While we're in the full-on Pitchfork mode, and because a couple of readers have emailed with questions about my thoughts on past festivals, here are some links to my festival coverage in years past. (I'm missing a few, it seems, but blame the beyond-sketchy quality of my former employer's Web site.)
Pitchfork Day 1: Robyn, Broken Social Scene, and Modest Mouse
Jul. 16, 2010
Robyn at Pitchfork Music Festival (Photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)
The first serious signs of life on day one of Pitchfork 2010 came courtesy of the 31-year-old native of Stockholm, Sweden, Robin Miriam Carlsson, better known simply as the dance-pop artist Robyn.
Bounding about onstage as if she was leading an aerobics class, Robyn’s defiantly retro, synth-laden grooves and chant-along choruses were nothing new: Think of Cyndi Lauper fronting an amalgam of every ridiculously coiffed English pop band in heavy rotation on MTV circa 1984. But the sheer exuberance of it all was invigorating and undeniable, and the sun-baked crowd came to life as the unassuming Everywoman led them through a high-octane workout.
Lollapalooza can have Lady Gaga. Robyn owned day one of Pitchfork.
Broken Social Scene (Photo by Kate Gardiner/NewsHour)
Chemotherapy: From chemical warfare to nanotech assassins
Jul. 16, 2010Some intriguing news out of Northwestern yesterday: Researchers have taken a poison -- arsenic -- worked some nanotech mojo on it, and come up with a chemotherapy treatment that seems to be effective in treating an aggressive form of breast cancer. At least, in mice. This got me thinking about chemotherapy, that signature cancer treatment, and how it has evolved. Chemotherapy is not pleasant. A breast cancer survivor named Eloise Orr told me chemo was the worst experience of her life -- this from a person who had holes drilled in her skull for multiple brain surgeries. Chemo, after all, is poison -- based on a concept from a more primitive era of medicine, and unchanged in some ways for about 60 years.
Friday Foodie Forecast: Andersonville Green Week, Smoque Signals and more
Jul. 16, 2010Food and drinks should be about savoring the meal. Too often, though, our hectic lifestyles mean we eat more in our cars, at our desks or out of the microwave than we should. Food events this July are all about slowing down and remembering that dining is an experience. From the slow smokiness of barbecue to local green movements that remind us where our food comes from, this month's events are about reconnecting with what's on our plate.
Rice calas, spiced rum butterscotch and carmelized banana from Big Jones
Havana: The Black Spring II
Jul. 16, 2010
When I first started going to Cuba as an adult, one of my singular pleasures was taking the ferry across Havana Bay from the city to the village of Regla. The ferries were old, unsteady tugboats that dripped oil and fuel into the water but provided a panoramic view of the Cuban capital, especially the colonial district in Old Havana.
The trip itself cost pennies, was almost always silent but for the heavy breathing of the tugboat itself, and dropped anchor right in front of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Regla. The official story is that this Marian image was concocted by St. Augustine himself for the city of Hippo in northern Africa in the 5th century and then made its way to Spain and the Americas.
But in Cuba, Our Lady of Regla — since her birth a black Madonna — is mostly associated with Yemaya, the Yoruba goddess of the sea.
#31 Moon mission: take a giant step
Jul. 16, 2010I'm quite a tall person and so I face two main dangers when I walk: if I don't look down, I can't see anything within stepping distance that is under four feet -- children often sneak into this blind spot, which has led to some accidents that I just feel awful about (I will call our apology line right after this) and if I don't look up, I bump my head on doorways, trees, and flying birds. So, I've learned to walk in a way that causes me to look as though I'm in absolute agreement with somebody -- look up, look down, look up, look down. It's not cool, but neither are helmets or seat belts, and I wear both of those when the situation calls for it.