Idapalooza and the open road

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that once I hit the road with no bosses but myself, my blog fell to the wayside. (I am currently trying to catch up on four very different posts, expect some long ones.) Celebrating a combination of rare self-scheduled travel time and a chance to spend it with my constant cohort before our tours spread us in circles to opposite ends of everywhere, I hit the road and nearly forgot about my computer. I can’t say that I regret it very much at all, although my creative self began to become a bit overwhelmed with the abundant observing and performing and the lack of alone time. The good news is that I got a solo act out of the deal – something I’ve been timidly scheming for about five years now. I also traveled to a lot of places I’d always wanted to see but never had exact plans to visit.

My trip back to NYC from Chicago was structured entirely by the schedules of bands I play with, as most of my life has been for the last seven years. This time, it was a Black Sheep Ensemble gig and an Inferno rehearsal. Their show routed me South and the rehearsal established the length of my trip. Fortunately, there was a space in the hobeau’s tour schedule just long enough to accommodate my own and we cobbled together a tour collaboratively, something I’ve never really done before. When Black Sheep invited me to play with them at Idapalooza in Tennessee, they were pleased to learn that I now come with a trumpet player. He had some recording to do in Southern Indiana, so I stayed a couple of days extra up in Chicago and met him in Nashville the day that we headed to Ida. He booked the Tennessee shows and I hooked us up with a puppeteer in Asheville for our show with him there and it was a collaborative scramble for our show in Baltimore. All of this transpired over about eight days.

I stepped off of my overnight Greyhound bus to find myself down the street from the venue where I had played with Inferno in Nashville, right beside the highway and the strip clubs. Two of my mother’s former students had recently moved to town and picked me up for a little visit. We went to brunch at an adorable cafe where each table had a heated middle where you can make your own pancakes with endless batter. They then dropped me off in a part of Nashville which was new to me and very dear to them; it was the grungy yet accessible bohemian area, from what I gathered. The coffee shop where I loitered spoke volumes to this. A man on drugs came in without shoes, muttered about, and left his bags abandoned at a table. I was still on edge from what happened in Seattle and this scenario disturbed me more than I could have expected. I steadied my nerves and stood my ground, though, waiting for my ride.

The plan was to arrive at Idapalooza before sunset, given that its location was both secluded and vague. For those who haven’t heard of it, Ida is an intentional queer community in the woods, radical by its very nature, an island sanctuary in the rural South. Every year, they have a music festival where they host and feed hundreds of visitors. It’s a very special place. I was thrilled to have a chance to visit and perform there, having heard many good things about it over the years. We not only made it there before sunset, we were early enough to catch dinner and the evening’s entertainment. It was a scary joy to be without walls, doors, car, computer, or phone for a few days. Everything was pure camping but for the festive community which surrounded us. Mad respect to the fabulous visitors who wore high heels the entire weekend.

It was a bit of a scramble to get settled in, sorting out the location of the car, our instruments, and our campsite. I happened upon my sax friend from Barrage Band and he led us to an area I named “Little Baltimore” where we set up camp under his hammock, glad to have such a cool upstairs neighbor. He left us there and we set up our little tent and filled it to the brim with our musical gear, then headed back to the clearing for dinner. The food all weekend was delicious – a vegetarian/vegan spread three meals a day with a table full of leftovers, snacks, and caffeine options left out at all times. As a couple, we have never eaten so well. The concert in the barn that night included a band whose lead singer sounded just like the lady from Dark Dark Dark… because she was. I ran into several friends from far-flung places and as the night spun on, we met more new friends and drank from everyone’s unmarked bottles, taking note that we were one of the few “straight-looking” pairs on the dance floor, despite our own varied levels of queerness. We went on a wonderful rant about the Midwest with some hilarious Iowans. We finally made our way back to the woods, still exhausted from the day’s trip, and spent a bit of time around a nearby bonfire with more Midwesterners.

The next day, we slept in as long as the summer heat would allow us in the cramped little tent. We explored the camps a bit, finding a jam session with my New Orleans busker friend from Up, Up We Go and eventually breaking into a Rude Mechanical Orchestra song to include a couple of their dancers who happened to be passing by. It was beautiful to see these little tent villages popping up throughout the woods, creating their own common areas by virtue of the terrain. For all of my time spent at festivals, this one was a whole new experience.

The biggest draw for me that weekend was a chance to see my pretend family from Atlanta. While they aren’t quite old enough to be my parents, the couple who leads Black Sheep Ensemble have adopted me as one of their own, and their daughter has become like the little sister I never had. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, during which she has turned into a teenager, which was as awesome as it was shocking. Fortunately, she still remains relatively the same; her unconventional upbringing keeping her from becoming jaded or apathetic like so many teens.

We all met up before dinner and the pseudo-family was very pleased to meet the hobeau, since I am not exactly know for getting so thoroughly entangled. They were also glad to have an additional trumpet player with whom to divvy up the high parts. Their daughter did an awesome job playing bass drum for the show and was pleased to tell me that she had made drum line at her school. I like to picture her as the future Luke Skywalker of the radical brass band scene, althougg the details are hazy. The concert went well and everyone had good things to say about the band. It felt good to play with a brass band again, although using sheet music was a bit odd.

Another big highlight of the night was seeing Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship? – one of my favourite bands. While I missed their old repertoire and their brilliant sax player, it was still an excellent show. I dragged my little sister out into the crowd to watch from the front and dance with the rest of the band. It definitely made me realize what I’d missed out not having siblings or cousins when I was growing up, although being an only child was on the whole pretty awesome. After the live music ended, they had to head back to Atlanta, but they left me with a mostly full bottle of whiskey. However, I lost my music stand that I’ve had since band camp. The end of the night was relatively early but still really fun.

The next morning, we made our now usual visit to the nearby campfire, which sat between us and the composting toilets. Our neighbors gave me a plate of campfire breakfast to take to the registration volunteers and someone there in turn gave me their breakfast leftovers for myself. This is case-in-point why I enjoy living at festivals so much. I attended an interesting talk about appropriation in fashion, which was as informative as it was ripe with complications. We met a lot of folks from Chicago that day, including an old acquaintance of mine from Rat Patrol. The rest of my time and energy that day was devoted to fretting over the night’s talent show, where I had decided to debut my solo suitcase show. I had finished it just before leaving for Nashville, the glue barely dried on my large illustrated flies, surprising the boy almost as much as I surprised myself with its completion. Well, I still had a bit of work to do with a box cutter and a glue stick once I got to Ida, but it was mostly complete. What I had neglected was practicing the piece. I had done a tech run thru with the music, but that was about it. The hobeau insisted that I at least perform it once and we compromised on me doing the piece without music on the hood of his car. He was totally right, I needed to work out some glitches. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about doing a piece that I had essentially been putting off for five years – since I bought the loop pedal.

I have been referring to it as a puppet show, but really it’s better described as “avant-diorama” instead. Basically, it’s a toy theatre suitcase show. Everything fits inside for transport, including the loop pedal and cables and the hazmat outfit I wear during the piece. The show is about ten minutes long and is my vague interpretation of the Baltimore Oblivion Marching Band, who performed in protest outside of Three Mile Island after it went radioactive in the 1970s – a little known bit of history which I became immediately obsessed with. The performance went fine and I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive and engaged crowd than the folks at Idapalooza. The entire talent show was brilliant, in fact, and I sat in on two or three other bands with my sax. Afterwards, we were a little too tired and tipsy for the dance party, but had a ton of fun doing all of the leftover dishes up at the kitchen building. Seriously, it was surreal and a perfect end to the night.

The next day was our last and we spent it mostly saying goodbyes and finally visiting the waterfall. Lunch was very leisurely and I laughed at how my new friends from the weekend were all nerdy goth kids and we spent our mealtime sitting in the shade behind the building – as it’s kind of always been. One of them finally realized that we did know each other from the zine fest in Portland back in 2003, when we saw the Muppets movie together at a brew and view. Odd. I had tried to instigate a massive journey to the waterfall, but it wound up being just me and the hobeau taking a beautiful hike through the wilderness, wading through the stream for a long stretch of the trek. The end result was well worth the journey; I can’t remember the last time I stood underneath a rushing waterfall, in fact.

After such an off-the-grid weekend and a beautiful day spent hiking, the idea of returning to civilization was unpleasant at the very least. I was very relieved to learn that the hobeau’s show in Gallatin that night was actually an under-promoted concert in a field surrounded by horse pastures. We were also witness to one of the more beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, enhanced by a mellow band wandering through the grass. I laid back on the soft foliage in utter bliss… whereupon I was consumed by insects. The night ended at the promoter’s parents’ house outside of Nashville, where we stayed with a bunch of his friends from Bloomington.

The next day we hit up his favourite cafe in Nashville, which turned out to be my favourite cafe in Nashville whose name I had forgotten! I got distracted outside with a hula hoop and we ran into two of our new friends from Ida who were also visiting their favourite cafe in Nashville. Sometimes, my life is so predictable! We all ate some food and watched the boy play the first set at the open mic, then headed down the street to a pretty chill house show. I got to do my puppet show again! Everyone was really supportive and one of the residents said it was the first time they had ever had performance in their house. I felt honored. The guys from Bloomington played their sets as scheduled and it was fun. We all made plans to meet in Murfreesboro for another house show that the hobeau had also been added to, which was pretty raging for a weeknight. We then stayed in a sweet but dirty punk house on the edges of town and were awoken by the smell of odd fried meat. It was alright.

