Swing music and dance nite at The Magazine Shop DMC

Cafe culture and workspace nomads of Dubai will feel at home in the Magazine Shop, a charming little magazine-and-coffee spot located at the southern edge of the Pearl in Media City. It features the same Panton chairs as did the erstwhile Shelter, and tables very similar to those seen at The Archive. The standard coffee menu is extended with some interesting, but not too exotic, concoctions, helpfully illustrated in a graphics panel on the front of the till desk. Brackets cradling several dozens of magazines line two of the walls.

Tonight was Swing Night, with hours of live swing music performances and jamming by a diverse host of musicians. Plenty of standards from the golden age of swing made the playlist, enthusiastically performed by The Swingin' Aces and their ever-animated bassist, Lakshmi Ramirez.

Having opened with a swing gig two months ago, and due to host another swing night on the 19th at their DIFC branch, The Magazine Shop seems to be a patron of this genre, which is good news for its fans. Dancers of Dubai-based dance group Lindy-hop were also on hand to complete the Roaring Twenties ambiance, mixing and matching partners, and kicking, spinning and jiving for as long as there was music.

The Market of Everything IV

This one got postponed for quite a while because of road work outside. There have also been some structural modifications to Traffic that probably needed to be gotten out of the way. I also noticed that there weren't as many performances as last time, although it was as good a market as any prior.

Unlike your regular flea market, there's a lot of unusually artistic and offbeat stuff available here (including, this time, actual Traffic furniture). I picked up a couple of books and some surreptitiously-imported condiments.

I was famished, so I was eagerly awaiting the start of the Boodle Fight. It's apparently some kind of Filipino military dining ritual in which everyone picks and eats food off the same leaf-covered table, regardless of rank. There were hefty portions of fragrant rice, chicken, and many kinds of seafood from which to choose. Yummy.

A very swinging musical atmosphere was provided by Eddie Misk's Swing n' Jive Combo and Alexandra Valls' Gypsy Swing Project, both of which featured the dynamic and dramatic double bass talent of Lakshmi Ramirez.