Saving Belizean Music

by Neil Woodburn on

I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting music. Unfortunately, in an era of American Idol, Backstreet Boys, and Celine Dion, I’m finding I have to look further and further abroad to find something actually good.

It was therefore with a welcome surprise that I came across an LA Times article about local music in Belize.

Belize?

What exactly is Belizean music, you ask? Can Central American music be categorized? Does it have Caribbean flavor? Or, perhaps a touch of Mariachi. Well, according to writer Reed Johnson, a trip to Belize will reveal a complicated pastiche of musical flavors inspired by a long, multicultural history of African slaves, Carib Indians, and numerous other melting pot elements thrown into the stew.

The resulting “polyrhythmic… sonic cocktail” is in danger of disappearing, however, as hacks like Clay Aiken make inroads into local CD stores. Thankfully, Stonetree Records, a Belizean company, is here to help. Since 1995, they’ve been reissuing traditional Belizean music and keeping the flame alive. Check out their website for some fantastic downloads. I particularly liked the Paranda clip, described as “African drumming, American Blues, Cuban Son, and West African guitar all wrapped into one.” Be sure to give it a listen.

Tijuana, Mexico: Real Mexican Wrestling

by Adrienne Wilson on

As a child I would watch the WWF on television side-by-side with my kid bro and punish him later with some killer wrestling moves of my own. As a young girl I towered over the little pip-squeak and made him plead for mercy. I showed none. You could call me the ‘Macho Woman Adrienne Savage.’ These days I wouldn’t dare. In fact, I don’t even watch wrestling anymore. Whatever became of the WWF? It’s something else now, right? Through Nacho Libre it has worked its way back into my life. I want to be a kid again. I want to root for the underdog and for him to be a victorious champion and hero. I want to go to a real live wrestling match.

Tijuana. Jim Benning tells a tale of the real Nacho Libre in Tijuana, a popular Mexican border town outside of California for the Washington Post. Great fighters bounce from the ropes off each other’s chest sending the crowds into cheering mode. Few gringos are amongst the fans of El Hijo del Santo, Blue Demon Jr., and Rey Misterio. This is a better side of Tijuana. I suggest fans of the film click into this for a real taste of the wrestling scene.

In the mean time is there anyone who’d like to go? I promise not to use any sleeper holds and I don’t bite – anymore.

Hollywood Bowl: Or, Cheap Date LA Style

by Neil Woodburn on

Friday night I took my girlfriend to one of Los Angeles’s great summertime activities: The Hollywood Bowl.  Growing up in LA, I had always thought of the Bowl as just another concert venue, only this one was outside.  I also assumed that tickets to the Bowl, like any concert event, would be expensive and a hassle to buy. 

The Hollywood Bowl, however, is one of the city’s great secrets.  While tickets to anything cultural tend to be prohibitively expensive, the Hollywood Bowl is a wonderful exception.  For three months of the summer, the Hollywood Bowl offers some of the cheapest tickets to some of the best classical music on this planet.  Tonight, for example, is Beethoven’s Ninth.  As of this morning, plenty of tickets were still available for $12.  The cheapest rows sell for as low as $6.  Where else can you sit under the stars and indulge in Beethoven for the price of a fancy Starbucks coffee?

But wait, it gets better.  Shuttle buses operate throughout Los Angeles, ferrying music lovers to the entrance of the bowl for only $2.50 each way.  From my home, that’s an hour bus ride for less than three dollars.  What a deal.

Pack yourself a picnic dinner and a bottle of wine, and you’ve got the classiest of cheap dates for the night (although you’ll probably want to skip the bus and drive instead). 

Or, upscale.  The best tickets in the house can go for more than a hundred dollars each.  The box seats even have a little table on which to eat your picnic. 

My suggestion?  Aim for somewhere in the middle.  $30-40 a ticket will get you great seats and your date will be very happy–assuming, of course, you didn’t take the bus. 

48 Hours in Prague

by Erik Olsen on

I’m not much for these 48 Hours, or 36 hours or 24 hours pieces on various places. It just seems like that’s too short a time to know any city, especially one as interesting as Prague. But alas, it is very often the case that that is ALL the time you have to spend, so I suppose they do a good service. This piece in the Independent is better than most. It offers a fairly extensive list of places to eat, drink and shop, and best of all places to walk. Now, I know Neil has spent a fair amount of time in Prague, so he may have a different take, but I’ve been there twice and each time had a completely different experience. Whether I could sum it all up in two days, well, that’s a different story. But take a look.

Latitudes July

by Erik Olsen on

It’s that time again for us to direct you to one of our favorite online travel magazines: Latitudes.  I think I’ve been pretty consistent for perhaps a year or more in drawing attention to this lavishly photographed, often quirky little travel publication.

Every month they cover places that you don’t often read about in magazines like Travel and Leisure, although they cover some that do make it into the mags as well. This month we’re talking Congo (come on…who ever covers the Congo?!), Antarctica, Bhutan, Barcelona and more.
 
But what I like most about Latitudes, or the Web version at least, is how sumptuous the pages are, and how they introduce fun little flash animations or sound in some of the stories. It’s always a pleasure to read, and more often than not will fill your head with notions of immediate escape.