette, focusing on the sweet-faced young singer. (\"Been burned too many times \/ To love easily
Don\u2019t mistake me \/ My love runs deep \/ But it don\u2019t come easy \/ It don\u2019t come cheap\")
Austria<\/b> Nathan Trent, \"Running On Air\"<\/a>
What a nice travel video! An enterprising singer in the middle of winter in the snowy Alps by a gorgeous reflective lake climbs a mountain, assisted by various people he meets along the way. Filmed outdoors, it has color and air. It's a friendly indie pop number, the sort that is numerous some years but is vanishingly rare in this year's contest, so a breath of fresh air. (\"There\u2019ll be good times, there\u2019ll be bad times, \/ But I don't care, \/ \u2019Cause I\u2019m running on air\")
Azerbaijan<\/b> Dihaj, \"Skeletons\"<\/a>
Lush electronica with interesting vocal effects in mildly unsettling settings: a mirror self with skeleton hands, an illuminated bare-branched tree, driving down empty roads. An ambiguous relationship song. (\"Have my skeletons \/ [I can only trick you once, bad boy]\") Favorite bit of the band's bio: \"Music critics have called the band \"experimental doom pop\"\".
Belarus<\/b> Naviband, \"Story of My Life\"<\/a>
Oooh, is this a novelty video? Two happy dancing people frolicking through the winter forest while warmly dressed, with lots of \"hey hey hey hey\"s. Without understanding the lyrics, I'd guess it was some kind of lighthearted patriotic folk number.
Having read: it's the first-ever song in Belorussian in Eurovision, and the song is about a happy, healthy, robust relationship! How refreshingly unusual, especially this year!
Belgium<\/b> Blanche, \"City Lights\"<\/a>
A relatively subtle video starring a striking piece of empty architecture being sparely illuminated, and a distinctively quiet-voiced alto with glittery eyelids. Atmospheric and appealing. I'll return to this one.
Bulgaria<\/b> Kristian Kostov, \"Beautiful Mess\"<\/a>
Lovely, minor, melancholy, baffling, in a limited grey-brown palette. Are the birds, horse, and vignettes from fairy tales or folklore? What culture is that dancer from? Why are they pulling the boat across the soundstage? When the world is falling apart, does love *really* still conquer all necessarily? (\"Even in the line of fire \/ when everything is on the wire \/ Even up against the wall \/ our love is untouchable\") And yet, it wouldn't surprise me if this is one of those songs which grows on me in the long run.
Croatia<\/b> Jacques Houdek, \"My Friend\"<\/a>
A refreshing quiltwork of anthemic pop in English and operatic singing in Italian, both by the same singer, about aiming for dreams and not giving up hope. The narrow color palette is balanced by being filmed outdoors. (\"I pray you'll see the light and find your way. \/ La forza del destino che \u00e8 in te.\")
Cyprus<\/b> Hovig, \"Gravity\"<\/a>
It's meant to be a positive song, but with the darkness of the stage, the costumes, the lighting, and the doom-laden beat, it comes off sounding menacing. Ominous. If they'd opted for a more colorful video, I might feel more light-hearted about this song. One of many songs with long hair flipping. Also, vaguely contradictory lyrics. On one hand \"Let me be your wings when you\u2019re flying high\", on the other \"let me be your gravity\".
Czech Republic<\/b> Martina B\u00e1rta, \"My Turn\"<\/a>
A charming, minor, earnest song about looking after each other in life. The video (narrow dark color palette) is set on a blank soundstage with lots of minimally dressed people implying the tragedies and happinesses of life and the blank passing people by in crowds. Nicely done, but it would be a surprise if it went very far in the contest. (\"In this moment let me give to you what you\u2019ve given to me, that\u2019s the least I can do\")
Denmark<\/b> Anja, \"Where I Am\"<\/a>
So nice to have reds and golds: color! And a song about a positive relationship, to the extent that this time it's the singer who's been holding back, not the object of affection, and she's intending to do better. Filmed at a live stage performance. My mind wandered off over the course of it though. I see she's won The Voice Australia<\/i>.
Estonia<\/b> Koit Toome & Laura, \"Verona\"<\/a>
I really like the premise of this song, which it does not begin to exploit sufficiently. Lovely vocals duetting about how, romantically, \"we are lost in Verona\". The odd bit of orientalising elsewhere this year makes me highly suspicious of the lyrics \"this western type of woman; western type of man\". Filmed in black and skin color.
F.Y.R. Macedonia<\/b> Jana Bur\u010deska, \"Dance Alone\"<\/a>
A dance video which devotes time to watching dirty dishwater go down the drain. A sad older woman, on her own in her flat, does minor life things and occasionally puts on VR goggles to experience another reality (or her youth?) in which a passionate dance-based relationship involves breaking lots of glassware and she either misses it or wishes she had it in the first place. (\"And all I need to keep on movin\u2019 \/ Is the sound of my heartbeat\")
Finland<\/b> Norma John, \"Blackbird\"<\/a>
A chilling, awful mini-film for a hauntingly sad, beautiful lament with spare orchestration. \"Awful\" for values of \"I was't expecting a tragic tale in the midst of all of this\". It's effective filmography, really. Do not watch if you are feeling vulnerable. But a lovely song. (\"Now you remind me of something I'll never have \/ So blackbird don't sing\")
France<\/b> Alma, \"Requiem\"<\/a>
Ever wanted to see tango dancers dancing at impossible landmarks on major Parisian landmarks? This is your chance! It's a fun video, filmed in an early-morning-deserted Paris. The long-haired young singer wanders through that Paris, singing an appealing, upbeat minor-key tune about how love isn't forever, seize the moment while it lasts. And an impossible pair of dancers dance along on the underside and walls of monuments. (\"Des amours meurent \/ Des amours naissent \/ Les si\u00e8cles passent et disparaissent\")
Georgia<\/b> Tamara Gachechiladze, \"Keep The Faith\"<\/a>\t
This feels like a 'yay multiculturalism' from a world which does things a bit differently to my world. I think \"keep the faith\" may be \"hold on to what you believe in\", but it's an odd choice of word when the singer is explicitly meaning a niqab-wearer when she sings \"Who told you to hide behind the veil?\" So however good the intentions, I am uneasy. The video is a bunch of people standing around (with some singers standing around with them too), clearly intending to represent a wide diversity of people. With lyrics like \"Don't let nobody turn you down \/ Even if the world is rough\", it feels unrealistic. Sometimes, it's through no fault of their own that people are turned down.
Germany<\/b> Levina, \"Perfect Life\"<\/a>
What fantastically healthy lyrics, about the importance of making mistakes, in what feels like a classic modern Eurovision number. (\"Sometimes it's wrong before it's right \/ That's what you call a perfect life\") The video is fairly simple, of the singer - close up, further away, a variety of lighting - singing the song. A solid entry.
Greece<\/b> Demy, \"This is Love\"<\/a>
A sweet-natured dance song, singer in a red ballgown and tiara in a black-and-white opera house and irritating random lyrics splashed across the screen. Occasionally the bodies of visually diverse people are flip-booked together. It's mostly about wanting to fix a relationship, but with this baffling bit of lyric along the way (just the last line): \"There\u2019s an echo in my head \/ There's a story still unread \/ And I need you here tonight \/ Walk away don\u2019t turn around\".
Hungary<\/b> Joci P\u00e1pai, \"Origo\"<\/a>
Before reading translation and notes: what a creepy video. Dark, with a blindfolded woman, a woman spinning in a dark room while a man watches. A child dropping his teddy bear to play a guitar. Tears at the end. The song sounds despairing.
After reading: \"an exciting and unique blend of authentic gypsy music and modern pop\". The lyrics are very personal: dealing with prejudices against his bodily associations, taking up the guitar as a lifelong weapon at the age of four, his God showing him the way, and the tears are for the pain of the journey, echoing the lyrics rather than a specific relationship as you'd think from just the video.
Iceland<\/b> Svala, \"Paper\"<\/a>
There's a lot of angst in this year's contest entries. This one is about a painful relationship which makes the singer feel like the titular paper. Striking cheek bones and makeup, dressed for a club under her warm red parka, and filmed in an industrial white-tanked and -walled setting with some bonus laser lights. She has a powerful voice to support her yearning dance anthem. (\"Drawing every bit of my truth \/ color me in with your blue\")
Ireland<\/b> Brendan Murray, \"Dying to Try\"<\/a>
A healthy song about relationship difficulties, for a changed! It may have been filmed in the grey of winter, but just having so much of it outdoors made it feel more colorful. A charmingly earnest song which I liked more as it went along, with a thoughtful young man singing with depth. (\"Cos no one can promise \/ That love will ever learn how to fly\") Featuring a rare key change! I wish the song well.
Israel<\/b> IMRI, \"I Feel Alive\"<\/a>
It's an advertisement for Tel Aviv's beaches! A daytime party-on-the-beach dance video about a broken, if invigorating, relationship. Reading the lyrics, I honestly can't tell if this relationship has any potential or not. There's no good short bit to quote which makes sense of this conflict, so the lyrics are here<\/a>.
Italy<\/b> Francesco Gabbani, \"Occidentali's Karma\"<\/a>
I would like this song so much more if I didn't understand the lyrics. It's a pleasant, slightly upbeat pseudo-thinky pop piece, and very post-modern. \"Westerner's Karma\" takes liberally from from Buddhist meditation language, not least in the traditional Japanese room setting, and adds in a random dash of evolution and apes. (For an Italian pop song, \"Namaste, allez\" is really branching out in lyrics and language.) It is so very culturally appropriative. How on earth did it occur to anyone to write this song? Please, please skip the dancing ape for the stage show. Please. This song is, apparently, a favorite to win.
Latvia<\/b> Triana Park, \"Line\"<\/a>
A straightforward dance\/electronica song with a moderately interesting video, give or take the early overuse of strobe and Westerners dressed up as people from Japan for a little while. Very nice use of afterimages and other image manipulation. Initially in black-and-white, it develops a modicum of color.
Lithuania<\/b> Fusedmarc, \"Rain Of Revolution\"<\/a>
Shouty funk electronica with way too much visual static in the background. Live performance, bright red dress. It felt like I'm the wrong person for this song. (\"Figuring out meaning of love \/ Breaking the rational views and narrow limits\")
Malta<\/b> Claudia Faniello, \"Breathlessly\"<\/a>
*Another* drowning woman? Except this time the story's in reverse, the fight undone, the champagne bubbling back into the bottle, and ending with a kiss when the relationship was still good. But what kind of happy ending is that? The song's an anthemic ballad, a lament, sung by a powerful solo woman, for a broken relationship. (\"There\u2019s an echo in my head \/ There's a story still unread\")
Moldova<\/b> Sunstroke Project, \"Hey Mamma\"<\/a>
It's meant to be funny, which is probably why I don't really like it. I mean, I DO like the premise of the song itself, i.e. singing to a protective mother about how it's okay her daughter is in a relationship with the singer. But the video keeps doing a bait-and-switch as to which woman in the family is being seduced. A return of Sunstroke Project to Eurovision, complete with saxophone and violins.
Montenegro<\/b> Slavko Kalezi\u0107, \"Space\"<\/a>
Classic disco number with a bare-chested singer with really, really long hair in a braid being tossed around a lot, sometimes rather creepily. The most sfnal lyrics thus far, most of which are overtly lust-related analogies, slightly more subtle (barely) in this example: \"Show me your superpowers \/ I'm Venus and Mars of the hour \/ I'll protect you if you come my way \/ Let's soar through the Milky Way\".
Norway<\/b> JOWST, \"Grab The Moment\"<\/a>
This song is not to my taste. Tuneful rap electronica, featuring a guitarist with a weird LED-lit mask and refrain that goes \"I\u2019m gonna kill, kill, kill, kill that voice in my head, \/ I don\u2019t care if I\u2019m falling, \/ I\u2019m gonna grab the moment.\"
Poland<\/b> Kasia Mo\u015b, \"Flashlight\"<\/a>
The creepy discomfort of watching bleak landscapes projected on the singer's naked torso has made me reconceptualize the tension in bits of Catherynne Valente's Radiance<\/i>. It's a \"not sure if this love is right or wrong but I'm going to make it work\" song, full of tension and a rich scoring of strings. (\"Like two animals on the run \/ Not afraid to fly into the sun \/ Invisible we don\u2019t leave a trace \/ We\u2019re shadows in love we were ghosts\")
Portugal<\/b> Salvador Sobral, \"Amar Pelos Dois\"<\/a>\t
A soothing old fashioned night club number with violins, sung by a relaxed singer with idiosyncratic body language and a real affection for his song. The song's about optimism in giving a relationship a second try. Filmed at a live performance with lots of whirling around camerawork.