We made an early, but barely early enough, start on our drive to Asheville. In the normal world of DIY touring, this was an absurdly long drive, but we had my rehearsal schedule in NYC guiding our schedule. We made it to town just in time to load in for our show with Cripps Puppets at a bar on the main bohemian drag. This was only my third time doing the puppet show, and it was a bit intense to know I was performing for people who had come to see actual puppets. The flyer for the show was really nifty and we got a modest but interested turn out, including some important friends of mine. It was awesome to see people’s reaction to the hobeau’s grindcore violin set, watching them stop outside and stare as they passed by. That night, we stayed with my friend from Helblinki and continued our usual ranting about the circus punk scene. We managed to fit two visits to Rosetta’s Kitchen into our stay in Asheville, and at our morning rice and beans expedition, the guy working there even remembered me from the last visit. I saw a few of my friends in town that day and we got a tour of the puppetry studio and the warehouse of galleries which surround it.

During our drive, our puppeteer friend was in charge of my mp3 player and had put on a random playlist I had made ages ago. While it was playing the original Titanium Sporkestra recording, from back when they were a drum line, my phone lit up and I asked him to read me the name. It was my multi-instrumental friend from Barrage Band. I remarked that it was probably just some funny brass band banter and he read to me that Sporkestra had broken up. Wow. The timing was impeccable, but then what else would you expect from a drum core (rim shot). Seriously, though, I was floored. I’ve always considered that band to be my illegitimate child that I never raised, so it saddened and confused me considerably.

The show that night was not very far away in Knoxville at the Groundswell Collective, which is a very charming DIY space in an old hair salon. The folks there were super sweet and the lady who runs the space is surprisingly young. The three of us had a fun drive there and I had gotten a lot of really helpful and constructive advice about my avant-diorama piece, which made its fourth performance much better. Again, I felt empowered by doing a performance art piece to an unlikely crowd, this time at a metal show. It was awesome and I definitely tried to up the noise edge on the music part. The hobeau added a different element to his show as well, doing a piece in the middle on his newly acquired circuit-bent cop car. Normally he doesn’t talk much during his show, but this time he needed some banter while switching to and from the toy, so he went on a truly wonderful tangent about his time at Ida and what it means to be a queer ally. We slept in a house with all sorts of critters and were fed a massive curry breakfast before hitting the road for an even longer drive.

The drive to Baltimore was grueling in the tiny car which barely works. Our quest for a show there had been bizarrely unfruitful and at the last minute Speaker for the Dead saved the day. He was on tour and had squeezed all three of us onto the show. We arrived just in time to jump onstage. During set up for my piece, SFD performed the song he had written about me (see? I do so write about you in my blog) – which was ridiculous but made me smile. The show was crazy but went alright and most of my local musician friends came out for it. The hobeau was awesomely supportive, especially after the drive we had that day. After getting our puppeteer to the bus station so he could head to the big conference in Connecticut, we wound up on a nearby rooftop afterwards with a bunch of Red Emma’s folks, relaxing in the cool summer air as we looked out over the city. As we so often do, the hobeau and I drove all night to beat traffic and fell asleep around dawn at our crash spot for the week.

Phew.

…PS: Hey you, update your blog!

in and out of NYC on two very different buses

I had a relatively easy commute to begin tour, walking only a few blocks before spending the rest of the day being driven around. Somehow I had never seen my friends’ new house, but it was just what I expected. In the back yard there were, of course, chickens and they had their own swank little ramshackle house and an outdoor disco ball. We piled into a car and made the slow trip to meet the Bread and Puppet bus. We had two people to pick up on our way to New Jersey, the last of whom lives right next to the bridge. Two of us wound up ditching the car in gridlock tunnel traffic and heading on foot to collect our bandmate and his crates of food. This man is a dumpster diving champion. We filled every inch of the vehicle which wasn’t already full of humans or instruments with bags of veggies, cartons of hard-boiled eggs, and cartons of gourmet yoghurt.

We finally met up with the bus at a gas station and doubled our numbers. We were still at half capacity for the group that would be joining us in DC the next day. The bus ride was long but lovely and we spent most of it chatting and binge eating the bounty that we’d brought from the curbs of New York. It took us nearly twice as long as it should have taken a car to get to DC. I managed to navigate us out of some immobile traffic, but the bus tops out at 60mph anyway. We all arrived at our hotel downtown and collapsed into beds.

The next day we were up relatively early for a rehearsal and run through at the Kennedy Center. I was glad we got to have it there, since the actual event – while presented by them – was located across town near our hotel. We got a nice sightseeing tour on our way there and back, as well as a chance to explore the building a little bit. While it was nice to be rehearsing outdoors in their courtyard, it was brutal between the sun and the concrete. The band came together pretty nicely and the circus formed itself around the available cast. The bus served as a sort of green room where we could get shade and snacks and the water fountains at the Kennedy Center saw all manner of hippy water bottles. Towards the end, a friend of the group brought everyone a fantastic dinner and we ate outside while a fancy tuba player who was clearly there to play a gig watched on with confusion.

At the last minute we had wound up with an invitation to crash a wedding party at a lakeside campsite that night. We were worn out from the day but eager to play some music and see some stars. I spent the ride to the woods snuggling into the pile of pillows and duvets alongside papier mache sheep, life-sized Reagan, and a giant finger-pointing hand. I could hear someone playing a flute in the front of the bus, drifting across everyone’s conversation. Just when I thought the bus couldn’t be any more wonderful, seemingly everyone lifted their voices into multiple harmonies as they gathered around the Sacred Harp book. I was beyond blissful.

We arrived in the woods as little surprise, considering we were a massive green bus, but sent the sheep puppets out ahead of us anyway. Fortunately, the couple was back at the boat house, so we were able to take them and several others by surprise. The band marched in playing and continued on until we played almost every song in the show, as well as some others we happened to know. It was a much-needed rehearsal as well as a dance party. We had some beers and headed out at a reasonable hour to get some sleep before the big show. There wasn’t quite enough room to sleep in the hotel, so I immediately volunteered to sleep in the bus. It was so much better than a hotel room. I hoped it would rain and patter the roof, but alas it didn’t.

The next morning we were out bright and early to set up in Yard Park, a newly constructed park in a gentrifying industrial area along the river. Some of us ran to get coffee for everyone, while the puppeteers set their props and costumes in place. Helping assemble the stage with the bus as a framework was really interesting. It was not just an honor to be performing there with Bread and Puppet, it was inspiring as well. Once we had set up, we had time to explore the other acts, which were numerous as it was a festival of street performance. It was a long day, but our band parades, the big long puppet show, and the cantastoria roaming part were spaced out nicely. I was particularly thrilled at how receptive the crowds were to the radical content of not only the puppet show but the smaller acts and band songs as well.

As we were setting up, the very first person I saw other than ourselves was a clown/accordion player I know from Baltimore. I’ve almost stopped being surprised by these kinds of things. Soon enough, I’d run into a variety of stilt walkers and puppeteers I knew, who were all there through Nana Projects. I even finally met a woman I’d been in touch with over email about a venue there. As if the world wasn’t small enough, during our run through that morning, we were drowned out by a large soundsystem across the field. The whole cast paused the show and had a dance party, for what else could be done, but finally we had to live with it. Sure enough, when I walked past there later, the side of the rig said Redmoon. Sigh. At least it was only Midnight Circus using their rig, but the Chicago connection was still there. The festival booked an impressive variety of acts, not just that day, but over the course of two weeks.

My original plan had been to take an absurd roadtrip that night with a Baltimore friend and find ourselves asleep in his car at the start of the steampunk city in Waltham. My anarcho/anachro friend was tabling there and had offered me an extra exhibitors pass if I could get myself there. I was all set to go ahead with the foolish eight-hour drive when I got a text from my brass friend in Baltimore about a potential gig. Take the gig, my steampunk friend insisted. It turned out that the lady who needed someone the next day was also performing in Yard Park, so I quickly found her and made arrangements for the next day. It wasn’t long before I found a ride to Baltimore from DC with a burlesque troupe guy and a puppeteer lady who I’ve met at various shows. It was funny to be kidnapped from my radical grassroots puppet bus by the slick and funky Baltimore circus kids. I still wouldn’t trade the trip and shows with Bread and Puppet for anything else, though. I got dropped off at my friend’s old roommate’s house and we had cocktails and pizza and watched an animated fairy tale. It was a perfect end to a very big day.

Did I mention I was getting paid to dress up like a shrubbery the next day? At a fairy festival? It was awesome. The act is called Ambush Theater and we basically crouch down and hide everything non-shrub in order to blend in, then startle folks and generally run amok. Simple but brilliant. My friend and I got picked up by the lady and we drove out to the Maryland Fairy Festival pretty early in the morning. The routine was pretty good – dress up, run around, pretend to be a bush, get chased by kids, have animals try to eat you, watch guys in kilts threaten to pee on you, avoid pruning, scare some damsels, get hit on somehow, and then take breaks and enjoy the faire.

It was pretty stunning to interact with the kids there, and there were a lot of them. It’s been a while since I’ve done this kind of performance work and I’d forgotten how violent and sweet they can be. One of the little boys had a small parachute and was intent on killing the bushes. When you’re interacting with kids, especially ones you don’t know, you have to be extremely careful. If you’re in a costume and silent, it can be even more brutal, so you have to get creative. I finally realized that rolling over on my back and sticking my arms and legs in the air like a dead bug was all it took to satisfy the bloodthirsty ones. In their play world, they had clearly won, so I was off the hook and they could move on to other targets. Some of the little girls were incredibly kind, however. A few were intent on playing simple games with us and one even said to me “You’re a wonderful shrub, but you’re more than that too. You’re as pretty as a rosebud.” One of the adults, who was dressed as a hunter, had come to my rescue when I was being trounced earlier, but a gang of tiny girls were convinced he was up to no good and kept trying to get me away from him, pointing out that he had a gun and was therefore not to be trusted. Children who grown up at festivals sometimes have an awareness that is stunning.

