Jun 12
Propelled by another bout of glowing rhetoric in the alternative press, I sauntered down to Central Square last night to take in the sounds of Boston’s ‘The Good North’. Little did I know that a relatively unknown opening act would totally overshadow them.
The evening opened with a whirlwind set by another one of the city’s avant-garde up-and-comers, The Bon Savants. Having seen them at the same venue a few months earlier, I could sense an overall tightening up of their moody, introspective set. Their seminal single: ‘Post-Rock Defends the Nation’ sounded far more crisp and gig-tested than on the previous occasion. Its quiet-loud chorus refrain though, was as emotive and haunting as ever. They concluded their set with a highly textured instrumental track that I hadn’t heard before and left the stage on a fairly sombre note.
At this point, the club was still only about half full. A motley gathering of the city’s mods and hipsters was filing in and out of the place. One got the general feeling that the night’s spectacle was still a while away. At approximately 10:30 pm, many of us were quickly disabused of that notion.
From the first synthesizer beep to the last vocal inflection, New York City’s ‘The Bravery’ were an exercise in effortlessly stylish performance. Never sounding contrived or overwrought, their fusion of electronic dance-pop and uptempo art-punk was a delightfully tasty combination. The dynamic interplay of each band member onstage was also pretty remarkable. The brooding ‘electronics guy’ huddled over his sequencer and laptop was a perfect foil to the animated theatrics of well really, the whole rest of the band. But really, words don’t do justice to these guys’ stage presence. Go see them if you get the chance. As a last point, it was refreshing to hear the odd outbreak of quickfire guitar solos. Following in the footsteps of Dinosaur Jr., The Bravery aptly demostrate that a little bit of tastefully placed ‘shredding’ doesn’t detract from the indie ethic.
They were, however, a very tough act to follow. While both ‘The Information’ and ‘The Good North’ were seething with creative energy, they simply could not match the aura and dynamics of their out-of-town guests. Not to be unfair though, I would really need to go see those two bands independently to make a better assessment. But really, there’s no doubt in my mind as to who stole the show last night
Jun 01
Prashant has chastised me for my utter lack of literary contribution to our collective blog. What can I say in my defence? That procrastination is a bitch? That I’ve been preoccupied with a host of other issues in my life? Unfortunately, in this day and age, no excuse will be good enough for the extreme detractors. Take a look at the situation in Iraq (or as the impeccably witty Jon Stewart calls it, “Mess-o-potamia”). No amount of excuses can be made to atone for what has happened. Whenever the dust has settled over the current crisis/atrocity/emergency/, another one will pop right up and take its place.
There will always be fodder for the critics. And as I am a critic myself, I notice things everyday that makes me stop and I and ask: “Why do they even bother?”
One area where I find myself proverbially slapping my forehead in disbelief, is during my daily trips along Toronto’s metro system. The most common occurrence: watching hapless commuters rushing to the closing doors of the subway, knowing too well that they: a) won’t make it; b) even if they did reach the doors, would not fit (what with the mass of bodies already crammed into an individual car); and c) there’s always another train coming in a few minutes.
(On a side note, the public transit system in downtown Toronto is a right mess. My normal route has since March been in disarray, as renovations to the streetcar tracks are scheduled to be completed by October)
On the opposite end of the spectrum of stupidity, I have witnessed the following: In one station, there is one escalator going up, and a flight of stairs next to it. Now, the lazy individual who normally rides the escalator arrives and discovers that, much to his chagrin, this marvel of convenience is not working! Instead of simply walking up the escalator, he steps back (into the crowd of worker drones rushing to work), causing much consternation, and proceeds to climb the flight of stairs.
Instead of wracking our brains for a plausible explanation for this utterly inane behaviour, I leave you with the words of the new Foreign Affairs Minister of India, who made this statement to Outlook, a weekly magazine. I wish our world leaders have half the wit this man has:
“They say Natwar Singh is a hawk. I don’t understand this language of hawks and doves. We’re running a foreign policy, not a bird sanctuary.”
May 18
Two long years ago, while still a green and youthful college junior, I decided it would be a good idea to enlist myself in that glorious spectacle that Nick has likened to cattle droppings. ‘McMUN’, the annual McGill Model UN conference was a much hyped and anticipated event in the lives of many an IR major and the odd outsider like myself.
The lead-up to the three days of theatrics consisted of several ‘committee meetings’. As a veteran of MUN from high school, I knew fully well that they had a sole purpose: To offer the committee leaders an opportunity to bolster their egos with a silly sense of self-importance. They waxed eloquent about the worthiness of the Economist Intelligence Unit yet lacked even the most rudimentary knowledge of the issue at hand: Post-Soviet Nuclear Power Infrastructure. It was amusing.
To the contrary, the conference itself was a 72-hour immersion in every aspect of a hypothetical present-day Chernobyl. Corrupt finance ministers, KGB interrogations, nuclear fallout and mutated hamsters were just a few of the highlights. With the exception of the few waking hours of the evening that were spent by participants in drunken or otherwise compromising states, it was a learning experience second to none.
Now, as every transcultural wanderer knows, the firsthand overseas experience is so formative that most of us have difficulty even associating with the rest of the world because of it. But those are no grounds to dismiss MUN. Apart from being far more educative than ‘study abroad’ programs often spent in small and insular groups, it’s also way more fun.
Lastly, Nick makes one jarring error in his argument. Model UN conferences don’t attempt, by any means, to model themselves after the real thing. Rather, the idea has always been to create a model that reality itself should attempt to emulate.
Now, whether or not life imitates art is an entirely different question.
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