Romania<\/b> Ilinca ft. Alex Florea, \"Yodel It!\"<\/a>
I love this! It makes me so happy! And I never expected that a song involving yodelling might not be a novelty song. This is a joyous rap\/rock\/yodelling number to delight and please. One singer is on a random concrete column high above a city. Another joins him on another column through the power of enthusiasm. Others eventually rise up into the air the same way, although whether through joy or by logging on to the singers' website is unclear.
San Marino<\/b> Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson, \"Spirit of the Night\"<\/a>
A conversational duet with a whole lot of key changes are what distinguishes this entry. Happy clubbing people looking for each other and the singers finally getting to dance together. (\"Him: You\u2019ve got me feeling right - and I can see the future is bright \/ Her: I\u2019ll take your blues away\")
Serbia<\/b> Tijana Bogi\u0107evi\u0107, \"In Too Deep\"<\/a>
Ever wanted to know what bobble fringes look like underwater? This is your chance to find out! A song about being in over one's head in a broken relationship, starring spinning around in a hoop trapeze, floating underwater, and dancing with gauzy laundry-like sheets, all in a limited color palette with the odd small patch of color. The song's a perfectly decent pop piece. (\"Won\u2019t somebody save me tonight \/ Feels like I\u2019ve been sentenced to life \/ I\u2019m falling so deep \/ I\u2019m in too deep\")
Slovenia<\/b> Omar Naber, \"On My Way\"<\/a>
The song itself is refreshing, the first male power anthem I've heard in this contest so far, about solo strength and going forward alone. (The lyrics on their own sound kinda suicidal though: \"You've all been very kind, but I made up my mind. \/ Now I'm about to leave you all behind. \/ I'm feeling so alone. I'm turning down my tone. \/ Before the rise of sun I will be gone.\".) Now if only they hadn't filmed the video in black and white, with the weirdness of a man dressed in Tudor robes doing twitchy hand-arm dancing. (There's a real name for this. It shows up in hip-hop and street and I'm not doing the dancing style justice at all, because it read more effectively when the dancer was later dressed in a style which made his arms visible.)
Spain<\/b> Manel Navarro, \"Do It For Your Lover\"<\/a>\t
A sweet, forgettable travel video with guitar and singing, with lots of lovely coastline, waves, surfing, appealing icy cocktails, and gratuitous butt shots of the one female surfer.
Sweden<\/b> Robin Bengtsson, \"I Can't Go On\"<\/a>
A funky song about lust with highly repetitive lyrics. Filmed at a stage performance in suits, no ties. Highlights: treadmills, half the dancers present as gender ambiguous.(\"I just can\u2019t go on no more \/ When you look this freakin\u00b4 beautiful\")
Switzerland<\/b> Timebelle, \"Apollo\"<\/a>
Happy dancing older people! A striking, yet mostly elegant, glittery dress! An extraordinarily dusty piano which is then played! Not a bad song, but not a major one either. (\"No I will never let you go \/ Give it time and we will grow \/ Ain't no fun in easy \/ I follow you Apollo\")
The Netherlands<\/b> OG3NE, \"Lights and Shadows\"<\/a>
A hopeful three-part harmony pop number filmed in the dark, dark gloom of a barely-backlit forest at night. Lovely, breathy voices, but now that I've read more of their story, I know the song's a tribute to their mother who's dying of something incurable. It's mourning, it's a tribute, it's encouragement and dreaming in the face of certain loss. (\"But you are so much more to me \/ than the one who carries all the burden \/ I can only hope, once you fly, you\u2019ll be free\")
Ukraine<\/b> O.Torvald, \"Time\"<\/a>
Well that was stressful! While playing this wistful heavy metal number, the singers bear digital countdown clocks erupting disturbingly from their flesh, red digits ticking down the time to... what? I could barely pay attention to the music. The lyrics have a similar balance between edgy and yearning (with a pinch of the anodyne): \"Just listen \/ Take a look around \/ Stop missing \/ The things you haven't found\". I feel like this song could grow on me if I listened without the imperiousness of the clocks.
United Kingdom<\/b> Lucie Jones, \"Never Give Up On You\"<\/a>
A video in which the singer appears in a bunch of different outfits and hairdos and largely black-and-white lighting. The lyrics are largely earnest clich\u00e9s. It's about sticking with one's loved one in spite of turmoil in the relationship\/world\/something. But the yearning refrain did, melodically, grow on me over the course of the video. It's fine. I hope the stage show is better.<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1373410","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1373410.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1373410"}}],"title":"The start of goodbye","published":"2017-03-27T13:11:30Z","updated":"2017-03-27T13:11:30Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"island nation"}},"content":"I wrote this for a four-year-old, trying to minimize the amount of challenging vocabulary incorporated. Perhaps someone else out there would like something like this for their small person.
*
Today, now, our country is part of a group of other countries.
We can go live and work in any of them.
We can bring back a car full of toys from any of them. (If we want to, which your parents do not.)
The group helps make the water clean. It is now easy to buy food from the other countries. It is now easy to use our phones in the other countries. The group of countries is called the EU.
This week, our country says goodbye to the group. It will take two years to leave. This week the leaving starts. Leaving needs lots of paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.
There will be lots of meetings. They will be tricky meetings. The other countries do not want to say goodbye. Our country still wants to buy a car full of toys, but not be part of the group.
We do not know what will happen. We worry a lot.
Here are some of our worries.
Phones may cost more to use.
Food may cost more to buy.
Clean water may not be as safe as now.
We may only be able to bring back a few toys.
We may only go live and work in the other countries with lots of paperwork.
This week, our country says goodbye. In two years, our country leaves the EU. Whatever happens after, there will be lots of paperwork."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1370356","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1370356.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1370356"}}],"title":"Pancake races","published":"2017-02-21T16:59:52Z","updated":"2017-02-21T16:59:52Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"school days"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"polls"}}],"content":"Apropos of an Oxford Reading Tree book...
View Poll: Pancake races<\/a><\/div>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1364519","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1364519.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1364519"}}],"title":"Not a real post","published":"2016-12-29T10:51:10Z","updated":"2016-12-29T10:51:10Z","content":"I keep wanting to post things but can't currently make non-public posts. The interface won't let me."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1356673","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1356673.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1356673"}}],"title":"At Dawn","published":"2016-09-13T20:14:53Z","updated":"2016-09-13T20:15:39Z","content":"The Italian version of \"Let it go\" always seemed a little wordy compared to some of the others. It's called \"All'alba sorger\u00f2\". At dawn, I will rise up.
Tonight, Grouting was talking about never going to sleep, which inevitably led to \"Nessun dorma\". Only as we got to the end did I suddenly realize the parallels in the songs have to be deliberate.
\"Nessun dorma\"
* Is sung to a fairly inaccessible princess in a tower
* The princess is in a cold room. (\"fredda stanza\")
* The singer knows lots of people will die because of the subject he's singing about.
* The song is, in part, about the dangers of telling the truth.
* Ends with \"all'alba vincer\u00f2\", at dawn I will win.
* Use of the verb \"tramontare\", to set \"tramontate stelle\", set stars
\"All'alba sorger\u00f2\"
* Is about a queen in a fairly inaccessible tower
* The queen is in an ice palace. Cold. (\"da oggi il freddo \u00e8 casa mia\")
* The singer is unaware that lots of people will die\/their lives will be threatened by the subject she's singing about
* The song is, in part, about the dangers of having lied in the past and telling the truth in the future.
* Includes the line \"All'alba sorger\u00f2\", at dawn I will rise up (where the English is \"The past is in the past.\")
* Use of the verb \"tramontare\", to set - \"come il sole tramonter\u00f2\", how the sun will set"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1348480","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1348480.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1348480"}}],"title":"Eurovision 2016","published":"2016-05-08T22:24:15Z","updated":"2016-05-10T12:13:26Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"eurovision"}},"content":"This year features lots of long curly-haired singers and very little scruffle, so that's good. Lots of outdoors cinemetography, and even more people inspired by last year's winner to do something with VR interactions, to variable success. There's a sad lack of dancing in the videos overall this year; hopefully the stage shows will do better.
The best overall song: Australia<\/b> Dami Im \t\"Sound of Silence\"<\/a>
The happiest: France<\/b> Amir \t\"J'ai cherch\u00e9\"<\/a>
The cutest: Austria<\/b> Zo\u00eb \t\"Loin d'ici\" \tFar from here<\/a>
The one with the excessive video budget: Russia<\/b> Sergey Lazarev \t\"You Are the Only One\"<\/a>
Best dancing: Belgium<\/b> Laura Tesoro \t\"What's the Pressure\"<\/a>
Best ghosts: Iceland<\/b> Greta Sal\u00f3me \t\"Hear Them Calling\"<\/a>
Most sweetly amusing for the right reasons: Sweden<\/b> Frans \t\"If I Were Sorry\"<\/a>
The first semi-final is tonight! The UK gets to vote in the second semi-final on Thursday.
Albania<\/b> Eneda Tarifa \t\"Fairytale\"<\/a>
I spent much of this video thinking about how the world needs more fantastical and architectural swings. Sculptors of the world should make more swings. The video doesn't cohere - random bits of clocks, stairway to somewhere celestial, forest swing, woman hiding red; the lyrics were a little too mindlessly needy for my tastes (\"I'd fight for you, I'd die for you, and that's why I love you.\"); and the singing verged on the shouty.
Armenia<\/b> Iveta Mukuchyan \t\"LoveWave\"<\/a>
\"It's like I've stepped out of space and time, and come alive.\" A lot of work went into this video, which fades in and out between a lonely-eyed man with long flowing hair and a beard (there's been none of last year's scruffle yet) and a long-haired singer and surreal lighting and what looks like microscopic, oddly lit details. On first hearing\/watching, it doesn't do a lot for me.
Australia<\/b> Dami Im \t\"Sound of Silence\"<\/a>
A confident, well-sung anthem about being alone with an absent (or possibly ex-) partner. It grew on me over the course of the atmospheric video, in which the very elegant singer emotes while a very athletic dancer leaps around and nearby.
Austria<\/b> Zo\u00eb \t\"Loin d'ici\" \tFar from here<\/a>
An adorably sweet little happy song that goes nowhere, accompanied by a gorgeous video of an ever-changing watercolor landscape. Also, unlike France's, this one's all in French! I really like it. It makes me happy.
Azerbaijan<\/b> Samra \t\"Miracle\"<\/a>
A charismatic woman in a barren brick room sings about the death of a relationship. The best parts of the song are the choruses, but much of it is structured out of English clich\u00e9s. I'm not wholly sure the oddest clich\u00e9 was intended: \"It's gonna take a mirro(r), mirro(r) miracle.\" I suppose the death of a relationship can be a hard blow for the narcissistic?
Belarus<\/b> Ivan \t\"Help You Fly\"<\/a>
A fairly straightforward rock song, whose video stars an animated wolf behind the live singer. Really? Do you think of wolves when you think of flying? At least there's an eagle (or some bird of prey) at the end. It's okay. It's not hugely interesting. And the lyrics don't quite cohere. (\"It's time you released yourself \/ Before you can let go \/ I will help you learn how to fly,\")
Belgium<\/b> Laura Tesoro \t\"What's the Pressure\"<\/a>
Happy funky big band brass dance with ACTUAL DANCING. I'd been thinking dancing was a little scarce in the videos this year, and there's a bunch of people energentically and coordinatedly dancing! The singer is a cute curly-haired redhead. And the song's not bad either.
Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/b> Dalal & Deen feat. Ana Rucner and Jala \t\"Ljubav je\"<\/a>
It's a fairly pedestrian, if yearningly enthusiastic, song (in Bosnian!) framing a moment where a bearded rapper suddenly appears and raps at an emotional, sexily-dressed cellist playing the bones of an electric cello. That's a fantastic moment. I spent most of the rest of the song admiring the architectural setting for the song. It must be somewhere famous, if only I knew my Bosnian architecture.
Bulgaria<\/b> Poli Genova \t\"If Love Was a Crime\"<\/a>
I like the song so, so much better than the video. I can see myself dancing around to this in the future, in spite of the frequent clich\u00e9s in the lyrics, but the black-and-white video plot basically seeks to undermine the message of the song. Don't show me love betrayed when the song is about a solid relationship.
Croatia<\/b> Nina Kralji\u0107 \t\"Lighthouse\"<\/a>
Lots of excellent nature cinematography on fast-forward (leading to lightning strobe effects), accompanied by nautical metaphors. The singer has a good voice. The song was a little whiny more than the plaintive it was trying for.
Cyprus<\/b> Minus One \t\"Alter Ego\"<\/a>
Big, satisfying power rock with lots of gothic elements to the video. The band plays under pylons in the countryside. There's a wolf. There's a raven. A long flowing black lace dress or cape. But it's overcast daytime, near sunrise or sunset, so it's not too dark. The only song so far (I'm most of the way through, not watching in order) which inspired me to actual dancing.