It was one of the more perfect weekends I’ve had in a while, and this year has been full of some pretty good ones, both conventional and mid-week. Almost everything about it was a little bit circus with a dose of experimental music and I felt my old self stirring back to life somewhere deep inside. I marveled at how beautiful and charming all of my friends in Baltimore are; I think I have a crush on the whole city in a way. I enjoyed getting to spend time relaxing at my friends’ gingerbread house on the edge of town, even spending an afternoon practicing my sax while scaring the cats.

I decided to spend one more day in Baltimore, since it was being so good to me, plus anything I needed to get done I could do there. I’d made friends with a new member of Barrage Band on the last visit and he took me to a circus skillshare at Red Emma’s big church performance space. I knew this kind of thing must exist, and there it was. I taught him how to hula hoop and we had a fun play session, followed by the necessary visit to the bookstore for coffee. We drove around with blaring car speakers full of brass and realized our musical goals were pretty similar. Yes, we talked marching band to each other. That night, I hung out with an old friend from college at the Riot Folk house, which is beautiful and huge and reminded me why I want to live in a place like that, and sat around the kitchen table talking until far too late. In the morning, my new friend picked me up and showed me the last piece of the puzzle, a coffee shop fitting my mind’s picture of what every town should have. Satisfied, I boarded the Chinatown bus in some far flung part of town.

Hanging out with so many sax players that weekend and playing so much got me thinking. The past couple of months have been unusual for me because I have spent so much of it in NYC, with little of my time taken up by my main band. I haven’t played this much music with so many different people since my days before I joined it. Happily, I’ve realized that my playing has come a lot further than I’d realized. When you do the same stuff over and over for a year or two, it’s hard to notice improvement. The changes in tone and dexterity almost make me want to get a hold of a tenor and give it a whirl.

On the bus ride back, I finally finished up the ambitious mailing list job I’ve been hacking away at for weeks. Early on, I realized it was better to charge him a flat rate than by the hour, as I am far more productive and focused on what’s in front of me when doing multiple tasks at the same time. I tried to do only the mailing list while on the bus and my mind kept drifting to other important matters, such as the startling realization that I know the civilian names for all the core members of the X-Men. I’m not sure if I’m proud or embarrassed. I wound up getting a bit of work helping build something with him the moment I stepped off the bus. Then, it was rush to the Living Theatre, get interviewed for Occupy Museums, rush to a band sectional in Brooklyn, sleep, pack, get designs buzzed into the sides of my head in Crown Heights, go to band practice, and ready myself for the big NYC show.

NYC

As usual, a late retelling and far too wordy…

After two days sequestered in my friend’s apartment, barely catching daylight, I finally ventured out at dusk two days after May Day. I could have happily continued on with my retreat from the world at large, but there was a show in Brooklyn I wanted to see. The guys from France who had played with us in the parade had a Nuage Magique set that night at Goodbye Blue Monday, so I wanted to support them and see some friends. I left my bicycle in Chelsea and made the simple subway trip to their show. Most nights there are remarkably relaxing and the kitchen happy hour before midnight is always worth the trip. The night was a lot of fun, but I was still glad to crawl back into bed afterwards.

The French guys had invited me along to a jam session early the next afternoon. It was a beautiful day in New York City and what better way to spend it than playing free jazz next to giant soap bubbles in Central Park? I swung by my friend’s place in Union Square to drop off some of my stuff, catching him during the few hours he was in town between trips. I then biked rapidly up to the park with my sax. I found the guys on a park bench alongside an older lady saxophonist I’d just met that weekend and my famous but humble drummer/percussionist friend (who I randomly saw play with John Zorn in Ljubljana a couple of years ago, where he gave me brief but profound advice about “paying dues” touring… awesome guy). For a small acoustic group, we were pretty noisy – two drummers, two saxes, and a sousaphone.

I generally insist that I don’t play jazz written after it killed dancing. However, I am pretty alright with free jazz, because it’s not really jazz at all but horn punk, experimental noise, something else. That said, I still think that people who sit there sipping their drinks and staring at musicians playing free jazz are doing it wrong. It’s provocative music, not a silent film! Playing weird music without a tip jar in Central Park was rewarding in its own way. People seemed into it, but most of the fun was surely had by us. I definitely realized I need to play a wider variety of music. A bunch of skills have snuck up behind my back and now there’s all these new things I could be trying. After a couple of hours, we dispersed and I laid in the cool grass on my phone and caught up with those dearest to me.

I grabbed some food, went back to my friend’s apartment, and got to some computer work. I decided to do the rest of my practicing the next morning, as I’d already been doing a more enjoyable version outdoors all afternoon. I finally got convinced to go out again by an Occupy videographer and his promises of gourmet milkshakes. We walked down to St. Mark’s Place for my bribe and then sat on a corner watching some videos he’d made of May Day; quite a sight, leaned up against a building with a giant fancy laptop in front of us. Getting a second wind, I finished up the blog entry I’d been doing and headed a few stops down the train line to a housewarming at my cellist friend’s cool new music space. The clarinetist I’d ridden back from Chicago with was there, of course, and we continued our comic overreaction about constantly running into each other. I realized when I got there that I was already right down the street from where I had practice the next day, but at least I got to ride the train home with my friend and have an apartment all to myself again.

The next morning I held to my practice plan, then awkwardly boarded the subway with my bicycle and my bag of laundry, leaving my clarinet and warm hoodie (foolish idea) at my friend’s place in Union Square for when I returned the next night. I’ve barely seen the band in the months after our February tour, so it was odd to have a rehearsal after I’ve become so accustomed to various other routines in the past few months. After we were done, I headed over to Vaudeville Park to sit in with the aforementioned cellist on her set. I got a bit of internet work done during down time and otherwise enjoyed the laid back show. I was still too worn out from May Day for much craziness, so I passed on further wildness that night.

The next morning I managed to get up early enough to get on a subway and head all the way out to the marina in Far Rockaway. I was going to be on tour and miss their next Boatel event, but wanted to at least come out and help. The girl whose furniture lives with me in the sub-basement has a residency out there and has been working on her art boat like mad, so I went out to lend a hand. I couldn’t stay more than a few hours, but we managed to get a bunch of dumpstered tin panels mounted onto the ceiling. We chatted about our growing list of mutual friends and she eagerly gave me some power tool tutorials. I’ve only visited the marina one other time, which was at night, so it was well worth it to check out the space in the daytime. The projects and folks are always interesting and it feels almost like getting out of the city.

The next item on the agenda was a first time rehearsal with the cellist, a violinist, and a drummer – all of us ladies… well, female anyway. She was eager for me to play accordion as well as sax, and I’d been agonizing for days over how to most easily transport the two. Finally, I gave up and put my accordion case next to my folding bike and hoped inspiration would strike. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the case was almost exactly the same size as the distance between the rack and the bottom of the seat. I raised the seat, squeezed in the accordion (pardon the pun), and lowered it back down on top of the case. A few dents in the box, but a brilliant solution! Rehearsal was a ton of fun. I really like their new space, both aesthetically and for the quality of people who circulate around it. When I arrived, a new music/opera group was having a meeting and I saw a lot of familiar faces. The ladies and I got pizzas from down the street, made a plan, and set to conceiving parts for one of the cellist’s songs. At one point, discussion turned to menstruation and I joked that we were doing exactly what men probably expect from an all female rehearsal.

The rest of the night was classic wanderlust scenario. I was already considering going to visit a friend on his parents’ farm in New Jersey the next day, which was already a bit of a silly idea, but doable since I had no plans between dawn on Monday and Tuesday evening. When I got back to the sub-basement, I called the hobeau and told him I’d had an even crazier idea on my bike ride home. If I was willing to spend a bit of money and time to go to New Jersey and hang out with a friend on a farm, why not just spend two or three times as much of both and go to Western Pennsylvania and visit him on his family’s farm. It would be a few weeks until our tours intersected, so it didn’t seem so outlandish to try meeting up before then. He had a couple rare days of down time at his parents’ place, and much to my surprise, he actually offered to buy my bus tickets. Wow. I quickly changed my clothes into something more presentable to his family and continued out the door to Union Square, where I’d get an apartment to myself again, pick up my clarinet and hoodie, and be walking distance from Chinatown in the morning. His phone died, so the vague plans became even wilder. In the end, talking on the phone at 4am, we decided to see how I felt in a few hours, when I’d have to wake up and get on a bus if I was going to get to see him for a full 24 hours. I woke up on time, but when I hit standing my body went fully on strike and refused to let me spend the next 8 hours on a bus. The mad money can wait for a future absurd whim, we decided.

