What’s there to say? InCulto went to Eurovision, performed a top three song for their group (in sheer terms of energy and quality), but lost out to the usual, boring Eurovision pop. The actual performance felt a bit weird to me, but my ability to approach the song with fresh eyes (or ears) has been [...]
Other versions: VO [no subtitles] | YouTube | YouTube (VO) | Facebook | Soundcloud (Radio Edit) [mp3] After watching each permutation of the “East European Funk” video several times in order to write about the song in the lead up to the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, I was rather infected by the song’s catchiness.1 So [...]
Well, the wheels seem to be in motion. The European Broadcast Union, the people behind Eurovision, is “investigating” the lyrical content of Lithuania’s entry to the song contest, InCulto’s “Eastern European Funk,” to see if it’s “political” in nature. Though I’m certain that my 3000-word meandering on the political content of the song over the [...]
Because of the victory in Eurovision 2008 by the Timbaland-produced “Believe” (video of Dima Bilan’s semi-final performance, featuring ice skating by Evgenij Pljushchenko), the 2009 edition of the European Song Contest was hosted by Russia (the victor each year hosts the following year’s competition). Georgia, who had, of course, recently fought a brief war with [...]
After a meeting at work this week, we had our usual pause to drink some wine. For some reason, we were especially thirsty and quickly bored through our two-bottle ration. Wanting more, we tried to have the ration increased, but, instead, the suggestion was that we raid our own private stocks. I happen to have [...]
I first heard (and wrote) about inCulto in the context of their song “Welcome (to Lithuania),” which was a candidate song to represent Lithuania at Eurovision in 2006. The song lost at the end to LT United’s “We Are the Winners,” which made lots of people on the west side of the Atlantic rather sad. [...]
When Lithuania (re-)declared independence on 11 March 1990, I was not yet even in high school. I often wished I was about eight years older, so that I might somehow throw myself into the mix out there, in the wild edge-of-reality process of nation building.1 I’d have, you know, adventures and stuff. If I were [...]
Continue reading about Sometimes it’s good to miss the boat of history
One of my favorite movies of 2008 was Edward Zwick’s Defiance. I didn’t particularly like it because of its cinematic qualities—though the color, photography, and performances by the two leads (pictured) were excellent—but, rather, for the way it subverts in its retelling a story familiar to every child of the Lithuanian Diaspora: the fight of [...]
Continue reading about Brown is never equal to Red; Brown is always worse
Over on Twitter, Jurate has been doing yeoman’s work in trying to put the recent “Section-28-style” law that was passed in Lithuania yesterday into context. Pink news describes the law in this way: The law, titled ‘Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information’, includes “the propaganda of homosexuality [or] [...]
Continue reading about Is the new law in Lithuania really homophobic?
Ages ago, Deimantė sent me this famous video: It’s a kind of a sketchy video for a number of reasons (its own existence being kind of the big one), but, no matter what, that woman wants to party. And she’s adamant and repetitive about it. What else is adamant and repetitive? Why, a ringtone! So [...]
Continue reading about Aš noriu šventę švęsti su nauju ringtonu!