Czech Republic<\/b> Gabriela Gun\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 \t\"I Stand\"<\/a>
Trying to move on (or not) from a lost or impossible relationship. Lots of refrain about standing, but the singer sure looks like she's lying down for the animations - VR, stop-motion - taking place around her. I like the flower and gem stop-motion sections. Could take or leave the song.
Denmark<\/b> Lighthouse X \t\"Soldiers of Love\"<\/a>
A pleasingly upbeat little number with some harmonies in it. The video is a stage show with lots of lights for framing. A happy trio of positive men. I wish it well. (\"Take my hand \/ And never let go \/ Never let go \/ And let\u2019s be soldiers of love\")
Estonia<\/b> J\u00fcri Pootsmann \t\"Play\"<\/a>
Bits of this video seem James Bond inspired, especially a brief snippet of bass line. It's about a man who's convinced a more uncertain person to give him a try, as sung by a richly bass-voiced man. (\"we ain't got all night \/ to find out what is right \/ so let's go undecided till we know\") The video is a polished stage show with a darkly-lit evening club vibe.
Finland<\/b> Sandhja \t\"Sing It Away\"<\/a>
A mildly tedious dance number from a couple of decades ago. The video is odd: there are dancers with grey-and-white tiger stripes and long cowboy-style arm fringes, and some children who should go out to play, but the quiet introspective one is drawing a horse, who is also real and historically-fantasy-ish, being ridden through surf and countryside.
France<\/b> Amir \t\"J'ai cherch\u00e9\"<\/a>
A sweet and happy tale of a young man learning ballet and a young girl learning boxing, which doubles as an Olympics promotional piece, and stars a happy singer: \"You're the one who's making me strong.\" I am mildly disappointed that France is entering a piece in both French and English. Help keep up the non-English linguistic variety, please!
Georgia<\/b> Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz \t\"Midnight Gold\"<\/a>
It's a rare novelty number! There's a mad scientist and an android playing a play-doh-style ukelele, and lots of old movie clich\u00e9s acted out, and the girl gets done in (in a silly and abstract way) halfway through. Grunge, guitars, lots of strobe effects.
Germany<\/b> Jamie-Lee \t\"Ghost\"<\/a>
Germany. Oh Germany. I like cosplay and I'm still not sure what to do with this. It's a woman in a turquoise satin skirt and white top with a hat with silver pompoms and bows and a sleeping panda, singing with a landscape of green laser-beam shining skeletal trees, live on stage. The refrain has more immediate appeal; the verses involve unexpectedly-deep-voiced moments - she has good range. The happiest use of \"Tell me, who's scared now?\" I've ever encountered. She's not taking herself seriously at least. Could someone else watch it and tell me what they think?
Greece<\/b> Argo \t\"Utopian Land\"<\/a>
No. A bare-chest man jogs slowly through a barren, cgi, moonlit landscape and occasionally it's video-game like with things to duck or leap over. There are a few seconds near the end of slow-motion, black-and-white dancers which were gorgeous; more of that, please. Also, I approve of lyres. The lyrics are mostly - if not entirely - positive, but the folkloric hiphop melody sounded despairing. (\"We are the rise in the rising sun \/ join with us for a Utopian Land\")
Hungary<\/b> Freddie \t\"Pioneer\"<\/a>
Halfway through this ridiculous video of a live stage recording, I realized I was tapping along to the moderately catchy song. It even has some interesting lyrics. (\"In a world where poems sound fake\".) The song is about being true to yourself. The video, on the other hand, involved a spectacularly athletic taiko drummer, eclipsed by firey light effects in the background, glow sticks, and whistling. Next time, let's just watch the drummer.
Iceland<\/b> Greta Sal\u00f3me \t\"Hear Them Calling\"<\/a>
An interesting one! Country-inflected folk rock about ghosts or the undead or fears or whatever the \"shadows\" are. The shadows interact with the singer, destroyed by her or destroying, looming and passing by. The video is largely quite dark, with supersaturated over-bright moments and an excess of strobe towards the end. It's a stage show. (\"See the shadows dancing \/ Oh, they dance for us tonight \/ And as I\u2019m tossing and I\u2019m turning \/ Oh, they come alive \/ We shiver as we step into the cold, cold night \/ Then we\u2019re running, we are running now\") But despite all this, it's not really a negative or scared song. It accepts.
Ireland<\/b> Nicky Byrne \t\"Sunlight\"<\/a>
I think I would like this foot-tapping dance song more if I heard it and weren't watching the video. The video uses half of its screen estate to show the lyrics, which means that I was analyzing the lyrics instead of enjoying any of it more broadly. Instead, I kept suspiciously eyeing the line of the refrain \"Touch who you wanna\". No consent is discussed, but presumably the lyrics mean \"without judgement of others\" rather than \"consent\". I'd like to think so anyways.
Israel<\/b> Hovi Star \t\"Made of Stars\"<\/a>
Lots of drones as proxies for stars! It kept being hilarious in the moment, but it's sweet really, and I suspect this is a song which will grow on me with repeated listening. \"Dance with me like we are made of stars\". It's a sweet\/serious melancholy song framed with a nighttime city wander.
Italy<\/b> Francesca Michielin \t\"No Degree of Separation\"<\/a>
A visual musing, inspired by last year's winning song, on real life vs. virtual reality. Nicely done. The song is pleasant, but wordy, and not particularly catchy.
Latvia<\/b> Justs \t\"Heartbeat\"<\/a>
I like the song more than the video. The song is an introspective, despairing, foot-tapping exploration of desperation for a defunct relationship. (\"I\u2019m getting wild when I\u2019m alone \/ I learned by heart \u2013 you\u2019re not my own\") It's by the same person who wrote last year's, which eventually came to be one of my very favorites from last year, so clearly I like her work. I'm writing this while listening to it again, without the distraction of the CCTV-trapped in a jail cell-lasers video.
Lithuania<\/b> Donny Montell \t\"I've Been Waiting for This Night\"<\/a>
\"Through a thousand years, through a million tears, I've been waiting for this night.\" If I take video and lyrics at their word, then this immortal man has spent his undead lifetime waiting for tonight to meet the prostitute who by sunrise would claim his heart. How appropriate that YouTube cued up Ireland's \"Sunlight\" to play right after.
Macedonia<\/b> Kaliopi \t\"Dona\" (\u0414\u043e\u043d\u0430)<\/a>
A grand, positive, inspirational piece with strings, filmed in an empty opera house, which might have done more for me if I were not at the tail end of listening to a whole lot of Eurovision entries. It would repay relistening. The singer has the voice to carry the piece.
Malta<\/b> Ira Losco \t\"Walk on Water\"<\/a>
This one doesn't do much for me. I spent more time wondering about the casting choice of contortionist? partner? are they going to lock him in a water box and he has to escape within three minutes for the stage show? Where was that filmed it looks really interesting and old? Having looked them up, they're the Salt Pans on the north coast, thought to have been in use at least since Roman times.
Moldova<\/b> Lidia Isac \t\"Falling Stars\"<\/a>
Bored now. Dear singer: please try harder to express emotions, especially when singing about big ones. Dear producer: it's a dancey kind of piece. Could there be some dancing, please?
Montenegro<\/b> Highway \t\"The Real Thing\"<\/a>
Heavy rock, flashy lights, an energetic female dancer flipping her hair around, and played backwards for unflipping hair. Not really all that interesting. (\"Feeling I'm the real thing, yeah.\")
Netherlands<\/b> Douwe Bob \t\"Slow Down\"<\/a>
Classic rock with a country feel, friends hanging out at the pub. \"Slow down, brother, slow down if you can't go on.\" And it's SHORT! The video is 2:43. Not bad. Not great. Could grow on me.
Norway<\/b> Agnete \t\"Icebreaker\"<\/a>
I like this one! I like it for its tempo change at the refrain, for a woman saying she'll do the rescuing in this relationship, for the woman singing in endless snow or ice, and for some of its lyrics. (\"Like a northern light \/ You\u2019re dancing over every border line \/ Passing every sign \/ Between reality and fiction \") It's a big, yearning pop ballad.
Poland<\/b> Micha\u0142 Szpak \t\"Color of Your Life\"<\/a>
A big yearning torch-song (everyone sway!) whose video is informed by modern medieval aesthetics. Long wavy-haired male singer, lonely old tower, the ruins of an old church, leafless trees, snow-capped mountains in the distance. On first listen, I was trying to place where I'd heard that chord progression\/tune before. (It hasn't come to me yet.) There's a risk this one will end up earworming me. (\"Fame and gold are nothing \u2013 you can be sure \/ When there is no love in your heart\")
Russia<\/b> Sergey Lazarev \t\"You Are the Only One\"<\/a>
This is an impressive, well-done video. The song's not bad (a driving song of yearning love), but it's not as good as the video is. A whirlwind VR tour of dangerous places, a falling ceiling, fire-breathers with a key change. Apparently it's a favorite to win.
San Marino<\/b> Serhat \t\"I Didn't Know\"<\/a>
Once I got beyond the sultry nightclub vibe, the different style of song was mildly refreshing, especially the smokey-voiced singer. It's not contemporary pop. That doesn't mean I'm convinced I actually like it though. My greatest hope for this song is that it will produce some excellent dancing on stage in competition.
Serbia<\/b> Sanja Vu\u010di\u0107 ZAA \t\"Goodbye (Shelter)\"<\/a>
I want her dress. It's gorgeous. An off-the-shoulder band of chain-mail over floor-length metallic silver cloth. The rest of it isn't quite as beautiful: this is an impassioned song about escaping from an emotionally-abusive relationship. The singer overacts and is excessively made-up. (\"It's Cleopatra\", I thought on first sight. But her orangey-red lipstick is clashing with her blue eyeshadow.) But she has power and range, vocally.
Slovenia<\/b> ManuElla \t\"Blue and Red\"<\/a>
Bluegrass-inflected pop with some interesting lyrics and a slightly random - if highly-polished - video of the singer doing stuff around outdoor filming things: caravan, lights, sundappled dark barn. \"You feel blue and I feel better.\" My first impression is that it's a bit of mixed bag, but there's potential to grow on me.
Spain<\/b> Barei \t\"Say Yay!\"<\/a>
I was expecting this song to be ironic, based on the title, but it absolutely isn't. It's a love-life song straight from the '80s.
Sweden<\/b> Frans \t\"If I Were Sorry\"<\/a>
A likeable, somewhat intellectual, exploration of young romance. (\"For you it's just another dance.\") Some of the better lyric-writing in Eurovision this year. A young man has a weekend escape of silliness with a girl at his high school (I assume), and then \"If I were sorry, I would give you all the glory\". It's sweetly amusing, in a nominally serious way.
Switzerland<\/b> Rykka \t\"The Last of Our Kind\"<\/a>
The singer's weirdly thin voice ruins this song for me. The science fictional lyrics appeal. (\"Standing tall at the end of the story,
Watching worlds collide\") The tune is entirely adequate. I'd like to hear it sung by someone up for expressing its anthemic aspects.
Ukraine<\/b> Jamala \t\"1944\"<\/a>
\"Everyone dies\", sings the performer, clad in white formalwear, and almost keening towards the end, with huge, controlled vocal range. I was put off at first, but it's an increasingly enthralling song. The video is just of the singer performing it live on stage. I'm not quiet sure what to make of it, but it seems powerful.
United Kingdom<\/b> Joe & Jake \t\"You're Not Alone\"<\/a>
Put it this way. I'd forgotten I'd already listened to this song a couple of months ago when it was chosen. The video doesn't appear to have that much work put into it, which makes me think the producers have given up on even trying to win this year. It's a song about dancing (with very little dancing in it) and either supportive secrecy\/relationships or else a very controlling relationship. It's pleasantly anodyne.
<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1347340","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1347340.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1347340"}}],"title":"Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on","published":"2016-04-21T09:58:22Z","updated":"2016-04-21T09:59:39Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"london"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"theater"}}],"content":"I went to my first immersive theatre performance on Friday, a combination of trusting the parameters of something based on The Tempest<\/i> and supporting a friend. It turns out that immersive theatre, at least this instance of it, is everything I hoped for from LARPs but never quite found there. I loved it. I loved it enough that I went back again, and would go back still more, but the run is only on for two weeks, ending this Saturday, and I can't fit another trip in.
\"Such Stuff As Dreams are Made On\"<\/a> is an exploration of the island of The Tempest<\/i> from many angles all at once, with the original plot underlying it, to give it structure and pacing. Each audience member explores the world as they wish, lurking in the corner of rooms or chasing after specific actors, often with the added challenge of crowded corridors. There is no way to see everything happening, and that gives depth to the world. What were those distant cries? Where are those people rushing? Who is that character?
