Eurovision!

Last weekend something amazing happened. I saw Europe at its least cultured moment. Anyone who has ever heard comments about Americans having no taste should know this simple phrase that can stop Europeans in their tracks: "I have seen Eurovision." This is a song contest where each country sends a song and they compete against each other.  I would expect something like that to be taken seriously, with each country wanting to showcase something special, whether that means very good, traditional and cool, or something else. But no. Instead, nearly every country sends some weird or awful act! I asked a bunch of people and everyone says it is some kind of blend of serious and joke, but I only saw the serious in a very few acts. Examples of things that I at least hope are jokes are:

Jedward, the Irish entry for the second year in a row:

Buranovskiye Babushki from Russia--grannies complete with cookies in the oven!

Albania. I don't even know. Dreadlock snake, Dracula dress, and a weird gold earring I'm told Lady Gaga made popular. It's too much!

As an example of a serious entry, we have Serbia, keeping it classy and boring.

And then we have this year's winner, my current host county of Sweden! This song has actually already been playing in clubs here for a while (it was made for the competition, but there is a selection process, so it must have been released when she became the official Swedish contestant):

Such an odd event. It gets even weirder when you consider the voting--each country in Europe tallies votes from text messages from within its borders and then allocates points to the top 10 or so. But instead of voting for acts that were good, most of the votes are for neighboring countries! Scandinavian countries vote for each other, as do the Balkans and the ex-Soviet states. Oh, and all the Irish people in Great Britain gave the Irish contestant the second most points! So funny.

Really, I am not sure how I'd never heard of this before I came to Europe. It's like all the worst American Idol entries (the ones that go into that special episode before the season, the only one I ever watch), only there are flags and some kind of pride involved.

The winning country hosts next year, so it'll be in Sweden next May.  Keep an eye out! This year it was in Azerbaijan, that most European of countries... I won't get into the border definitions of Europe held by the Eurovision planners!