When I first visited Norway, I noticed that the overwhelming majority of women have long hair. I don't mean chin-length "long" hair; I mean past the shoulders, cascading layers of long hair long. After living here for a while, I realized that the reason for all of this long, long hair was in part due to cost of getting your hair cut. Your basic trim begins at kr450 ($72) and even at that, people ask you where you found such a good price. Once, and only once, did I pay a mere kr240 ($38.50) for a haircut. In addition to the haircut, I paid kr160 for the train tickets and spent close to two hours in transit. So for economic reasons, I let my hair grow long.
There are tricks to this, of course. Again, the majority of Norwegian ladies have thin hair, with a touch of curl. One or two layers, a li'l dab of mousse and voila! a bouncy, manageable hair style is born. My hair, however, is poker straight and thick. The hairstylists here had to add layer upon layer and then go back and thin out each layer to achieve a resemblance of said magic. Of course, there has been a bit of playing around with the combination of layers and thinning out and some visits to the hairdressers were better than others.
About a month ago, I went to the salon and described what I wanted. (layers, thinning, etc) What I got was a very feminine mullet. The top layer was about 3 inches long and the rest of my hair was about 10 inches long. I'd wake up every morning with a puffy bowl crowning the top of my head and no matter how I plastered it down, it would slowly puff up again during the day. The worst of it all was that the wreck of a hairstylist thinned out rest of my hair so that all of my hair could fit into ponytail holder no thicker than my forefinger. I was horrified since my hair is usually 3 times that thick.
I decided it was time to start over. Too many layers, too many attacks from the thinning shears and my hair was the worse for it. I took my Christmas money (thank you, Jorunn!) and got my hair chopped. It's short and it feels great! My hair is also uncharacteristically poofy at the moment. There's nothing to weigh it down and it's proudly defying gravity. Wax and heavy styling products help to control it, but artistically so. Ahhhh, freedom. The long hair experiment was fun, but this was long overdue.
To date, people's reactions have been fairly uniform: "Wow, that looks nice and how are you going to afford to keep your hair short?" Lord knows, but I'll figure all of that out later, yo.
Streetplayaz: Kill Your Accordion
Street musicians are in every city in the world, though some more than others. In Philly, I always liked the saxophonist out on Chestnut St. who usually played on Saturdays when foot traffic was at its peak. If I remember correctly, the guy choose to play around either 12th and Chestnut or at 16th & Chestnut, where the acoustics of the tall buildings channeled his songs better. It sounded good. I also liked the occasional Step troops that would come down from their neighborhoods and perform outside the Gallery at 9th and Market. I suppose you could get sick of it if you saw them every blessed weekend, but for the few times I saw the girls steppin' and the boys drummin', I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Our local cults of personality included a blind woman who played the penny whistle in Old City and another guy dressed in bow-tie and a suit who played the "God Bless America" on the flute. Seriously, that was the only song the guy played, all day and every day he was out. I don't think the street musicians in Philly ever evolved to the level of those in NYC or even NJ, where a guy dressed like Elvis would sing into a hairbrush along side the major highway to Cherry Hill.
And then there's Oslo.
Oh, so rarely do you see a group of young kids from the music conservatory out on the street for shits and giggles. The best entertainment we get are Eastern European accordion players. My first impulse when I see an accordion is to destroy it - violently. I spent all of Summer 2005 shooing strolling accordion players from the outdoor cafe where I worked. One guy didn't speak a word of Norwegian and placed a curse on me and future generations in Romanian after I asked him to leave. (I'm guessing here, but some things transcend language barriers.) As long as they stood outside the café, they could play to their heart's delight and the customer's distaste. To make matters worse, these players pop up in the strangest of places, miles away from tourist areas: outside neighborhood grocery stores, on the empty streets leading up the university, behind office buildings in near-empty parking lots, etc. In short, you can't escape and it blows chunks.
As a postscript, I would like to offer two exceptions to my violent dislike of the accordion. The first was Ms. Murghatroid (Transmissions Festival ca. 1999) who hooked up her accordion to a distortion pedal or something. It sounded surprisingly good since it didn't sound like an accordion at all. And then there is one guy in Oslo who learned some French café tunes, similar to those on the Amelie soundtrack. Even though it still sounds like an accordion, it's pleasant.
I really wouldn't mind hearing some jazz on these street corners, but that's not likely. For now it will be accordion players, the rare classical music types and the occasional pan-pipe players. But be forewarned: if I hear any "jazz accordion" I will beat the guy senseless.
And then there's Oslo.
Oh, so rarely do you see a group of young kids from the music conservatory out on the street for shits and giggles. The best entertainment we get are Eastern European accordion players. My first impulse when I see an accordion is to destroy it - violently. I spent all of Summer 2005 shooing strolling accordion players from the outdoor cafe where I worked. One guy didn't speak a word of Norwegian and placed a curse on me and future generations in Romanian after I asked him to leave. (I'm guessing here, but some things transcend language barriers.) As long as they stood outside the café, they could play to their heart's delight and the customer's distaste. To make matters worse, these players pop up in the strangest of places, miles away from tourist areas: outside neighborhood grocery stores, on the empty streets leading up the university, behind office buildings in near-empty parking lots, etc. In short, you can't escape and it blows chunks.As a postscript, I would like to offer two exceptions to my violent dislike of the accordion. The first was Ms. Murghatroid (Transmissions Festival ca. 1999) who hooked up her accordion to a distortion pedal or something. It sounded surprisingly good since it didn't sound like an accordion at all. And then there is one guy in Oslo who learned some French café tunes, similar to those on the Amelie soundtrack. Even though it still sounds like an accordion, it's pleasant.
I really wouldn't mind hearing some jazz on these street corners, but that's not likely. For now it will be accordion players, the rare classical music types and the occasional pan-pipe players. But be forewarned: if I hear any "jazz accordion" I will beat the guy senseless.
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