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Fan Life
I posted sixteen seconds of Nick Jonas’ ASYV benefit performance to You Tube last week. And then I was surprised all weekend, with a window into the world of people under 20, as emails full of enthusiastic comments peppered my inbox. There is so much Jonas love on that little video, which has now (sadly) been consumed more times [sixteen thousand +] than anything else I’ve ever posted anywhere. Now I think I’m obligated to post his Coldplay cover, right? Anyway, here’s a sample of Nick’s devoted fans:
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PRINCE CHARMING !!!
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He is a great artist. Exceeds all my expectations, no matter what he always exceeds them.
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Beautiful and perfect, Nick Jonas are the best, i love him ♥
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I am so proud of this guy. He’s beautiful.
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amazing so proud of him <3 what else did he sing??
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I miss the Jonas Brothers as hell.
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I love this! :] He’s growing so much as an artist. This sounds more like the administration sound and it was fantastic:]]] It kind of reminds me of when Nick would play ALBL and Joe and Kevin would come out and just jam out on guitar with him. I miss those days, but I’m so proud of Nick and where he is now. <3
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OMG, loved the version ! want the full performance!!! :(
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i loved this version!!
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Sounds so fresh!!!
- yayy! this time a little different.. a guitar version of ALBL :)
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Benefit
Sometimes people are lovely and the world seems like a nice place to live. Like when The Roots, Betty Wright, Nick Jonas, and Diane Birch (a crowd that doesn’t necessarily go together, right?) show up at ASYV’s Stand Up event to perform.
I have a crush on The Roots; they’re such a band’s band.
I gave up the video thing pretty quick because who wants to hold still, but here’s Betty Wright.
And here are the inimitable [though poorly recorded] Roots.
And for posterity, Nick Jonas. (If I were twelve, I might point out that he’s looking right at me, and now that I’ve said that I realize the quality on all the youtube copies doesn’t let you see it. From his eyes to mine, forever, then…)
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Coming Home
Feeling a little dead inside today. Remembering these Rwandan kids both makes me happy and fills me with a sense that I am not doing enough. For them or for me. This is a new year: GET ON IT.
From May 18, 2009
The travel time back home yesterday worked out to be something like thirty hours, giving us ample time to sit in that awkward place between missing the village and being eager to get back into a regular routine. And now that those thirty hours are over, and I’ve had a hot shower and slept in my own bed, I can’t close my eyes without seeing the faces I met this week.
Visiting the new home of one hundred twenty five students was humbling. They walk a mile uphill to the Dining and the School (often in the rain, so maybe they’ll tell “back in my day” stories years from now), every shower of theirs is cold (they don’t know hot water but for the tea that is a luxury to them), they call their home “America,” and their families are now each other (“we are a team,” Fabien said). They are the most open and generous group of young adults — of adults I have ever met.
I have never felt so welcomed on such a scale.
Which made it very difficult to leave the Dining yesterday, waving with two hands at some of the people who we’ve come to know this week, watching them clean up the tables according to their regular duty, and knowing that their lives will continue on, much the same as we’ve seen — only without us.
So what will our lives be like? Mostly the same as they were, only hopefully with more of the students in them. There is so much more work to be done, and no one is more deserving than these kids who work so hard, who struggle against memories that could destroy them, who are daily trying to learn — English, math, science, culture, the world — forging friendships that will make life-long family, and becoming the people they are told they can be.
On the drive from JFK, I was having trouble recognizing places along the way, places I’ve seen a hundred times. The lower east side was a totally foreign landscape. Union Square, which I look at every day, suddenly seemed tiny like a toy. Passing restaurants, something was just off about them.
And the only thing I can conclude is that this past week has just been so huge. Yes, Africa is on the grandest scale there is, but I mean emotionally, intellectually, culturally. Coming back to “the greatest city in the world” feels much smaller than it used to.
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Oh, You Got Jokes?
Traveling to Africa for ten days with a group of six is a good way to get sick of people get to know people really well.
It’s also a good opportunity to spend some time alone in your brain and maybe learn some things. For example, I now think I’m just not that into “jokes”. I love the well-told story with some funny mixed in, but please, no weirdness for the sake of weirdness that becomes funny because it’s so weird. (I’m looking at you, Family Guy.)
I just don’t laugh at jokes that are really only funny as meta-jokes. Something I laughed at once doesn’t have to be repeated ad infinitum just because we’re tired. IF WE’RE TIRED, LET’S SHUT UP. (Oops, my introversion is showing.)
Before we boarded our minibus to JFK, I was carrying a heavy tube packed full with antennae and other long wifi equipment, and I said something about it being heavy and weirdly shaped. And that’s when it started: “That’s what she said.”
Okay, Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha.
The end. Right?
Not right. It was going to be a long night.
“That’s what she said.”
Uuuugh.
By the time we were in Rwanda, “That’s what he said” was in the mix. And it was funny. I laughed… for the first few days. But then it stopped being fun to be in on this joke.
The genders were divided evenly on this trip, three men, three women. And while the other two ladies joined my eye rolling, the boys couldn’t get enough of this. It wasn’t until the Brussels airport on the way back when they started trying, although not in earnest, to cease fire.
And just to make things clear, it’s not the nature of the joke that bothers me — I used to adore the She Said from Michael Scott, but now I’ve heard it so many times it may as well be She Sells Seashells.
My aversion to these jokes is the repetition. And especially when I’m tired, I don’t want one more thing to be tired of.
But maybe the experience in Africa was less about boys enjoying the same exhausted joke, and maybe more about the entire group trying to create something familiar for our very strange week. Much like the aunt who grasps your elbow so she can bend your ear at Thanksgiving – even though we didn’t really like it, it was something to hold onto.