The set is lushly realized with a satisfying deep level of constructed reality. There is real sand and origami boats, the scent of herbs and the glow of colored glass. And there is the lushly complex soundtrack tying all of the spaces together.
My favorite moments were the intimate ones. Just three of us and an actor. Just me and an actor. All parts of the story braid cohering the island into an atmosphere, into placeness.
Sedos is a long-running amateur theatre company; the \"amateur\" is why the work they have put into this experience is so transitory. They all have day jobs.
It's too late to buy tickets - they're all sold out - but when I showed up at 6:15 yesterday to queue for returns (cash payment only, \u00a316 full price), I was only the second one there and we all got in."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1334439","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1334439.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1334439"}}],"title":"Nutcracker","published":"2016-01-10T22:44:02Z","updated":"2016-01-10T23:27:18Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"grouting"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"london"}}],"content":"We had tickets today to go see the Nutcracker, the English National Ballet at the London Coliseum.
Back in December, in preparation, we checked out a copy of Ella Bella Ballerina and the Nutcracker<\/i> from the library, the story of a girl who joins Clara in experiencing much of the plot. We've been reading it (by Grouting's request) on a near-daily basis. This last week, I showed her videos of specific pieces from it, and then the whole of the first act. (Just as well so she could start processing the scariness of the mice.)
Today, we joined![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/userinfo_v8.png?v=17080&v=916.1\")
<\/a>naxos<\/b><\/a><\/span> and friends in going to one of the few under-5-friendly performances of it. It was, on the whole, very nicely done, with some truly spectacular dancing and good minor variants on the plot in the first act. The second act, alas, had even less plot than usual.
The audience was chockful of children, and Grouting commentated and questioned the whole way through, but all topically and in a quiet voice. All that preparation paid off. (And no one shushed her, unlike the fairly quiet but unfortunate-in-neighbors two-year-old in our group.)
In case any of you are going and care: SPOILERS FOLLOW.
1. The mouse king survives until the second act, which is great because he's funny and engaging and mischievous, and hitches a ride on a rope dangling from the hot air balloon. The best way to have gotten more plot from act 2 would have been to let him survive EVEN LONGER. But then Clara doesn't kill him or even really injure him; the Nutcracker does it single-handedly. So, Clara loses her best bit of agency.
2. The death is the introduction to the Drosselmeyer Show (aka dance of the National Stereotypes) which follows. He's come along with the hot air balloon for transport to the land of the Stage Show in act 2. Each dance is revealed by a stage within the stage, in echo of the puppet show of act 1. As a result, the Sugar Plum Fairy shows up exactly once in act 2, for her solo number. She's not the host of the land of sweets. And so she loses all her agency.
Dear English National Ballet: Why did you have to make all your plot changes at the expense of your erstwhile female protagonists?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1327019","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1327019.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1327019"}}],"title":"The night of bad jokes","published":"2015-11-01T23:03:10Z","updated":"2015-11-01T23:03:10Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"two sides of one ocean"}}],"content":"My sister tells me that telling jokes to earn one's treat for Halloween is a Des Moines thing. People in the DC area don't do it. Really?
Tonight, Grouting was talking about never going to sleep, which inevitably led to \"Nessun dorma\". Only as we got to the end did I suddenly realize the parallels in the songs have to be deliberate.
\"Nessun dorma\"
* Is sung to a fairly inaccessible princess in a tower
* The princess is in a cold room. (\"fredda stanza\")
* The singer knows lots of people will die because of the subject he's singing about.
* The song is, in part, about the dangers of telling the truth.
* Ends with \"all'alba vincer\u00f2\", at dawn I will win.
* Use of the verb \"tramontare\", to set \"tramontate stelle\", set stars
\"All'alba sorger\u00f2\"
* Is about a queen in a fairly inaccessible tower
* The queen is in an ice palace. Cold. (\"da oggi il freddo \u00e8 casa mia\")
* The singer is unaware that lots of people will die\/their lives will be threatened by the subject she's singing about
* The song is, in part, about the dangers of having lied in the past and telling the truth in the future.
* Includes the line \"All'alba sorger\u00f2\", at dawn I will rise up (where the English is \"The past is in the past.\")
* Use of the verb \"tramontare\", to set - \"come il sole tramonter\u00f2\", how the sun will set"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1348480","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1348480.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1348480"}}],"title":"Eurovision 2016","published":"2016-05-08T22:24:15Z","updated":"2016-05-10T12:13:26Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"eurovision"}},"content":"This year features lots of long curly-haired singers and very little scruffle, so that's good. Lots of outdoors cinemetography, and even more people inspired by last year's winner to do something with VR interactions, to variable success. There's a sad lack of dancing in the videos overall this year; hopefully the stage shows will do better.
The best overall song: Australia<\/b> Dami Im \t\"Sound of Silence\"<\/a>
The happiest: France<\/b> Amir \t\"J'ai cherch\u00e9\"<\/a>
The cutest: Austria<\/b> Zo\u00eb \t\"Loin d'ici\" \tFar from here<\/a>
The one with the excessive video budget: Russia<\/b> Sergey Lazarev \t\"You Are the Only One\"<\/a>
Best dancing: Belgium<\/b> Laura Tesoro \t\"What's the Pressure\"<\/a>
Best ghosts: Iceland<\/b> Greta Sal\u00f3me \t\"Hear Them Calling\"<\/a>
Most sweetly amusing for the right reasons: Sweden<\/b> Frans \t\"If I Were Sorry\"<\/a>
The first semi-final is tonight! The UK gets to vote in the second semi-final on Thursday.
Albania<\/b> Eneda Tarifa \t\"Fairytale\"<\/a>
I spent much of this video thinking about how the world needs more fantastical and architectural swings. Sculptors of the world should make more swings. The video doesn't cohere - random bits of clocks, stairway to somewhere celestial, forest swing, woman hiding red; the lyrics were a little too mindlessly needy for my tastes (\"I'd fight for you, I'd die for you, and that's why I love you.\"); and the singing verged on the shouty.
Armenia<\/b> Iveta Mukuchyan \t\"LoveWave\"<\/a>
\"It's like I've stepped out of space and time, and come alive.\" A lot of work went into this video, which fades in and out between a lonely-eyed man with long flowing hair and a beard (there's been none of last year's scruffle yet) and a long-haired singer and surreal lighting and what looks like microscopic, oddly lit details. On first hearing\/watching, it doesn't do a lot for me.
Australia<\/b> Dami Im \t\"Sound of Silence\"<\/a>
A confident, well-sung anthem about being alone with an absent (or possibly ex-) partner. It grew on me over the course of the atmospheric video, in which the very elegant singer emotes while a very athletic dancer leaps around and nearby.
Austria<\/b> Zo\u00eb \t\"Loin d'ici\" \tFar from here<\/a>
An adorably sweet little happy song that goes nowhere, accompanied by a gorgeous video of an ever-changing watercolor landscape. Also, unlike France's, this one's all in French! I really like it. It makes me happy.
Azerbaijan<\/b> Samra \t\"Miracle\"<\/a>
A charismatic woman in a barren brick room sings about the death of a relationship. The best parts of the song are the choruses, but much of it is structured out of English clich\u00e9s. I'm not wholly sure the oddest clich\u00e9 was intended: \"It's gonna take a mirro(r), mirro(r) miracle.\" I suppose the death of a relationship can be a hard blow for the narcissistic?
Belarus<\/b> Ivan \t\"Help You Fly\"<\/a>
A fairly straightforward rock song, whose video stars an animated wolf behind the live singer. Really? Do you think of wolves when you think of flying? At least there's an eagle (or some bird of prey) at the end. It's okay. It's not hugely interesting. And the lyrics don't quite cohere. (\"It's time you released yourself \/ Before you can let go \/ I will help you learn how to fly,\")
Belgium<\/b> Laura Tesoro \t\"What's the Pressure\"<\/a>
Happy funky big band brass dance with ACTUAL DANCING. I'd been thinking dancing was a little scarce in the videos this year, and there's a bunch of people energentically and coordinatedly dancing! The singer is a cute curly-haired redhead. And the song's not bad either.
Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/b> Dalal & Deen feat. Ana Rucner and Jala \t\"Ljubav je\"<\/a>
It's a fairly pedestrian, if yearningly enthusiastic, song (in Bosnian!) framing a moment where a bearded rapper suddenly appears and raps at an emotional, sexily-dressed cellist playing the bones of an electric cello. That's a fantastic moment. I spent most of the rest of the song admiring the architectural setting for the song. It must be somewhere famous, if only I knew my Bosnian architecture.
Bulgaria<\/b> Poli Genova \t\"If Love Was a Crime\"<\/a>
I like the song so, so much better than the video. I can see myself dancing around to this in the future, in spite of the frequent clich\u00e9s in the lyrics, but the black-and-white video plot basically seeks to undermine the message of the song. Don't show me love betrayed when the song is about a solid relationship.
Croatia<\/b> Nina Kralji\u0107 \t\"Lighthouse\"<\/a>
Lots of excellent nature cinematography on fast-forward (leading to lightning strobe effects), accompanied by nautical metaphors. The singer has a good voice. The song was a little whiny more than the plaintive it was trying for.
Cyprus<\/b> Minus One \t\"Alter Ego\"<\/a>
Big, satisfying power rock with lots of gothic elements to the video. The band plays under pylons in the countryside. There's a wolf. There's a raven. A long flowing black lace dress or cape. But it's overcast daytime, near sunrise or sunset, so it's not too dark. The only song so far (I'm most of the way through, not watching in order) which inspired me to actual dancing.
Czech Republic<\/b> Gabriela Gun\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 \t\"I Stand\"<\/a>
Trying to move on (or not) from a lost or impossible relationship. Lots of refrain about standing, but the singer sure looks like she's lying down for the animations - VR, stop-motion - taking place around her. I like the flower and gem stop-motion sections. Could take or leave the song.
Denmark<\/b> Lighthouse X \t\"Soldiers of Love\"<\/a>
A pleasingly upbeat little number with some harmonies in it. The video is a stage show with lots of lights for framing. A happy trio of positive men. I wish it well. (\"Take my hand \/ And never let go \/ Never let go \/ And let\u2019s be soldiers of love\")
Estonia<\/b> J\u00fcri Pootsmann \t\"Play\"<\/a>
Bits of this video seem James Bond inspired, especially a brief snippet of bass line. It's about a man who's convinced a more uncertain person to give him a try, as sung by a richly bass-voiced man. (\"we ain't got all night \/ to find out what is right \/ so let's go undecided till we know\") The video is a polished stage show with a darkly-lit evening club vibe.
Finland<\/b> Sandhja \t\"Sing It Away\"<\/a>
A mildly tedious dance number from a couple of decades ago. The video is odd: there are dancers with grey-and-white tiger stripes and long cowboy-style arm fringes, and some children who should go out to play, but the quiet introspective one is drawing a horse, who is also real and historically-fantasy-ish, being ridden through surf and countryside.
France<\/b> Amir \t\"J'ai cherch\u00e9\"<\/a>
A sweet and happy tale of a young man learning ballet and a young girl learning boxing, which doubles as an Olympics promotional piece, and stars a happy singer: \"You're the one who's making me strong.\" I am mildly disappointed that France is entering a piece in both French and English. Help keep up the non-English linguistic variety, please!
Georgia<\/b> Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz \t\"Midnight Gold\"<\/a>
It's a rare novelty number! There's a mad scientist and an android playing a play-doh-style ukelele, and lots of old movie clich\u00e9s acted out, and the girl gets done in (in a silly and abstract way) halfway through. Grunge, guitars, lots of strobe effects.
Germany<\/b> Jamie-Lee \t\"Ghost\"<\/a>
Germany. Oh Germany. I like cosplay and I'm still not sure what to do with this. It's a woman in a turquoise satin skirt and white top with a hat with silver pompoms and bows and a sleeping panda, singing with a landscape of green laser-beam shining skeletal trees, live on stage. The refrain has more immediate appeal; the verses involve unexpectedly-deep-voiced moments - she has good range. The happiest use of \"Tell me, who's scared now?\" I've ever encountered. She's not taking herself seriously at least. Could someone else watch it and tell me what they think?
Greece<\/b> Argo \t\"Utopian Land\"<\/a>
No. A bare-chest man jogs slowly through a barren, cgi, moonlit landscape and occasionally it's video-game like with things to duck or leap over. There are a few seconds near the end of slow-motion, black-and-white dancers which were gorgeous; more of that, please. Also, I approve of lyres. The lyrics are mostly - if not entirely - positive, but the folkloric hiphop melody sounded despairing. (\"We are the rise in the rising sun \/ join with us for a Utopian Land\")
Hungary<\/b> Freddie \t\"Pioneer\"<\/a>
Halfway through this ridiculous video of a live stage recording, I realized I was tapping along to the moderately catchy song. It even has some interesting lyrics. (\"In a world where poems sound fake\".) The song is about being true to yourself. The video, on the other hand, involved a spectacularly athletic taiko drummer, eclipsed by firey light effects in the background, glow sticks, and whistling. Next time, let's just watch the drummer.
