artquest

Arrrrgggh. Two of my all time favorites. I'm going with Number 1, though, because that was such a fabulous night.

This is my first really tough choice, too. #1 is Flat Clay, who is still hanging around the house making me smile. #2 is gorgeous grown-up Clay. Decisions, decisions. And will yesterday's Twitter Clay show up in this tourney?

Lotus, in last night's case Artquest gave up her better seat so that I could take clack. Upgrading comes in many ways, different every time and often with total strangers. There were people selling Row B tickets outside the venue (they were in the tiers but they seemed too low for the stage and possibly vulnerable for clack)

I wanted to drop by here and thank Scarlett for all the beautiful Clack, and then I saw this. I have to say that Scarlett's original seat was totally exposed. She wouldn't have lasted a minute, so I was glad to give her my seat, about 10 rows further down. On the other hand, the view from my new seat was awesome! A great shot of the stage, no one in front of me, Clay two stories high on the jumbotron up to my left (takes a moment, then takes another moment. Wait till Permaswooned uploads her jumbotron photos), no crowds, no bother. I think I got the better part of the deal.

So hugs to you, Scarlett, for the Clack, and a wave to Couchie, whom I missed completely.

artquest, did you use the light rail system to get from downtown Minneapolis to the MOA? I just did that for the first time last year, and that's really neat.

We took the sky way walks to the light rail and then the light rail to the Mall. Worked perfectly. DD noticed that most of the bars and restaurants in downtown Minneapolis didn't really have street level entrances. Most people seem to use the sky walk pathways and passages between buildings, one story up from the street. I guess the first storm deposits 6 feet of snow, so it makes sense to move everything up. They were kinda like the tunnels in Houston that went from building to building all through the downtown. And for the same reason - awful weather - though in Houston it was the heat/humidity.

One city that I've never been to but really had a favorable impression was Minneapolis. I admit though that I didn't get a full picture of the entire area. And although this is in no way the reason I'm saying this, there were more good looking men there than I've ever seen anywhere. I don't even think I've noticed something like that before. Every where I looked there was a fine looking man LOL.

DD has been in Minneapolis for extended stays twice since she's been touring. She loves it, too, though she didn't say anything about the good looking men. She said they have the best audiences, plus everyone is so nice to them that the weather isn't a problem.

Speaking of which, Spotlightlover and I were there for last year's CITH tour. We decided to scope out the Mall of America, which required traveling some miles from downtown. Since we're both Californians with no real experience with winter temps, we called the guy at the front desk for advice. "Oh, it's balmy," he said. "Define balmy," I said, suspiciously. "Where are you from?" he replied. "California." "Well, in that case, it's 28 degrees and freezing."

*waves to artquest* Hi! I see you on the list below. My copy of your Mandarin book arrived and I even took it with me on the flight but haven't opened it since. When can we start?

Considering all that fruit you guys have picked up, this might be the place to start:

Qingwen, xi shou jian zai nar?

May I ask where the bathroom is?

I mean...how long must she have studied that pic in order to present various 'other Clay hands and arms' that would fit into the actual picture? Holy shit. Yet she not only vilified the dastardly photoshoppers, but also had some choice words for me and others who dared suggest that he would do something like that---"Why would you SAY such a thing about him? You say you love him, yet you think he would treat a woman like that?"

Hubby suggested that my education as a psychologist wouldn't be complete until I'd seen the flick, so off we went. About a third of the way through the movie, during a particularly squirmy bit, I swear I overheard the following conversion in the row behind us:

Man 1: I can't believe they're showing this on the screen!

Man 2: I agree. This is outrageous.

Man 1: Look at what she's doing!

Man 2: Is that even possible

Man 1: I'm disgusted. Let's leave.

Man 2: Not yet!!!

My Chinese speaking friend says that we're sorta OK with the characters, but that the word for love is a really strong one, implying intense and unswerving devotion, so maybe not appropriate for Clay's rear end. She suggests we use 我爱上克雷的屁股 instead, which means "I fell in love with Clay's butt." She loves the CD cover. They translated "Measure of a Man" as "True Love Measure". It's smutty either way.

Eeeeee! I got 3 out of 5 characters right! No, I got 3 out of FOUR! Yay me! Woo Hoo! Now get artquest to tell us how to say, "Your butt is fine - come along with us."

Oh wait...should I have put that in a PM?

Naaaaaah!

We can do "WORD" if we can get a precise definition of what it means in board-speak.

Hey, the least you Klingon/Chinese speaking peeps could do is put in English sub-titles... geesh! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Scarlett said:

我穿上不很好讲Klingon。 我是美国人。

Which means she doesn't speak Klingon very well, that she is an American.

