Step-dating; "I-and-I" happy hours; Indipop

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    Greetings from Hong Kong.  I return to New York City tomorrow.

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STEP-DATING

   This is from USA Today, January 7, 2000, pg. 9A, col. 3:

_The perils of dating_
_a child's parent_
By Joyce Madelon Winslow ("a Washington, D.C., freelance writer, is working on a book on step-dating"--ed.)
   Much has been written about step-parenting.  Too little has been written about step-dating, the condition you must pass through before you can ever hope to hear the words: "You're not my mother."
   "Step-dating" is a term I've coined to denote the attempt at romance by divorced parents whose children accept the new beloved's presence as the French accept tourists. (...)

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"I-AND-I" HAPPY HOURS

   The Asian Wall Street Journal, January 7-8, 2000, page P-1, has an article called "Love and the Net Start-Up."  Making those internet billions can be a strain on a relationship!  The horror!  This is from pg. P4, col. 1:

   On weekends, he tries to redeem himself socially by seeing his friends and girlfriend together at one function.  "Bundling," as he calls it, is efficient, but his girlfriend isn't as pleased about the divided attention.  There's no time to talk, she complains.

   Col. 2 contains something that Branwyn & McFedries may or may not have:

   When he goes to site launches or "I-and-I" happy hours--weekly "Internet and Information" gatherings held in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai--he's not looking for the old cocktail-party scene.

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INDIPOP

  I'm aware of "Indiepop"--music by independent record labels.  Do Barnhart & ATNW have "Indipop"?  From the Asian Wall Street Journal, January 7-8, 2000, pg. 5, col. 2:

_Indian Artists Put a New Spin on Rock, Pop and Reggae_
   BOMBAY--Bollywood, as the film industry here is known, has long ruled India's music charts with sentamental song-and-dance tracks lifted from its seemingly endless supply of movies.
   Now, multinational record companies and retailers are betting millions of dollars that they can get India's enthusiastic fans to redirect their devotion to a music hybrid called Indipop.
   Artists such as Lucky Ali, Daler Mehudi and Colonial Cousins are the faces of Indipop, which is performed in Hindi and other local languages and mixes elements of Indian music with those of Western music, such as rock, rap and reggae.  Sales of Indipop are growing at about 30% a year, faster than any other local music genre.
   Indipop was born less than a decade ago, as foreign films, the Internet and MTV and other satellite television channels have broadened the musical tastes of India's urban middle class.  Indipop, however, has yet to produce its own Madonna or Ricky Martin.