Thursday, May 30, 2013

taking a dose of my own medicine

28/5.2013 - brainstorming


from tuesday's vision wall brainstorm.

writing is the new praying


today i erased and brainstormed again, all by myself. it's an interesting process.
some of the same things came out and some new. 
i find it's helping me hone my thinking.
we're onto something with this vision wall thing.

it came at last


and at last, this came. 
i ordered it like 3 weeks ago from the library and waited with increasing impatience.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

on travel and home and the passive aggressive nature of facebook


this morning, i read what suzanne (eggdipdip) wrote about home and going back and how the reality of your life is never as you imagined it would be. and i also read this charming little new yorker piece on guests, family and growing older by david sedaris. even before reading these i was pondering questions of family, home, visits, travels and belonging. 

last week, i got all bent out of shape at my sister, who hadn't shared any pictures, or more importantly, any storiesfrom the rest of their trip (they went on to london and paris after leaving denmark), except for a couple of iPhone photos sent from the road. for all i knew, she was still combing paris for some raspberry pastries that she had vowed to eat all of before returning home. i'd asked her a couple of times on facebook when she was going to start sharing her photos and got some smarty pants answer about how she was going old school and going to have them printed this time. 

the more time that went by with no sharing of stories and experiences and photographic evidence, the more pissy i became. and then it all exploded last week after she nagged me (on facebook) about not handling molly's kittens too much. and facebook, being the passive aggressive central station that it is, escalated things, until we were both mad at each other. and she was issuing "apologies" where in she said she was sorry that i was mad, not that she was sorry she hadn't shared any photos or stories. which is different than apologizing. and possibly could be classified as not apologizing at all.  ahh, sisters, they know better than anyone else how to wind you up. 

but the bottom line was, that i was feeling left out of the rest of the trip and at first it made me sad and then it made me mad. the timing wasn't right for us to tag along to london and omaha beach and paris, so when they left us after their visit, we had to live vicariously through their travels. and if the ones you're living vicariously through don't share what's happening, what you experience is far from vicarious enjoyment. 

then of course, she got home and life intervened and she didn't get the photos downloaded and sorted from various cameras and iDevices and soon several weeks had gone by. but you can never really know what it's like inside of someone else's home life, so if you're far away and not aware of how loan closings and baseball games and trips to the emergency room intervened, you just sit in your own home environment, which is calm and quite uneventful and wait. and grow impatient and a little bit pissy. 

which i guess brings me to what this all got me thinking about...that having visitors upsets the natural rhythms of home in ways that are both good and bad (tho' i will say that my family's visit wasn't long enough to have moved on to the bad part, tho' we could have done without the constant references to the 1990 miss south dakota pageant). a visit pushes you out of your usual routines - you look around you with a different set of eyes - suddenly noticing all of those signs with the word "fart" on them again and being reminded that that's hilarious. you end up filled with expectations, both voiced and unvoiced. and when it all goes back to the routine, you feel a little disrupted and restless. and it takes awhile to find your footing again.

it's the same for the one traveling, there's a re-entry period, where they jump back into life at home and maybe find there's not time to download all of those photos and look through to select the ones to share.   and meanwhile, you sit impatiently waiting to live vicariously through the rest of their travels, to let them transport you as well for a few moments, outside the confines of home. 

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

the universe seems to be listening

you know how once you start thinking about something, it keeps popping up right there before you? that's what's happening with the concept of coworking for me at the moment. i also like the idea of global knowmad. what's interesting is that many of the people speaking in this piece seem to be foreigners who are apparently hanging out in oslo. i wonder what affect it's having on norwegian culture?



* * *

it's a little unlike me to share a body-image link, but somehow this piece spoke to me.
and while i was on huff post,
this piece on being more mindful in the face of technology resonated as well.

* * *

and then there was this on overcoming creative blocks.

i liked this quote:
Real creativity transcends time. If you are not producing work, then chances are you have fallen into the infinite space between the ticks of the clock where reality is created.