That last part, 美国, means America. We may see some of this at the Olympics. Also look for big signs everywhere that say 中国, which means China, literally the Middle Kingdom. 中国人 means a Chinese person, just like 美国人 means an American person.

I replied:

我也是一个美国人。我学习中文. 我不学习Klingon.

Which means I am also an American and that I'm studying the Chinese language, not Klingon.

And I think we'll take our Chinese discussion to e-mail before we get a little note or whatever the admins do here when we're waaaaayyyy off topic.

Maw'? We're not maw'!... nuqDaq ta' SoH pol yuch! [and what's wrong with you people who don't speak Klingon!!??!?]

Wo shuo de bu hao Klingon. Wo shi Meiguo ren.

(and I hope you've been practicing too Reading is something else, though -- 我穿上不很好讲Klingon。 我是美国人。 )

HA! I can soooo understand that!!! Yay!!1!! (Hi-fives my teacher, Ms. Xiaoyang. This is going in this week's diary.)

Wo ye shi Mei Guo ren. Wo xue xi Zhong Wen, bu Klingon.

我也是一个美国人。我学习中文. 我不学习Klingon.

I'm being cultural this weekend anyway...merrieeee would be proud! Except I started with Kenneth Brannaugh's Henry V and couldn't understand most of the dialogue - discovered that I think good ol' King Harry was a complete and total ass - and Shakespeare told a LOT of historical license. The English killed 36,000 and only lost 25? Yeah, right. I know! Maybe we can get Henry V's PR people! They seem to be damn good!

That's eerie - I was looking up the Battle of Agincourt last night. Don't remember why. Anyway, here's what a typical site had to say:

Contemporary estimates of French losses range from 4 to 11,000 while more modern scholars estimate 7-10,000. In addition, 1500-1600 prisoners, all nobility, were taken to England as prisoners. Many of these, unable to pay the demanded ransom, never returned. This resulted in the loss of nearly half of the French nobility and the French king's support base. Most came from the northern provinces where the French recruited most of their military. The highest estimate of English losses, however, is 500 with more reliable sources estimating closer to 100.

Not a bad day's work, Harry.

I love Scarificial Love. Love it! I like the concept - a new one for me. The idea that someone is hanging around waiting for real love to strike is intriguing, though I'm not crazy about the term "sacrificial love" for that concept. But what I love most is that it's a beautiful waltz.

Pandora.com, who is usually really good about this stuff, doesn't get the song at all. Here's what they say:

Features Of This Song

mild rhythmic syncopation

acoustic rhythm piano

acoustic sonority

a twelve-eight time signature

use of a string ensemble

major key tonality

acoustic rhythm guitars

triple note feel

And their suggestions for similar tunes didn't do it for me. I guess it's one of a kind.

I'm sure you guys have seen this on Youtube, but if not, it's worth a look:

Sacrificial Love

I used to get flack about Clay from my new office mate, a very trendy, tattooed, contemporary art history person. Not directly, mind you, but she would make comments to others that I happened to overhear.

Then I showed her one of the 11 ways I know how to kill someone with my bare hands. (Seriously. She asked.) Now I get LOTS of respect.

It's been really fun to read the whole thread this evening, after the dust has settled.

So, what does CLay's silence mean to everyone.

1. He is out of the country and knows nothing about the "turmoil" Kim's comments created.

2. He is sitting in Raleigh eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch totally oblivious to the turmoil Kim's comments created.

OR

3. He's typing and retyping his blog so as not to piss anyone off...

...or he's sitting there saying to himself, 'It's just a tour, women!!' (ala Asheville/Biltmore banter)

Personally, I don't think he has to be out of the country to be unaware of the response. In fact, he may not even know Kim made any kind of statement. Fans generally tend to assume that he is as tuned into the online fandom as we are to him. However, if he's busy, he may not have reason to check the boards, and his family or management may not have heard about the furor either.

And later:

Minority opinion here:

I realize it's fun to believe otherwise, but FWIW, I don't think the blog is any kind of response to the tour. I think he's been busy in New York, attending "The Color Purple" and taking care of whatever business he may have there. Roseviolet at the CH noted that he hasn't logged on the to OFC message board since 9/4. As I said before, I really don't believe he's as tuned into the online fandom as much as fans imagine (and I actually think it's healthier if he doesn't). However, if he reads the responses to his blog, he'll find out soon enough.

For what it's worth, I'm not a big fan of the evil publicist notion. Public press release? Check. Kim's My Space announcement? I just saw it there. That means that Kim stepped over the line. He knows it and she knows it. That's just kinda sad.

Hugs to aikim and clazorback.

