Filed under: miscellanea, tibetan stuff | Tags: Darwyn Cooke, Frank Miller, good natured ribbing, The Spirit, tibetan stuff, Will Eisner
And Bhutan didn’t win a medal for archery. I’m so heartbroken I could listen to the Smiths.
On the bright side, Dave is opening a Tibetan restaurant in Bangor, called Bangor to Bangkor. Due to my ignorance of podunk towns in Maine, I stumbled across the little fact that there is a Tibetan city called Bangkor (how’s that for a consonant cluster!). My searches for Decatkur met with a much lower level of success, but I did uncover this little tidbit: there are more black people in Bangkor than in Bangor (0 and -4, respectively).
Here’s hoping that the math team in Bangkor is gangbusters. And just so this entire post isn’t in-jokes, I’m going to rant about a comic-book movie.
Filed under: tibetan stuff | Tags: bike, bloomington, Culture-with-a-capital-C, mongolian, tibetan
It’s the Bloomington Tibetan/Mongolian Cultural Center, where you can send your Tibetan/Mongolian children to summer camp so they can, er, “learn their culture” as one volunteer put it. Culture has to be taught at summer camp? When your Specialness is being Violated it does!
Anyway, the place was billions, with a temple (where I failed spectacularly to meditate…like, really spectacularly), two stupas, and seven or eight gers (Mongolian yurts). The grounds are beautiful, expansive, well-landscaped and well-maintained, and when I was poking around Aidi, a Mongolian guy who works there invited me to lunch eat the lunch he had lovingly prepared. It was, mercifully, not too spicy. According to Aidi, Tibetans like spicy food but he does not, because it upsets his stomach. I got along famously with Aidi.
Unfortunately, there were no Tibetans around, since all eleven or so monks who live there were out of town on various errands. Major bummer, since I really wanted to practice my Tibetan. I even tried speaking Tibetan to Aidi but he didn’t understand. Because he’s Mongolian, not Tibetan.
Also, in the middle of my five-ish mile ride home I ran over a nail and had to walk my bike for three-plus miles. While the humor of the situation was not lost on me, I was tired and dehydrated when I finally got home. If you are looking for the most bike/pedestrian-friendly route from downtown Bloomington to the center, this is not it.
(Link to photo, and others, on a map, no less!)
Hippies and hipsters are natural enemies in many ways, but they share the common bond of liberal politics. And these two sub-cultures don’t just support liberal politics, no sir, they support liberal politics without knowing anything about politics! That brings us to today’s question: what are the top pet causes for each group…and who has the edge?
For hipsters? Barack Obama is the king. He can do no wrong. For the hipster, his cigarette habit was proof that he was like one of them! Then again, it’s easy to do no wrong when no one knows what you’ve done. Ask a hipster why they like Barack Obama some time and you’ll get one of three responses:
1) Are you racist or something?
2) He’s really going to bring about change. (NOTE: follow up with “what kind of change?” to get the following response)
3) He’s going to give the people hope!
While some people may criticize hipsters for this mindless repetition of campaign slogans, I think it’s great that we’ve replaced the outdated ideals of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way!” with “Change, Hope, and Massive White Guilt!”
Hippies, however, have no problems with white guilt, as they’ve obviously transcended to a higher level of existence. And higher levels of existence are synonymous with, you guessed it, Tibet. And there’s nothing a hippie loves more than to hold a concert for the freedom of the poor, oppressed monks of Tibet. With hippies, however, it is even easier to perplex them. You don’t even have to ask them why Tibet should be free. Just ask them what Tibet should be freed from.
If their reply is “From, you know…the man!” you have the legal right to kill them.
And we’re going to have to call this one a push for today, folks.
And, Rest in Peace, Skip Caray, you were one of the very best announcers I’ve heard.
I already posted this to Elizabeth’s wall, but I think it has broad appeal for this group given our, er, history. You might want to play it large so you can really see what’s going on.
Nineties-style Bollywood. You saw it here first, unless you read my friend Jue’s blog, which you probably don’t unless you blogroll stalk me.
Boy do I love Bollywood. Also, I just finished transcribing my interviews. I don’t I’ve ever typed so many ungrammatical sentences in my entire life. Ironically, it often turns out that I’m the one that sounds like English is my second language.