By the time I woke up for real, I of course felt traveler’s remorse about not going. I decided to cheer myself up by forging ahead with my New Jersey plans. Besides, my friend was going nuts with boredom there on the farm. He assured me I could find a bus in Chinatown easily, just look for signs saying Atlantic City. I headed out the door and immediately ran into an accordionist I know. We were both wearing matching red, white, and black outfits. He lifted his sweater to show that he too was wearing stripes, to which I counter-parried with my own stripey undershirt. Of course. So, after a wild goose chase in Chinatown, I finally found the one ticket office where I could get a bus to where I wanted to go. Since it wasn’t open for a couple more hours, I headed to Les Enfants Terribles for my usual travel day in Chinatown coffee and loiter. The free wifi and cute French baristas never hurt either. I bought myself “lucky” snacks for the casino – a moon cake and a juice with a clover on its cap. I spent most of the bus ride texting with a radical musician friend who was stuck in a bus station himself, doing important things like sending each other funny kitten videos on the internet. Some days, technology is wasted on all of us. The bus soared across the bridge towards the eerie towers of the casinos. Something about the place felt stunningly unlike Vegas, almost more futuristic and foreboding. Besides being pretty ridiculous, the trip to Atlantic City was a phenomenal deal. For twenty-five dollars, you get a round-trip ticket plus forty dollars worth of credit at the casino. My friend met me at the bus and in no time we had won back most of my bus fare and knocked back a few cocktails.

The farm was beautiful at night, full of stars and rustling trees. My visit there was going to be something like eighteen hours, but it was worth it to get out into some nature. My friend was happy for the company and we spent most of the evening playing pool and experimenting with the extremely well-stocked bar. Somehow, I woke up at the very start of the day, I was so psyched to be on a farm. We fixed breakfast and started on the chores. We made the rounds, visiting the peacocks, friendly lambs, green egg laying hens, and other creatures. The highlight for me, though, was the fainting goats. If you don’t know what these are, look it up, it’s pretty adorable/sad/hilarious. They lived up to my expectations, although they were bolder than most of their breed. We’d gotten up so early that we both needed a nap after finishing the morning chores. Once awake and fed again, it was off to the beach!

I’d already been to Ocean City, Maryland, but never to the New Jersey version. It looks somewhat similar, with the boardwalk and all, but is a completely dry town and a lot less edgy. It was pretty windy and chilly that day, but nice to stroll along the water. We only had a little bit of time before we had to hurry over to Atlantic City so I could catch a bus. On the way, though, we passed through Margate and absolutely needed to stop and see Lucy the Elephant. In my studies of outsider architecture, I’d developed an unreasonable fondness for roadside attractions, so Lucy has always been a big deal to me. She’s this country’s oldest one, after all! I was impressed with how well they had restored her, although I didn’t have time to take the tour and see the inside.

I made the bus just in time, cramming into my seat with everyone else. I was worn out and fortunately had two seats to myself. We pulled into Chinatown, I grabbed a Vietnamese sandwich, ate it while I walked over the Manhattan Bridge, and arrived at RMO practice in DUMBO only slightly late. It was a very big day indeed! That night, I decided to stay in Union Square one more time, so I could spend the afternoon catching up on internet work. I was sorely in need of a day not spent in motion anyway.

Somehow, whenever I find myself in Manhattan with my clarinet, more often than not I seem to wind up busking. The banjo player I had played with recently texted me that afternoon with the offer of a rush hour try for the good spots along the L train. I met him at my favourite and we’d gotten there just in time, beating out the cellist who is often there. As I got off the subway car, I could hear him singing and joined in as I unpacked my bag. He was eager for me to play my small washboard, so my clarinet never even made it out of the case. It was definitely good practice and went fairly well. One guy came along with a big mirror and reflected us as a tip. We had a wonderful chat with him, hearing about his departure from his European corporate life and newfound home on the road.

I headed back to Bed-Stuy and grabbed my sax and bicycle, then rushed down to South(ish) Brooklyn to play in a pickup marching band before a puppet show. It was a fun chance to practice some songs for the weekend’s Bread and Puppet circus, but it was also a treat to see the performance. The opening music and puppet acts were quite good and the main show was done by a group out of Philly and dealt with fracking in the most whimsical and profound way possible. I was also glad to check out the space they were using and meet more creative folks.

The next day I woke up early (as in a single digit number) and caught up on some cleaning around the house. I did a pretty thorough job, but was still done plenty early. I headed out with enough time to walk to my friend’s place to meet our ride, pausing in the park nearby to lounge on a bench and call the boy. I had packed extremely light, not being sure how the weekend would evolve, with only my sax case and a small purse full of stuff. I was eager to get back out on a tour, especially since it involved a school bus, puppets, and a marching band.

Occupied with May Day

While I was as sad to leave a fun tour as I was to stay so briefly in Asheville, I was eager to get back to NYC for the May Day festivities. The influence of the Occupy movement had generated a vast itinerary which was not to be missed. I hesitate to say this, but it was far more Burning Man than any other day of action I’ve ever experienced. In fact, I heard there was some input from the event’s organizers into NYC’s May Day. While clearly none of these are inherent to Burning Man, the activities in various locations, marching bands, free classes and workshops, flash mobs, crafting booths, gifting, group bike rides, free food, costumes – they all reminded me of the general playa vibe… and there was even an art car. Maybe if folks on the West Coast didn’t spend so much time/money/energy on an ambitious party every year… well, I’m not going to get into that rant right now.

Although I knew there was a big day ahead of me, I hoped that the long sleep on the bus and restful day I’d had would carry me through a long night before May Day. I was determined to make it to the all night dance circle in Liberty Plaza, which began about 9pm the night before it all started. Several SLC graduates turned out, as well as a cluster of punks, to basically cleanse the space and our minds through contact improv until the sun came up. Back in college, there would be a circle of flower petals, but we decided to respect the sanitation worker who was refraining from spraying us down and held the flowers in our hands instead. We danced for a while to the ambient sounds of the street washer. At one point, some tough guys came by and engaged us in a little dance off, finally losing to the random older gentleman who had joined us early on. A couple of Occupy punks wandered by and told us we were the coolest; joy! At one point, a news crew used us as a backdrop for their nightly rant. I can only imagine the commentary. Eventually, I headed off on my bicycle and ran into a friend from RMO doing some dumpster diving. I was headed to catch a friend’s show nearby, but had my phone on vibrate for when I was needed back at the circle.

I managed to just miss the Prehistoric Horse set at the Delancey, but I did catch this awesome French duo called Nuage Magique who played avant-garde sousaphone and drum music. I figured they must know some French fanfare bands. Not only was I right, but they were playing instruments borrowed from two of my friends and the shows were set up for them by another friend from the brass band scene. Typical. I wound up staying at the show longer than expected, but made the necessary pep talk call to the lady leading the all night dance. She told me to go take a nap and come back in a few hours. When I woke up at my friend’s place in Union Square, it had already begun to rain and she decided it was close enough to morning to call it a night. It was only a couple more hours before I was awake again, though, trying to drag myself off the couch and get to Bryant Park for the start of the day.

Well, that didn’t happen, but I did meet up with Bike Bloc in Union Square and got a little riding in before racing back down to Liberty Plaza for Ballet at the Barricades. Special for May Day, the barre routines would be at the bull statue. I was a little late and waited around, riding back and forth between the two spots, but to no avail. The organizer’s phone was off and apparently they showed up just after I left. A lot of effort for naught, but the day only got better from that point on.

I must have ridden through almost every park between Wall St and Times Square that day. It was interesting to see the spaces evolve as the crowds grew. After I left the bull, I took a peaceful walk with my bike through Washington Square, rode past Union, picked up my clarinet, and headed for Bryant Park. I ran into Bike Bloc on the way and rode with them past Union Square, then checked out Madison Square Park, where a free university had been set up with a variety of open air classes, a table of incredible donated food, and thorough course listing packets. I visited Union one more time for good measure, then biked up to Bryant to see the big meetup. It was pretty impressive. On one end of the park, a wide range of people milled about chatting and sharing pamphlets and freshly silkscreened patches, while at the other the guitarmy readied themselves for battle. I dislike acoustic guitars in the hands of fools as much as the next person, but at least they were playing simple chord changes for a good cause that day! Somehow, so far I had seen surprisingly few familiar faces that day. It turned out that most of my friends were in Bryant Park. Soon enough, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra came marching past and entertained us with a song. Well, half of the RMO. They were so in demand that day and out in such high numbers that the band was able to split into two sizeable marching bands and play gigs constantly in various parts of Manhattan. I ran into the kid I had brought to the Occupy Museums meeting and he gave me a fantastic bandana which his friend had silkscreened, both artistically beautiful and usefully covered in legal advice. I found it funny that the city had put barricades up everywhere that day, yet the lawn at the park was being protected with a simple length of rope which all of the folks at the rally respected by keeping off the grass. I finally found the Ballet on the Barricades folks and we tried to do an action there, but by the time I had found several costumed friends, I’d lost them in a crowd. It was a day for brief reunions and easy separations.

Suddenly, but pretty much on time, the march towards Union Square began lining up. I was thrilled to have my bicycle, which entitled me to roam freely on the street instead of crowd onto the sidewalk. I made a new friend who was riding a cargo bike as I skirted the edge of the march. He and I decided to book it to the front and then race to meet the other feeder march before it arrived at Union Square. We paused at a corner so I could take a photo and were soon boxed into the curb by the line of police mopeds. We eventually convinced a couple of them to let us cut back onto the street, since we were in fact vehicles. As we were making out exit, a chunk of people at the intersection behind us suddenly made a collective push and consumed the width of 5th Ave. All manner of police rushed suddenly upstream against the endless tide, but soon relented to the masses. Sometimes a lack of hesitation is the most powerful weapon. The crowd moved wholeheartedly and there was no turning back.