Yup ...Clay is like a Rorschach test... a lot of times our perception and interpretations of his actions and words are more a reflection of what we want. Personally...I am not a big fan of glory noting ballad boy Clay. I would love a more contemporary and even upbeat songs from him. BUT...when I compare his performance of TWYMMF and MOAM...The Classics with WY and The TV medley with TOA...I just get the impression that he gets more lost in the music of of the ballads and his artistry really comes out at these times. Yes...he gets alive with upbeat songs...but he often treats it as something fun where he can joke around with the audience and be goofy. I think he will have some upbeats songs in his new CD but I bet the ballads will still out number them.

Karen Eh's going to Azerbaijan? But, but, who will take those sublime pictures?

Have a fabulous time, chickie. We'll be looking for you on one of those trips back to see Clay.

In honor of the thread title and Karen Eh?'s amazing photo:

The Earl of Aikenberry

I also don't think being over zealous or waaaaaay too nosey, or trying to run Clay's career or make a statement in Clay's behalf even when you weren't asked and other such things makes you a bad fan and good riddance to them. It annoys the hell out of me and I think in the end they do more harm than good, but I also believe they believe they are helping Clay.

I have no problem with this. I guess my main concern is that going down a "what is a fan" slope is one that is very very slippery indeed so I tend not to go there at all.

I did, momentarily, make someone's good fan list during the same week as someone else's bad fan list. I'm thankful to the folks who got me off the bad fan list (And a nasty piece of work that list was, too.), but I appreciated the surreal humor, all the same.

Ah, Peach Schnapps....brings back memories of Strawberry Hill, Boon's Farm and other flavored schnapp poisons... and one crazy high school graduation party at Virginia Beach....

Couchie looked great at Fifth Grader, sitting on the far side of the set from me and waving her sign like crazy. Also good times.

For artquest, here: (Clay singing to flat Clay pics) . I posted another link awhile back, while you were in Edinburgh. If you can't find it, let me know.

(I'm trying to imitate couchie's thing about not bolding names, just to see how it goes. Has anyone noticed? I bolded this time cause I especially wanted to make sure she saw this one.

I DID see it. Thanks. And the pictures are sooooo cute. I'll be showing them to Mr. Artquest just as soon as I can stop looking at that zipper pic. Which may take awhile. Quite awhile.

Ahem.

Can I have A Thousand Days? I love this song with the passion of a thousand spinning mirror balls!

With all due respect artquest...liking someone is not enough for me to believe everything they tell me. I can accept that some people are being honest in what they are posting or spreading in the background...i.e. they completely believe they are telling the truth as they know it. But I still have to question their sources and where their source got the info in the first place. Info is like currency in this fandom. There are people that have spread info because they want the status, they are power tripping or are simply famehos. I know as a fact that a lot of these so called info are coming from a source that is pretty dishonest...so NOW...I just choose NOT to take any info at face value. As we saw during the concert...even M&G info can be twisted in different ways depending on how the report is worded or the filter of the reporter.

Respect noted and returned. My problem here, of course, is that I like almost everyone! Beyond affection, the statement huskerfalcon made this morning is not a claim of insider information; it's just good sense. Somewhere along the line, people with insider information HAVE posted what was, at least for a time, accurate stuff. For my own part, I've given up trying to figure out which anonymous poster is presenting accurate information and which isn't. It's just not possible to tell.

Now to make this really interesting, Clay himself can be an unreliable informant. He's a real person, so he is sometimes inconsistent, his mouth sometimes kicks into gear before his brain gets working, and sometimes things change. He tells us what he can when he can (I love the new Meet & Greet formats), but even he isn't always right. Plus as you've noted, the reports from the M&Gs also get passed through cognitive filters. It's become a family tradition in the Artquest household to take a tape recorder to important doctor visits because memory can be misleading. I remember Mr. Artquest's dad and mom arguing over what the doctor had said and then having to play the tape to hear it accurately. One of them had it completely wrong!

Clay is just so fascinating to watch. Considering the amazing level of scrutiny, I think he almost never makes a wrong step. Plus he's so cute! Ah, well, I'm about to slide into total fangirlyness when I need to get to work. I have a longish post somewhere in me on how people try to figure out what's going on under conditions of uncertainty, but that'll have to wait for another day.

And I can see that while I was composing this endless post, we've moved on to audio picks of each of the songs. Can I play? I'd love to do one, as long as it's not Everything I Have.

Like it or not, some people DO have information. Sometimes, that information is accurate for only a short time, while other times, it's just plain accurate.

It only stands to reason that among the thousands of Clay fans, there might be people who work in show biz or related fields... or that they might know someone who does. Or that there might be people who know Clay or one of his family members or close friends. These things happen.

Did I read the Couch Tomato is coming to L.A. for Fifth Grader? Yay! *Artquest does happy Snoopy dance.* See you in line, chickie.

That's pretty funny!!

He might not win, though. In politics - unlike other types of polls - you can only vote once!!!

BWAH!