Filed under: tibetan stuff | Tags: bloomington, food, HHDL, mcleod, nostalgia, snow lion
Today I finally got my gumption up and went to the Snow Lion, Bloomington’s own Tibetan restaurant. I’ve been meaning to go for the entire summer, and hence putting it off just as long, probably because I knew deep in my heart of hearts that it would not be as good as the fine establishment in McLeod Ganj by the same name. The Snow Lion in McLeod Ganj is a hotel on Jogibara Rd. with a great restaurant that has cheap and abundant Tibetan staples (tenthuk, momos, et al.), a wait-staff consisting of a Tibetan dude with a lazy eye and a Indian kid, and a kitchen full of local Indians. The Snow Lion in Bloomington is a restaurant established by (I think) HH the DL’s nephew that serves an eclectic mix of various Asian cuisines, with a few token Tibetan dishes (no tenthuk, and no steamed momos), a wait-staff consisting of an over-eager white kid in a Less Than Jake t-shirt (who pronounced my order of “thukpa ngopa” more like “thukpa en-go-pa”) and a kitchen full of people people chatting away in English. Snow Lion McLeod Ganj is patronized by a fifty-fifty mix of whiteys and Tibetans; Snow Lion Bloomington is patronized mostly by the IU Philosophy department, at least according to my professor.
I know it’s not fair to compare these two, since they are literally about as far apart as two restaurants can be. But I really miss greasy, wonderful Tibetan food and am generally feeling very nostalgic about McLeod Ganj (a feeling that is in no way related to that paper that’s due in like a week hahahaha), and a nice bowl of tenthuk is too much to ask, is it? I suppose I’ll have to wait until I’ve saved up enough to fly back to India and pay a visit to ol’ lazy-eye and the rest of the real Snow Lion crew.
Dalena uploaded some of her photos to flickr. That probably means you can do it, too! So get crackin’. And when you’re done make sure to add them to the group so they’re all in one place.
Also, some sad if not terribly fresh news: the 10 CENTS A SHOW label on my nalgene has been worn down to be almost entirely black. If I squint real hard I can still make out the glorious letters formerly emblazoned there.
Quoth Dave, “There aren’t many hippies here but there are TONS of hipsters. I think they’re in the same phylum, or something?”
After rushing to wikipedia to remind myself of what “phylum” meant, I’m here to confirm Dave’s hypothesis. Hippies and Hipsters are absolutely of the same phylum. I would go so far to say that they are included in the same genus, “probablydoesnthavemuchmoneyius” However, these two “alternative lifestyles” account for two vastly different species. The question is…which one wins the tale of the tape?
Body Odor
Advantage: Hipsters. It should be noted that a certain kind of hipster (the “dumb emo kid”) showers very regularly. However, the vast majority of today’s “indie hipster” crowd showers about as infrequently as, well, hippies. So why do hipsters win this one? Because they don’t proceed to drench themselves in incense, patchouli, and sage, a group of smells that go about as well with B.O. as Axe. Furthermore, hipsters usually have a lot of clothes to mask their sent, instead of just the 2 tie-dyed woodstock t-shirts their Uncle Joe gave them.
Music Taste
Advantage: Hippies. This may come as a surprise to those of you familiar with my vocal distaste for jam bands, but at least they know what they like and are incredibly dedicated. For hippies, little things like eating are less important than getting that Grateful Dead bootleg 12-disc set. Ever seen a hippie forced to choose between buying a new stash of weed or the new Phish live disc? It ain’t pretty, I’ll tell you that much. Hipsters, on the other hand, are as fickle as it gets, dropping bands from their Facebook music interests the minute Pitchfork gives them a 8.5 or lower.
To be continued soon as hippies and hipsters square off on the political battleground…
oh and…Record of the week: Electric Bunnies – Fantastic Metal Eye (catchy, noisy punk from Florida). Comic of the week: Gentleman Jim, a damn fine indie book from Drawn & Quarterly.
Most sportswriters suck. They’re either dumb ex-jocks or stat-happy geeks–both groups of people who are inherently incapable of writing. Perhaps the greatest exception to that rule is the hilarious Bill Simmons. He’s a Boston guy, too, Dave, you’d love him.
Anyway, one of Bill’s trademarks is doing running diaries of big games, drafts (including yesterday’s NBA draft), etc. Thanks to Bill, you guys now get “A Day at an Indie CD Store,” the unnamed record store I work at. Now a day at an independent record store may not feature as much dashing attire as the NBA Draft, but I’m working the store by myself all day, so I need something to entertain me.
10:52 – Open the store. A woman immediately pokes her head in to complain that the doggie water bowl we keep in front of the store is empty. She didn’t have a dog with her, but I manage to fight the urge to tell her that she can come in and drink from our water fountain if she wants.
11:03 – Fill the doggie water bowl begrudgingly (more…)
A woman with a big flowery, vaguely tangka-esque tattoo on her right arm just walked into the coffee shop where I’m working. It said a ma lags in the middle (sorry for the Wiley…my computer apparently can’t handle vowels in unicode Tibetan). I wanted to ask her su the a ma lags was. But I didn’t, of course.