I lost the other bike at the next intersection, but continued on ahead of the crowd until we reached Madison Square Park. Groups of people came running out to join the march as it continued on to Union Square. I in turn hurried down 5th towards Washington Square Park, where I managed to catch up with Bike Bloc. They had met the feeder march from over the Williamsburg Bridge and joined in the unpermitted protest down near the Lower East Side. By the time I found them in the West Village, it had turned into an absurd and almost amusing cat and mouse game between the cops and the protesters. Everyone would clump together in an orderly fashion as instructed, then split in opposite directions along 6th Ave. The bicyclists had their own assigned crew of moped cops who were failing to see the whimsy in this bit of theatre, trailing them in circles which always spiraled back to 6th. I hung back at one point and lost them all, so I headed back up to Union Square, eventually finding the bikers, the brass bands, and a wide smattering of folks I know. I didn’t spend much time near the stage in the front of the park, instead meeting up with people at the North end. Wisely, I sought refuge for a few at a friend’s nearby apartment, which had much-needed shade, water, couch, and toilet.

When a friend and I arrived back at the park, we found the Rude Mechanical Orchestra immediately and joined in the dance party. The two halves of the band had reconvened and they sounded fantastic. Three sousaphones is almost always a sign of something good. I found the folks from Bread and Puppet and was easily coerced into playing with the Tiny Band. I was determined to make one entire circle around the park before the march took off, during which I found the French guys from the night before. I jammed with them a bit on my clarinet, then insisted that they join us for the parade. I found the guy with the cargo bike again and he agreed to carry my folding bike and the rest of the French band’s drum kit along the parade route with us. It worked out beautifully.

I’ve heard that the final march had about 50,000 people in it (so imagine if everyone at Burning Man had one giant protest on the streets of NYC). The sidewalks had been pretty thoroughly barricaded for the occasion and I saw no skirmishes with the police. Our group wound up being the last part of the march, with Bread and Puppet’s massive boat and a variety of large puppets. We were visited by a variety of friends along the route, which stretched through streets both narrow and wide. It was a very long walk. I was thrilled to be playing music along side such talented players and friends. It was also an honor to be marching right behind Peter Schumann, the founder of Bread and Puppet. I always try not to be star struck when I see him, but it’s strange to be suddenly peers with someone you read about in books for so many years. He was dressed as Santa and at one point a group of clowns dressed as police came and arrested him with balloon handcuffs and sprayed the jeering crowd with silly string pepper spray.

The pickup band managed to find enough tunes to play to last the miles of marching. We’d all been in some band or another together at some point, so there were many common songs to choose from. There were members of brass ensembles such as Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Hungry March Band, Raya Brass Band, Veveritse, Stagger Back, The Tiptons, and Brass Menazeri. At one point, the band suddenly sounded so much fuller and I turned around to see that a large contingent of RMO had joined us. As the march drew closer to Liberty Plaza, the band grew smaller. It became quite reed heavy and a lot more intense and jazz-ridden. It was a ton of fun trying to keep up on the clarinet, especially when it veered towards free jazz.

I was pretty impressed at everyone’s stamina. We were parading for about three hours, but our part of the march was pretty much smiles all the way. I’m sure there were factions of the route which were far more intense and angry, but the music and puppets lightened everyone’s moods at the end of the parade. I heard that everyone continued on to the waterfront, where they then milled about the park for a while. Most of the band was done by the time it bottlenecked at Liberty, especially since most of us had a show in DUMBO to play or at least attend.

I was certainly glad my folding bike had made the journey with us. My new friend and I returned the drums to the French musicians and then hurried over the bridge to DUMBO. Riding across the clattering wooden planks of the Brooklyn Bridge after a day of protest felt pretty awesome. We made it to the Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner only slightly late. I caught most of my friend’s two act musical about a historic union strike and ate some delicious hot food. The bathroom was also a highlight of our arrival there. I got talked into playing clarinet in the dance and mask piece, which was accompanied by a conducted improv band full of everyone who had been playing all day. It was beautiful and worked exceptionally well.

At some point, I noticed that my wrists were gently trembling from all the excitement and exertion of the day. I’m pretty sure my arms have never spent that many hours in one day gripping my handlebars and wrestling with my clarinet. Somehow, towards the end of the show, my body found a magical second wind, storing up the toll of the day for when I finally got horizontal. By the end of the Stagger Back Brass Band set, the room had turned into a dance party – as well it should. They rarely ever play anymore, so it was a real treat. A friend grabbed me and pulled me onto the floor and somehow I found the strength to waltz. The evening ended with a massive sing along to a raging version of “Which Side Are You On?”

I walked my bike back up the Manhattan Bridge while sharing stories of the day with the hobeau, who had spent May Day in Nashville. It was hard not to rub in how exceedingly awesome the day was in NYC, but I assured him it was important for him to be there, since without him there would’ve been no marching band in Nashville. I coasted down the other side of the bridge and headed for KGB Bar to meet up with the puppeteer friend from Charlottesville who I had neglected to visit on tour. Sure enough, sitting with one of the other puppeteers was the friend who drove me back from Chicago after New Year’s. Small world. We threw a joyous fit about it and delighted in a surprise chance to hang out. Eventually, we all got late night food from Punjabi and my head finally hit the pillow at my friend’s empty place in Chelsea sometime around 4am.

The next day I was more exhausted than I’d expected. The risk of getting arrested for no good reason is always enough to get your blood pumping, plus the lack of sleep topped with miles of biking and marching wore me out physically. For a general strike, I certainly worked myself pretty hard. The day after was thus spent mostly laying down. I got a decent amount of computer work done, but little else. By the second day, I still hadn’t stepped outside of the apartment. Society could have collapsed all around the building in the wake of May Day and I wouldn’t have known but for outside communication. Besides, if the potential for a better world wasn’t still being joyously celebrated on the doorstep, did I really want to go outside quite yet? With my body a bit recovered, though, I managed to have one of the better practice sessions I’ve ever had with my saxophone. Somehow the hours of wailing on a clarinet with top-notch professional reed players left me with the ability to flutter tongue. So THAT’s what it takes to learn how to do that! Besides that freak perk, my fingers moved faster and my mouth behaved better – all very much to my delight. If I could do all of my practicing at protests, that would be terrific. The brass band march also left me with a renewed joy of playing my instrument, which was something I’d been needing for quite some time.

can’t escape the big city for long

Yet another tardy post – this is the rest of March in New York City…

While I was grateful to have had a chance to recharge myself after tour, I found myself so uncommonly busy on my return to NYC after my second weekend in Baltimore that I barely had enough time to think, let alone dwell on anything. Somehow, this sparseness and clarity made it possible for me to focus what little time I had left on getting further involved with the Occupy movement, which has been a sadly neglected priority whenever I’m in town. I tend to be most productive when I’m too busy to second guess or dwell on anything.

I had what was possibly my most intense work week ever. I put in three long days helping build nine solid oak bookshelves at the new music space in Chelsea, then two days at the old venue in Brooklyn, one of which I later worked an event back in Chelsea, then two days helping with a dog show at the one in Brooklyn with another event in Chelsea on one of those evenings. All told, it was about eighty hours in one week, with 60 of those being five days of manual labour. Needless to say, blogging took a back seat. I think I spent most of Monday asleep, but somehow managed two more days at the Brooklyn venue that week, hauling buckets of sand and dirt up two stories to the roof.

While I’m making my time back in New York sound pretty grueling, it really wasn’t so bad. After one tough day in Chelsea, I got given money to take myself out to dinner and then spent it luxuriously writing in a French bistro. I like working with my hands and the week go me back in shape. The events which I worked were all pretty fun and the dog show was especially ridiculous. I normally have mixed feelings about dogs wearing clothing, but the Star Wars versus Star Trek costume contest was incredible. It was nice getting back into a routine at the old venue.  Not since pedicabbing have I worked in one place for a full year, albeit in waves. One afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave, someone poked their head in the door to ask if the cafe was open. I knew there had been a reason I’d neglected to put the closed sign on the door earlier. Even though he was too late, he won us over by pointing out that I had stayed at his house in Boston six years ago. Of course I did and of course he works at the bike shop around the corner. The world is unsettlingly small. On my bike rides to and from work that day, I marveled at the flowering trees which were in bloom throughout the posher parts of the neighborhood. It wasn’t long before I paid the shop where he works a visit, throwing down a modest sum to use their stand and tools for an hour to do some tuning up on my bike, but mostly to replace the brake cables which had already begun snapping on me. Normally, I would go to a co-op or a collective to work on my bike, but riding to Time’s Up from work with no brakes seemed pretty foolish.Regardless, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of fixing your own bike.

Most of my free time was spent with my new constant companion and/or at Occupy Union Square. There was a big event one night with tons of people and lines of cops, but every time I came by around midnight, the crowds were engaging in some level of protest theatre as the police shut down the park. It became more theatrical and absurd every time I participated. I definitely felt more of a kinship there than I had at Liberty Square, for reasons I am still figuring out. In short, though, that general part of Manhattan has always been somewhat sacred to me, plus the historical significance of Union Square in radical politics is certainly heavy. I need to put more thought into why I’ve felt this way and I will try to explain it better soon… I also caught the very end of the day-long Occupy Fort Greene in Brooklyn, which happened on a beautiful day atop a hill. I began to get increasingly drawn to Occupy Museums and made it down to one of their meetings at 60 Wall St. Again, I finally found an Occupy group that I was not only interested in, but felt useful and comfortable with. I also finally went over to the Great Small Works space to help with building puppets for the Puppet Guild. I stole my friend away after RMO practice – at which point I was lovingly called out for never coming to practice with them – and we touched up the paint on the giant Brooklyn Bridge for a while. Afterwards, we went to a nearby building for the Spaghetti Dinner, where the puppet show was over but there was still hot food.