Monday, May 27, 2013

spring is full of baby animals

little snowy white bunny

our old pony pinky has a fine little filly
mama mira had 6 babies this time - here are three of them.
salt & pepper
our precious molly's precious babies - 4 girls in one batch!
pepper had only 2 this time - little striper looks like the papa kitty that was hanging around.
sabin has named them harry & louis after her favorite members of 1D.
hen & chicks
we had a trip to the vet today with our beloved molly cat. she was obviously not feeling well this morning, so i called the vet as soon as they opened. they saw her immediately and diagnosed mastitis. she got a shot of antibiotics and painkiller and i brought home pills for the next ten days as well. her temperature was 41°C (normal is 39°C and while that doesn't sound like much difference, it's a LOT for a cat). the vet assures me she'll be fine and that what's best for her is to keep nursing her kittens. she's not sure she agrees, but she's doing so for now. i bought a bottle and milk replacer, just in case. i don't want to lose any of them.

sometimes you just have to photograph a pony


my facebook feed has been rife with dire warnings of late among my horse-oriented, danish friends. they are all concerned about some woman who has been seen stopping her car and photographing horses in pastures, surely with untoward motives. worst of all is that she looks...gasp...foreign!  and as i stopped to photograph this fetching little thelwellian pony along a country road the other day, i realized that maybe they're all talking about me! and my motive is nothing more than to capture a pretty pony in a green pasture filled with golden yellow dandelions on a sunny day. i do not wish to stuff said pony into the back of my stationwagon (together with a sack of grain, some bottles that need recycling and a horse blanket that needs washing) and speed off. nor do i wish to harm the pony or eat it (tho' sabin did recently suggest that this pony ate the others, as there used to be a whole flock of them in this field and this one does look a bit fat). all i want to do is take a picture of it in all of its fetching, photogenic ponyness. i do wish sometimes that people would worry about something important.

* * *

do you realize that what we see and know adds up to a measly 4%?

reverting to childhood helplessness


i completed a study recently wherein i talked to a whole lot of foreigners who had, for one reason or another, made denmark their home. some came for love, some for work, some to be safe from war-torn homelands. their feelings of displacement and discomfort were remarkably similar, despite a diversity of reasons for being here. i could easily go on and on about it, but this weekend i found myself thinking about one aspect that many of them cited...that of how being in a new place where you don't speak the language and don't understand the culture makes you feel about 6 years old again.

i was fortunate to have husband when i came to denmark, so my exposure to the bewildering new set of sounds that is danish and the general coldness of the culture was cushioned a bit. but i do recall that with many things...paperwork, phone calls, directions (let's just say that the streets in denmark are not laid out in a nice neat grid like they are on the prairies of my homeland) to get places...husband helped me by taking care of things i didn't understand.

and on saturday, when a heavy maglight flashlight fell on his toe and caused it serious harm which necessitated that he sit in the chair with his foot up, trying to stop the bleeding, for most of the day, i realized that i felt rendered incapacitated myself by his injury. not because i had also hurt my toe, but because it felt like i couldn't do any of the things i had planned to do (turning our front glassed-in entryway into a makeshift greenhouse), because husband wasn't there helping me. he hadn't paved the way. the heavy pots were still out back and some of them had old, dead lemon trees in them. the plants were still sitting out back, being whipped by the wind. but he had prepared a wheelbarrow of soil, compost and perfectly aged cow poo for me the day before, so that was ready. but it took me most of the day to realize that i was perfectly capable of getting on with the task myself.

and it hit me that my reliance on him when i came to denmark, for even the simplest tasks (telling the difference between the kinds of milk at the grocery store, for example), had set the tone. i have, in many ways, stayed that child i reverted to, expecting husband to fix everything for me. and i had lost the sense of frustration that it had early on. it was probably because he took on those responsibilities so kindly and patiently, that we just slipped into our roles and stayed there. he is the eternal fixer and i am the one for whom he fixes.


but, i realized that i was perfectly capable of dumping out the old lemon trees and moving those big crocks around to the front of the house in the other wheelbarrow. and so i did it. and i filled them with stones in the bottom for drainage and that soil he had prepared and i planted tomatoes, aubergine and cucumber. and i arranged it all in the glassed-in entryway, so it can be my makeshift greenhouse this year (we're moving the real one, again, again). and almost immediately it smelled moist and fragrant and green out there. and i had a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of being capable. and the plants have perked up considerably since i took these photos immediately after i was finished, so even they're happy.

maybe it's time to let go of that 6-year-old girl again and start getting something done.