Iceland<\/b> Greta Sal\u00f3me \t\"Hear Them Calling\"<\/a>
An interesting one! Country-inflected folk rock about ghosts or the undead or fears or whatever the \"shadows\" are. The shadows interact with the singer, destroyed by her or destroying, looming and passing by. The video is largely quite dark, with supersaturated over-bright moments and an excess of strobe towards the end. It's a stage show. (\"See the shadows dancing \/ Oh, they dance for us tonight \/ And as I\u2019m tossing and I\u2019m turning \/ Oh, they come alive \/ We shiver as we step into the cold, cold night \/ Then we\u2019re running, we are running now\") But despite all this, it's not really a negative or scared song. It accepts.
Ireland<\/b> Nicky Byrne \t\"Sunlight\"<\/a>
I think I would like this foot-tapping dance song more if I heard it and weren't watching the video. The video uses half of its screen estate to show the lyrics, which means that I was analyzing the lyrics instead of enjoying any of it more broadly. Instead, I kept suspiciously eyeing the line of the refrain \"Touch who you wanna\". No consent is discussed, but presumably the lyrics mean \"without judgement of others\" rather than \"consent\". I'd like to think so anyways.
Israel<\/b> Hovi Star \t\"Made of Stars\"<\/a>
Lots of drones as proxies for stars! It kept being hilarious in the moment, but it's sweet really, and I suspect this is a song which will grow on me with repeated listening. \"Dance with me like we are made of stars\". It's a sweet\/serious melancholy song framed with a nighttime city wander.
Italy<\/b> Francesca Michielin \t\"No Degree of Separation\"<\/a>
A visual musing, inspired by last year's winning song, on real life vs. virtual reality. Nicely done. The song is pleasant, but wordy, and not particularly catchy.
Latvia<\/b> Justs \t\"Heartbeat\"<\/a>
I like the song more than the video. The song is an introspective, despairing, foot-tapping exploration of desperation for a defunct relationship. (\"I\u2019m getting wild when I\u2019m alone \/ I learned by heart \u2013 you\u2019re not my own\") It's by the same person who wrote last year's, which eventually came to be one of my very favorites from last year, so clearly I like her work. I'm writing this while listening to it again, without the distraction of the CCTV-trapped in a jail cell-lasers video.
Lithuania<\/b> Donny Montell \t\"I've Been Waiting for This Night\"<\/a>
\"Through a thousand years, through a million tears, I've been waiting for this night.\" If I take video and lyrics at their word, then this immortal man has spent his undead lifetime waiting for tonight to meet the prostitute who by sunrise would claim his heart. How appropriate that YouTube cued up Ireland's \"Sunlight\" to play right after.
Macedonia<\/b> Kaliopi \t\"Dona\" (\u0414\u043e\u043d\u0430)<\/a>
A grand, positive, inspirational piece with strings, filmed in an empty opera house, which might have done more for me if I were not at the tail end of listening to a whole lot of Eurovision entries. It would repay relistening. The singer has the voice to carry the piece.
Malta<\/b> Ira Losco \t\"Walk on Water\"<\/a>
This one doesn't do much for me. I spent more time wondering about the casting choice of contortionist? partner? are they going to lock him in a water box and he has to escape within three minutes for the stage show? Where was that filmed it looks really interesting and old? Having looked them up, they're the Salt Pans on the north coast, thought to have been in use at least since Roman times.
Moldova<\/b> Lidia Isac \t\"Falling Stars\"<\/a>
Bored now. Dear singer: please try harder to express emotions, especially when singing about big ones. Dear producer: it's a dancey kind of piece. Could there be some dancing, please?
Montenegro<\/b> Highway \t\"The Real Thing\"<\/a>
Heavy rock, flashy lights, an energetic female dancer flipping her hair around, and played backwards for unflipping hair. Not really all that interesting. (\"Feeling I'm the real thing, yeah.\")
Netherlands<\/b> Douwe Bob \t\"Slow Down\"<\/a>
Classic rock with a country feel, friends hanging out at the pub. \"Slow down, brother, slow down if you can't go on.\" And it's SHORT! The video is 2:43. Not bad. Not great. Could grow on me.
Norway<\/b> Agnete \t\"Icebreaker\"<\/a>
I like this one! I like it for its tempo change at the refrain, for a woman saying she'll do the rescuing in this relationship, for the woman singing in endless snow or ice, and for some of its lyrics. (\"Like a northern light \/ You\u2019re dancing over every border line \/ Passing every sign \/ Between reality and fiction \") It's a big, yearning pop ballad.
Poland<\/b> Micha\u0142 Szpak \t\"Color of Your Life\"<\/a>
A big yearning torch-song (everyone sway!) whose video is informed by modern medieval aesthetics. Long wavy-haired male singer, lonely old tower, the ruins of an old church, leafless trees, snow-capped mountains in the distance. On first listen, I was trying to place where I'd heard that chord progression\/tune before. (It hasn't come to me yet.) There's a risk this one will end up earworming me. (\"Fame and gold are nothing \u2013 you can be sure \/ When there is no love in your heart\")
Russia<\/b> Sergey Lazarev \t\"You Are the Only One\"<\/a>
This is an impressive, well-done video. The song's not bad (a driving song of yearning love), but it's not as good as the video is. A whirlwind VR tour of dangerous places, a falling ceiling, fire-breathers with a key change. Apparently it's a favorite to win.
San Marino<\/b> Serhat \t\"I Didn't Know\"<\/a>
Once I got beyond the sultry nightclub vibe, the different style of song was mildly refreshing, especially the smokey-voiced singer. It's not contemporary pop. That doesn't mean I'm convinced I actually like it though. My greatest hope for this song is that it will produce some excellent dancing on stage in competition.
Serbia<\/b> Sanja Vu\u010di\u0107 ZAA \t\"Goodbye (Shelter)\"<\/a>
I want her dress. It's gorgeous. An off-the-shoulder band of chain-mail over floor-length metallic silver cloth. The rest of it isn't quite as beautiful: this is an impassioned song about escaping from an emotionally-abusive relationship. The singer overacts and is excessively made-up. (\"It's Cleopatra\", I thought on first sight. But her orangey-red lipstick is clashing with her blue eyeshadow.) But she has power and range, vocally.
Slovenia<\/b> ManuElla \t\"Blue and Red\"<\/a>
Bluegrass-inflected pop with some interesting lyrics and a slightly random - if highly-polished - video of the singer doing stuff around outdoor filming things: caravan, lights, sundappled dark barn. \"You feel blue and I feel better.\" My first impression is that it's a bit of mixed bag, but there's potential to grow on me.
Spain<\/b> Barei \t\"Say Yay!\"<\/a>
I was expecting this song to be ironic, based on the title, but it absolutely isn't. It's a love-life song straight from the '80s.
Sweden<\/b> Frans \t\"If I Were Sorry\"<\/a>
A likeable, somewhat intellectual, exploration of young romance. (\"For you it's just another dance.\") Some of the better lyric-writing in Eurovision this year. A young man has a weekend escape of silliness with a girl at his high school (I assume), and then \"If I were sorry, I would give you all the glory\". It's sweetly amusing, in a nominally serious way.
Switzerland<\/b> Rykka \t\"The Last of Our Kind\"<\/a>
The singer's weirdly thin voice ruins this song for me. The science fictional lyrics appeal. (\"Standing tall at the end of the story,
Watching worlds collide\") The tune is entirely adequate. I'd like to hear it sung by someone up for expressing its anthemic aspects.
Ukraine<\/b> Jamala \t\"1944\"<\/a>
\"Everyone dies\", sings the performer, clad in white formalwear, and almost keening towards the end, with huge, controlled vocal range. I was put off at first, but it's an increasingly enthralling song. The video is just of the singer performing it live on stage. I'm not quiet sure what to make of it, but it seems powerful.
United Kingdom<\/b> Joe & Jake \t\"You're Not Alone\"<\/a>
Put it this way. I'd forgotten I'd already listened to this song a couple of months ago when it was chosen. The video doesn't appear to have that much work put into it, which makes me think the producers have given up on even trying to win this year. It's a song about dancing (with very little dancing in it) and either supportive secrecy\/relationships or else a very controlling relationship. It's pleasantly anodyne.
<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1347340","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1347340.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1347340"}}],"title":"Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on","published":"2016-04-21T09:58:22Z","updated":"2016-04-21T09:59:39Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"london"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"theater"}}],"content":"I went to my first immersive theatre performance on Friday, a combination of trusting the parameters of something based on The Tempest<\/i> and supporting a friend. It turns out that immersive theatre, at least this instance of it, is everything I hoped for from LARPs but never quite found there. I loved it. I loved it enough that I went back again, and would go back still more, but the run is only on for two weeks, ending this Saturday, and I can't fit another trip in.
\"Such Stuff As Dreams are Made On\"<\/a> is an exploration of the island of The Tempest<\/i> from many angles all at once, with the original plot underlying it, to give it structure and pacing. Each audience member explores the world as they wish, lurking in the corner of rooms or chasing after specific actors, often with the added challenge of crowded corridors. There is no way to see everything happening, and that gives depth to the world. What were those distant cries? Where are those people rushing? Who is that character?
The set is lushly realized with a satisfying deep level of constructed reality. There is real sand and origami boats, the scent of herbs and the glow of colored glass. And there is the lushly complex soundtrack tying all of the spaces together.
My favorite moments were the intimate ones. Just three of us and an actor. Just me and an actor. All parts of the story braid cohering the island into an atmosphere, into placeness.
Sedos is a long-running amateur theatre company; the \"amateur\" is why the work they have put into this experience is so transitory. They all have day jobs.
It's too late to buy tickets - they're all sold out - but when I showed up at 6:15 yesterday to queue for returns (cash payment only, \u00a316 full price), I was only the second one there and we all got in."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1334439","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1334439.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1334439"}}],"title":"Nutcracker","published":"2016-01-10T22:44:02Z","updated":"2016-01-10T23:27:18Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"grouting"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"london"}}],"content":"We had tickets today to go see the Nutcracker, the English National Ballet at the London Coliseum.
Back in December, in preparation, we checked out a copy of Ella Bella Ballerina and the Nutcracker<\/i> from the library, the story of a girl who joins Clara in experiencing much of the plot. We've been reading it (by Grouting's request) on a near-daily basis. This last week, I showed her videos of specific pieces from it, and then the whole of the first act. (Just as well so she could start processing the scariness of the mice.)
Today, we joined
<\/a>naxos<\/b><\/a><\/span> and friends in going to one of the few under-5-friendly performances of it. It was, on the whole, very nicely done, with some truly spectacular dancing and good minor variants on the plot in the first act. The second act, alas, had even less plot than usual.The audience was chockful of children, and Grouting commentated and questioned the whole way through, but all topically and in a quiet voice. All that preparation paid off. (And no one shushed her, unlike the fairly quiet but unfortunate-in-neighbors two-year-old in our group.)
In case any of you are going and care: SPOILERS FOLLOW.
1. The mouse king survives until the second act, which is great because he's funny and engaging and mischievous, and hitches a ride on a rope dangling from the hot air balloon. The best way to have gotten more plot from act 2 would have been to let him survive EVEN LONGER. But then Clara doesn't kill him or even really injure him; the Nutcracker does it single-handedly. So, Clara loses her best bit of agency.
2. The death is the introduction to the Drosselmeyer Show (aka dance of the National Stereotypes) which follows. He's come along with the hot air balloon for transport to the land of the Stage Show in act 2. Each dance is revealed by a stage within the stage, in echo of the puppet show of act 1. As a result, the Sugar Plum Fairy shows up exactly once in act 2, for her solo number. She's not the host of the land of sweets. And so she loses all her agency.
Dear English National Ballet: Why did you have to make all your plot changes at the expense of your erstwhile female protagonists?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1327019","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1327019.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1327019"}}],"title":"The night of bad jokes","published":"2015-11-01T23:03:10Z","updated":"2015-11-01T23:03:10Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"two sides of one ocean"}}],"content":"My sister tells me that telling jokes to earn one's treat for Halloween is a Des Moines thing. People in the DC area don't do it. Really?
View Poll: What do they say on Halloween?<\/a><\/div>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1326064","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1326064.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1326064"}}],"title":"Tasting chocolate","published":"2015-10-18T22:02:54Z","updated":"2015-10-18T22:02:54Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"chocolate week"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"eating in london"}}],"content":"One of the highlights of going to the Chocolate Show today was a panel called \"Judging the Judges\".
