Just a quickie to say that my Mom is visiting from the states (yay!), that I finished one of the book reviews, and that I'm almost done with my reknit sweater. Should finish seaming and crocheting the edges tomorrow It will need a thorough wash and block before I can wear it though. Very exciting, as I really like the fit so far.
So we've now watched both semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest (Melodi Grand Prix in Norway for some reason). At some point I'm going to have to write an essay about it. As an American, I find it simply one of the strangest phenomena on earth. I think that Europeans must have a somewhat tortured relationship to popular music, especially since the US has been so incredibly dominant throughout the whole postwar period. This contest appears to me to be an annual shaming ritual in which each country desperately wants to be perceived as cool by the others. It's all about who has worse taste than you. On Facebook one of my friends was commenting on what a giant cultural divide there is between former Warsaw Pact countries and the rest of Europe. As a Western European he refers to the East Bloc as Badtastestan, which is actually kind of fitting, given the incredibly vulgar entries from Hungary and Ukraina. Yet all five of the Nordic countries made it through to the finals, which is kind of interesting too.
My favorites so far: Moldova and Portugal. Stay tuned for a full report after Saturday night's grand finale.
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