The Aerie
The family plus our friend Debbie went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to watch our friend Ellis in concert. It was an excellent time, despite the fact that the museum saw fit to position the artist in a corner underneath a staircase. I guess they didn't want the performance to interfere with anyone's deep and introspectful review of the art in the lobby. She performed for a long time, two hour-long sets, and the music was as always excellent, a mix of new songs with her classics. According to her spouse Terry, Ellis has been talking to HBO about being the lead in an upcoming HBO movie, but that deal is currently only in the "idea" phase I guess and could evaporate at any time. Sounds exciting though: I had no idea Ellis was interested in acting.
Afterward we had lunch at "Rainbow Chinese" which I found disappointingly bland. My default meal at a new Asian joint is always the "hot and spicy chicken" or its equivalent, by which I take measure of the food. This was more like "bland and salty chicken."
On the way back to the car I found yet another cache of discarded music. The last time I found a folio of CDs lying open beside the Mississippi River. This time I spotted four CDs scattered in the sparse hedging between the sidewalk on Nicollet Avenue and a parking lot.
The CDs are an extremely eclectic mix. Right now I'm ripping "Pianissimo II" by Suzanne Ciani, to our household music server. I played it in the van on the trip home; breathy piano music, but it was certainly relaxing enough for driving: my levels of road rage rarely clmbed above "murderous".
The second disk is a DVD labelled "An Introduction to ODYSSEY: Features and Functionality" by Honda. It's an audiovideo training guide presumably for use with a new vehicle. I hope nobody tried to learn to use their Odyssey while watching the rear-seat DVD player... Interestingly it includes movie clips from Aladdin, Home on the Range, Miracle, and Pirates of the Caribbean, presumably to entertain the kids while the salesperson leaned on the folks.
Third is "Nu Hon: Thiet Tha" by Loan Chau. Its music varies between Lite Pop and Jazz, and is easy to imagine playing on an easy-listening station in Viet Nam. Whatever you might say about the music, Loan Chau is certainly easy on the eyes. Here she is pictured nursing a young Muppet.
The final CD is, let me get this correct: "Vong Tay Giu Tron An Tinh. Doi Song Ca: Tuan Vu, Thien Trang" If I am guessing correctly (and based on the two voices featured in the music) Tuan Vu and Thien Trang are the artists. This is much more traditional-sounding Vietnamese music, in fact listening to it made me hungry through Pavlovian association. However for all I know they're singing the instructions to the assembly of the world's largest digging machine.
Well, let's see if my guess is right. I'll just google these names and, yep, looks like Truan Vu is a pretty famous fellow. Let me click over to Google Images and see what he.. Oh my word! Oy. Well. He may be a great singer, but he certainly has a, um, singularly-qualified makeup artist. Heavens.
And that's pretty much the whole day! Came back, told myself I had a lot of stuff to do, ran one load of laundry and blogged this. A nice break from the recent hectic schedule, but tomorrow it's back to planning for the Big Trip...
Posted by Albatross at July 16, 2006 5:55 PM | TrackBack