The award winners of a raft of major chocolate awards were announced this weekend at the show; this panel was intended as a light-hearted way of letting some award-winning chocolatiers get their revenge by reviewing chocolate created by the people doing the judges. The confections were all created fairly last-minutely - not works of long love and labor the way the real competition's entries are.
I learned that chocolate competition judges
* recalibrate their palate periodically by tasting the same non-competition chocolate they started with and comparing their current tasting notes for it with what they noted at the start of the day
* they refresh their palate by eating little cubes of plain, unsalted polenta
* when judging the World Chocolate Awards, a jury has to taste and assess about 80 chocolates over about 8 hours, every day
* A judge I spoke with longed for salty foods at the end of a day of judging.
Particularly wonderful comments, by chocolatiers, assessing the real judges' creations:
* \"This chocolate tastes like three things I put in my mouth by accident.\"
* \"It's an idea. It should have stayed as an idea.\"
* Host: \"What was your favorite part of this chocolate?\" Chocolatier: \"The polenta.\" (palate refresher afterward)
* Host: \"What was your favorite chocolate from the tasting?\" Chocolatier (likely the same one): \"The breadstick.\"
* \"This has a particular blandness which is hard to achieve.\" (an actual judge from the audience)
* An anti-Belgian chocolate chocolatier from Belgium: \"We use Belgian chocolate for biscuits, not for production<\/i>.\"
In an interesting moment of historicity, the session's host told us that Nutella originated as a Napoleonic war product. (Instead of the WWII product that it is.) There's a very long tradition of people assuming\/arguing things are older than they actually are. It was nice to document one in the wild."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1321062","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1321062.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1321062"}}],"title":"Theo Randall at the Intercontinental","published":"2015-09-06T15:37:07Z","updated":"2015-09-06T15:38:18Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"restaurants"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"eating in london"}}],"content":"For weeks, I'd been looking forward to eating at Dabbous, but they cancelled at the last minute, thanks to a gas leak. We already had childcare, so I did a quick search around for a different place to eat out. I was after something quite nice food-wise but not particularly formal; C was already out in London and dressed for a casual office day. And so we ended up at Theo Randall at the Intercontinental.
In no rush, we went along with the suggestion to start at the bar. The bar menu was an interesting one, but they were out of my first choice. My second choice was a fluffy marshmallow of a drink; on its own, that was fine, but alas, the dessert wine ended up being extremely similar.
Oh, the hazards of Italian food in Britain. Any menu which lists \"primi\" and \"secondi\" is one which raises my hopes that portions are thoughtfully small, enabling me to have lots of courses. The waitress cautioned that their portions were large. No antipasti for us, then. The little bits of bread which arrive are delicately soft and bode well for the rest of the meal.
I started with the linguine con aragosta, linguine with Dorset blue crab and chili. No, no parmesan for me, I am too inculturated into having no cheese with a pasta seafood dish. The crab meat is tender and tasty, a feat when paired with chili; but that's as high as the dish rises. The pasta is precisely al dente, which works for my linguine, but not for C's capelletti di vitello, which should be tender parcels without that bit of undercooked stiffness. They're fine. We've had better. By the standards of most of the meal, the pasta dishes were relatively pedestrian.
The secondi, on the other hand, are wonderful, delicate, rich, and intimidatingly enormous. My arrosta di faraone could easily have served both of us on its own. The best dish of the night, and I end up leaving a good half of the guinea fowl on my plate. (\"Was something wrong?\" is a painful query to receive for the evening's highlight!) C made slightly better inroads on his his costata di agnello. Even the side salad, a lovely array of colorful crunch, is quite substantial.
We loitered for a while and agreed to consider the dessert menu. I *want* to try out more of their offerings, but the secondo has made it difficult. We go with sorbet and ice cream. My peach sorbet is overly sweet. It's peach season, but this is a year-round dish, the richness of preserved fruit, not the refreshing juiciness of fresh peaches. It's heavy, and the accompanying marshmallow of the moscao d'asti adds more freshness than the peaches themselves have. C polishes off his chocolate-hazelnut ice cream, so it can't have been that bad.
I came away wistful. Should we have done the tasting menu after all? Is there any place in the UK which allows for consumption of both primi and secondi without food overdose? Should I never try another upscale Italian restaurant in the UK again, because I have spent too much time in Italy? For better or worse, I already have provisional plans to check out one of the Polpo family.
If I ever have reason to go back to Theo Randall's restaurant, I'd be inclined to gamble on the tasting menu, or just have meat and salad."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1320866","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1320866.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1320866"}}],"title":"Wicked witch","published":"2015-09-03T11:37:11Z","updated":"2015-09-03T11:37:11Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"fairy tales"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fish"}}],"content":"I was reading an article in Restaurant<\/i> magazine the other week about \"lesser eaten fish\", and it profiled one called a \"witch\".
That gives a whole new spin to stories about witches if you imagine the antagonist (or protagonist, of course) as a fish. Fish need to live in water, so presumably it takes a bubble of water with it wherever it goes. Or it lives in a water-heavy cloud, so it rains heavily wherever it flies to.
The witch is also known as a lefteye flounder; perhaps suffering from entrenched prejudice against lefties?
The Arnoglossus scapha<\/i> (or lamb-tongue) is native to China and New Zealand (and presumably lots of smaller countries in between...). No wonder witch-hunts didn't take off in Europe until contact with the far east was starting to be slightly better established. Long-distance sailing would have exacerbated the problem more than overland routes, I presume.
I had initially assumed it might be partial to exotic lettuce in the neighbor's garden, but given the righteye flounder eats worms and crustaceans, perhaps not. Although side salads are often a nice accompaniment to a heartier main."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1320353","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1320353.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1320353"}}],"title":"Pens","published":"2015-08-30T22:35:14Z","updated":"2015-08-30T22:35:14Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"the craft of writing"}},"content":"This article on How the ballpoint pen killed cursive<\/a> (via<\/a>andrewducker<\/b><\/a><\/span>) reminds me of something.
I did a single year in London pre-tertiary education, in first year secondary school. One of the many differences between that and my otherwise mostly US-based early formal education was that the school required us to have a fountain pen. My parents bought me a cheap basic school model, refilled with cartridges like everyone else. It was meant for more formal writing situations (with ballpoints allowed in less formal situations), but I found it awkward since I hadn't ever used one before that. As I know from later usage, better-quality fountain pens can be lovely to write with; this one wasn't.
But that's not the point. I haven't heard anyone discuss fountain pens outside the realm of specialist love and practice since then.
Are fountain pens still used in the UK educational system anywhere, or have they fallen by the wayside in the intervening decades?
(My own pen-love has largely settled on superfine felt-tips these days.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1319556","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1319556.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1319556"}}],"title":"Updated SFF-BSFA mini-convention guest list history","published":"2015-08-25T13:12:53Z","updated":"2015-08-25T13:12:53Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"science fiction"}},"content":"2002 SFF: M. John Harrison, BSFA: Gwyneth Jones
2003 SFF: Kim Newman, BSFA: Ian Watson
2004 SFF: Alastair Reynolds, BSFA: Paul McAuley. Also, Liz Williams.
2005 SFF: Karen Traviss, BSFA: Ian McDonald
2006 SFF: Steven Baxter, BSFA: Juliet McKenna. Also, Bruce Sterling.
2007 SFF: Francis Spufford, BSFA: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
2008 SFF: Geoff Ryman, BSFA: Peter Weston
2009 SFF: Paul Kincaid, BSFA: Nick Harkaway
2010 SFF: Rob Shearman, BSFA: Malcolm Edwards
2011 SFF: Mike Ashley, BSFA: Tricia Sullivan
2012 SFF: Aliette de Bodard, BSFA: Marek Kukula
2013 SFF: Gaie Sebold, BSFA: Ben Aaronovitch
2014 SFF: Jo Fletcher, BSFA: Frances Hardinge
2015 Brian Aldiss, Pat Cadigan (joint SFF-BSFA guests)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1318453","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1318453.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1318453"}}],"title":"The erasure of older female characters","published":"2015-08-18T13:59:03Z","updated":"2015-08-18T13:59:03Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"grouting"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"travels in england"}}],"content":"Older women rarely get to be protagonists, or otherwise portray as complex and interesting characters. That's a reason why there was a moderate amount of buzz around Harry Connelly's A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark<\/i>. Its aging protagonist had adult nephews, and a long career in her past. It's sad that's worthy of remark.
Worse than not being the star of a tale is the opposite: being entirely erased from the narrative.
So last week we took Grouting to Peppa Pig World. It was vaguely en route to where we were spending most of the week, and other parents whose judgement I trust had told me it was worth going. It was, indeed, a decent day out and we didn't run out of things to do, Grouting crashing before we made it through all seven toddler-friendly rides plus other things and people to browse and meet respectively. She played in the small water park and was hugged by Susie Sheep. The weather wasn't too bad.
What was increasingly obvious to me, however, was that Granny Pig was nowhere to be seen. Peppa is a young anthropomorphized pig, with a younger brother George, parents, and grandparents on her mother's side, all of whom play major roles in the television series. Her grandmother has a pet parrot, raises chickens, has an orchard, cooks, and creates games for her grandchild. She is, following entrenched gender norms, nurturing. Her grandfather takes them on adventures in their boat and on his miniature train. He is, to be clich\u00e9d, a man of action. He also tends the garden.
In the themepark, right next to the entrance, is \"Grandpa Pig's House\", with Grandpa standing outside. There's \"Grandpa Pig's Train\" to ride on and \"Grandpa Pig's Boats\" to ride in. In the dinosaur ride, there's Grandpa Pig again, looking after the garden and telling the riders about seed packets. Two of the seven rides are named after, and sculpturally manned by him, and he appears in a third.
There is not a single Granny Pig to be found outside of the gift shop. She's even been erased from her own house.
In this version of Peppa's world, has Granny died? Was Grandpa divorced much earlier? Is Granny lurking inside house, her name not on the deed to the property?
Or, mostly likely, is it that Granny is categorized as so much background noise, nurturing and supporting, but not leading adventures?
Except for that, I had an unexpectedly decent time there."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1318238","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1318238.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1318238"}}],"title":"A bun-worry","published":"2015-08-13T11:50:03Z","updated":"2015-08-13T11:54:20Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"words"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}}],"content":"The phrase \"bunfight\" has been in avid use today, apropos of UK university Clearing, the process by which would-be university students go shopping for last-minute university paces, this year run on an unprecedented scale. (For example, in this THE article.<\/a>)
I've assumed from long-casual reading that it meant \"a conflict over something relatively trivial.\" But today's ubiquity prompted me to go digging a bit further.
The OED fails to mention this meaning, which briefly made me wonder if I had it all wrong.
The award winners of a raft of major chocolate awards were announced this weekend at the show; this panel was intended as a light-hearted way of letting some award-winning chocolatiers get their revenge by reviewing chocolate created by the people doing the judges. The confections were all created fairly last-minutely - not works of long love and labor the way the real competition's entries are.
I learned that chocolate competition judges
* recalibrate their palate periodically by tasting the same non-competition chocolate they started with and comparing their current tasting notes for it with what they noted at the start of the day
* they refresh their palate by eating little cubes of plain, unsalted polenta
* when judging the World Chocolate Awards, a jury has to taste and assess about 80 chocolates over about 8 hours, every day
* A judge I spoke with longed for salty foods at the end of a day of judging.
Particularly wonderful comments, by chocolatiers, assessing the real judges' creations:
* \"This chocolate tastes like three things I put in my mouth by accident.\"
* \"It's an idea. It should have stayed as an idea.\"
* Host: \"What was your favorite part of this chocolate?\" Chocolatier: \"The polenta.\" (palate refresher afterward)
* Host: \"What was your favorite chocolate from the tasting?\" Chocolatier (likely the same one): \"The breadstick.\"
* \"This has a particular blandness which is hard to achieve.\" (an actual judge from the audience)
* An anti-Belgian chocolate chocolatier from Belgium: \"We use Belgian chocolate for biscuits, not for production<\/i>.\"
In an interesting moment of historicity, the session's host told us that Nutella originated as a Napoleonic war product. (Instead of the WWII product that it is.) There's a very long tradition of people assuming\/arguing things are older than they actually are. It was nice to document one in the wild."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1321062","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1321062.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1321062"}}],"title":"Theo Randall at the Intercontinental","published":"2015-09-06T15:37:07Z","updated":"2015-09-06T15:38:18Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"restaurants"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"eating in london"}}],"content":"For weeks, I'd been looking forward to eating at Dabbous, but they cancelled at the last minute, thanks to a gas leak. We already had childcare, so I did a quick search around for a different place to eat out. I was after something quite nice food-wise but not particularly formal; C was already out in London and dressed for a casual office day. And so we ended up at Theo Randall at the Intercontinental.