Sunday, May 26, 2013

blogs are being diluted by other social media


friday, i wrote a little ditty about the way that social media has diluted blogging over on across ø/öresund. i'll admit that i am quite guilty of it myself - i share small, ostensibly pithy thoughts on facebook in a way that i would have once shared them here in a random list. my photos go up instantly on instagram, so what i'm doing at a given moment is documented there. twitter, i use mostly to share links to blog posts and my instagram photos, but i don't hang out there much. i'd like to use google+ more and i use it to save links to things that i want to find again, because i've learned that you can't depend on facebook for that, with all of their "improvements" coming along and preventing you from seeing more than just what they deem the highlights of your own timeline. but it wasn't my intention to recap that post here...

as i visited molly's blog in order to link to her below, i stayed and caught up. because i've gotten horrible myself about properly reading all of the blogs i once loved. this is partially because people are writing less often and partly because i interact with molly regularly on facebook, so i don't have the same need to click in to see what she's said on her blog because i feel like i know what's going on with her (to the extent that facebook reflects what's actually going on in people's lives (that's probably the stuff of a whole 'nother post)). and really, that's silly. because blogs and facebook are not the same thing and there's so much more depth (usually) to a blog post than to a facebook status update. spending some time reading molly's recent posts provoked me to think and feel and reflect in ways that facebook never does (truth be told, facebook doesn't do much of anything other than make me feel passive aggressive). blogging lets us go so much deeper - into our own thoughts, our own psyches, our own patterns and processes - and gives us so much more insight, both into ourselves and others. i guess i needed that reminder. i've got to get more selective with the time i spend with social media.

* * *

this is a bit frightening, but also hilarious:



thank you, molly.

* * *

fascinating little miniature coffins.
i found them through mr. finch
who i am not stalking. nuh-uh.
there's a bit more about the little coffins here.

Friday, May 24, 2013

vans: a space odyssey


how seriously proud of my child am i that she made these awesome space-inspired vans? real, authentic vans were a spotvare (aka a large load fell off a container) in netto this week and sabin said she wanted a pair that she could paint. hey, for 400 kroner (just do me a favor and don't convert that to dollars), i said, "why not?" they were black when she started, but now they're like a total space odyssey. and i have to say it makes me very proud. she used a combination of washi tape (to protect the edges), textile paint, nail polish and nail sparkles to create this starry starry night extravaganza.

if she were to open a big cartel shop, would you be interested in some spacey vans of your very own? totally unique and one-of-a-kind? (plus a matching pair, not just a single - the other one wasn't finished yet and i couldn't wait to take the photo, as the light was fading fast., but she is working on a pair.) as she went to bed, she was already fantasizing about new designs...night & day, rainbows, summer & winter. the possibilities are endless. and they could also come in converse.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

universe, are you listening?


what if it was possible to have a place where you could combine all of the things you want to do in your life? a place full of good energy, inspiring surroundings, nurturing, caring people. a creative place, where you could do business, come up with great ideas, learn new things and spend time with people who make you better at what you do and challenge you in a good way. and what if you could get a cup of really good coffee there? what if that place didn't exist, so you had to create it yourself? and what if there just happened to be a charming old train station building, standing empty, just waiting for you to make it awesome?


and what if it needed a whole lot of paint and elbow grease? would you do it? would you, on the theory that writing is the new praying, write it down here for all the world to see and hope that the universe is listening so that all of the pieces would fall into place to make it happen? would you dare to believe and do all that you could yourself to make it happen? even if people thought you were crazy?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

tiny kitten perfection


our beloved molly dolly, the kitten we got last summer in minnesota, had her very own kittens today. she was a little confused at first, wondering what it was all about, but she soon caught on and promises to be a good mother. there are four perfect little kittens - one black, one striped, one black tortoiseshell and one stripy tortoiseshell - so two girls and two boys. the perfect first batch.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

my beautiful people and a lot of great links


my beautiful people, i haven't shared them with you for awhile.
sabin's fancy hair colors even look cool when they're up in a bun.


and husband, despite needing a haircut (he's had one since), just gets cuter all the time.
how come the same isn't true for me?
that's kinda not fair.

* * *

happily, i wasn't watching, even tho' i do enjoy me a bit of kitsch on occasion.
it was best to learn of it through facebook updates.
and i did read a bit of the guardian's live blog of the proceedings.
that was pretty hilarious.
best quote from that came during the waiting for the votes bit:

"I'm not saying that this bit is long, but I think I just saw time detach from itself and form a spiral and slowly disappear into the universe."

i kinda like when time does that.

* * *

*sigh* - 1913 was just really my year.
i can't even imagine an intellectual avant garde art scandal happening today, can you?

