Owlspotting

On Wednesday, Starbucks opened its first store in Romania. Regardless of whether you view the Seattle chain as the incarnation of evil or as a savior of the coffee-hungry world, this is big news for Romania, where coffee culture is still largely domestic.

The arrival of Starbucks signals that the coffee wars of Eastern and Central Europe are about to begin in earnest.

But that’s not what this post is about. Jo was there, tested the goods and liked it. While in the US, I spent countless hours and dollars there. I hate their regular brew (hate might not be strong enough a word to describe my feelings toward their bitter regular blend), but I loved getting a skim caramel macchiato or a skim latte. Not to mention the seasonal (and awesome) pumpkin spice and eggnog lattes.

Yes, I bought the skim versions because Starbucks fancy drinks also pack a mighty calorie punch. I hope Romanians don’t dive head-first into the frappuccinos; better count those calories first.

Although I miss having easy access to caramel macchiatos, I probably won’t be a regular at the Bucharest location even thought it’s five minutes from my apartment there. Why? Because in America, the amount I paid for one couldn’t get me much else. The amount I have to pay for one in Romania though, can get me a whole lot.

Here’s a quick table I put together. Take a sip.

My name is Cristian and I like my world organized.

My tendency to plan, structure and organize stuff has been mocked by many. It lost me numerous romantic opportunities (how does one plan a one-night stand?!). While it got me jobs and assignments, it also probably made a lot of workmates insane. Someone once told me that I’m unable to live the moment because I’m busy thinking about what will follow. Hey, that’s just how it goes. You can’t control the moment, but you can have tons of fun controlling your ideas of the future (even though you can’t control the actual future).

The planner and organizer in me has just completed a gigantic project. For the past three months I have been cleaning, organizing, sorting and tagging my collection of digital music. I started with some 40 CDs of MP3s files, most of which benefited from little to no tags (the file names had been clean though). Today, my IPod claims to have some 7,367 songs and other audio files on it. All have ID tags for most if not any of the following fields: title, artist, album, year, genre.

I won’t go into detail–suffice to say this: if I had only a couple of songs from band X then I did not try to find the exact album name or year; I just put the band’s name in the album field (I am not that anal). But album’s are well tagged. I used the trusted and awesome Mp3tag.

The main reason I did this is because Ipod’s are miserable at reading file names. They need proper tags unless you want your screen to say you are listening to “No Artist-No Title.” Uploading about 40 gigabytes of music onto my machine took more than 4 hours.

Boy is this baby ready to rock.

Curious what tracks correspond to a certain number? According to WinAmp, my trusted music player, here are some highlights:

17. 3 Doors Down - I feel you
69. ab4 - So away
666. Beirut - The long island sound
1000. Bright Eyes - Classic cars
3003. Hallelujah the Hills - To all my scientist colleagues I bid you farewell
4573. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the aeroplane over the sea
5000. Papa Roach - Broken home
7367. Zwan - Settle down

If you don’t speak Romanian, please consider the ridiculous question I will pose next not as a dismissal of your worthiness, but as genuine solicitation of your opinion. The truth is that I’ve always had a problem dissociating an online space from the purpose it was created for. When owlspotting started, it was meant as an English language blog, largely about America and my interaction with it. It then added elements of reflection on country, language and memory, but they also came from a Romanian parsing things from an American vantage point.

I wrote once before about the difficulties I faced restarting this blog after my three months in Romania last summer. I feel the same problem coming on now, when I’m once again an active player in Romania for an indefinite period of time.

So, should I start another blog–this time in Romanian? Should it be separate from this one or an extension of it? Should it be as constrained to a few topics (as this one is), or should it be more blog-like, thus prone to rants on God knows what?

If you speak Romania, feel free to throw around some names.

In short, I want your opinions. Why? Because as someone who is a trained journalist, the idea that I’d be starting something without an audience (as little as it may be) is not an appealing one.

