Wilco Weekend: Happy Holiday.

Happy Labor Day weekend greetings brought to you by Wilco. Wilco.


We've got a few announcements and then we're gonna get out of here and fire up the grills for what could be the last time this summer as a world tour awaits. So with that in mind, (Glenn: a drumroll please) here is the next group of North American tour dates. Ticketing info will follow in a week or so.

Nov. 29: Dallas TX Music Hall at Fair Park

Dec. 1: Austin TX Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater

Dec. 3: Kansas City MO Uptown Theater

Dec. 4: West Des Moines IA Val Air Ballroom

Dec. 6 & 7: Minneapolis, MN State Theatre

Dec. 9: Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theater

Dec. 10: Detroit, MI Fillmore Detroit

Dec. 12: Chicago, IL Civic Opera House

Also, less than 150 tickets are left for the September shows in Indy, Toronto (both nights) and Boston. And for all of our North American tour dates (in case you missed the announcement on Facebook and Twitter), we're starting the Fan Video Project this week. Details here (in short, we want you to create a video stage backdrop for the band).

If that isn't enough, we're gonna do a special under-the-radar stream of the new record tomorrow for Wilcoworld only. Here's the deal -- as a reward for your labors, ours, and those of our forefathers/mothers -- starting at 12 Noon Central time tomorrow (Saturday) and for 24 hours straight we're gonna stream The Whole Love in its entirety, at wilcoworld.net. That's right. Your first chance to hear the whole thing is tomorrow. Trust us, you'll be glad you made time to check it out.

Next up, The Whole Love is officially out and in stores on September 27 -- which is less than a month away. Have you preordered yours yet? If not, you can at our store, iTunes, the ANTI- Records store, Amazon and many indie retailers. We suggest you give a listen, maybe check out a couple of the videos we have up on the site, and then pull the trigger and order one for yourself and maybe a couple more for holiday gifts. What the heck, may as well get an early start, right?

More soon. Have a great holiday weekend.

Cheers (sound of bottles & cans opening....)

- Wilco HQ

Naming of Things.

In Tanzania, the naming of things is an art form. And therein lies the joy of a Tanzanian road trip.

We started a list of dala-dala (minibus), bajaj and truck names a while back and on our recent road trip out west we passed the time with a renewed interest in on-the-road entertainment in the form bus and truck names.

Some of the names could be better classified as allegiance pronouncements which center largely around religion and football and tend to be quite straightforward: Manchester United, Barcelona, Islam, Jesus, and many variations therein.

Philosophical naming conventions can make you look and think twice, or at times elucidate a very fundamentally different worldview in this part of the world: Born to Suffer, God is SO good, !2nd chance!, no gain without pains. 

And other names can just be downright hilarious, if not, perplexing: bankito, Grace & Vincent, Blue Horse, goodfellaz, Uprising, Allocation, Don't Panic: Message Sent, Double 'D', Mr. Promise, The Expendable's Full Respect, The Top Judge, Coaster for All of the Nations, AMBUSH, Doctor Bush, Castaway, Liver Pool, King Perfect, Black People, Logistika, Power (of) God, Bananaland, V.I.P. Class, B. Positive (wait, is that a blood type allegiance or a philosophical pronouncement?!).

Incidentally, this is something that Sarah Markes captures well in her Dar street level sketches. And her new book certainly did not disappoint! In fact, we have become not only proud owners of her new book, but also of two original street level sketches capturing the hilarity of naming of transportation modes.

Sari Party.

When I saw Rami and James' engagement photos, I knew this wedding would be worth the 10,000 mile trek - and boy was it! They were thoughtful down to every last detail, and nothing went unnoticed. They pored love and attention into making their day special and unforgettable for themselves and the guests alike.

Because we do not have a mailing address in Tanzania, I did not actually get to see any of the paper invites sent to guests ahead of the wedding. The evening before the wedding a friend handed me an envelope. I cried reading it. "21 Saris: Ranmali and James' Bridal Party" it read on the cover. Inside contained an invitation from Ranmali to her 21 best friends to form a special part of her wedding day. Just because she and James decided not to have an official wedding party to be part of their ceremony and celebration, did not mean that she could not have 21 of her best friends dress up in saris to match hers!