* * *

still enjoying that article about whether you have to like the characters in a novel. 
mostly because of quotes like this:

I hate the concept of likeability—it gave us two terms of George Bush, whom a plurality of voters wanted to have a beer with, and Facebook. You’d unfriend a lot of people if you knew them as intimately and unsparingly as a good novel would. But not the ones you actually love. 
--Jonathan Franzen

* * *

this makes me want to draw some maps. maps of me. maps of things i love. maps of life.

* * *

ever wonder where those bloody swear words come from?
personally, i think we should bring nackle-ass back into fashion.

happy monday that's actually a tuesday!


it's tuesday, but it feels like monday since monday was like sunday this week due to another of those danish spring holidays. the benefit of having a tuesday that's a monday is that you don't have a monday kind of a monday, since monday was a lot like sunday and tuesday is well, tuesday. so it can only be a good day, right? it's overcast, but warm and balmy, so i'm not complaining. you can't really complain much when you're wearing bright pink pants. even if you are also wearing your old wellies that are full of holes because you can't really decide what color of new ones to get. plus, it's a good year for dandelions. and is there anything more cheerful than a dandelion?


* * *

do we have to like the characters in the books we read?

* * *

what do we think of flickr's changes?
methinks they took a page from the Google+ design book.


Monday, May 20, 2013

pinse planting


today was pinse, the last of the easter-related spring holidays that mean loads of days off in denmark.  it is ironic that the danes take that whole jesus thing so seriously when they're some of the least religious people i've ever witnessed, but hey they'll clearly take all the time off they can get. and so will i.


it was a great day for planting the garden. overcast, but warm and unusually still.  we've been preparing this piece of the garden for nearly two years. it's been covered in black plastic to kill off all of the weeds and husband has tilled in a bunch of cow poo as fertilizer. we have extremely sandy soil, which makes for great drainage, but which requires far more fertilizer. it's taken us three years to realize that.


molly, who is going to have her kittens any day now, had to inspect my work in the herb beds. i fear she thinks they're a giant litterbox, just for her.


she's so cute, i had to include another shot. it seems like her tummy just couldn't get any bigger. i can't wait to see her kittens.


here's a whole day's handiwork. we planted leeks (winter and summer), kale, red cabbage, carrots, beets, parsnips, asier (a kind of hearty cucumber), zucchini, squash, edible flowers, peas, borlotti beans, green beans, potatoes and shallots. look how happy our rhubarb is down at the far end. i've picked enough to make 6 liters of juice and a rhubarb crumble and it hasn't made a dent. apparently rhubarb loves sandy soil.


the strawberries are blooming. in just another few weeks, we'll be eating them and freezing them and making jam and juice. strawberries also seem to like sandy soil. and plenty of poo. it finally feels like we're getting the hang of this gardening thing.


there's the rhubarb. encroaching a little bit on my asparagus, which is also doing really well. two rows from seed - they have to grow one more year before we can harvest them, but the roots we planted the first year are producing very well and we've been eating asparagus for the past week. it's a short and fleeting season, but worth the wait.

our planting today made husband very happy. he said at one point that having a garden like this was like being in the john seymour books he so loved looking through during his childhood (and still does today, to be honest). it's a gradual process, but we're getting there.


Sunday, May 19, 2013

a day of nothing much at all


it's that time of year again. the rapeseed fields are in full, buzzing bloom. it's that yellow that makes you feel a bit dizzy if you look at it directly. they speak the language of danish summer. short, fleeting, but intense.


today was filled with slow tasks. picking violets to make violet cordial. getting enough of them takes time and there's no way around it, you just have to pick them, one at a time. it was cloudy, but still and warm, so picking them was a pleasant, rather meditative task. it worked rather nicely to clear my mind and funnily enough, i didn't really think about anything at all in particular. some days, that's precisely what you need.