I returned home to Romania three weeks ago today and I would be lying if I said I’ve fallen into place. It more or less looks like everything is falling around me (the government and president in tow). I didn’t expect clarity of purpose or vision when I stepped of the plane, but I did hope for a routine of settling in. If I am living a routine, it’s one that is making me uneasy, antsy and permanently susceptible to over-analyzing all facets of daily life.

In the past six months, my struggle to determine an immediate future (or more likely a setting in which to live it), has made me even more self-aware of my decisions and the process I underwent to reach them. I remember reading an article in the New York Times science section recently that talked about free will and how we humans are so willing to believe we have it, when we actually have very little control over our urges. The article, if I’m not mistaken, enforced an idea I had picked up before from my spell of reading about nostalgia: we don’t really make decision, we just witness them bubbling up to the surface.

My return home had little to do with Romania and almost everything to do with being close to my family in some trying times. All the other reasons involved considerable self-deception, but the kind of self-deception tainted by optimism. I have told numerous friends over the past couple of years that at this moment, professionally speaking, I could probably hold a more important position in Romanian journalism than I would in American journalism. While peppered with truth, the statement rationalized away issues of quality–Romanian media is largely awful, confused, vengeful and arrogant. The optimism of it all tells me that in the clusterfuck of any potential job, I could be overlooked and left alone to produce according to my own standards. I still cling to this optimism.

Optimism is not an easy state of mind to live by in Romania. Day after day, politicians of all stripes play around with laws, statutes and pillage the self-worth of any citizen dumb enough to pay attention. As the president was suspended yesterday, my friend Lu told me she had to hold back tears to get through the work day. My father, who has never really entertained the thought of leaving, told me last night he’d be willing to give it all up. What’s striking–and saddening–is that they weren’t protesting the decision to suspend this particular president, but the string of events and the circus around it. They weren’t going to bat for the president (I’ve heard them both cuss at both sides) but they felt betrayed and trampled on by a few hundred well-dressed politicos who have made Romania their war-zone.

The people I’ve met with since I’ve been home keep asking me this question: “Te-ai intors de tot?” This translates as: “Are you back for good?” “Tot” doesn’t mean “good” though. “Tot” means “everything.” So the word itself is much stronger and the question much more leading as the tone often implies judgment. I know the mantra: don’t listen to what every other person has to say. But there is one thing I don’t want anyone to conclude: that I have returned to Romania because America was disappointing. That I have returned home because I have become disgusted by America. So I answer the question with a twist: “M-am intors cu tot.” This means “I have returned with everything.”

The meaning is simple: I am not willing to say I will live out my life in Romania. But I am willing to allow that I have packed all I’ve had and returned home, willing to make a strong commitment to everything and everyone for as long as I feel my presence is necessary.

For now, as confused as it all seems, I believe my presence is necessary.

Today, out of the list of minor social improvements I’d like to see, I’ll pick this one: I wish salespeople would stop asking me for change. I wish salespeople would stop telling me: “I can’t make change, can I give you a chewing gum instead?” I wish salespeople would stop putting the burden of exact change on me, especially in supermarkets, train stations, and convenience stores. I am not responsible to have change. It’s not my fault you don’t have enough bills or coins of one kind or another. I don’t give a damn. I don’t want a piece of gum, extra bread, or a shrug. I want my change back and I want you to stop being an asshole about it.

I am boarding my flight to Romania in a matter of hours.

Below are a few of the things I will miss about America (43 is also the number of months I’ve been away from home). Although this is a numbered list, it is not a ranking. I hope that one day I will return to add to this list. Until then, goodbye.

