Feeds:Tuesday, fifth week after Epiphany
"I'm sorry, you have called a wrong number." -answering machine message
So I got the flu, then recovered just in time to go out and visit my mom in the suburbs, where I caught a cold, which I recovered from just in time for a bout of warm weather and the 49th annual Folk Festival. My mom was in the suburbs to house- and kid-sit while my aunt and uncle had a nice long just-the-two-of-them vacation. She told me at least three times how glad she was to have raised boys. She got some relief that weekend, as not only myself, but two aunts and an additional cousin came out all at once. The sisters all caught up and Kelsey and I did the iPod swap-critique thing, traded music recommendations, and talked about temporary hair dyes.
And fun as that was, the folk festival was even better. Missing Friday night and half of Saturday (still fighting off that cold), I showed up on Saturday just in time to set up the party, my primary responsibility, and this year, also primarily my responsibility. The many congratulations and thanks I received seemed sincere enough to lead me to think it went well. I spent all of Sunday dancing and drinking and moving furniture, and running into people I had no reason to expect to see. First was Ellis Avenue Cyberling, the my extremely jaded trombonist deskmate from the Harris. He's a Sacred Harp singer, it seems, and one of the first people I saw as I walked in the door of Ida Noyes. Right at the end of the Irish set workshop, the second dance I went to that morning, I was waylaid by a Nancy Chang, which was not to be unexpected, and a Violette Green, which certainly was, as last I heard she was moving away. She was on her way into the middle-eastern dance workshop, so we didn't catch up until later, but we shared a dance and some conversation at the barn dance workshop, and it was all-in-all right pleasant.
After a brief lunch of cucumber and onion sandwiches, I made my way down to the flatfooting workshop, because heaven forbid -or at least, I forbid- that there be any dance I don't know how to do. An hour of chugging and so forth wore me out so much I'm still feeling it today, and I still could not master the Tennessee walking step, or even the basic. Thank goodness I have hardwood floors at home, ones that won't show wear from a little more beating-about. It was here that I crossed paths with Elizabeth, the redheaded midwife from Epiphany, who, as one forward young man observed to her later, was totally rocking those boots. This was recounted to me later as a worthwhile pick-up line; I have my doubts. Just missing the Scottish dance workshop, I met Elizabeth's friends and mopped the Cloister Club floor as Dot Kent began instructing newcomers about contra dancing. I finished just in time to be the example target in a lesson on how to ask someone to dance, which, by the applause, I must've done well. (What is that, the third time this post I've made sure to mention my lauds? What an ego on this one. And we haven't even gotten to the part where all the pretty young women tell me what a good dancer I am. Well, to be fair, a few had told me that already. But in any case:) I then set my weariness aside to dance another couple straight hours and with any girl who would have me, and even run into Allison, the girl who showed us the Bridgepartment and from whom we took over the lease. I gave a couple dance lessons and made some girls dizzy, tried to convince the free-workshop types to come to the concert and dance some more, and then got roped into cleaning up, just like always.
Both nights the concerts were great, the green room was great, and I went back and forth as I pleased, meeting musicians and undergrads, catching up with the people I hadn't seen since last year. Sunday night clean-up went as quick as it ever does, and I bought my two CDs and collected my purple T-shirt. Then, so many of our contingent being younger, and Jimmy's having no longer the tolerance towards smoke that it used to, we retired with what was left of our beer and other beverages to Moomers, the only Hyde Park apartment with a permanent stage. This party went even later than the one the night before, ending in a small, warm, and carefree singalong. In the middle, though, I saw a man play a crutch. That is, he took a medical assistance device for the pedomotively impaired, modified it slightly (though calling upon an impressive and occasionally frightening parade of tools to do so), referred to the bottommost end of it as a "mouthpiece", and made music with it. Mr. John Parrish, for so he was, was accompanied by Moomers' own Becca on the saw, and thus SAWCRUTCH was born. That's me standing in the background for the first half, with the struck-dumb grin on my face.
There's nothing more I can say. Goodnight.
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