Friday, May 17, 2013

bunnies and books

don't mess with the sugar nose
this bunny is from a litter of 6, he's the littlest one, but he looks tough anyway, doesn't he? maybe he has to be, being one of 6. i don't know why i'm calling him he, i have no idea whether he is a boy or girl. it's too hard to tell with baby bunnies what they are. often you first find it out when they have just made some more baby bunnies. do you suppose it will damage his self image if i keep calling him he and he's really a she? do bunnies care about stuff like that?


just a little of the light reading that's on my nightstand. the bottom one about technology and urban development and the environment was written by my father-in-law in 1974. you'd be amazed how well the ideas about what makes a city livable hold up. he was a brilliant man. according to goodreads, less than nothing is the most lucid zizek in years. i love the loops he takes my brain on. it's kind of like how i imagine cocaine would be, only without all of the expense and needing to have clear sinuses. it's kind of interesting to think that libraries dispense something with the capacity to make your brain high on thoughts.


lest you think i've gone completely mad, here's the lighter reading on my nightstand. i've never read raymond chandler, but murakami loves him, so how could i not give him a whirl? i'm going to try to read them in order, but i don't always have control of when the books i've ordered come in at the library, so i've ordered the first four to start with.

that celebrating the third place book is full of stories of amazing places - plant nurseries, bookshops, cafés - that people love and use. we're working on something along these lines, so i want to read all i can about great third spaces. i've ordered the book by ray oldenburg that started it all - the good great place - and am impatiently waiting for it to come so i can read the theory behind the concept. roughly, as i understand it, the first place is home, the second place is work and the third place is somewhere you want to be. it can be a café, a library, a bookshop, a bar - anywhere that people gather because they desire to be there. such places develop a life of their own and i want to find out how.

other than reading, the weekend holds a party over on the devil's island and, as it's yet another long weekend with a monday holiday, lots of time in the garden. we've got to get planting now that the night frosts seem to be gone.

what are you doing this weekend?

Thursday, May 16, 2013

dip dye!


hot pink tips! sabin wanted to update her initial foray into the ombre world that's so hot on pinterest. in december, she had gotten the ends of her hair bleached. but after being in berlin and seeing all of the many daring haircolors on the streets, she wanted to go pink and purple.


so the ever-game sophie at sophie's salon said, sure, let's do it! and we had a consultation about what colors and how to approach it on tuesday afternoon and then the actual appointment yesterday. the bright, bright pink went on first, followed by purple.


sophie then worked the purple upwards and downwards a bit so there wouldn't be such a hard line between them. sabin had to sit super still, but unlike her mother, she's capable of that.


her new vans (courtesy of aunt monica on her recent visit) matched the wall!


and here it is, the vibrancy of the finished product! it looks super cool, even when she piles it all on top of her head into a bun. i realize there are many people who would frown on allowing a 12-year-old to get her hair colored, but i think it's awesome! i'd much rather support her in it and take her to a salon where it's done properly than have her try to do it herself and go horribly wrong. it kinda made me want a little streak of aqua in my own hair, but thus far, i'm restraining.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

the A&F thing is much ado about nothing


i have to start by saying that i have long loved abercrombie and fitch, from the artfully ripped jeans to the dark moodiness of their stores, with that alluring scent of buy-me that they waft through the air. i get a little light headed just thinking about it (in a good way). hell, i even once named my cats after the place. the A&F items in my wardrobe are largely sweatshirts, but one of my favorite dresses - a simple blue linen one, that i've worn to tramp through egypt, russia, morocco, turkey, greece and the balkans, as well as my own back yard is also one of theirs. these clothes are old friends - they've been with me through thick and thin, we've had good times together and we will continue to do so. they're somehow an essential part of who i am. and also of how i see myself. and want to see myself. it's also how i want to see husband, so his wardrobe has had its share of A&F items as well.

there's a tag on the inside of this sweatshirt that says, "this body is incredibly shaped to meet and exceed standards for perfection." i bought it in an A&F shop in a mall in fargo (we could ask how exclusive they really are if they are in the mall in fargo, but i digress) in 2003. it's ten years old. so what the ceo of A&F said recently isn't news. it's how A&F has always been - targeting exclusive, upscale, popular kids. like me. because i want to be that and see myself as that. and i do.

so i have to say that my feelings aren't hurt by his statement. in fact, i find it refreshingly honest. the world is full of hierarchies and most everything is aimed at one or the other place in the hierarchy. it's about marketing and target audiences and who you're trying to reach and what you're trying to sell. am i the only one watching mad men? and he was being honest - their audience is the cool the kids, the posh ones, the snobs. why is it that we can no longer admit that there are differences between people? why does the world (or maybe just the internet) get outraged by something so nonsensical and so not newsworthy (it not being news and all)? what the hell is the matter with people?

maybe it's all just a publicity stunt. but i still love my A&F sweatshirts and especially that blue linen dress. and i'm not giving them to anyone. they're part of me, part of my story, part of who i am. let the homeless have ralph lauren instead.



not particularly wordless wednesday


strangely, i don't really have a lot to say today, which is odd, because i've got tons of exciting things going on. developments towards that office/creative space that i've been wanting, plus some great projects on the horizon and some that are just finishing. lots of possibilities are hovering all around at the moment. i'm juggling approximately five great books at the moment. it's actually strange that i don't have loads to say about all of this, but i just don't, so i'm not going to force it. instead i'll share with you some really great links. click them, you won't regret it.

