Good weekend so far. Friday night had dinner & Trivial Pursuit with Steen, Dana & friends, and we never get to see those guys as much as we'd like to.
Saturday morning went with Shanti to the Design Forum - a semiannual convention where clothes designers like Lindbergh, Ben Sherman, Paul Frank, Junk DeLuxe, etc. sell off their samples and overstocks for crazy cheap prices. I blew around 4000 kroner but won't have to go clothes shopping again for at least another year. I really shouldn't enjoy shopping as much as I do, but it was like the hand of the Divine was on me - everything I tried on fit, and it's usually hard to find stuff that fits me, especially trousers. So out came the charge card.
Last night was Aco's place for cheesy Eurovision goodness. This is something else I really shouldn't enjoy as much as I do. I guess it's a sign I've been living in Europe too long (but hey, if Tyler Brûlé of all people can wax enthusiastically about it, perhaps I can be forgiven). The key to enjoying Eurovision is to give up any preconceptions about the musical ability of the performers or fairness of the voting system.
The music is almost always cringingly bad, and the judging is purely a politically-inspired popularity contest more or less divorced from any sense of the quality of the music. The Scandinavians always vote for each other, as do the Balkans, the Baltics, the CIS countries, and Cyprus and Greece. The Turkish immigrant vote always results in high scores for Turkey coming from countries like France and Germany.
But all that is completely besides the point. The glory of Eurovision comes out when one country or another sends an act that "gets it," and feeds off the camp value of the spectacle with some self-ironic bit of kitch theatre. This year we were blessed by several acts that "got it" - first off, the balls-out madness of the Ukrainian "Verka Serdyuchka," which you really have to see - words won't do it justice here (best I can do is suggest you imagine a post-Soviet drag queen review held in a space station about a hundred years from now). I'm just not sure why they're singing in German, but that's part of the gag too.
The Brits nailed it as well with an over the top skit based on air travel (I especially dig the little flight attendant outfits). And even the French came through with a piece of irony based, as far as I can tell, on the bad pronunciation of the French language. Both had us laughing our asses off (and we weren't even too deep into the G&Ts at that point). And that's what it's about, spending time with friends and being entertained.
I guess the biggest surprise this year was that some of the bands were actually not bad - the singers from Finland, Georgia and Moldova had objectively decent voices, and even though the Balkan republics from the former Yugoslav shatterzone have a built in advantage (because there are so many of them and they all vote for each other) I think Serbia deserved their win because the act was really pretty good.
Not to get deep here but I'm also really happy Serbia won because it means next years Eurovision will be held in Belgrade. Given the dicey political situation there after the latest election, I think more European presence and attention spent on Serbia might just make a difference in turning the politics towards a positive pan-European direction and away from radical isolationism. We shall see. Anyway, If I can work it out I'm hoping to be in Belgrade in person next year for the show. The Serbs really know how to party.
That's it for now - I'm off to Seattle for a week, leaving in half an hour. Probably radio silence again for a little while. Love you all.
Posted by case at May 13, 2007 10:27 AM