Outside of Occupy, most of my socializing happened at new music events, which is a strange but somehow inevitable evolution in my life. Besides the space in Chelsea, I wound up getting quite involved at a space in downtown Brooklyn. If I wasn’t seeing a show there, I was helping with the bar, or even just practicing when I went to hang out with my friend in the wee hours. I even managed to record some horn line ideas for the band and email them out, both times around 7am after a long night with laptops and instruments and the ever alluring comfy couch. I ate far too many toasted dumpster bagels there in the past month.

The dense work week made my time between Baltimore and Boston (more on that soon) seem like a blur, yet I got a lot accomplished in a seemingly small and limited time. It was also a huge release to have a massive amount of income all at once, which allowed me to relax a bit and focus on my projects and priorities. For someone who has refused to move to NYC for seven years of nearly living there, I seem to be getting a lot out of my time here lately.

Baltimore encore

Many apologies for my shoddy blogging lately. I have been distracted by an abundance of wonderful and overwhelming new developments in my life. Here is a belated account of my trip to Baltimore about this time last month.

I couldn’t very well pass up the offer I had for the weekend, as it combined several appealing things – Baltimore, Veveritse Brass Band, a free ride, and the H&H Building. I was also ready for a break after a two long and laborious days helping build bookshelves at a new pseudo-venue in Chelsea. However, besides being well compensated for my time, I’d been fed lots of delicious food and scored an awesome pair of corduroy and suede jodhpers at a vintage store nearby. I met up with Veveritse in far South Brooklyn that Friday and had a fun drive to Baltimore with lots of good conversation. I’d offered to do merch in exchange for the ride, then finding my own path after the show and taking a bus back to NYC. We stopped at the gorgeous old hostel where they were staying downtown, made the obligatory trek over to Red Emma’s for some browsing, then headed over to the H&H Building. Everything in Baltimore is, after all, walking distance from the train station. On the way there, I noticed a bbq party out back of an art space and ran into a girl I’d met at a party on a previous visit… of course.

I wound up having a fantastic (and unusually mellow) St. Patrick’s Day, thanks mostly to an accordionist friend who had built me a perfect day. We got up at a reasonable hour and headed to the farmer’s market in his neighborhood. I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since college and they of course knew each other. I became even more enchanted with the city as we headed over to his friend’s new home where I had been offered a room for $300 a month. Not only was the house in a neighborhood populated by folks I know, it had its own balcony! I haven’t paid steady rent in almost five years, though, so it would’ve been a big step if I’d decided to take her up on the offer. Predictably enough, I coveted the alcove in her basement, where I envisioned a cheaper space I could build for myself beside the tiny ivy-covered window. However, New York is a jealous mistress and had made itself more appealing than ever the week before. Besides, it was hard to pass up the house work-for-free rent situation I already had in a Brooklyn sub-basement.

The next stop of the day was an Irish pub which is tied to Red Emma’s and was offering free food for St. Patrick’s Day. It was impressively deluxe.  After we’d gotten totally full of cabbage and whatnot, we headed over to the Black Cherry Theatre to see a puppet variety show. The space was in Southwest Baltimore and charmingly crammed floor-to-ceiling with a variety of large puppets. I inevitably ran into a bunch of people I knew or had met that day elsewhere. We saw the early show and made it to Windup Space for Baltimore Rock Opera Society’s viking fundraiser just in time to see a friend’s band perform. At this point, though, my friend and I were exhausted and I wasn’t feeling very well, so we called it an early night and I slept for about twelve hours. Glorious.

The next day I planned to catch an evening bus so that I could be up early Monday for work. Wow, how often do I say that? This left some of the afternoon for excursions. I was invited over to a friend’s place for vegan brunch, which was lovely, then met up with my instrumentally indecisive friend from Barrage Band Orchestra for a wander. On our drive, I got another one of his wry tours of Baltimore. As we arrived in the old business district, he described Lexington Market simply. ”That’s where you go to get lake trout, under-the-counter prescription drugs, or shot.” Keep in mind that he likes that city even more than I do, plus he actually lives there.

We entered an old empty department store and watched a rehearsal of Fluid Movement’s latest roller skating show. My friend has been directing segments of their water ballet for years. It’s basically the funnest version of community theatre I’ve ever seen. They do original works with multiple directors and a large cast, swimming in the summer and roller skating in the winter. This was my first time seeing anything besides their set shop, and even the tech rehearsal was pretty excellent. The cast celebrated the surrounding neighborhood, paying homage to the last century of Baltimore’s history. They even had roller skaters dressed as local snackfoods! I was so taken with the whole thing that I bought a t-shirt before we left (I was also somehow out of clean shirts at that point in my trip).

It had been another short visit to Baltimore, but I somehow made my bus this time. Thanks to the previous night’s rest, I didn’t succumb to the sleepy lull of the bus. I was thrilled to settle into the only routine I know anymore – long drive, blogging on the netbook, errant texting. I’ve missed the dark expanses, the lazy trembling of a large vehicle. I slept too much on my last two recent bus trips to enjoy the journey. I saw the fiery steel mills who moonlight as distant skyscrapers in the nighttime and knew it was time to wrap up my simultaneous three blog posts, online comic distractions, lush musical soundtrack, and get ready to leave my nest on the bus. In other words, it was time to focus my limited attention span solely on neurotically checking my phone.

Another New York Interim

I will start by saying that I am pleased as punch to be stationed out of the East Village these days. For one, I was beginning to become overwhelmed by Brooklyn after six years of couches, floors, and weird sublets. I’ve also been slowly consummating the romance that’s been going on in my head for decades with this part of NYC. It probably began when I first saw Little Shop of Horrors at the tender age of four (over and over again at a summerstock – a story for another time). All of the slums of New York I saw in movies as a kid and yet never placed on a map somehow all took place on the Lower East Side after seeing Rent in high school, including Annie and every cartoon in an urban setting where folks were poor but clever (or animals, in the case of Oliver and Company and countless others). I digress…My point is that I have been unusually content with NYC, and therefore very busy, since returning. It’s a rare case that I find myself not budging out of the city and happy about it. Granted, it’s only been a week and a half. The band returned to NYC just in time for the CMJ music festival, which I was fortunately not playing. As the band’s tour manager put it, it’s like South By Southwest without any of the good parts like the nice weather and free booze. On the plus side, it meant friends in other bands would be in town, so I got to see What Cheer? Brigade play an awesome set in Brooklyn. A friend from Hungry March Band and I made it there, astonished that we were paying to see a brass band for the first time in ages. The show was a ton of fun and a friend from C Squat was unusually drunk and we did some of the most effective mosh pit waltzing I’ve ever been a part of. I was thrilled to see my drummer friend from WC?B, who has saved my wayward self so many times and still refuses to take credit for it. I’m also really happy for the band, who has gotten a ton of media attention lately for a video they posted online wherein the band plays while one of the members quits his job at an awful corporate hotel. They’re pretty badass. Meanwhile, I somehow kept just missing seeing Hungry March Band play while I was in town, although I spent some quality time in bars with half of their drum section. I also made my usual pilgrimage to the Jalopy in Redhook, although I am overdue for one of my usual visits to Barbes.

My week and a half in NYC filled itself in almost effortlessly. There was some time spent scheming future artistic endeavors, riding my bike, hanging out in a pile of stuffed pandas, you know. The venue where I usually make a bit of money between tours was rented out for Broadway rehearsals this month, but I fortunately found some new work with friends reorganizing a storeroom and painting window murals (which was awesome, as I haven’t done art in far too long). I also attended a very small steampunk craft faire in DUMBO and caught the entirety of the fashion show. It was charming, but nothing so big as what I expected from the people putting on the faire or the steampunk community. I also made it all the way out to New Jersey for a punk show house party which had a lot of cake and many fun people. These weeks also contained a couple of band rehearsals and some fancy rendezvous with handsome hosts. I spent far too much time scouring thrift stores looking for a grey dress for the band’s first of four Halloween shows. On the plus side, I found an awesome circusy dress, a lightup/speaking Batman chest piece, and a LOLcatz book for the friend I’m staying with. Sadly, none of those could pass for a grey dress. Finally, I found something that would work and a seamstress working on our Halloween shows offered to personalize it for me. I felt very special indeed.

Another theme of my past couple of weeks was trying to get caught up on this blog. I tried all sorts of ways to squeeze it into my days, finally trying the old hide-in-a-cafe approach. Sure enough, just as I’d finished eating a salad and was commencing my long affair with a bottomless cup of coffee, set to finish my post before midnight, a familiar face walked past the table. It was the lady from Eden and John’s East River String Band, who I’d first met one cold winter when she used to sell their CDs next to the school bus where I helped my friend sell her wares, on a curb just off of St. Mark’s. I was glad to get a chance to have a long chat with her after years of running into each other, but one of the coolest outcomes was getting turned onto a lot of fascinating neighborhood blogs documenting the goings on in the general Tompkins Square Park area. She’s been writing a lot about Occupy Wall Street lately (check it out – http://www.slumgoddess.blogspot.com). It was cool to talk to another lady doing a personal blog about her unusual life. When I ran into her, she had just come from Rev. Jen’s book signing – another lady with an unusual perspective on life whose writing I need to read sometime soon. I felt energized and motivated after our long chat over my computer, but I still hadn’t gotten a new post up.

