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Tuesday, 5 July 2005

Back in the USSA ::

I’ve been asked a few times how it feels to be back in the U.S. after spending three weeks in Sweden (and, briefly, Denmark). I offer this handful of random observations from the last 5 days.

In the U.S., hillbillies do not drive Volvos.

In Sweden, I did not see more than a handful of SUVs. I am sure that none of them had bumper stickers reading “what’s our oil doing under their soil?”

In the U.S. you can go to a massive fireworks display and barely hear a single explosion over the loud patriotic music that makes one feel one has inadvertently stumbled into a George W. Bush rally. “God bless America! Let freedom ring! Born in the USA!” Damn it, the 4th of July is about blowing things up (do you think it’s an accident that NASA chose this day to crash a spacecraft into a comet?), and BOOMs are important.

Monday was the kind of evening when the street vendors around San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 must make a killing selling fleeces, jackets, sweaters, and South American blankets to suburbanites and tourists. We decided to stand in a long line to get coffee at Starbucks. Once inside, we saw people outside pointing at the line and laughing (as we had been earlier). I remarked, they are secretly jealous that we are inside and warm. I approached the counter with napkins etc. and waited for a man to finish pouring his milk. He turned to look up at me and said, wow, you look like Amadeus. I smiled and laughed. Further postponement of haircut is now deliberate.

Fun random encounter: Getting back in my car after dinner with V, her daughter and niece, V inadvertently let the door slip. It might have touched the side of the front bumper of an adjacent minivan. The surface of the bumper might have become a tiny bit little less smooth. It was too dark to see for sure. Owner arrived, insisted on getting phone numbers. Kept apologizing that he “doesn’t want to make a big deal.” His daughter licked her finger and ran it over the bumper (fixing it?). After driving off, V’s daughter said, “he didn’t want to make a big deal—he wanted to make a HUGE deal!” We laughed for 5 minutes. The guy didn’t call the next day, so I assume he wasn’t able to perceive any significant damage either.

I half-awoke from a jetlag-induced nap with my album playing in my head. Didn’t want to wake up fully. When I finally did, I had some new words to describe the music. Have continued to imagine segments of two songs sharing a key center morphing into each other. For fun (or perhaps for an extra track on the record) I am making a list and will try rendering them when the mixes are done.

<< Day 20: Return

2005 > July

Pictures from the studio >>

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