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DawnXianaMoon.com: Randomness
Chinese-American Dawn Xiana Moon went from classically trained pianist to singer-songwriter shortly after discovering anarchy in the guitar. Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. Writings on the arts, identity, science fiction, and more from Chicago.
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Tidbits
2008-02-17 08:52:00
TidbitsIt may be due to the fact that I'm an English geek, but the SPOGG (Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) blog is rather amusing. March 4th this year is National Grammar Day--the first one, I believe, of its kind. Anyone want to celebrate with me?I've been listening to the soundtrack from Once for the last seven hours.Last week I was fortunate enough to get comp tickets to the CSO's performance of Ainadamar, a work that hovers somewhere between opera and modern musical theatre--in Diana's words, "I'm on stage for about 90 minutes (of awesomeness) with 14 other Symphony Chorus ladies, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a flamenco singer and flamenco guitarists and percussionists, a laptop musician, and an opera cast lead by Dawn Upshaw." While the performance reminded me of why actors are always joking about how opera singers can't act, the music was simply stunning. At a couple of points, a gypsy singer appeared on the balcony--and just a few notes were enough to ste ...
Tidbits
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Happy Chinese New Year!
2008-02-07 14:29:00
Happy Chinese New Year!Thanks to U! for the fabulous drawing, which he sent me as a greeting card (if you're wondering, it's the Year of the Rat). Have a fantastic year, filled with lots of friends, music, and real Chinese food! ...
New Year
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"The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls."
2008-01-27 02:17:00
"The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls."The last two weeks of The Daily Show provided some interesting commentary on not just American politics, but the media. Take, for example, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's "escalating war of words"--since January 19, 2007, the media has been proclaiming that the "gloves are off" in the race between the two Democratic candidates. We could read this as hype, hype, and more hype. As Jon Stewart put it, "You know, if they're going to keep doing that, why do these candidates keep taking their gloves on and off? It seems inefficient."Or better yet, how about this? CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC constantly proclaim that race is an issue in the Democratic primary, and they've said that Hillary Clinton first played the race card. In actuality, Clinton said that it takes a president to actually make the policy that civil rights activists march for. Seems reasonable--civil rights activists hope to change public opinion and move policy- ...
Phone
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The Daily Show Back on the Air
2008-01-11 01:49:00
The Daily Show Back on the AirI'll admit it: I've missed having The Daily Show on the air. Yes, Jon Stewart is back in the middle of the writers' strike, but he and Colbert held out longer than Leno, Letterman, or O'Brien. I admire the fact that both of them continued to make sure that their staff members were paid throughout the strike, even when the show wasn't in production--some other late night shows, meanwhile, were forced to lay off their staff members. Back in December, NBC laid off the non-writing staff members of both Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. O'Brien paid his staff for another week, I believe out of his own pocket. Late night shows are responsible for employing a host of people--those people aren't writers and don't stand to benefit from any negotiations the WGA makes, however they feel--and the researchers, crew, and others already have a tendency to live paycheck to paycheck.The first couple of return episodes make it clear that Jon isn't happy about having to return wit ...
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The Demise of Sigmund
2007-12-21 00:18:00
The Demise of SigmundPoor Sigmund, he met an untimely end. He stood near the campus of Northwestern University, and his middle ball was pulled from his body--probably by an undergraduate. And his carrot nose was stolen.The final insult? Someone's dog left a yellow patch on his bottom ball. ...
Demise
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Another Reason to Hate Windows Vista
2007-12-13 14:20:00
Another Reason to Hate Windows Vista In an acronym: WGA. My laptop came directly from Dell with the OS pre-installed, and it's validated itself as "Genuine Windows Vista" before. But one day--probably after updating, or failing to update itself--it decided that it couldn't validate itself anymore. So depending on how annoying the OS decides to be, it gives me pop ups every few minutes to every few hours telling me that I "might be a victim of software counterfeiting" and to please click on the link provided to validate my copy of Vista. Sure enough, I click on the link, download and run their validator, and it tells me that I do have a real, genuine, 100% loved-by-Microsoft copy of their product. But does my machine seem to agree? Nope. The bottom right of my screen has a little note that won't go away, the the software counterfeiting notice keeps popping up. Sigh. At least I haven't hit the reduced functionality that other users have complained about.At least it's comforting to know t ...