I filled out the rest of my weeks with visits to Occupy Wall Street. Mostly, I went down as a performer, which was not as helpful as volunteering or moving in, but still better than your run of the mill gawking and tourism. Mostly I went down to play music with pickup brass bands, occasionally getting snatched up by the odd banjo player or old timey ensemble. I’ve made some new friends there and had many good chats with old ones. I’ve been unsurprised to see the emergence of an Animal Farm kind of class system within the occupation, mostly over the inherent differences between the weekend warrior activists and the radical squatters. I am well aware that I am oversimplifying, but the sentiment has been echoed elsewhere. There was one day where I met up with a group to do a modified version of the king chapter from The Little Prince. I played clarinet under the narration and dialogue and the show was quite well received there. We grabbed some food at the occupy food line afterwards and chatted with folks. I then biked with one of the cast members up to Theatre for the New City and helped make shadow puppets for a show I would never even get to see.During this stay in NYC, I got to have a lot of good conversations with people I like while still making it to several events. It’s hard to manage both, but I’m somehow getting better at it. I continue to be behind in posts, but hopefully the one about the past Halloween weekend is coming soon. In the meantime, I will continue to be distracted by almost everything else.

midwest

I wrote much of this post on an airplane to New York. Fancy, right? Not as fancy as an airplane to Europe, which has been the focus of my thoughts lately. During my short visit to Chicago, I not only had to pack for the Inferno European tour, but for my likely trip to Burning Man as soon as I get back. I found out that free tickets for the pickup marching band came through just in time to get my packing done early. I hosed off all the playa dust on my camping gear from last year and even began packing crackers. This was nothing compared to deciding what to wear, both onstage and off, for five straight weeks of playing a show in a different city every day. I also managed to help my mother move an impressive amount of furniture from place to place in the few days I was home. I actually got a lot accomplished on this visit, although I saw almost none of my friends as a result.

I arrived relatively late on Saturday and it was really good to be home. The next day was full of laundry and whining out the end of whatever that illness was that kept me so down the previous week. I spent a lot of the morning laying about the appartment feeling lousy between domestic tasks, but eventually felt better enough to go to a party. I grew up going to my mother’s friend’s Fourth of July garden party, but he hasn’t had one in some time. I was fortunate to be back for the party this year. Everyone was encouraged to bring a side dish representing their ethnic background and there was a ton of food… and sangria. I had my first drink in about a week, hoping I was better enough to indulge. I was apparently. The host of the party is a performer, as well as a wonderful cook and interior designer, so the party is always as full of interesting people as it is festive. What separates it from anyone else’s, I’d imagine, is the Fourth of July caroling, complete with songbooks and blaring karaoke tracks. There is nothing quite like watching a bunch of musical theatre left-leaning types in their forties and fifties belt out the Battle Hymn of the Republic, complete with miniature percussion breakdown. These were the parties I grew up with. (I question whether I ever really grew up.) Bonus, I got to play the tiny crash cymbals this year!

The next day was more organizing at home and then partying with my mother’s friends. It’s always been fun to mingle with awesome musicians and actors who have been in the business so much longer than myself, although this year the topic of so many conversations at both parties was where I would be playing in Europe. It felt good to have something to bring to the table, however modest, in the company of so many professionals. The next day I made it to the promised doctor’s appointment early in the morning, poked my head into the brand new All Saint’s store downtown (major London nostalgia points, plus pretty things I cannot afford), and then my mother and I hit the road for a couple of days of relaxation in Michigan and Indiana. I joked that she was kidnapping me and forcing me to take a vacation, but she sort of was. For two whole days, I did things like sit on the beach, eat delicious meals, watch live theatre, and sleep in comfy beds. It was lovely. Sure, this was more hanging out with my mother’s friends, but I’ve always liked them and we got plenty of quality time to ourselves too.

When we left Chicago, I knew we were going to be seeing a show at the Wagon Wheel in Warsaw, Indiana. It wasn’t until we were well on our way that I thought to ask which one. It was State Fair, an old Rogers and Hammerstein treasure that was originally made for film, then remounted for Broadway only about fifteen years ago. Interesting bit of trivia: after the success of Oklahoma, they were hounded by Hollywood to adapt it for the screen. This was too new of an idea for them, so their compromise was to write an original musical for Hollywood… also about a Midwestern state, but Iowa this time. It’s a sweet show and that theatre always does a good job with a broad variety of material. What really struck me about the show itself, though, was the romance between the older traveling cabaret performer and the young and innocent farm boy. When it comes time for her to catch her midnight bus to her next show, the guy tries everything to convince her things can work out between them. She’s been hurt this way too many times, she tells him, and no man wants to sit at home and waiting and wondering when his lady will get off tour. Finally, she leaves and breaks his heart, despite all of his promises that things would stay simple and fun. The road is lonely for women of the stage, the show teaches us. I sat there astonished that this show was written in the mid-1940s, yet after so many feats of women’s liberation, I’m still having the exact same problems. The cabaret singer boarded her bus for the next stop on her tour, headed to the big city to try to make it.

The next day was very eventful. We had coffee in a cute lakeside town, then brunch at a Farmer’s Market, then moved a lot of furniture, then I barely made my hair appointment back in Chicago. A friend works at a very hip hair salon, so I got a free haircut. I used to get freebies there from the sister of her husband (still getting used to having married friends), although I’ve had a couple other good fancy salon ins. I got the sides cut really short, which should be perfect for touring in summer. Afterwards, I went over to Rapid Transit, where somehow I know all the bike mechanics again. It seems to come in waves. I then headed up North and met up with my steampunk writer friend who I stowed away with at the World’s Fair, who happened to be in town for some sort of anarchist sci-fi literature convention. I dragged him over to the Puppet Bike to be my audience and got to do a nice long set inside. I was surprised and delighted to see two new puppets – a bunny and a cat, my favourite ones!

My last night in town was full of packing, followed by a similar day. There was a bit more laundry done and more furniture moved, plus some time making meals with my mother. Inevitably, I was rushing around by the time I needed to be out the door. I arrived on time to the airport, only to find out that my flight was delayed. My uncle had come to see me off as well, so my mother and I got a surprise chance to sit in the airport for over an hour catching up with him. He plays woodwinds and keys in a big deal Elvis impersonator (pardon me, “tribute artist”) band; they play with his old drummer and backup singers, which is understandably a big deal. So, he was in Peru playing shows in Lima for most of the time I was in Chicago this visit. This wasn’t the first time I saw them briefly at the airport due to a fortuitous layover between gigs. When they left this time, he went home to practice his horns and she was off to get a good night’s sleep for an early ballet class and a new voice student who’s coming in tomorrow morning. My mother has just started taking ballet again, I’m so proud of her.

Punks and Puppets vie for my weekdays too

Dividing my epic weekend (and I’m sure I didn’t do it justice earlier with my short descriptions) into days and events seemed to work pretty well for organizing my thoughts, so I’ll try it again. I thought I’d be relaxing after a monumental weekend, but my weekdays followed suit pretty well. I found it particularly funny that I was still having to divide my time between the punk scene and the puppetry scene.

MONDAY

Punk Show, Lower East Side

When I played/sang the “Diamonds and Gold” cover with The Homeless People at the end of our last set at Punk Island on Sunday, I’d thought that would be my last show with them for who knows how long. I awoke Monday morning, after about half a day’s worth of sleep, to a text from the accordion player asking if I wanted to play a show at C-Squat that night. I’d already been tempted to attend, given that Drunkard’s Wife (who I haven’t rehearsed with in ages and was curious to see) and HUMANWINE (who I’ve somehow never seen live) would be playing, but had also been swayed into the idea of relaxing and watching a puppet show in Brooklyn instead. So, much as I did the day before, I divided my time evenly between the two scenes. I got to C-Squat early enough to hang out with everyone a little before our set, and left afterwards with enough time to say farewells and have a few conversations. I even got approached to do some recording on a band’s newest album, which I was pretty psyched about. Alas, I had to miss those two sets I’d been tempted to see in order to make the show in Brooklyn I’d promised to attend long before.

Puppet Show, Bed-Stuy

I got a ride part of the way to the puppet show and made it just in time for intermission. I was glad  to see my old friend’s touring show. Not only was it really good, but it’s a rare treat to run into him when he’s touring. One of the local puppeteers works at a fairly normal neighborhood bar, where she sometimes gets to throw shows in their spacious concrete backyard. The setting was very sweet, filled to the brim with an audience of creative types and others. It was funny to see so many brass band folks for the third day in a row, and we all commented on this to some extent. After a while of catching up with people, I biked partway home with some puppeteers and hung out with them before rolling the rest of the way down the hill to home.

TUESDAY

Second Line Parade, Highline

After band practice on Monday, I rushed off to Manhattan to meet some friends and see the Hungry March Band play. Granted, I’d clearly just seen them when I played with them a few days before, but a second line parade down the weird second-story park that is the Highline sounded bizarre enough to warrant a trip over there. We searched for them comically for a while, then encountered them on the far end of the stretch and marched all the way back to their music. At one point they stopped to do a dance routine, and I was dragged (fairly willingly) into it by one of the veteran dancers who was sure I still remembered the steps. My friend knows the new bass drum player because he’s also in O’Death, so we talked to him for a while. Small scene that it is, the snare drum player used to be the drummer for Inferno too. The band eventually finished and the crowd dispersed as quickly as they’d appeared.