1. Being here.
2. Being Bufnita to the Huhurez.
3. My friends.
4. American breakfast, complete with pancakes, big omelets, bacon, waffles, grits and coffee refills.
5. The rooftop of my Washington, DC apartment.
6. The “thump” sound the Sunday NY Times made when it dropped outside my door.
7. My other magazine subscriptions: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Esquire and Wired among them.
8. Thursday Night Fights in Boston (Bang the nut, bitch!).
9. Tuesday Night Margaritas in Columbia, Mo.
10. The American dinner and a movie date.
11. Biking the trails of Missouri in the summer.
12. This American Life.
13. The “light as a feather” bureaucracy.
14. Being responsible for little else but myself (aka “Having a savings account”).
15. Spending hours in coffee shops with wireless fired up to the max.
16. The smell of New York City.
17. Thanksgiving dinners (more mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, please).
18. Going to shows of bands large and small (I heart The Decemberists).
19. Feeling safe on the streets.
20. Talking about American politics (especially presidential contests) and the culture (wars).
21. A functioning media landscape.
22. Small art-house theaters (big up to the Ragtag).
23. My soccer teams: The Church of Soccer (in CoMo) and Powder House (in Boston)
24. Everyone who put up with my pestering self and was there for me regardless of it.
25. Discovering roads, cities, places, people, food (I want oatmeal raisin cookies!)
26. Putting on a non-iron shirt and looking serious.
27. Dissecting football plays during playoffs (pass interference, damn it).
28. Speaking English.
29. Writing English and getting paid for it.
30. Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
31. My bosses and my mentors–they’ve taught me more than I learned in 20 years of school in Romania.
32. Micro-brews and not so micro-brews (I heart Blue Moon beer).
33. Goodwill and The Salvation Army (always the best collection of furniture).
34. Using and abusing the word “awesome.”
35. Saying: “Our nation’s capital.”
36. Doing a strong Romanian accent to entertain the troops.
37. Waking up to NPR’s “Morning Edition”.
38. Being this other person called “Cristian”.
39. Learning and anguishing over becoming “a writer.”
40. Explaining America to the less understanding Romanians.
41. Toilet bowls–high water level is what the whole world needs!
42. Making lists about it.
43. Did I say all of it?

November 2005: Washing dishes after an awesome Thanksgiving dinner complete with yummy desert.

December 2005: The horrid (and condom-looking) National Christmas Tree, which stands right outside the White House fence in Washington, DC. Scary!

January 2006: The Washington, DC studio at its cleanest. This is after the addition of new furniture pieces, a carpet and a television set. So BoHo…

February 2006: Snow on 20th Street; a view from the 8th floor.

March 2006: Soccer on the National Mall in the shadow of the phallus. There is something to be said about playing the game of games in such a setting.

April 2006: The Cherry Blossom Festival. More here.

May 2006: Watching the Washington Nationals get their ass kicked at RFK Stadium on Memorial Day.

June 2006: My mom was visiting DC and we ended up (again!) next to the phallus. An odd bit of trivia: Washington, DC is the only place in the United States that I been to in each of my four years (Thanksgiving in 2003, summer vacation in 2004, lived there in 2005 and 2006, and visited again in 2007). Contrary to this trivia, DC is not my favorite American city.

July 2006 - October 2006: No American life during this time; I was in Romania waiting for an upgrade in my visa status.

November 2006: My room in Boston. Some said it looked girlie. That did not bother me as much as the temperature inside this room. The climate ranged from friggin’ cold to polar winter.

December 2006: Sharing stories and journalism gossip over drinks at Brendan B’s in Jamaica Plain.

January 2007: Whether they come from the corner coffeshop or from Starbucks, I will miss the morning lattes.

February 2007: Violent and sexy roller derby action.

March 2007: Colin Meloy of The Decemberists rocks the Avalon in Boston. This was the last of my American shows and one of the top three. The Decemberists make up most of the soundtrack of my American life, and they are my favorite musical pleasure. For example: And I am a writer, writer of fictions/I am the heart that you call home/And I’ve written pages upon pages/Trying to rid you from my bones. (Picture from here).

* View the first two installments here and here.

October 2004: Barton dresses up a bunny to surprise his girlfriend, now wife, Alyson. I had the pleasure of petting this furry creature.

