Something fun for the weekend. A Brooklyn Lad introduced me to Flight of the Conchords last year. This song, called Jenny, is one of their best. Watching it again last night I was reminded of this Victoria Wood song from long, long ago.

Ever since WBEZ started offering its hour-long show This American Life as a free weekly podcast I have become a huge fan.

Each week the program explores a handful of diverse stories that are related by a loose theme. For example, the theme of the latest show is David and Goliath; stories range from a mother trying to stop her two daughters from fighting to the Cambodian garment industry’s struggle for recognition to a quirky David Sedaris piece on people shitting in department stores. (I don’t remember what shitting in department stores has to do with David and Goliath but who cares when you are munching on your lunch listening to tales of people defecating in public.)

What I love about This American Life is not just how informative and wide-ranging the topics are, but how well each story is told. You’ll have to listen to a couple of shows to understand what I mean. A good place to start might be this page of staff favorites.

In previous weeks I have heard a former Pentagon employee who targeted bombs for the invasion of Iraq talk about traveling to the country weeks later (having quit and joined Human Rights Watch) and being thrilled at the pinpoint accuracy of attacks he guided. The week before I heard a woman recount being attacked by a rabid raccoon in New York State. (Archived episodes cost $0.95 per download.)

One very interesting tidbit I learned during this week’s show—apart from the fact that shitting in stores is a nationwide affliction—is that Cambodia has some of the best labor practices in Asia and therefore higher operating costs. I was also interested to hear, after a discussion last week with a friend about sweatshop labor, that The Gap is responsible for one quarter of Cambodia’s garment exports.

If that doesn’t pique your interest, I don’t know what will. You can listen/subscribe here for free. The show joins From Our Own Correspondent, In Our Time, Start the Week and Documentary Archive on my list of podcast favorites. Which podcasts do you listen to?

Oh dear. A Brooklyn Lad is less than impressed with the Bob Dylan concert he had been so looking forward to. What makes it worse is that he had to travel all the way to Hempstead, Long Island, on a cold and rainy evening:

After a short fanfare I assume Bob Dylan is on stage. I can’t actually see him but he must be there as I can hear his voice.

It seems supremely incongruous that the greatest singer-songwriter in the history of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the legendary Bob Dylan, is here on this damp Monday evening. It is like finding him in the warehouse of a supermarket. I imagine him perched under a shelf load of canned beans, strumming his guitar, while forklift trucks whirr idly by.

Finally I make him out, he is sat at a piano in front of the drummer. I had mistaken him for a drum.

Okay, I’ve seen Bob Dylan.

He starts with a raucous version of Maggie’s Farm. It sounds good.

Next up is Spirit on the Water, probably the best track on Modern Times. Somehow the melody has been stripped away and Dylan’s rasp begins to irritate. I love his broken down voice on record, it has a consistency to it, which is sorely lacking here. Good god it’s all over the place; there’s no getting away from it, it really is awful.

Meanwhile, the row behind me has been filled by a father and his teenage daughters. They all take to clapping. Booming hollow claps in time to the beat. I try to fight my misanthropy but its currents hit me with ever-stronger force. A few songs later and a chunky suburban mom a couple of rows ahead stands up and starts swaying vigorously. Swaying. As much as I think I’ve mellowed in recent years, as much as I have grown up, I still cannot cope with the sway. I last another couple of songs then I get up. Enough is enough.

I try to navigate the lonely puddles in the parking lot but there are too many of them. My suede shoes can’t keep out the water and by the time I get on the bus my feet are saturated.

Again, I watch as the neon signs of roadside restaurants flash through the steamed windows. Bye-bye chicken, bye-bye biscuits.

I arrive at the train station as the train for New York is leaving. I have an hour to wait before the next train and there is a chill in the wind. I shiver with cold and hunger.

There is a reason I never leave New York.

Demonstrations, tear gas, shootings, an earthquake and a serial killer on the loose. Not just an average couple of weeks for Travelling Nanooki in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan:

(November 2)…A big protest in front of the Kyrgyz “White House” is expected today at the main square.

[...]On October 31 we went shopping to wholesale markets to buy big sacks of staples. We then went to Beta Stores supermarket. There were quite a few people who were stocking up everywhere we went…

Also, they say the government has procured some kind of gas from Israel to use against rowdy demonstrators that causes vomitting and diarrhea.

There are also a huge number of rumors of this and that and the other. I’d rather not completely panic just yet.

(November 6) Back in Soviet days one knew that something critical was happening in the country when they showed the ballet “Swan Lake” on TV and ignored reporting the news. That’s what was on TV when the Soviet Union was broken up and Gorbachev was taken hostage by the politburo.

Today they are showing these strange ethno-operatic motif videos from the 70′s with beautiful cinematography. Strangely unburdened Kyrgyz running around in 70′s sunglasses in the mountains and on the beach of lake Issyk-Kul with an orchestra using ethnic instruments like the komuz and jew’s harp (temirkomuz) in the background. The women and men of the orchestra have national costumes on. The women wear hats with feathers that stick out and look like wings fluttering in the mountain wind. God, if only I could get my hands on this footage, I would take it directly to Walter Reade/Anthology Film Archives in New York.

There are reports that 300,000 Bakiev supporters are moving here from Osh now. Supporters of Bakiev and those of the opposition are having a stand off at the old square near AUCA, the university where I teach. Bakiev has resurfaced and has stated that he is going to “take certain measures.” If the opposition looses now they will probably be imprisoned and tortured…

The opposition will only win if America/Russia will back them. Right now they are ignored by everyone…

The TV makes everything surreal.

(November 7) Today I read that hospital doctors had confirmed that the government used weapons only again the pro-opposition demonstrators. Although there are reports in the news that both groups, the pro-opposition and pro-government demonstrators were injured, the truth is that the SNB (Kyrgyz KGB) were directed to fire at the unarmed demonstrators. They also had snipers on the roofs of buildings who were directed to kill opposition leaders, that is why Babanov was carried away by his guards.

[...] Oh, and at 8.22 am there was a 4 point-ish 5 point-ish earthquake. Two days before we had a flood in the house. Constant excitment here in the town of Bishkek…

(November 13) Bishkek city police force are looking for a serial killer who has attacked seven people in the last three days. His “signature” attack starts with stabbing of victims’ backs. He has attacked people every few hours on the 11th of November.

There are also reports of two more victims, a young man and a young woman on the following message board. However, this hasn’t been yet confirmed by the police.

So far the only information online that I found is all in Russian. The man is described as a 25 year old Kyrgyz man of average height, with a mustache and an accent when he speaks Russian.

250 police men are being deployed to look for the serial killer who strikes in a cluster of mikrorayons (small high rise neighborhoods) pretty near to where I live. They are basically a 5 minute drive away.

On Diesel, a popular city message board there’s talk of people organizing themselves into vigilante groups. I am really tempted to go join one of those so that I can write about it.

[...]Every day strange things happen in the town of Bishkek. By the end of the school day everyone at the university talked of this serial killer business. It seems like the demonstrations were a century ago.

Okay, so maybe it’s not strictly ten days that shook Bishkek. But since when did a journalist allow the truth to get in the way of a good headline?

And before you marvel at how worldly-wise I am for following a blog from Bishkek—think again. This story comes via my friend Emily, whose friend is the author of Travelling Nanooki.

There is something quite freakish about Ben Baruch’s latest animation (click on the image above to watch). If I didn’t know better I might wonder whether it was satire. But I do know better. And I assure you it is not. Great animation. Strange product.

My Internet was down for about seven hours yesterday, so I am playing catch up today. Apologies.