Lentil Dal and Björk video

After work today, I headed home, with a quick stop by Franprix to get a few necessary food items for dinner tonight. During the bus ride home and in the grocery store, I was forcefully reminded that along with summer (it was 27C today) in Paris comes the pungent, eye-watering smell of sweat. At least now I know to take the bus; the smell of dank crevices and chafing is even stronger on the métro. Mind you, it isn't always horrible, but it just takes one or two particularly fragrant individuals to hold an entire bus or train car hostage.

Anyway, on that delicious note, I headed home and started making lentil dal. The results weren't perfect, so I'm not going to post the recipe quite yet. I used far too much lentils, and I could've added more spices to it. Also, it needed more butter, but all things Indian need a lot of butter.

So the video for Björk's first single from her next album came out on iTunes today, and I'm a bit underwhelmed. The new album is called Volta, and the track is called "Earth Intruders." I was really excited about the track when it came out about two weeks ago, but the video seems a bit...well...crappy. I mean, check out the bright-coloured cuteness of the album cover, and then compare it to the video. (NOTE: the video wasn't my upload and I don't know how long YouTube will keep it up, so check it out now)

The oil-slick psychedelic background seems a bit hokey, the black-silhouette landscape and figures in the foreground create too much negative space in the frame, and the choreography is pretty uninspired. Add to this the fact that there is a distinct primitivist / tribal trope going on here -- and one where the "primitives" only appear as faceless shadows. On the other hand, I do like how it's not entirely clear if this marauding group of "earth intruders" are destroying the earth or humanity. Right around 1'25", the group of dancers destroy what looks like a large statue of a person astride a horse. Considering that Björk herself described the inspiration for this track as a dream she had of a wave of third-world people crossing the ocean and wiping out the White House, it's even less clear whether this story is about environmentalism or global politics (obviously, it could very well be both).

Anyway, that's all for today.