Vista
Windows
Windows Vista
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A Snowman
2007-12-06 05:28:00
A SnowmanLast night I did something I haven't done in years. I built a snowman.It was 9:30pm when Bryan called with the idea. A small gathering formed. Two hours, homemade hot chocolate and cider later, Sigmund was born. The next afternoon, he decided to take a trip. ...
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London Highlights
2007-12-03 10:54:00
London HighlightsWaking up before anyone else in my family on Monday morning (a rare moment, I know) and sitting in a wonderful café reading Time Out London, sipping a latte, and eating salmon and spinach quiche. The patisserie was so crowded that I first shared a small table with a man reading the morning paper and then, when he’d left, a friendly, older woman.The Tower of London and the accompanying Beefeater tour.An excellent play at the Young Vic: Brothers Size. Three actors. A chalk circle. An intimate theatre. Excellence.Unfortunately their performance season was over, but I still managed to tour the Globe Theatre. It's smaller than I expected--seeing that space puts Shakespeare's plays in a whole new perspective. ...
Highlights
London
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Mummies
2007-11-27 19:36:00
MummiesMy keyboard appears to be British, but as I type it's conforming to an American layout. (Strange--though appreciated--since I haven't changed any settings on the software.) I'm in the basement of an internet cafe right next to the Young Vic, waiting to see their production of Brothers Size, which has garnered rave reviews. I spent most of today exploring the British Museum's extensive Egyptian collection, with minor detours into Assyria and Greece/Rome. Their placards are actually quite informative; I hadn't known that hieroglyphics were a formal form of writing reserved for monuments and art whereas Hieratic script was standard for everyday use (account keeping, letters, records). Eventually Hieratic became a formal script for religious texts, replaced by Demotic script in daily use.Looking at the mummies, while fascinating, feels a little odd--these were people, and they've been removed from their carefully prepared tombs. It's a different feeling than just walking through a c ...
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Welcome to London
2007-11-24 21:11:00
Welcome to LondonStepping out of the Tube station near my home for the next four days, my first sight of London from street level consisted of Starbucks, KFC, and Burger King. It’s always amazing to me how large cities are so similar even in the midst of their differences: the area near the Knightsbridge stop is home to the iconic Harrods department store—and a host of stores that I can find on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Staples like the Gap hang out next to H&M, and I expect the clothes are primarily the same, with the exception that here they cost twice as much. I earned a laugh from the man working the Gatwick Express ticket counter at the airport when he told us that we were getting a great deal—two train tickets for free since there was a 2-for-1 deal on our party of four—and I chuckled and said that was good, since “My money’s worth nothing here!” Before leaving Bryan warned me that prices in London look normal. Until you remember that one pound is worth two US dol ...
London
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Reality moves a bit closer to Star Trek.
2007-11-19 10:14:00
Reality moves a bit closer to Star Trek.I popped onto Amazon.com just now to update my wish list, and was in for a new discovery: the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is a real-life version of a PADD. Remember watching Picard read Shakespeare in his ready room from a little computer screen? That computer screen now holds 200 books, newspapers, and magazines and connects to the internet via a free wireless service that doesn't require Wi-Fi (Amazon says it's similar to the technology used on cell phones, but with no service fees). Apparently the screen is highly readable, though it's difficult to say how well that works without having tried one. What I do find interesting is the easy portability of hundreds of books--as my roommate will attest (after moving many boxes of them into our third-floor apartment), I have a sizable collection. And while I don't foresee thinning out the shelves (ever--there's something comforting and homey about having shelves full of good books), they are rather heav ...