Folk Punk Show, Greenpoint

I ended the weekend by doing something very unusual – seeing bands I’ve never heard and whose members I don’t know. It was strange indeed, although I did run into a few people I knew in the crowd. I spent most of the show hanging out on a perch I found, a ways back but within sight of the stage. I was feeling kind of old, weird, and recognizable, but then spent a while hanging out with Sturgeon, who is older, weirder, and more recognizable. That was nice.

WEDNESDAY

I went to work at the old venue and spent six hours weeding the cement outside and vacuuming the sidewalk. Seriously. It was actually pretty rewarding when I was done. I then spent the evening recovering and enjoying the luxury of having a sublet with a kitchen and folks to cook with. I meant to work on jewelry, but delved too thoroughly into musette and old jazz with a friend, so I woke up very early the next morning to do it instead.

THURSDAY

More bizarre venue work… and what kind of person poops on the sidewalk anyway?!

In the evening, I biked over to Manhattan and played in the marching band again (another repeat performance I wasn’t expecting) at the Cantastoria show at Here. It meant a lot to perform there at Here, as that was where I saw one of the earlier puppet shows that heavily influenced me during a summer program when I was in high school. It was even more poignant that I was performing alongside folks from Bread & Puppet and Great Small Works. We marched the crowd in and later accompanied a piece, playing sweet and ragtag versions of songs some of us barely knew. Afterwards, there was a casual dinner in someone’s space nearby and I had a chance to connect with so many friends new and old.

I ended the night in the most perfect way possible, leaving at the same time as the founder of Bread and Puppet and getting to walk to my bike with him. He’s a lovely man. I remember in college when they were this mythical theatre company that existed somewhere tucked away in the countryside. I didn’t really expect that one day I would know so many of them, especially still having never visited their space. I got to perform with them one time years ago when they came to our college, and even then I was a little starstruck. Now it’s become casual, almost accidental, when I wind up performing with them. Suddenly I’m an “adult” and walking down the streets of New York talking to the founder about nothing in particular, how strange.

Weekend of Parades, Punks, and Puppets

I am still recovering from a weekend where I was practically two separate musicians. I played with so many bands in so much sunlight and throughout so many varied parts of NYC, it was pretty overwhelming. Besides the social relay-race that usually occupies my life, there was the Mermaid Parade, Punk Island, the Banners and Cranks Festival, and various off-shoot shows. It was a weekend so epic it feels like it still hasn’t ended… but more on that soon enough

SATURDAY

The Mermaid Parade, Coney Island

It’s been several years since I’ve been to the Mermaid Parade. Everyone has been worried about the ways in which Coney Island is changing, but somehow it didn’t feel different at all from my previous memories of the parade. My first time as a participant was back in 2005, when I was playing with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra for the summer. I can’t even believe how long ago that was and how many adventures I’ve been through with those folks in the years since. If you’ve never been to it, the Mermaid Parade is really something to experience. Imagine how I described my usual Mardi Gras experience, but on the beach and with hundreds of New Yorkers participating. Surely it has its share of problems, but I’ve always found it to be a beautiful representation of community spirit and massive-scale DIY partying. Anyone is welcome to enter the parade, so it is a fascinating and eventually drunken picture of NYC ingenuity and creative use of sequins and body paint.

This year I hadn’t made any specific plans to play with a marching band, but I had brought my sax along for some boardwalk busking with The Homeless People after the parade. Some friends and I walked along the parade route beforehand, mostly in search of the bands. RMO said I could join in if I wanted, but Hungry March Band snatched me up when I got to them. It’s been some time since I’ve sat in with them, so I knew it would be a lot of fun trying to keep up with their tunes. I ran off to check the boardwalk for any busking friends and inevitably ran into people I knew and got sidetracked. It was the mermaid parade, so not only were they distracting, they were literally shiny. I ran into the Rubulad crew, who all seemed to be covered in feathers and glitter, as well as three of the folks from the aforementioned Vice Don’ts photo and a couple of painted school buses. By the time I got back to the parade lineup, the two friends I had brought over had been recruited to carry the banner and the parade was kicking off.

I had a lot of fun parading with the HMB, despite the sun beating down, and the band ended knee-deep in the ocean as usual. I forget that this sort of a party isn’t normal for most people, and there were certainly some confused swimmers and ecstatically surprised little kids. Hungry March Band played for a while, amassing a crowd of revelers in the waves before retiring to the sands. I kept my sax out in anticipation of the RMO, who I knew would be along any minute to do the same.

The Rude Mechanical Orchestra is a lot bigger than the Hungry March Band these days, although originally it was a small radical offshoot of that institution of a brass band. The RMO party in the water was different just like the band – bigger, younger, and punker. Some of the HMB group rushed over and joined in though. I felt the same kind of brass band joy I get at Honk festivals and the better moments of Burning Man.

Eventually, my friends and I dragged ourselves away from the post-parade lounging and wandered up to the boardwalk. Mickey Western Band was busking in a little enclave, but eventually the guys from Up, Up We Go showed up and I sat in with them (and Mickey afterwards). Halfway through sitting in, I heard the brass band on the beach burst into “Bad Romance” and had to run off and listen. It was mostly the RMO playing, although I had taught the marching band at Burning Man an adaptation of their version last fall. I played a tune with the massive brass band before rejoining the buskers on the boardwalk. I made a little spending money just for sitting in on a few tunes! The singer from Up, Up We Go has such a commanding stage presence, I could see the crowd reacting to him all the way from the beach. After the busking group broke up I went back to the sands for what devolved into a beautifully freeform jam as we all experimented with foreign instruments. This started with me picking up a sousaphone in order to drown out my ex’s bass (playfully!), then switching to bass drums and then quads as our shifting instrumentation necessitated. The ex lost the cap to his whisky, so of course we all had to finish it, and this just made everything all the more avant-garde.

I never did find the Homeless People, not even later that night when I biked up to Bed-Stuy in search of a show we were supposedly playing. I saw lots of friends while I was in that neighborhood, including some similarly beat looking parade musicians and buskers, but played no music. It was, in hindsight, a silly errand in the middle of a weekend of sun and running about. I also missed the epic annual party hosted by an acclaimed tattoo artist / stunning transformer of derelict spaces, to which I wasn’t invited but knew several people who went and might’ve gotten myself in somehow if I could’ve survived partying til dawn.

SUNDAY

Punk Island, Governor’s Island

It was hard getting out of bed on Sunday morning. Who starts a punk show at 10am?! The city of New York, that’s who. Punk Island was a part of the Make Music NY festival that’s been going on all over the boroughs. I had never been to Governor’s Island, so that was pretty awesome. I would’ve been there last weekend for Figment NYC, but I was still out of town. However, there were strange remnants of Figment left over.

It was pretty hilarious to see the denizens of Punk Island interacting with the leftover amusements from Figment. We saw Juggalos playing mini-golf and kids with foot-high mohawks looking at weird art. It was almost as funny and cute as watching normal-looking parents with toddlers who were absolutely transfixed by the bands.

Everyone was alarmingly well-behaved in the midst of the Figment sculptures. Then again, they were up awfully early that morning to get to the event. Even so, the island seemed vaguely fortified against the potentially rowdy youth.

Punk Island was a lot of fun, and I played two shows with The Homeless People on two different stages. Several fans of Inferno happened to be on the island and caught one or both of the sets, which was pretty cool. Members of The Drunkard’s Wife were there playing in Fly’s band Zero Content and caught our first set, while Holly, Mat, and Brian from HUMANWINE were there for our second set. It’s fun playing festivals because your friends in other bands are almost forced to see your set, and vice versa. We also had a decent number of traveler kids who made it out to the island, somehow without their dogs, to see our second set. Some friends of mine, both in bands and not, sadly missed our sets. I missed seeing several friends’ bands as well, either due to scheduling conflicts or my early departure from the island. I rushed to the ferry after a long bit of post-set socializing, only to wind up sitting with the band which is opening for the NYC show of the same band Inferno is opening for this weekend. Small world, even smaller punk island. I biked a short distance from where the ferry let off in DUMBO and met up just in time with the marching band I would be playing with for the rest of the afternoon.

Banners & Cranks Festival of Cantastoria, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Cantastoria is the art of theatrical, picture-centric storytelling through song. Yes indeed, in the times before the cinema, folks would stand and point at a painting while singing. It’s no Grand Guignol (thankfully), but it tided the world over until film came into existence. It has been popular in Eurasia for centuries, but has recently been gaining momentum in the puppeteer communities on this side of the world. Great Small Works – a company I’d only heard about in college classes before finally finding myself surrounded by these past several years thanks to the Honk! community – organized the opening ceremonies for the festival, including the “Greatest Smallest Band” which was essentially a pickup band made up of members of every imaginable Honk! band with ties in NYC. It was a noble endeavor. We led a crowd to the park and signaled the start of the festival, then lent ourselves to puppet shows during the sampling of pieces that occurred over the next few hours in the park.

At the end of the event, we paraded back to the puppetry space, which was almost as fun as the show itself. I liked seeing the reactions of the passers-by on the way to the event, but even better was the more somber retreat after we’d worn ourselves out in the sun. Nothing like a marching band parading towards free beer! The cavernous streets of DUMBO looked beautiful in shadows cast by the setting sun. We all relaxed back at the space, puppeteers and musicians and puppeteer/musicians alike. I felt honored and blissful to have two days in a row of such wonderful brass band nonsense… and in NYC to top it off!