Cover-a-Week #20: "City Hall" by Vienna Teng

In celebration of the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, United States v. Windsor:


http://youtu.be/lkrvnkgKTu0

The song was originally written about the 2004 same-sex marriage initiative in San Francisco, but it's just as relevant today; it commemorates the victory of love, justice, and human dignity over the prejudices of a shrinking minority.

Also, Oscar Wilde's two pence: http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2013/06/27

The Stanford Daily: Gaiman and Palmer in SF

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer performed a show in San Francisco last week, and I covered it for The Daily (pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, above):

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/11/04/gaiman-and-palmer-read-rock-and-talk/

It was awesome. I want a ukulele. 

Toothpick Miniature of the San Francisco Bay

I found this, and it's breathtaking. I'm not sure I'd have the patience to build something like this, honestly, but I can certainly gawk at someone else's creation:


Scott Weaver's Rolling through the Bay from Learning Studio on Vimeo.

Viennese Ball, Part II (a.k.a. The Adventure of the Dress)

The second Viennese post, with a picture, as promised:

From left to right: Melanie, myself, Caroline, Julie, Caitlin (yes, the chromatic arrangement was intentional)

So, the Adventure of the Dress (sounds like a Sherlock Holmes story, doesn't it?):

I stayed at Julie's place for a few days at the beginning of Winter Break. (She lives very close to Stanford.) We decided, the day I went over to crash at my uncle's place, to go exploring in San Francisco. We also decided to be extremely girly, and go thrift shopping. Our last stop was at a Salvation Army store. I found a nice sweater, she found a pair of jeans, and then I wandered by the section with ballgowns and out of the corner of my eye, spotted something made of purple brocade.

See, Julie makes no secret of her love of the color purple. So, I pulled out this pretty ballgown and decided that she absolutely had to try it on. So I barge into her dressing room with gown in hand, and proclaim, "I have found you a dress for Viennese!"

She tries it on, but it's just a little too tight and a little too short, which is very sad news indeed. So she decides that I should try it on, and lo and behold, it fits like a glove. The conversation went something like this:

Julie: It fits like a glove! And it's eight bucks! You should get it!
Me: I don't know if I'm going to Viennese; I might not ever wear it.
Julie: You should go to Viennese! Everyone should go to Viennese at least once.
Me: I don't even have a date!
Julie: If I didn't already have a boyfriend, I'd go with you!
Me: Hmm... I could crossdress. I have 1800s black tie menswear in my closet somewhere. But I can't lead.
Julie: I can lead.
Me: It would be interesting and optically confusing for the other participants if you wore a dress and led, and I wore pants and followed.
Julie: But what about this dress? *holds up purple gown*
Me: Oh, right. That.

So I bought the dress. Then I showed it to my sister on Skype, and she said it looked like an apron. Which, given the neckline, was not a completely inaccurate assessment. It really looked a bit like a floor-length qipao mated with a painter's smock (smock top, qipao bottom). So I decided to alter the neckline into something that looked a bit more gown-like. The end result is shown above.

And then I found a date. I asked my friend Remington (or well, I asked him, rather indirectly, if he was planning on attending), and he said no, but then Caitlin and friends pestered him into going, and so he came and asked me, and I said yes. And so I went to Viennese Ball.

Vienna Teng

I went to a Vienna Teng concert at the Highline Ballroom with my sister last night. It was my sister's first modern music concert (my second, my first being a Vienna performance in San Francisco).

I've been a fan of hers since Lewis introduced me to her music last quarter. Her story is very interesting and very inspiring; she's a fellow (ethnic) Chinese-American and a fellow (former) Stanford student. She majored in computer science while she attended, and worked at Cisco for two years before achieving some success as an independent musician, whereupon she quit her job (much to her family's consternation, one might imagine).

Her website: http://viennateng.com

This was her last tour, at least for now. She's going to graduate school at Michigan soon (but has reassured us that she'll continue making music, if not performing, while in school).

NYTimes: The Strangest Ice Cream Flavors

There's this ice cream parlor in San Francisco that sells flavors of ice cream called "Jesus Juice" and "Government Cheese". More descriptive flavors include "Peanut Butter Curry" and "Chocolate Smoked Sea Salt".

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/magazine/04icecream-t.html?_r=1&hpw

As I like to say, I'll try anything once. Anyone up for an excursion into San Francisco once I get back to school?