In no rush, we went along with the suggestion to start at the bar. The bar menu was an interesting one, but they were out of my first choice. My second choice was a fluffy marshmallow of a drink; on its own, that was fine, but alas, the dessert wine ended up being extremely similar.
Oh, the hazards of Italian food in Britain. Any menu which lists \"primi\" and \"secondi\" is one which raises my hopes that portions are thoughtfully small, enabling me to have lots of courses. The waitress cautioned that their portions were large. No antipasti for us, then. The little bits of bread which arrive are delicately soft and bode well for the rest of the meal.
I started with the linguine con aragosta, linguine with Dorset blue crab and chili. No, no parmesan for me, I am too inculturated into having no cheese with a pasta seafood dish. The crab meat is tender and tasty, a feat when paired with chili; but that's as high as the dish rises. The pasta is precisely al dente, which works for my linguine, but not for C's capelletti di vitello, which should be tender parcels without that bit of undercooked stiffness. They're fine. We've had better. By the standards of most of the meal, the pasta dishes were relatively pedestrian.
The secondi, on the other hand, are wonderful, delicate, rich, and intimidatingly enormous. My arrosta di faraone could easily have served both of us on its own. The best dish of the night, and I end up leaving a good half of the guinea fowl on my plate. (\"Was something wrong?\" is a painful query to receive for the evening's highlight!) C made slightly better inroads on his his costata di agnello. Even the side salad, a lovely array of colorful crunch, is quite substantial.
We loitered for a while and agreed to consider the dessert menu. I *want* to try out more of their offerings, but the secondo has made it difficult. We go with sorbet and ice cream. My peach sorbet is overly sweet. It's peach season, but this is a year-round dish, the richness of preserved fruit, not the refreshing juiciness of fresh peaches. It's heavy, and the accompanying marshmallow of the moscao d'asti adds more freshness than the peaches themselves have. C polishes off his chocolate-hazelnut ice cream, so it can't have been that bad.
I came away wistful. Should we have done the tasting menu after all? Is there any place in the UK which allows for consumption of both primi and secondi without food overdose? Should I never try another upscale Italian restaurant in the UK again, because I have spent too much time in Italy? For better or worse, I already have provisional plans to check out one of the Polpo family.
If I ever have reason to go back to Theo Randall's restaurant, I'd be inclined to gamble on the tasting menu, or just have meat and salad."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1320866","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1320866.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1320866"}}],"title":"Wicked witch","published":"2015-09-03T11:37:11Z","updated":"2015-09-03T11:37:11Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"fairy tales"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fish"}}],"content":"I was reading an article in Restaurant<\/i> magazine the other week about \"lesser eaten fish\", and it profiled one called a \"witch\".
That gives a whole new spin to stories about witches if you imagine the antagonist (or protagonist, of course) as a fish. Fish need to live in water, so presumably it takes a bubble of water with it wherever it goes. Or it lives in a water-heavy cloud, so it rains heavily wherever it flies to.
The witch is also known as a lefteye flounder; perhaps suffering from entrenched prejudice against lefties?
The Arnoglossus scapha<\/i> (or lamb-tongue) is native to China and New Zealand (and presumably lots of smaller countries in between...). No wonder witch-hunts didn't take off in Europe until contact with the far east was starting to be slightly better established. Long-distance sailing would have exacerbated the problem more than overland routes, I presume.
I had initially assumed it might be partial to exotic lettuce in the neighbor's garden, but given the righteye flounder eats worms and crustaceans, perhaps not. Although side salads are often a nice accompaniment to a heartier main."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1320353","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1320353.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1320353"}}],"title":"Pens","published":"2015-08-30T22:35:14Z","updated":"2015-08-30T22:35:14Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"the craft of writing"}},"content":"This article on How the ballpoint pen killed cursive<\/a> (via
<\/a>andrewducker<\/b><\/a><\/span>) reminds me of something.I did a single year in London pre-tertiary education, in first year secondary school. One of the many differences between that and my otherwise mostly US-based early formal education was that the school required us to have a fountain pen. My parents bought me a cheap basic school model, refilled with cartridges like everyone else. It was meant for more formal writing situations (with ballpoints allowed in less formal situations), but I found it awkward since I hadn't ever used one before that. As I know from later usage, better-quality fountain pens can be lovely to write with; this one wasn't.
But that's not the point. I haven't heard anyone discuss fountain pens outside the realm of specialist love and practice since then.
Are fountain pens still used in the UK educational system anywhere, or have they fallen by the wayside in the intervening decades?
(My own pen-love has largely settled on superfine felt-tips these days.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1319556","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1319556.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1319556"}}],"title":"Updated SFF-BSFA mini-convention guest list history","published":"2015-08-25T13:12:53Z","updated":"2015-08-25T13:12:53Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"science fiction"}},"content":"2002 SFF: M. John Harrison, BSFA: Gwyneth Jones
2003 SFF: Kim Newman, BSFA: Ian Watson
2004 SFF: Alastair Reynolds, BSFA: Paul McAuley. Also, Liz Williams.
2005 SFF: Karen Traviss, BSFA: Ian McDonald
2006 SFF: Steven Baxter, BSFA: Juliet McKenna. Also, Bruce Sterling.
2007 SFF: Francis Spufford, BSFA: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
2008 SFF: Geoff Ryman, BSFA: Peter Weston
2009 SFF: Paul Kincaid, BSFA: Nick Harkaway
2010 SFF: Rob Shearman, BSFA: Malcolm Edwards
2011 SFF: Mike Ashley, BSFA: Tricia Sullivan
2012 SFF: Aliette de Bodard, BSFA: Marek Kukula
2013 SFF: Gaie Sebold, BSFA: Ben Aaronovitch
2014 SFF: Jo Fletcher, BSFA: Frances Hardinge
2015 Brian Aldiss, Pat Cadigan (joint SFF-BSFA guests)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1318453","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1318453.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1318453"}}],"title":"The erasure of older female characters","published":"2015-08-18T13:59:03Z","updated":"2015-08-18T13:59:03Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"grouting"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"travels in england"}}],"content":"Older women rarely get to be protagonists, or otherwise portray as complex and interesting characters. That's a reason why there was a moderate amount of buzz around Harry Connelly's A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark<\/i>. Its aging protagonist had adult nephews, and a long career in her past. It's sad that's worthy of remark.
Worse than not being the star of a tale is the opposite: being entirely erased from the narrative.
So last week we took Grouting to Peppa Pig World. It was vaguely en route to where we were spending most of the week, and other parents whose judgement I trust had told me it was worth going. It was, indeed, a decent day out and we didn't run out of things to do, Grouting crashing before we made it through all seven toddler-friendly rides plus other things and people to browse and meet respectively. She played in the small water park and was hugged by Susie Sheep. The weather wasn't too bad.
What was increasingly obvious to me, however, was that Granny Pig was nowhere to be seen. Peppa is a young anthropomorphized pig, with a younger brother George, parents, and grandparents on her mother's side, all of whom play major roles in the television series. Her grandmother has a pet parrot, raises chickens, has an orchard, cooks, and creates games for her grandchild. She is, following entrenched gender norms, nurturing. Her grandfather takes them on adventures in their boat and on his miniature train. He is, to be clich\u00e9d, a man of action. He also tends the garden.
In the themepark, right next to the entrance, is \"Grandpa Pig's House\", with Grandpa standing outside. There's \"Grandpa Pig's Train\" to ride on and \"Grandpa Pig's Boats\" to ride in. In the dinosaur ride, there's Grandpa Pig again, looking after the garden and telling the riders about seed packets. Two of the seven rides are named after, and sculpturally manned by him, and he appears in a third.
There is not a single Granny Pig to be found outside of the gift shop. She's even been erased from her own house.
In this version of Peppa's world, has Granny died? Was Grandpa divorced much earlier? Is Granny lurking inside house, her name not on the deed to the property?
Or, mostly likely, is it that Granny is categorized as so much background noise, nurturing and supporting, but not leading adventures?
Except for that, I had an unexpectedly decent time there."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1318238","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1318238.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1318238"}}],"title":"A bun-worry","published":"2015-08-13T11:50:03Z","updated":"2015-08-13T11:54:20Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"words"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}}],"content":"The phrase \"bunfight\" has been in avid use today, apropos of UK university Clearing, the process by which would-be university students go shopping for last-minute university paces, this year run on an unprecedented scale. (For example, in this THE article.<\/a>)
I've assumed from long-casual reading that it meant \"a conflict over something relatively trivial.\" But today's ubiquity prompted me to go digging a bit further.
The OED fails to mention this meaning, which briefly made me wonder if I had it all wrong.
bun-fight n. a jocular expression for a tea-party (cf. tea-fight n. at tea n. Compounds 3).
1928 R. Campbell Wayzgoose 7 It [the wayzgoose] combines the functions of a bun-fight, an Eisteddfod and an Olympic contest.<\/blockquote>
But it was baffling to think my friends were calling Clearing an expression of civility.
Collins<\/a> does better with meaning #2 being \"a petty squabble or argument\".
Following up on a tea-fight via the OED....tea-fight n. colloq. or slang humorous name for a tea-party or tea-meeting.
1849 A. R. Smith Pottleton Legacy xxxv, Their various small parties\u2014\u2018tea-fights\u2019 as young Grant called them.
1901 Scotsman 5 Mar. 7\/5 The good people..organise a splendid weekly tea-fight and concert for our behoof.<\/blockquote>bun-struggle n. = bun-fight n.
1899 R. Whiteing No. 5 John St. vi. 53 She wants yer to show up at a sort o' bun-struggle in 'er room..kind of a tea-fight.<\/blockquote>bun-worry n. = bun-fight n.
1889 A. Barr\u00e8re & C. G. Leland Dict. Slang Bun-struggle or worry (army), a tea meeting; an entertainment [for] soldiers in a garrison.
1911 W. De Morgan Likely Story 224 Madeline..had been going to a Bun-worry.<\/blockquote>
And as a bonus\u2020 tea-shine n. colloq. Obs. a tea-party (cf. tea-fight n.).
1838 J. W. Carlyle Lett. (1883) I. 98 Two tea-shines went off with \u00e9clat.<\/blockquote><\/a>
A bun-fight Ngram: the rise of \"bunfight\"<\/a>, although without distinguishing between its senses.
Another person to briefly look at the subject observed<\/a> the nineteenth-century terms \"crumpet-scamble\" and \"muffin-worry\" as synonyms for \"bunfight\", in the sense of \"tea party\".
It's not clear than anyone has bothered digging back to exactly where the argument meaning was first documented, but presumably it was post-'20s."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1314964","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1314964.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1314964"}}],"title":"Have your cake","published":"2015-07-07T16:13:22Z","updated":"2015-07-07T16:13:37Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"food"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"two sides of one ocean"}}],"content":"The first few times Grouting was sent forth from a child's birthday party with a slice of cake wrapped up in a paper napkin, I assumed it was an oversight. They'd forgotten to bring wax paper or tin foil or whatever for wrapping the slice of decorated sponge cake.
But no. Clearly this is ensconced tradition. With a single exception where the grandmother made sure we were all offered cake to eat at the birthday party itself, Grouting has consistently been sent away from her cohort's parties with cake wrapped in a paper napkin.
I knew about being sent off with slices of fruit cake from weddings, but fruit cake lasts in a way that sponge - especially iced sponge which sticks to paper napkins - does not. Marzipan holds up better than the frequently-encountered buttercream on birthday cakes.
This is a baffling tradition to someone who'd rather just eat the cake at the party when it's fresh. Unless a gift bag with bonus paper+cake is excavated promptly, it goes rapidly stale, and is already sticky. And it's really easy to forgot to do it promptly if, for whatever reason, one's offspring is not inclined to lead the way on doing so that particular day.
How long as this been a tradition in England or further afield? And WHY?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1311394","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1311394.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1311394"}}],"title":"Eurovision Semi-Final #2 2015","published":"2015-05-22T13:03:57Z","updated":"2015-05-22T13:03:57Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"eurovision"}},"content":"There were fewer pieces I felt strongly about in the second semi-final, even if one more country was competing for the same number of places as on Tuesday.
The BBC's online coverage this morning is predominantly \"Ireland didn't make the semi-finals\", not all the interesting acts which did.
Azerbaijian - In the video, the imagery was banal but the song was decent; not better than that. On stage, it was clearly very expensively-produced (Azerbaijian's entries always are....) but it was also ridiculously silly. Two dancers playing wolves, and a song whose only relationship to wolves is in the title (\"Hour of the wolf\").
Cyprus - I hadn't seen the video in advance. Grouting was crashing. The background imagery was pretty, but the song failed to engage under the circumstances. The BBC hosts were clearly excited by the entry though, and the artist is about to move to London, says his profile.