Star
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Big Time Entertainment
2007-11-05 01:14:00
Big Time EntertainmentWhy pay for something when you can get it for free? Even better, why pay musicians when you can get them to pay you in order to play?In order to book a show through Big Time Entertainment, you have to guarantee that you'll bring 25 people into a show. Your payment as an artist is based on how many tickets you pre-sell. Big Time is counting on every band on the bill to pre-sell tickets, and they won't promote the show themselves.Here's their cost breakdown. Click over there and read how ridiculous this is--while trying to look "reasonable." The site looks fancy, but it's deliberately misleading. According to this, the venue gets over 65% of each ticket purchased through this program. Big Time Entertainment gets over 11%, and you, the artist, get 23%. That is, if you manage to sell over 73 tickets. But wait, Big Time isn't giving the venue a cut of the sales. (OK, that's not entirely true--they rent out the venue, so they're paying the venue whatever they've agreed ...
Entertainment
Time
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A Society in Madness
2007-10-24 06:31:00
A Society in MadnessIt's not often that I leave a theatre with just one word on my lips: Wow. But Steppenwolf's current production of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's rendering of the Salem Witch Trials, is, in a word, "Wow."The production is intense from the very beginning--the house lights darken and the theatre fills with foreboding music and panicked shrieking, and within the first few minutes of the play we're witness to confessions made under extreme duress. Much has been made of the play's exploration of the McCarthy era, and Chicago newspapers have thrown in their two cents about the production's timely relevance to a society that passes legislation like the Military Commissions Act, but for me, the most interesting aspect of the production had to do with its exploration of a society gone mad.The Salem of the play (which is slightly different from the Salem of history), has a mixture of peoples: Rev. Parris is loath to jump to the conclusion that witchcraft is afoot (primarily due ...
Society
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Lincoln Square
2007-10-17 05:05:00
Lincoln SquareIn an society that's growing increasingly more fractured, I was excited by a small and wonderful surprise today: my neighbor brought over homemade, salmon-stuffed potato cakes and introduced me to her four daughters (very cute Indian girls all under the age of seven).Lauren, an old friend from the University of Michigan, moved into the apartment half a week before I did--we're now in Lincoln Square, a nice walk from the Square itself with its restaurants, cafes, and the Old Town School of Folk Music. After hours of moving what were primarily boxes of books (the result of or motivation for being a literature major, it's difficult to say) on Wednesday night, I'm now more or less settled. That is, if you don't count the fact that there's a lot of decorating and furniture-acquiring to be done.This was Move #16 in eight years, and I'm not planning on moving again anytime soon. ...
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Tidbits
2007-09-24 08:57:00
TidbitsThe best opening line I've ever read in a Washington Post article: "Like worn-out shock absorbers on a car, parts of the human body wear out from age or overuse--often both." Like worn-out shock absorbers on a car. It reads like the lead from an Onion article, not straight news.The best headline I've read in a while: Ahmadinejad urges world to renounce Satan; U.S. walks out.This is bad. The State of Michigan is facing such a budget crisis that state services may shut down if a deal isn't reached by Thursday. Schools and local governments aren't sure what kind of support they're going to get from Lansing--some school districts are preparing to borrow money in order to stay afloat. And it's not just the government that's facing a crisis--at 7.4%, the state unemployment rate is nearly double the national average and the worst in the nation. Here's a humorous take on the situation.Hatha ka bana is a cool, simple organization that's giving women in Calcutta's Red Light District an al ...
Tidbits
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Linkage
2007-09-16 06:37:00
LinkageEven I think this is cute.I don't know whether these are cute, funny, or disturbing. Especially this one.A way to play a very cool game I discovered last Thanksgiving.A cool VoIP concept.A tree that owns itself. "It is the stated position of the Athens-Clarke County unified government that the tree, in spite of the law, does indeed own itself."One of the best auctions on eBay.If only they made this in my size. Or: further proof of my hopeless geekdom.Or if you like anime.The Flintstones meet Star Trek. More episodes. ...