It is a Sri Lankan tradition for the bride's home to be filled with all of her female friends and family on her wedding day, not only did Ranmali invite us to spend this special moment with her, but she invited us to have her aunties wrap us up in saris to wear to the ceremony. While Ranmali looked like pure royalty in her wedding sari, the rest of us looked a little less convincing, but this wedding will surely go down in the books as completely memorable and unforgettable.

 

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Photo Credit: last photo - one of the male counterpart's to (from left) Ryan, Hanni, me, Dana, Elise

P.S. Yes, those are bugs flying around in the air mid-ceremony. They are not so coincidentally called "Love Bugs" and they only come out one time per year in Florida to mate.

Ranmali and James on Fire!

And so it seems, I have run out of vacation highlights, oh but wait, except for the most important part. The entire reason for heading to the States and road tripping between Miami and New Orleans was to attend the wedding of our dear friends Ranmali and James. They have to be the most photogenic couple I know.

By wedding night's end she was dancing so hard, she danced herself into a diamond. No denying that is a lovely song.

Here's to you Rami and James! We wish you a life time of happiness together.

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Photo Credits: Matt @ Verve Studio; check out the full engagement set here

Nostalgic for St. Patrick's Day.

I heard the entire city of Chicago went on a bender last weekend, as is typical this time of year in commemoration of St. Patrick's Day. Something about wearing green and drinking copious amounts Irish spirits usually proves a recipe for disaster, as I have witnessed firsthand several years over along the green river.

I cant say I wish I was there among them, but I must admit that I am feeling extremely nostalgic for St Patrick's Day celebrations this year. Perhaps it is just a wishful diversion from work, but something doesn't feel quite right about letting this day go by without the standard fare of a draught guiness, corned beef and cabbage and some soda bread.

So in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day and also in celebration of my mom's birthday, I share an innovative recipe that you can count on to get your annual fix of Irish soda bread.

United Victory Banner.

This One Goes Out to the One I Love.

For those looking to indulge a sweet tooth today in celebration of love, here is a divine chocolate cupcake recipe via lanalou.

Chocolate Cupcakes

100g cake flour

20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar

1½ tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

40g softened butter

120ml milk

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla essence

* Mix flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter together with electric mixer till it forms a fine granule-like consistency.

* Add milk, egg and vanilla essence to the dry mixture and beat till smooth.

* Spoon mixture into cupcake cases until ⅔ full. Mixture makes about 12 cupcakes.

* Bake in pre-heated oven at 180˚C for about 20 minutes or until sponge bounces back when touched.

* When cool, either dust with icing sugar or ice with chocolate frosting.

This One Goes Out to the One I Left Behind.

Valentine's Day Poems. Tanzanain Style.

Sweating through my shirt

Smell of Deet and burning trash

She will be impressed.

I thought it was love

Hot!  Sweaty!  Delirious!

Nope: malaria.

Q-Bar prostitute

Spirit of love and romance

Half hour, Room 6.

Drank warm red box wine

Moon-lit stroll on CoCo Beach

Now we're getting mugged

Would have bought flowers

But we're in Dar es Salaam

Will Konyagi do?

Una pendeza

I will make love to you now

Ignore the heat rash

Peace Corps volunteer

Room with power and water

Easy to impress

Kempinski was full

Street meat at Posta instead

Can I still get laid?

I had a great night

It's too hot to walk you home

Please take a bajaj

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Forwarded by Christen Mullen via Roman Kotovych.

Colors of the Oasis.

Let me just put this out there – I LOVE ikat! My next dream vacation would be a shopping spree to Uzbekistan to purchase ikat textiles galore – oh the joy!

So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that I missed the opportunity check out this exhibit at the Textile Museum during our recent trip home to DC. Alas.

