Kraków: The Church Where I Saw an Armenian Catholic Mass Many Years Ago

I remember the small church above for having seen an Armenian Catholic Mass there about 14-15 years ago when I lived in Nowy Sącz, and regularly visited Kraków on Sunday and occasionally Saturday.  During a Saturday visit, my friends from the Society of St. Pius X (where I sometimes went to the Old Latin Mass in a flat just round the corner from the Rynek in Kraków) informed me about the Armenian Catholic Mass, and out of curiosity, I had to see it.  The church above lies just across the road from the part of the Kraków Wawel Castle complex in the picture below:

What do I recall about the Armenian Catholic Mass?  Well, I remember being sat amongst a small mainly Armenian congregation, while the Armenian priest, dressed in bright red vestments holding a golden and jewel-looking cross throughout, continually chanted in Armenian with his back to the people in the Traditional Catholic way.  Another endearing memory from the Armenian Catholic Mass is the beautiful stained glass window of Our Lady and the Child Jesus in the picture below:

Yes, it was great to go back in time recently, in August this year to be exact, to get a picture of such a beautiful church window.

Warsaw Basen: Why I Like The Place

Why do I like the Basen in Warsaw?  Well, generally speaking, it's just a wonderfully small and intimate place for catching some avant garde-type/experimental-type bands in Warsaw.  As far as I know, the Basen ('Swimming Pool') started holding gigs last year, and my first trips to the place where to see old American cult-type band, The Residents, and the far more modern American group, The Chromatics, in the first half of this year.  Since then, I've seen quite a few interesting bands and performers at the Basen including Coco Rosie; The Raveonettes; excellent Polish band, Hatifnats (supporting The Raveonettes); Icelandic band, Mum (one of my concerts of the year), and another Icelander, Sin Fang (below supporting Mum).  Should've also seen another Icelander, Soley, at the Basen this year, but just didn't get round to it.

So, when am I off to the Basen next?  Well, on Tuesday 22nd October next week to see Canadian electronica-type band,  Austra:

Was introduced to bands like Austra; Mum; and Soley on the Seattle-based music programme KEXP via Youtube, and now it's great to be able to watch some of what I call the 'KEXP bands' live in Warsaw courtesy of the Basen.  Below, Austra are performing on KEXP:

Can't wait for Austra next week, experimental music with an interesting kind of polyphonic-type flavour.

The Circus Visiting Autumnal Warsaw

Great to see the circus visiting Warsaw in October:  the people are expecting the winter freeze (hopefully, not as long as last year when we had snow for six months), but can still seek refuge through an evening or weekend visit to the circus to see the performing horses, elephants, clowns etc.

To visit the circus, you simply roll up to the ticket office like the one in the circus grounds at lower Wolska (about three tram stops up from Ratusz Arsenał) in the pictures above:

Then, after buying your ticket(s) from the 'kasa' (ticket office), you get some kind of red carpet treatment on the short walk to the big top. 

Just nice to see that this traditional kind of enertainment still exists, and was happy to see another circus up and running near Bemowo Airport on my way up to the Fish concert at Klub Progresja last week.

Youtube Surfing with Lana Del Rey and Within Temptation

Started off my Youtube surfing last Friday by listening to several of my favourite Within Temptation songs such as 'Angels'; 'Faster'; 'Shot in the Dark'; and 'Summertime Sadness' above.  Thus, knowing that 'Summertime Sadness' is a cover of Lana Del Rey, and only knowing the latter vaguely in passing (despite all the hype), I thought that I must have a look at Lana Del Rey, and was pleasantly surprised with what I found.

First, I found myself really liking Ms. Rey's 'Summertime Sadness':

Besides the above, I found that a cluster of her songs, including 'Born To Die'; 'Blue Jeans' and 'Young and Beautiful, just had a kind of old-fashioned 1950s/1960s, cinematic-type feel that I could kind of empathise with:

I know there's some kind of big debate over the quality of her singing live, but, for me, this is not that important, what's really impressive is that she can construct such songs (with such a great nostalgic feel and flavour), they're simply wonderfully empathetic pieces, seemingly digging much deeper into the human condition than a lot of contemporary music.

Finally, my Friday night Youtube sufing took me to a meeting between Sharon Den Adel (of Within Temptation) and Lana Del Rey on Dutch TV:

This is a fascinating short piece of anthropology, as Den Adel pays Del Rey a compliment about her seemingly trying to convey something more than just her music, to which an initially somewhat uncomfortable-looking Del Rey starts to relax a bit more while being caught in the spotlight.

Finally, why was I starting my Friday night Youtube surf with Within Temptation last Friday?  Well, having got a ticket to see the band at Warsaw Torwar in March next year, even at the age of nearly 48, I'm genuinely excited about seeing any great band that I've never seen before.  Also think that Within Temptation are one of the best bands on the planet at the moment.  Really love the video of them playing live at some kind of Main Square Festival below:

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Mural Near Warsaw University Library

This mural devoted to Marie Skłodowska-Curie can be found just before reaching Warsaw University Library when walking down from the Warsaw University campus near the Old Town.  Back in my hometown of Bury, Lancashire, I had learnt at school that Marie Curie was French, so when I first came to Poland in the late 1990s, I was somewhat surprised to find out that Marie Curie Skłodowska was in fact Polish.  Of course, the Poles are quite rightly proud of this fact.

'Tree Lilies' Inside Warsaw University Grounds

When I went for a walk round Warsaw University grounds (the ones near the Old Town) at sundown last Sunday, I got the nice surprise above.  I know next to nothing about plants and flowers, so I haven't got a clue what the white things are, but, for me, they look really great:

Anyway, after looking at the bush/small tree above, I've just decided to call the white things 'tree lilies'.  They were just really eye-catching at sundown.

Fish Live at Warsaw Klub Progresja 9th October 2013

Before last night, the last times I'd seen Fish (Derek Dick) were with Marillion back in 1982 at Manchester Apollo; 1985 at Castle Donington (where I drank too much and fell asleep halfway through the set); and Milton Keynes in 1986. 

Didn't get up to the Klub Progresja till about 8.45 last night, and the Fish gig was already underway, so how much I'd missed I'm not quite sure, maybe anything between 10-40 minutes.  Anyway, when I arrived, Fish and his band were already doing some really mellow stuff such as 'Blind To The Beautiful' from the new album, 'A Feast of Consequences'. 

Besides the above, Fish was discussing how the Serbs had bombed Sarajevo Library to destroy its Islamic literature, and how a black friend had had some kind of trouble in Eastern Poland.  This kind of politically 'correct' diatribe drew a minimalist response from the audience.  However, the audience had far more empathy for Fish's discussion about his grandfather's involvement in the 1st World War at the Battle of the Somme, and his trio of tracks from 'A Feast of Consequences' ('Crucifix Corner'; 'The Gathering'; and 'Thistle Alley' were a fitting tribute to the fallen of the Somme and the 1st World War:

Yeah, 'Crucifix Corner' was my favourite tune of the night (well done to the good person who put the video above from Warrington in May on Youtube).  Indeed, the three 1st World War songs really worked well with the black and white movie backdrop.

So what else can I say about the evening with Fish?  Well, the Marillion snippets:  'He Knows You Know'; 'Fugazi'; 'White Feather' etc. all sounded (inevitably perhaps) a bit dated, while most of his solo stuff, which I'm not that familiar with, sounded great.  Thus, I guess I had a nice evening catching up with Fish.