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Free parking does not exist.
2007-09-11 00:51:00
Free parking does not exist.A full row of cars lined each side of the street, every one paired with its own parking meter. The meters only required payment until 6pm on weekdays, so we were excited to find free parking downtown. But it was not to be.After about an hour, we returned to the the block and discovered that it was nearly empty. Only two cars were left, and mine was not one of them. My first thought was that it'd been stolen (strange, considering the state of my car compared to the niceties of the neighborhood). Then we saw a sign hidden behind a tree: "Tow Away Zone: 15 minute parking 9pm -9am Saturday-Sunday." What? The SUV next to where my car used to be had three parking tickets decorating its windows, but it was still there. I called the police station to find out what had happened and was put on hold.As I was waiting to discover the fate of my car, a wizened cab driver pulled up and asked if we needed his services. "You have to get home to your husband. Go home to your ...
Parking
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Concert Year in Review
2007-09-02 14:07:00
Concert Year in ReviewSeptember begins a new concert season, and I've been keeping lists of performances I've not only given, but attended for the last seven years. It started when I was interning for an arts presenter and wanted to keep track of what I saw because I went to so many performances (the free tickets were a great job perk). That first season, 00/01, I went to a total of 37 music, theatre, and dance performances. This past season, I made it to 76. Some highlights:Alvin Ailey American Dance TheaterThe Tempest (the Royal Shakespeare Company with Patrick Stewart as Prospero)Vienna TengComplexions and the Joffrey BalletMonica del CastilloSecond City Chicago and ETCEurydice (Off-Broadway)Kara KulpaSwing GitanPuteri Gunung Ledang (Singapore)Todd MartinPhil KeaggyWhat performances have you seen in the last year? ...
Concert
Review
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Recipe for a Birthday Trip to New York
2007-08-30 13:29:00
Recipe for a Birthday Trip to New York1 Missed flight due to Bryan's last-minute caulking-the-tub project2 Bumps from overbooked flights1 Lost boarding pass1 Additional night in Chicago3 Total visits to O'Hare3 1/2 Days in New York City1 Cute pet rabbit that doesn't utilize his litter box as much as he should1 Off-Broadway theatre production (the excellent Eurydice)1 Free Lincoln Center performance (Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble--it was forgettable)1 Breakdancing performance in the subway near Times Square2 Visits to Chinatown3 Trips in search of quality chocolate and/or ice cream1 Viewing of performance art that was less interesting than the view from a skyscraper (Dean Moss and Ryutaro Mishima)1 Street performance by Chinese musicians (they were terrible)38 Photos (the camera battery died)1 Helping of Birthday NightBirthday Night:1 Concert in a tiny jazz club/restaurant (Moto)2 Borrowed birthday candles from the neighboring table1 Dedication of "Happy Birthday" by paid-off ja ...
Birthday
New York
Recipe
Trip
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Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.
2007-08-16 01:52:00
Wealth is in the eye of the beholder.Wealth is relative. And writers at the New York Times apparently make (or just spend) a lot of money.Exhibit #1The paper's vote for Best Not-Cheap-Feeling All-Day-Long Cheap Date costs roughly $150. I'll grant that this does include a museum, lunch, a movie, dinner, and a drink for two, but frankly, that's more than half of what I spend on food in an entire month. Not exactly cheap. They could have recommended a free film (available at least in the summer in New York) or concert (again, readily found), or browsing through a cool bookstore (maybe reading Dr. Seuss books out loud, alternating lines--seriously, try it), or watching the sun set over water (the beach is free in Chicago). For food, they could have suggested cooking together or bringing a picnic (instead of buying sandwiches elsewhere)--if the person planning actually makes the food, he'll get extra points for being sweet and cooking. I could think of lots of ideas that wouldn't feel cheap ...
