Sitting Here In Limbo
Dateline: Singapore. Poora shahar loin ke naam se jaana jaata hai. Posting while waiting for my email to load :-|
Only two noticeable events in transit.
Event 1: The lady who checked me in at the airport had, at some point in her life, chosen an "English" name for herself. This "English" name was - and continues to be - Trannie.
Why don't people stick to proper nouns?
Event 2: The iPod's coming out party. Huge success. I smirked at Fate and the evil ways of the transportation industry right through the journey (although the earphones are uncomfortable). But that was more than compensated for by the sheer joy of hearing the Pather Panchali theme segue into Whole Lotta Love. Into a Baul tune. Into Sonny Rollins doing Oleo. Into Miles Runs The Voodoo Down. Into Stevie Ray jamming with Buddy Guy. The audacity, the sheer postmodernity of it, was breathtaking.
And Joan Baez sang please come to Boston in the springtime. What foresight, itelloo.
And Garcia and Grisman covered Jimmy Cliff's Sitting Here in Limbo, which qualifies as the Most Perfect Song Ever Written to be Equally and Uniquely Applicable to Life as well as Airports. I wish I could find a version online to link to. (You can also check it out on Grateful Dawg.) The movie the song originally came from, The Harder They Come (also a Jimmy Cliff tune, also covered by JG), is available on the Criterion Collection -- it's not the greatest piece of cinema ever but you can use it to stock up on raw, pure heart. Trust Jerry to turn it to gold.
Only two noticeable events in transit.
Event 1: The lady who checked me in at the airport had, at some point in her life, chosen an "English" name for herself. This "English" name was - and continues to be - Trannie.
Why don't people stick to proper nouns?
Event 2: The iPod's coming out party. Huge success. I smirked at Fate and the evil ways of the transportation industry right through the journey (although the earphones are uncomfortable). But that was more than compensated for by the sheer joy of hearing the Pather Panchali theme segue into Whole Lotta Love. Into a Baul tune. Into Sonny Rollins doing Oleo. Into Miles Runs The Voodoo Down. Into Stevie Ray jamming with Buddy Guy. The audacity, the sheer postmodernity of it, was breathtaking.
And Joan Baez sang please come to Boston in the springtime. What foresight, itelloo.
And Garcia and Grisman covered Jimmy Cliff's Sitting Here in Limbo, which qualifies as the Most Perfect Song Ever Written to be Equally and Uniquely Applicable to Life as well as Airports. I wish I could find a version online to link to. (You can also check it out on Grateful Dawg.) The movie the song originally came from, The Harder They Come (also a Jimmy Cliff tune, also covered by JG), is available on the Criterion Collection -- it's not the greatest piece of cinema ever but you can use it to stock up on raw, pure heart. Trust Jerry to turn it to gold.
posted by Tabula Rasa | 4/04/2006 01:17:00 AM
11 Comments:
In Jerry we trust, but sometimes, I wonder how heartbreaking it must have been to see him totally losing it on stage during his off-years. Sniff. The devil always gets his pound, eh?
I agree. I never got a chance to see Captain Trips doing his thing, but I still make the annual pilgrimage to see the rest of the gang when they play at Foxboro... but it's just not the same.
Trannie? Trannie?
The soundtrack album to "Harder they Come" is one of my favorite reggae albums.
BTW, found a real oddity: Lee "Scratch" Perry singing an old Hindi film song. Nothing much, but good for a drinking session :)
KM
Heh. *Singing*, did you say? Thats a real find. :)
Singapore, eh? You've got mail (with a couple of restaurant recommendations from the local gourmand :-) ).
No comments on the phenomenal Chep Lap Kok airport, or are you planning to just wax enthusiastic from Changi on the way back?
mt, vb:
truly. (and in the case of jg, several extra as well.) i also think it's a great tragedy that jg and dg stayed away from each other for so many years. i was thinking about that today -- there's aren't so many duos i can think of that went together this well.
km:
that sounds like it would be something!
salil:
thanks for the recos. although i do have to say that waxing enthusiastic about any airport is quite far from my agenda at any point in time. they're necessary, yes, but they're evil.
While ur performing continuously on stage...its difficult to keep the spirit as always, I feel...and moreover when u ve vocal duties too...
TR: Disagree.
After you go through a [censored], [censored], [censored] like LAX, you really do appreciate a place like Changi or HKIA a lot more, with the traveller-friendliness (excellent lounges, wireless internet, good food available, comfort, etc) and far superior service.
BTW, I trust you will at least follow up on either the Raj or the Heritage, which I'd recommended. :-)
hmmm. only the stockholm syndrome will ever get me to say that i actually *like* an airport, but whatever floats your boat, man. more power to you.
didn't get a chance to check out those joints, btw. my time was not my own. but the places i got taken were great anyway.
I love the Harder They Come soundtrack CD. There's a new edtion, remastered, with a second disc of important reggae songs from the '60s and '70s - the first reggae records we heard as teenagers in California, including "The Israelites" (Desmond Dekker), "54-46 (That's My Number)" by The Maytals, "Double Barrel" by Dave and Ansell Collins, and of course "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash. There's also an early version of the title track from the original album, "The Bigger They Come The Harder They Fall" by Jimmy Cliff.
Aha! Thanks, David -- for stopping by, and the very useful comment!
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