i just spent 2 1/2/ weeks vacationing in berlin. while primarily uneventful, i did attend obama’s speech at the siegessäule - which was kind of disappointing. after reading about his charisma and aim to overcome partisan divides the reality presented an eloquent politician giving a well formulated speech which main message was for everybody to work for a better world. in other words, a lot of talk, but no real plan of action.
the other main event of my trip was that my former band svoboda is included on the new russendisko compilation “ukraine do amerika” (russendisko records 2008) - with the song “marusia” featuring me on the trumpet!
Not only has air travel become more of a hassle, but public transportation to the airport can also be a problem (as I experienced during my trip to Oxford 2 weeks ago). The site The Budget Travellers Guide to Sleeping in Airports offers some help by giving advice (including a ranking of the 10 best and worst airports) on sleeping at (you guessed it) airports!
A new Russian site focuses on the Nazi extermination of Jews living within the borders of Russia during World War 2. Unlike countries using concentrations camps the form of extermination here was through executions on the spot which made the process easier to “overlook” (plus it was not really included in the collective Soviet memory). The website called “Kholokost - Bab’i Iary Rossii” can be found at www.holomemory.ru (the name refers to one of the most infamous sites of Nazi mass execution near Kiev in the Ukraine) and was launched by the Russian Jewish Congress and the European Jewish Foundation. Russian Profile has a short article about the project called No Substitute for Memory.
Just got back from playing with Hotel Desperado in Vestre Fængsel (The Western Prison) in Copenhagen. The concert was in the prison chapel where about 50-60 inmates (both male and female) were present. We were kind of nervous before the gig (we had no idea what the audience would be like and what kind of music they wanted to hear) so we started carefully, not playing our most upbeat songs. After the first songs, however, we picked up the pace and were positively surprised at how well the concert went and that the audience appreciated it. The only sour looking people were the prison guards…
Our next concert on May 23 is open to the general public - we are playing at the 25th anniversary of Støberiet (Blågårdsplads).
I am back in Vienna, this time for a month visiting the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology (Institut für Volksmusikforschung und Ethnomusikologie) which is part of the University of Music and Performing Arts (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien). During my visit I will both be doing research as well as presenting part of my research to the students and faculty, e.g. tomorrow I will present some Norwegian vocal folk music (just spent two hours transcribing “Kjeringji med staven” sung by Talleiv Røysland). I will also follow courses here - actually yesterday I participated in an excursion to the indonesian embassy where we got an introduction to and a course in gamelan playing.
a good introduction to off-camera flash can be found here: strobist preliminaries
explaining the basics and giving good examples it can be used as a tutorial before starting the lighting 101 at the strobist.
Eating fish is not necessarily better for than the environment than meat, especially through the risk of overfishing. Greenpeace Denmark has a new campaign called “Sea the future” which focuses on the dangers of overfishing. See also the article “For få sælger bæredygtige fisk” in today’s Politiken - especially for a list of supermarkets which do nothing to avoid overfishing when buying fish.
In my master’s thesis Signifyin’ Vigdal: Aspects of the Ragnar Vigdal tradition and the revival of Norwegian vocal folk music which I finished in 2003 my main point of focus was the Ragnar Vigdal tradition and how vocalists today interpret him (his style is known for it’s nasal timbre, ornamentals and special tonality). As a part of my field work I visited Klaus Vigdal, Ragnar Vigdal’s son, in Luster 2002 and interviewed him. I also met his two sons, Erling and Ragnar Jr. The visit was a minor culture shock - a small town up in the fjords (at least seen from Bergen, where I’m from), but very interesting and the Vigdal family were very open and friendly. Klaus worked (and probably still works) with concrete (the first thing he said in the interview was “Jeg jobber med betong” - implying he is not a singer), but also sings - continuing his father’s tradition of religious tunes in the Haugianer tradition (the family is also religious). After the interview with Klaus, Erling who had just purchased a 12 string guitar and drove a huge SUV with “In God We Trust” (in English) written on the side took me over to his brother’s house. There they jammed over their grandfather’s (religious) tunes - using a country/blues idiom. Everything seemed informal and they were having fun. The next day I returned to Bergen and during the rest of the thesis writing project I did not have any direct contact with them (and then I left Norway and lost all contact).
So when Anne, a good friend and colleague from Norway, came to visit last October she brought a very cool surprise - a CD called “ Tonereise - arven“: The jam had matured into a project using Ragnar Vigdal’s songs sung mainly by his son Klaus in Ragnar’s style accompanied by Erling, Ragnar Jr. and other musicians. The instrumentation draws on country/blues using i.a. dobro, mandolin and (slide) guitar which produces an interesting mix between Norwegian religious vocal folk music and country/blues. Here is one example:
As a reference, listen to Ragnar Vigdal’s interpretation on the album “Tonereise Til En Gamal Samtid“, released 1979 by Kirkelig Kulturverksted.
The CD is a pleasant surprise since it is a good example on how to pass on the tradition by both keeping the main traits of the tradition alive while at the same time creating something new.
My cactus decided to blossom which was a good opportunity to try different kinds of flash photography. All pictures are taken with a Nikon D70s, a Nikkor AF-S 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 G ED DX lens and a Vivitar 285hv off-camera flash.
The first picture is taken with a diffuser (sto-fen omni-bounce):
The second picture is taken without the diffuser (see how the shadows are sharper):
Berlin, Obama and Russendisko