Czech Republic - A country that had taken five years off from Eurovision and has still never made it out of the semi-finals. The female singer seemed like a powerhouse struggling to work with a limiting song which wasn't really her style. (In other words, I'm interested in seeing what else she's done, but unimpressed by this particular instance.) The guy was fine. The song felt like it needed more editing - not necessarily to make it shorter, just more focused and consistent.
Iceland - The team clearly has excellent visual producers, but needed a stronger choreographer for the stage show. A rather repetitious song that I still find really charming and had higher hopes for. The stage was used gloriously by the light show and inadequately by the singer. Left languishing in the semis.
Ireland - The refrain's decent, the rest of the song slightly dull, and I never figured out why the refrain's lyrics actually make sense in the greater context of the song. It didn't go through. This morning's BBC Eurovision headline mostly focuses on this, just in case we had any delusions of regional interest not playing a major role in the contest.
Israel - The downbeat party song. Worked even less effectively for me on stage than in the video. Clearly appealed to other people since it's in the final.
Latvia - This was spectacular and strange and wonderful and compelling. I hadn't seen the video. The female soloist also wrote the song. Amazing work with light and costuming, and all of that as support, not overwhelming, the strikingness of the song.
Lithuania - Yay! Apparently I'm a Baltics fan this year, since I'm fond of the entries from all of them. This one is so sweet and happy and conversational, and they added the bonus to the kiss moment of having same-sex backing dancer kisses.
Malta - This other Warrior song, in addition to Georgia's, would have benefitted from having lighting and stage presentation more radically different from the other one. It seemed even more derivative of last year's winner's phoenix-like light-wings. A slightly piecemeal song which didn't go through to the finals.
Montenegro - So much better than the video. Dancers. No snakeskin jacket. A brief moment of stompy circle-dancing. Glowing ambient darkness. I'm pleased it's in the final.
Norway - Yet another one whose video I hadn't watched in advance, and one I'm particularly interested in seeing now. A bare duet of two people grappling with the potential conflicts between (unspecified) dark pasts and how that will affect their new relationship. The one C. thought most worth voting for of the available options.
Poland - Good: sexy wheelchair user. Less good: forgettable song (at least on first hearing; some of these end up growing up me when I hear them enough, so no idea about long-term qualities yet), insipid background visuals. It went last, so would have been surprising if it *didn't* go through. (The ones which have the last few slots are inevitably more memorable to viewers than ones seen an hour earlier, even with recaps....)
Portugal - I liked it! It's in the minority of this year's songs being sung in the region's native language. The out-at-night-in-a-city background could have been stronger. Not surprised it failed to make the final though.
San Marino - A mish-mash of song and background. The talking bit especially seemed insufficiently well rehearsed. Full of good intentions and ideas. Didn't get through.
Slovenia - Much as the same as the video, if perhaps slightly weaker. I love her distinctive voice and am moderately fond of the song, so am glad to see it make the final.
Sweden - I keep feeling really ambivalent about this song, which is one of the ones thought to have a decent chance of winning the overall contest. The lyrics don't quite gel, even though usually second-language English lyric choices really appeal to me. There are too many other superhero riffs going on in the contest. Inevitably, it's in the final.
Switzerland - I have vaguely positive feelings about this song, but admit, I barely remember it. I would have refreshed my memory if Grouting were not napping nearby. Other people may have felt the same way since it's not in the final.<\/a>
Voting: You'll be glad to know the BBC saved money by re-using the existing recordings of Graham Norton saying the names of all the countries. Even though he's not hosting this year. (Or at least hasn't been co-hosting the semis.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1311216","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1311216.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1311216"}}],"title":"Eurovision Semi-Final #1, 2015","published":"2015-05-21T13:38:30Z","updated":"2015-05-21T13:39:26Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"eurovision"}},"content":"Notes on Eurovision Semi-Final #1 (Spoilers, for any of you who want to watch it still and don't know who's gone through to the final)
Hurray, four female-presenting hosts! Surely that's a first for Eurovision?
The following is in alphabetical order, not performance order.
Albania - I like the song's concept, but neither video nor stage show were particularly interesting. But it made it to the final.
Armenia - Great lighting\/background work (the lighting designers for this contest need more attention!), but the song was even more piecemeal than I thought it was in the erratic video, which had lots of good things undermined by bits which didn't work for me. I'm surprised it made it through to the final - perhaps lots of credit to the lighting designer?
Belarus - It seems wrong to stay a piece with such spectacular lighting was low-key - but deprived of the danger of death by suffocation in an hourglass, it was. The song was middle-of-the road, and its lighting didn't save it. Perhaps the stage show needed greater visual stakes to win it a place in the final.
Belgium - The stage performance was so much better than the video. It was fantastic, excellent use of black and white, good use of stage and light and modern dance. Minorly riveting. I'm delighted it go through.
Denmark - I hadn't noticed in the video how repetitious this song is. It doesn't develop. Neither did the monotonous opening\/closing black and white stripes. Based on the stage show, it was no loss that it didn't get through.
Estonia - Better on stage than in the video, which was decent. Good dramatic use of lighting to show off the different sides of the conversation. Very pleased it's through to the final.
F.Y.R. Macedonia - What were you thinking? Were you actively trying to avoid getting through? What on earth was up with that strange, surreal temple backdrop which had nothing to do with the song? You took a pretty good song with a fantastic video - and reworked it to be a drab thing with a weird extra unsettling rhythm near the end and a spectacularly irrelevant background. No wonder it didn't get through.
Finland - The only punk piece in the contest, the shortest in Eurovision history. For variety's sake (and saving a minute of contest time...) I'm mildly disappointed this didn't make it through.
Georgia - Solid, impressive stage show for an even more spectacular video number. It's not a bad song, it was the last to be performed so easy to remember. Not at all surprising that it got through.
Greece - I'm still finding this number not at all memorable. C was particularly underwhelmed by its breathiness (although it IS about \"One last breath\"). There was a lot of wind machine. I'm a bit disappointed it's in the final, but Greece is a bit of a powerhouse when it comes to vote-getting, so not surprising I guess.
Hungary - It's fine. It's a political song with not much going on in the way of choreography and a decent lighting backdrop. In performance, it was a bit boring, so I'm a bit surprised it's in the final.
Moldova - The song worked better as a soundtrack to a mini-movie with a twist video than it did as a hip-thrusting, repetitious, on-stage dance number with lots of sexy police. It was like an homage to the video, but without the plot.
Romania - A decent song about child welfare, with lots of symbol-rich stage decoration. Near the end + the best of this year's political songs, so not surprised it went through to the final.
Russia - An excellent, delightful, very expensive performance of a decent song, cutting out the manipulativeness of the lots of cute kids in the video. Glittering and sweet. Stands a good chance of winning the whole contest.
Serbia - Yay! The video was cute, but the song didn't capture me as much the first time around. On stage? It was glorious. It made me happy. I think it was the only number involving costume changes. I'm currently hoping it wins the entire contest, on the basis of this performance.
The Netherlands - A decent song with a more lackluster stage performance. I liked it better in video than on stage (even with that egotistical would-be eyecandy). I was disappointed it's not in the final, but accept that the stage performance didn't warrant it.<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1310652","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1310652.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1310652"}}],"title":"I'm a little tea pot","published":"2015-05-20T13:43:19Z","updated":"2015-05-20T13:45:50Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"grouting"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"songs"}}],"content":"I realized yesterday that none of the local baby\/toddler song groups I've been going to for the last several years has done \"I'm a little teapot.\" And yet I *know* I know at least a couple of UK natives who know it, having heard them use it before.View Poll: Tea pot<\/a><\/div>
P.S. There's a missing \"have\" in that last line."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:owlfish:1310389","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/1310389.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/owlfish.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=1310389"}}],"title":"Eurovision 2015","published":"2015-05-19T14:20:42Z","updated":"2015-05-19T16:23:20Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"eurovision"}},"content":"[I have run out of time to finish this post before going to collect Grouting, so in case I don't get a chance to get back to this later today, I'll post it as-is now.]
Most years, I write up my first impressions of the Eurovision entries, based on their videos. Often, the videos are highly distracting, and better or worse than the songs themselves.
This year, I've already watched most of the videos over the course of the previous week with my daughter. Grouting's favorite entry is the Australian one. Yes, that well-known part of Europe, Australia. The country has lots of Eurovision fans, and this is a one-off (in theory) as part of Eurovision's 60th anniversary celebrations.
Rough draft of lists of things worth mentioning
Hero songs: Sweden, Malta, Georgia, Italy's video
Tonight, not tomorrow songs: Azerbaijian, Australia
Conversational songs: Lithuania
Cutest video: Serbia's crowdsourcing
Most ridiculous plotline: Spain
Best heroic video: Georgia
Way too many men with stubble or barely-there beards. If I think of it as a tribute to Conchita Wurst (winner of last year's Eurovision, who therefore brought the contest to Austria), I can make some peace with it.
Albania<\/b> (SF1 14) Elhaida Dani, \"I'm Alive\"<\/a>
Lots of women looking slightly surly while doing all their jobs. Eventually they cry, and then the tear rolls back, and.... I don't know. The refrain does more for me that the video does, much as I'd like to think more of a video showing women pursuing lots of professions. A melancholy song about a relationship, female soloist with choral backing.
Armenia<\/b> (SF1 02) Genealogy, \"Face The Shadow\"<\/a>
Lovely settings with a confusing pseudo-plot (why are those people wandering around the maze?). I like the photos of generations passing. The regular change of voice and pace make this a bit of a collage of a song - it's a group of six different singers. Most confusing line: \"Face every shadow purified.\"
Australia<\/b> (F) Guy Sebastian, \"Tonight Again\"<\/a>
A laid-back festive song well-filmed in a recording studio. Grouting's favorite. Catchy.
Austria<\/b> (F) The Makemakes, \"I Am Yours\"<\/a>
Azerbaijan<\/b> (SF2 11) Elnur Huseynov, \"Hour Of The Wolf\"<\/a>
If you were making a video about being afraid of tomorrow coming, would you set it at an evening party in an expensive apartment with a river view, with your protagonist pacing the walls while everyone else sits around with their cocktails? I suppose it's moderately realistic for circumstances in which one might feel trapped. \"No, I won't sleep tonight. If tomorrow comes, I'll lose my mind.\"
Belarus<\/b> (SF1 11) Uzari&Maimuna, \"Time\"<\/a>
A woman dying of sand falling down on her in an hourglass! While playing the violin furiously! But it's a solo male singer.
Belgium<\/b> (SF1 03) Lo\u00efc Nottet, \"Rhythm Inside\"<\/a>
Belgium often have slightly odd entrants, like this one. Pop-rap. \"If we die tomorrow, what do we have to show?\" Video contrasts two different kinds of people doing the same kind of activity. (i.e. Girl with pretty doll and pretty dress vs. girl in trousers crawling around with a dinosaur.) It feels like the song may be too subtle in its way (or too uninteresting?) to do well in the contest.
Cyprus<\/b> (SF2 15) John Karayiannis, \"One Thing I Should Have Done\"<\/a>
Czech Republic<\/b> (SF2 08) Marta Jandov\u00e1 and V\u00e1clav Noid B\u00e1rta, \"Hope Never Dies\"<\/a>
Denmark<\/b> (SF1 13) Anti Social Media, \"The Way You Are\"<\/a>
With a group title like that, you'd never expect a perky, happy 70s throwback piece song by young musicians. I like you because of the way that you are.
Estonia<\/b> (SF1 07) Elina Born & Stig R\u00e4sta, \"Goodbye To Yesterday\"<\/a>
F.Y.R. Macedonia<\/b> (SF1 08) Daniel Kajmakoski, \"Autumn Leaves\"<\/a>
Excellent partially hand-animated video. About a guy who feels like his relationship is ending even if the woman is holding on. They're both changing. \"Every moment will hurt, from the last to the first.\" The song's decent, but the video's better.
Finland<\/b> (SF1 05) Pertti Kurikan Nimip\u00e4iv\u00e4t, \"Aina Mun Pit\u00e4\u00e4\"<\/a>
Eurovision's shortest-ever entry. One minute 40 seconds. And yet, it's the right length for this particular song: grumpy, irritated punk.
France<\/b> (F) Lisa Angell, \"N'oubliez Pas\"<\/a>
I'm usually partial to France's idiosyncratic entries, and this one doesn't disappoint. Lovely seaside landscapes, cliffs, a storm lantern. It builds from melancholy into anthemic yearning declarations.
Georgia<\/b> (SF1 16) Nina Sublatti, \"Warrior\"<\/a>
Gorgeous set of costumes, a variety of historical and mythic women warriors, including huskies and bird of prey. The song's decent, with a good edge of warning and unstillness, but I have a suspicion that this one which will be much more underwhelming on stage. It works well as soundtrack.
Germany<\/b> (F)