Here is a little bit about the history of Ikats. Ikats display Central Asian artists’ and weavers’ attention to the harmony between design, color and execution in order to create their master works. 19^th century Central Asian ikats are distinguished by bold, original designs using vibrant colors. The name Ikat is derived from the technique used to create them, whereby bundled textiles are bound and dyed several times before weaving, resulting a tie dye like pattern.

In Central Asia, a man’s clothing defined his status in society and proclaimed his wealth (hmm…not to dissimilar from NYC streets today, huh?!). But the home is where honor and wealth were on full display – homes were filled with the richest ikat textiles and many family ceremonies were celebrated in surroundings made beautiful with textiles. What a minute, was I born in the wrong era and on the wrong continent?!

But today, Ikat inspirations are everywhere in home design world. Here are a few inspiring images of ways to insert a little bit of ikat into your abode.

Holiday Traditions.

Our recent trip to the US allowed us the opportunity to continue some of our favorite holiday traditions. Among our favorite holiday traditions, is our annual visit to the Botanical Gardens to see their train display and miniatures of national historic buildings - notably all made from scrap organic materials collected from the in-house gardens. These are works of pure genius and bring out a childhood sense of fascination - I highly recommend you squeeze in a visit to this annual display amidst your holiday reveling next year. Oh! and the Willard's Round Robin Bar makes for an excellent place to warm you up afterwards - a Dirty Martini is my guilty pleasure - and you may just overhear some interesting political gossip while enjoying your drink!

This year I also managed to learn a thing or two along the way.
1) I did not need to travel 5000+ miles to see how a banana grows

2) Everyone in the US has an iphone, including her

and her:

3) Sometimes simple can be better:

Birthday Party Flashback.

South African vintage collection bottles consumed: too many to count
persons befriending the toilet post spirits imbibing: one
skinny dipping participants in the Indian Ocean: three
hospital bills for 3 malaria victims: very, very many monies
memories to last a lifetime: priceless

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Source: Kristen Pfau via

Just Like Christmas.

Some pictures from the Mattingly Household on Christmas morning.

And what would Christmas be without my favorite Christmas song. Off to celebrate with booze and bagels at my uncle's house in Capital Hill:)
Merry Christmas everyone!
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Photo Credits: Andrei Sinioukov

Holiday Inspiration from the Spice Island.

Tis the season for over-imbibing and over-indulgence. But instead of sharing the standard bottle of red wine at your next holiday party, why not try something a little more inspired?! 

I came across the following recipes for Jamie Oliver's mulled wine and a holiday sangria featured on the Sprouted Kitchen, and the combination of winter fruits, warm spices and clementines all brought about immediate associations of the Christmas season in my mind. So drink it warm or cold, depending on your locale, but either way tis the season to add some spice in your life!

Interestingly, both of these recipes hit close to "home" not because mulled wine or sangria are holiday staples in our family, but rather because of my current proximity to Zanzibar, otherwise known as the "Spice Island." Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous island approximately 20 miles off the Tanzania mainland, has a long history of growing spices. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops with a ruling Arab elite. They developed large plantations to grow spices, and eventually the term "Spice Island" was coined in reference to Zanzibar. Today, spices continue to be one of Zanzibar's main industries, together with tourism. The islands are particularly well known for their production of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper. 

Tourists to Zanzibar are welcomed to join any number the daily spice tours excursions to the plantations within easy reach of Stonetown. We had the pleasure of taking a spice tour on a recent trip to Zanzibar and it proved quite an interesting excursion. Perhaps in this case pictures are worth a 1000 words.

the "spicy" boy.

fru-ITs and spices.

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Photo Credits: 

# 1 and #2: http://sproutedkitchen.com/

As a side note: the photography on this site is amazing, and makes the blog well worth reading alone, even if cooking is not a personal interest. I highly recommend perusing this site.

pictures of fru-ITs and spices: Andrei Sinioukov

Homeward Bound.

Tomorrow we are homeward bound for the holidays, or so we hope. Barring weather delays and grounded flights, we hope to board a plane and then another one and then another one to make it home in time for the holidays. Fingers crossed we experience a smooth journey. Afterall, it wouldn't be the holidays without Joannie's cookies to celebrate.