November 2004: America votes 2004. This was snapped in the early morning as people were slowly trudging to the polls in Columbia, Mo. Opinions were split. Boone County, where Columbia is located, went for Kerry. Missouri went for Bush. The rest is history.

December 2004: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome (fear and respect) The Church of Soccer. We never won any trophies but we did injure players on opposing squads–including breaking the toe of one poor soul. His bone was showing afterwards. Gross.

January 2005: Upon returning from a month long visit to Romania. Being back home was fun, but back then, returning to America was much better. After all, I owned a bike and some awesome mod furniture!

February 2005: During my second year at MU I lived in a nice apartment only a couple minutes away from a biking trail. The trail went through the woods down to the Missouri river, which you could follow for miles. Biking a few miles on Saturday mornings was a pleasure. And so were the burritos that followed!

March 2005: Nashville. Oh yeah!

April 2005: With Sara and John–celebrating the end of our graduate school years.

May 2005: This was a design project–for real! How worldly are you?!

June 2005: With Elle on the roof of my Brooklyn sublet. My two months in Green Point, a Polish pocket of Brooklyn, were some of the best I had in America. Owlspotting was born here (on June 21). dbrom died here. And much fun was had.

July 2005: Times Square, New York City, on July 4. That night I watched the fireworks show above the Hudson river. Sweet.

August 2005: By August 2005, I had moved to Washington, DC. This is a shot of the pool on the roof of my building. It was open from April through October and it was heated. Yes, that was hot stuff.

September 2005: Thomas Friedman, architect of the “flat world,” is something of an oracle of the business and political world. Here, he was “performing” at a DC book fair (with many rich middle aged people in attendance)–while a gigantic anti-war protest was taking place just five minutes away. Only in the nation’s capital!

October 2005: Sunset in Florida.

As my departure date approaches, I have decided to chronicle my time in the US in pictures.

Below is the first of three installments illustrating the time I spent in America from August 2003 to March 2007. Obviously, each picture corresponds to one particular month, which is also when that picture was snapped.

August 2003: On the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit… My first purchases in America were a latte, a cream cheese bagel and a copy of Rolling Stone.

September 2003: Like most foreign students, I quickly got a job on campus. Mine was supervising something called “Craft night,” a Friday night event where people came to do, well, crafty things with paper, glue and other assorted goodies. No, there was no alcohol. Nor drugs. Well, unless you count sniffing glue…

October 2003: Getting ready to see the Missouri Tigers take the field. They won that day.

December 2003: Meet Cinnamon from Boulder, Colorado. He was a nice dog (just a little smelly).

January 2004: I have no idea what was going on here.

February 2004: Josh and Sara peeking out the window, up in the St. Louis arch.

March 2004: The one and only–Shakespeare’s Pizza in Columbia, Missouri. Eat there!

April 2004: Brody Dalle of The Distillers rocking out the Blue Note in CoMo. That concert remains an unforgettable night for many reasons, one of which involved me catching a drum stick. Not one attached to a chicken, but the one attached to the drummer. The Distillers officially disbanded in early 2007. Brody is still hot.

May 2004: An equally hot moment captured during the photo session that produced the infamous montage: “Girls in carts.” Just minutes after this picture was snapped, we were stopped by local cops who demanded to take over the cart. Roger that, officer. Wheel it away.

June 2004: New Orleans. Bourbon street.

July 2004: Pummeling my Romanian brother for daring to insult the United States. He was taken to the emergency room, and the wounds required multiple stitches, but at least he learned to cheer for America.

August 2004: Visiting Washington, DC with my brother and my dad. The phallus in the background is indeed the Washington Monument.

September 2004: Erin and Brian dance at their wedding in a remote location in the Missouri countryside.

With my departure date less than three weeks away, I have started to count backwards.

Leaving America will probably trigger all types of regrets and bouts of nostalgia, but I’m determined to stay positive at least until I take my window seat on the plane out of Boston (There is a song by The Frames that says: “Too many sad words make for sad sad songs”).