* * *

i like this.
and this.

* * *

and how amazing is this flat, abandoned untouched in paris for 70 years?

* * *
this makes me long for manila (and wow, what an inspiring woman!)
be sure to read the interview that comes after all the fabulous photos.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

1D in berlin: a concert review


we set out for berlin on saturday morning, bound for a concert with british boy band One Direction (hereafter 1D). we found a hotel that could accomodate 7 in one room (it was actually two rooms with only one door), checked in, got all ready and set out for the concert. as you can see, it was essential to already be wearing 1D gear upon departure. my favorite part of this photo is the mad scientist political ad in the background (more about those in another post).


after a slight public transport snafu (there were repairs on our line, so it wasn't the four stops away we thought it was...it was three trains and a bus away, but we had time, so that was ok). once we got there, we had to pose for a photo with O2 World in the background (that was the concert venue). i'm not sure what that pose with the hands is, but it's apparently important (we would see it again, several times).


we walked in search of a quick dinner before the concert and came upon the berlin wall east side gallery - a section of the old wall (had to have been reconstructed, if you ask me) that was decorated by various artists, many of them apparently russian. we made the girls (ages 12-14) pose there as well, just to prove we had been in berlin.


traveling with five near-teens and teens isn't always a barrel of laughs, so there were a few times when we wished they would just get human.


i had declared before we left that we would not eat at mcdonald's and where do you think we ended up eating? yup, you guessed it, mcdonald's. i, however, grabbed a box of sushi from a nearby food court. i have to admit it was probably the mcdonald's equivalent in sushi form, but at least it wasn't actually mcdonald's. the girls were excited and happy by this time (feeding them helps) and this is probably my favorite photo of the whole trip.


they were singing loudly at this point, so we (my friend, who is the mother of two of the other children in the photos and i) let them get a little ways ahead so no one would know we were with them.


we then waited several hours in line to get into the actual venue. they were individually checking everyone's bags and taking cameras and iPads away from people (carefully numbering them, german style, so people could have them back after the concert), so it took hours to get in. i had time, while we were in line, to conceal my little nikon underneath my little iPad (which was in a case and therefore looking rather like a book). i was so happy i succeeded in smuggling my camera in (i actually didn't know at the time that they were taking iPads from people, so i didn't know that i was guilty on two counts).


as for the concert itself, 16000 screaming girls and a handful of dads and moms made up the audience. it was a cheerful, happy group. the boys are cute, well-mannered and not lip synching. they're humble and sweet. it made me totally ok with my child being so into them that her room is plastered on every wall with posters (and with driving 6 hours to see them). they can really perform and the production values of the entire show were high.


it was really worth the drive and the €50 per ticket. i loved the graphics - we could see the crew with computers and cameras down in front of us, expertly producing the show as it happened. and they did an awesome job. i loved this monty python-esque set - it even includes a blimp flying a red london double-decker bus. it seemed clever and not a gimmick.


it really is hard to decide which one is the best and the cutest. we all thought it was harry before we went, but actually zayn did most of the talking and is a pretty good singer. niall actually played the guitar on multiple songs. and there were a couple of moments where they were slightly off key, so they weren't just playing it all back. they actually gave a helluva show.


but the moment when they totally won me over was when they sang teenage dirtbag, that anthem of late 90s alternative loserdom. and it didn't even seem ironic.  and the graphics on that song, like a cartoon - and awesome, just awesome. they also did a WAY better job on their cover to blondie's one way or another than they do on the recording of it. they won me over with that too.


in all, it was a really good concert. even i enjoyed every minute of it. the atmosphere was positive and the energy was great. the girls loved it and were so glad we went. and i'm so glad i smuggled my camera in. we thought about following them to hamburg the next night (it's impressive how they can take down and set up their elaborate sets/screens and move to another city and often another country on a nightly basis), since it was on our way home, but we restrained. it was really kind of the experience of a lifetime! tho' nothing like seeing lyle lovett at mesa amphitheater in the mid 90s.