Eye
Wealth
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A Cool Feature in Vista
2007-08-10 08:09:00
A Cool Feature in VistaNow that I've ranted about what's annoying in Windows Vista, here's a new discovery that's actually pretty cool: the Windows Sidebar and assorted gadgets. It's well-known that I'm a fan of Firefox, primarily because of its customizability. Vista offers its own version of something that I believe Macs have offered for years--the ability to install useful little programs onto their own sidebar, which stays on the desktop (click on the link for a photo--it does look rather Mac-like, doesn't it). Sometimes the gadgets are just an easier way to access other programs, sometimes they're links to websites (I have one-click access to finding synonyms for any word that I type, for example), sometimes they're tools in their own right. Currently my sidebar shows an alarm clock, a hibernate button, a calculator, the thesaurus, weather, and a wi-fi hotspot finder. ...
Vista
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International News of the Weird
2007-08-07 21:05:00
International News of the WeirdWith an unintentional focus on Asia.The Thai police will now wear Hello Kitty armbands as punishment. Late for work? Wear a hot pink armband featuring everyone's favorite Sanrio character. Hey, it's more amusing than a dunce cap.A woman in Germany had a pencil removed from her head after 55 years of being bothered by headaches. She fell on the pencil at the age of four and it's been lodged inside her head ever since.In India, police fed a thief chicken and rice hoping he would defecate the gold necklace he'd swallowed. They first fed him 40 bananas, a trick that had worked with a thief who swallowed an ornament a few months before.And finally, we make our way to China--I'll leave the headline alone since it's brilliant: No more crispy duck served at toilets. "Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets will be removed in good time for next year's Olympics." Obviously, when I use a restroom my first thought afterward is, "Gee, I'm hungry." ...
International
News
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Annoyance and Windows Vista
2007-08-04 08:23:00
Annoyance and Windows VistaWarning: I'm going to geek out for a few moments. At long last, I now have a laptop, and while I love finally having one, the last month has also given me a few headaches with Windows Vista. My top irritations:1. Windows Update. Don't you hate it when your computer has a mind of its own? I've customized Windows Update so that, in theory, it will only reboot the computer to "finish installing updates" when I tell it to. Unfortunately, that's not the case in reality--as I discovered after multiple attempts to download a large file, attempts that resulted in a only acquiring a small percentage of the file after Windows decided to reboot my computer (and since it's having trouble installing the updates, it ended up restarting every 10 minutes to 4 hours, depending on whether I was around to catch the pop up window in time to tell it to shut up for a few hours). After doing some searching on the problem (which popped up this amusing invoice to Bill Gates for £1,2 ...
Vista
Windows
Windows Vista
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The Things You Find on Facebook
2007-07-27 08:20:00
The Things You Find on FacebookLike every other musician, willing or not, you can find me on Myspace. Even though I have issues with the inanity and clutter that passes for web design on people's pages. Even though its "unexpected technical errors" are fully expected, regular occurrences. But I am a far more willing participant in the phenomenon that is Facebook--it doesn't crash often, and they've managed to add widgets for everything from "become a zombie and bite your friends" to "add an aquarium" to "support [insert blank] cause" without devolving into absolute clutter.Normally I like to pretend that Redford, Michigan doesn't exist--I grew up in the tiny strip of land between Detroit and Livonia (the next suburb) that keeps Livonia's property values up--but today I browsed through Facebook groups relating to the township and found something interesting: Redford has a motto plastered on its police cars that I've never heard. "Redford: the gateway to the suburbs." As one commenter pu ...
Facebook
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Fireworks
2007-07-04 08:17:00
FireworksImagine cramming 1 million people in maybe 15 blocks as close to Chicago's lakefront as possible for a 25-minute minute show and you'll get a good feel for the annual Independence Day fireworks display (which for reasons unknown is held on the 3rd of July rather than the 4th--the display on the 4th lasts half the time). I've never been in such a crowded space in my life.I like fireworks--who doesn't?--but I don't like them enough to navigate crowds of that magnitude. But an hour before I was going to head home from downtown, Jeremy called me to say that he and his friends had staked out a prime piece of real estate a few feet from the lake. "If you want to see the fireworks without being overcrowded, you should come now--we need more people to fill our space." This was at 5pm. The fireworks started at 9:30pm. Apparently there are people who will camp out by the lake starting in the morning.And from a logistical point of view, there's a good reason: taking a bus, it took over a ...
