Black Violin

Sports thought: SC announced that they'll have a home and home with Minnesota in 2010 and 2011. My initial sentiment is...disappointment. While it's nice to at least be playing a legitimate opponent (not everyone gets the opportunity to beef up their National Championship resume with a 70 point performance over the Citadel), and obviously it's going to be impossible to schedule big marquee games every season (see: Ohio State, Nebraska), it still is...Minnesota. The same Golden Gophers who lost their last five straight (including one to a Michigan team trying to rewrite the book on the term "rebuilding season"), and muscled their way into the Insight Bowl (wowwww) on a 7-5 record. Now granted that was 2008, and we don't see them until 2010, but if I had to chance SC's national title shot, I'd feel a lot more comfortable saying 2010 then 2009 (since we'll probably have a second year starter at QB, potentially a senior Joe McKnight, and some returning starters on defense), and we can take as many big wins over big programs as we can come by. So I guess...let's all hope Notre Dame gets better? Ha, yeah right.
Texas appreciation: I think people who stay in Texas most of their lives don't really savor the fact that kolaches--arguably the greatest breakfast option of all--are virtually nonexistent outside of the state. For those unfortunate enough as to never having been introduced to a kolache, it's basically a dinner roll (i.e. some soft, sweet bread), filled with jam, fruit, delicious cured meats, or cheese. If I really had to lower myself to a comparison, the fruit ones are like a danish and the meat ones are like a Hot Pocket. Except that really doesn't do a kolache justice. Their excellence comes in the fact that the bread is really light and doughy--not the sort of glazed, flaky examples you find in other breakfast foods. Although they don't get a lot of respect in terms of Texas cuisine, I would argue that kolaches easily deserve a place up with Tex-Mex or brisket.
Music: Do people actually listen to Tom Waits? And if so, how??

So tonight, thanks to my A&M contact and good friend Kathryn, I scored tickets to see a group called Black Violin on campus. We didn't really know much, except that the show was billed as a "hip-hop violin duo" and that the tickets were free. The first thing I noticed, milling around the foyer before the show, was that the crowd who had shown up was noticeably hipper than I expected. Now I'm going to have to choose my words carefully here, but in my mind, A&M students have a certain...look to them. This may or may not include crew cuts, camo hats with fishhooks in them, and Wrangler jeans. Now while not all students look like this, I think you'd be hard pressed to get a group of fifty or so in a room, and have nobody fit this description. Except that was absolutely the case with the Black Violin show. Maybe 200-300 students, and they were all...well...cool. I pointed this out to Kathryn, and she was, understandably, offended.
Now what we didn't realize was that Black Violin was here as a part of a bigger show. So we sit down and here starts a sorority doing about a fifteen minute step routine, followed by two more. The effect/reaction on the crowd was awesome--people were shouting and hooting back at the performers, doing the stepping and clapping motions along with them, and dancing in the aisles. This was, admittedly, my first step show, but it was a pretty excellent experience. They had these whole elaborate skits played out, used canes and props, costume changes, the whole works.
Black Violin came and played after this. The group (which was actually one violinist, one violist, and a DJ) predominantly played rap covers on their instruments. The DJ would play beats from a lot of current, popular things (Lil Wayne, Usher, Akon, etc.) and the guys would do the vocal equivelents and a whole slew of flourishes. This was the first, and most likely last, time I've ever seen a dance pit form at a violin concert, complete with the obligatory grinding. The guys also did some hip-hop classical covers (most notably Brandenburg 3), and their version of a rap battle on their instruments. The musicians themselves were hilarious, and put on a great stage show. I went home and got their album, which isn't nearly as good (part of the problem is I assume they don't have the rights to all the songs they play in concert, so can't put them on a record), but the show itself was a blast. I don't think I'm ever going to get to see people dancing in the aisles to violin music again in my life, so this goes down in the record books.