I wanted to find a way–even if unremarkable and inconsequential–to chronicle this parting. This is why the next few posts will be devoted to my 43 months in America (coincidentally 43 is a popular number on the Internets). Come back soon for a photo-chronicle, a list of 43 albums I’ve enjoyed in my time here and 43 things I know I will miss about being here.

Below you’ll find the latest of my quarterly “American months” playlists. Because there will be no 44th American month, this one is called 43 American months. The links will take you to a band’s MySpace page.

1. The Broken West - On the bubble
2. Dear Leader - This is not our war
3. Bloc Party - Hunting for witches
4. MC Lars - Hipster girl
5. Bright Eyes - Four winds
6. I’m From Barcelona - Rec & play
7. Hallelujah The Hills - Hallelujah the hills
8. The Shins - Phantom limb
9. The Frames - Sad songs
10. Dear Leader - Father Baker
11. The Good, The Bad & The Queen - Kingdom of doom
12. Youth Group - Sorry
13. The Broken West - Down in the valley
14. The Arcade Fire - Keep the car running
15. Peter Bjorn and John - Young folks
16. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Emily Jean Stock
17. Lily Allen - Everything’s just wonderful
18. Youth Group - Forever young
19. M. Ward - To go home
20. Apples In Stereo - Can you feel it?
21. The Greencards - When I was in love with you
22. The Snowleopards - Stuck in the middle
23. The Arcade Fire - The well and the lighthouse

My love for The Arcade Fire began with this 2004 article in a small city magazine published by the Missouri J-School, which I was attending at the time.

The article, published November 25 was promoting a show the band was going to play the following week in Columbia, Mo.

The last quote in the article was from front-man and lyricist Win Butler, who was describing the live experience.

It is just so unpredictable. If you come thinking you’ll get one thing, then there will be people with their arms folded. Come with an open mind, and you’ll get an experience.

I was intrigued. The promise of an experience, combined with Butler’s idea of an ideal band (Marlon Brando on drums, Cap’n Crunch on the congos, Peter Frampton on guitar, early Salt-N-Pepa doing a dance scene with The Fly Girls, and Roy Orbison as the vocalist) sold me on the show.

That’s how I decided go see a band called The Arcade Fire play MoJo’s in Columbia, Missouri on November 30, 2004.

Today (March 6, 2007), the band released their second album, “Neon Bible,” a wonderful and grandiose piece of music. I will not talk about that record (others have done a much better job) but I will use this opportunity for a little reflection.

In November 2004, The Arcade Fire sold out MoJo’s, which fits about 300 people. Today they sell out huge concert halls and stadiums within minutes. The buzz about them had started in 2004, but if you were not paying attention to music festivals such as CMJ, they weren’t anywhere near the radio, MTV or Rolling Stone. They were so small, in fact, that they were interviewed for that story I read in Vox Magazine. Today they grace four pages in the New York Times Magazine or the New Yorker.

I paid $8 to get into that show and I left sweaty and elated. The opening bands had dragged on too long and I was getting tired. But when the Arcade Fire came on to unleash a torrent of energy on a convoluted array of instruments from violins to motorcycle helmets, I was hooked. Instruments were being tossed in the air, band members were drumming on each other’s heads or the ceiling, and the crowd was ecstatic. Today, you hear people referring to an Arcade Fire concert experience as “cathartic.” I know where that’s coming from. (I couldn’t find pictures of that show, but here’s some from another gig on that fall 2004 tour)

I’m still debating whether I should go try to go see them at Glastonbury this summer. I love their music just as much as I did after I gave “Funeral” its first spin. But I know that the intimacy of that night in Missouri is unique–so unique that I don’t want to layer other memories on top of it.

Update (a little later in the day): If you’re curious how the Arcade Fire sounded live back in 2004, check out this recording from their Boston show.

PS: Remembering your musical past is fun–I recently reviewed a book that does just that (yes, it’s about how indie rock saved John Sellers’ life).