Fireworks
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Weddings
2007-07-01 06:23:00
WeddingsToo often I go to weddings that feel generic. You know how it goes--in the weeks leading up to the wedding, everyone, especially the bride, stresses about making each and every detail "perfect." Yet a month after the wedding, the guests barely remember the monogrammed napkins or even what they ate. They remember the music only if it was particularly good or particularly horrible (I still remember a wedding where the DJ played songs in blocks instead of mixing song types within a set: a half hour of dollar dance songs, followed by a half hour of "YMCA" and "Hustle"-type songs, followed by an hour of ballads--yikes). And of course the entire thing took place in a church, whether or not the couple was religious in any way.The weddings you remember are the ones with some individuality: the wedding where they served Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream for dessert, the swing dancer wedding with a hundred lindy hoppers showing up in the middle of the reception, which was followed by ...
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Kid-Friendly Food
2007-06-18 07:48:00
Kid-Friendly FoodIt always mystified me that Americans consider certain foods particularly suited to childhood palates--"kid-friendly" is not a concept applied to food in Asian culture. A recent article in the Chicago Reader about school lunches highlights the case in point:The menu the OSP [Organic School Project] has introduced at Alcott [a public elementary school] has been an adjustment for staff and students alike. One morning’s breakfast included broccoli-and-cheese quiche. “We never did anything like that before,” says cafeteria manager Carmen Crespo. “The students didn’t like it—they went straight for the cereal. They’re picky. They like pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, ravioli, macaroni and cheese.”Americans seem to think that food for children has to be simple in both flavor and preparation, dressed up in cheese or spaghetti sauce, or colorful (we're talking neon green or blue or purple here, not merely decorated in a pleasing, artful arrangement). If these condit ...
Food
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Hello my friend, we meet again.
2007-06-15 06:52:00
Hello my friend, we meet again.Yes, it's been the longest absence this blog has ever experienced. I apologize. We're now back in business, and I promise not to lapse so severely again. Here are some highlights from the last few weeks:I finally got caught up on Battlestar Galactica. I'd share my thoughts, but I don't want to give any spoilers for those who haven't yet seen the last couple of episodes. Suffice it to say that the writers love drastically changing the circumstances of the show at the end of the season. Unfortunately, it looks like Season 4 will be the last.I saw Phil Keaggy and Brennan Manning perform/speak at an intimate theatre in Wicker Park. Phil really is one of the best guitar players alive--add to that the fact that he's missing a finger on his strumming hand and I wasn't a fan before, but I am now. I'd be happy to have half his abilities. One of the other cool things about that night was that I happened to be there with another dancer--we finally couldn't take just ...
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Moving
2007-04-28 08:46:00
MovingIn the last eight years, I've moved 14 times. Tomorrow will be #15.1. Eight months: My parents' house to a dorm at the University of Michigan (East Quad).2. Four months: The reverse.3. Eight months: The reverse.4. Four months: The reverse.5. Eight months: An apartment on S. Forest near the University of Michigan with two girls who were a couple of years older than me. Who both got engaged by October or November that year within a week of each other. (One Monday: Emily's engaged! The next Monday: Jen's engaged! My reaction: Hey, I've got a week--any takers?)6. One (or two) month(s): A room in a house near the Arb (still in Ann Arbor). Emily and Jen were getting married and it was easier to sublease the entire apartment for the summer and have me move somewhere else than try to just sublet one of the two rooms.7. Two-three months: Less moving than packing everything up, leaving it at my parents' house, and then wandering through upstate New York and Scotland for a summer.8. One yea ...
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