(no subject)
all right! more stuff what i done!
ok, tuesday i basically just hung out, caught my breath, petted zoe, went to pasqual's for dinner with dad, had a massive margarita, and bought a bus ticket so i could go to summerfest on
wednesday! took the car downtown, and dad took me to the union so i could catch the bus. had a lovely ride to milwaukee, during which i listened to the florence + the machine mix that
tenar made. it is awesome. she is awesome. they are awesome. there's a HARP. i mean, that's epic. i can't wait til the 6th. the bus dropped us 'fest-ers at jackson and michigan, which isn't quite 'fest grounds, but close enough. i worried a bit when the driver said we should go back there to catch the bus back to madison, but whatever, i was off! walked down to the grounds, got in, and realized i had to play the game that all midwesterners despise: finding your mates at summerfest. called cordy: they weren't even out of illinois yet. mom texted and was like "we're in this one place" and i got there and no they weren't, plus there was a trumpet (stab), so i started to text her back, but then she called, and i had to run away so i could talk. and then she was like "why don't you just text me" and i said "yeah that's what i was doing when you called thanks" and she said "oh. bye." ha. so eventually we found each other and she bought me beer, and we went and got food, and sat by the lake. meanwhile, everyone in the city got out of work and came to 'fest and it was fucking insane.
cordy and andrea and their friend showed up, we found them, dear god it was crowded, and so we went to look at the lake again. climbed to the lawn seating at the top of the marcus amphitheatre so we could look at the actual whole lake, not just the lagoon bit. it was pretty amazing. i hadn't been in marcus since about 1997 or so when i saw bob dylan and paul simon, so this was pretty fucking cool. boats. did i mention boats are the best?
made our ways back down to our seats, which were all over the place. i was fairly close-- not as close as i would have liked, but high up enough to see much of the orchestra (if the piano had been elsewhere). before the show i was like "they can't fit an orchestra in front of that screen, what are they going to do?" and andrea and cordy were like "just wait." when i got to my seat, i could see that the orchestra was behind the screen, but i was still confused. "just wait."
uh i honestly don't know if i can really write about the fucking new blood orchestra. i mean. i wasn't really watching peter gabriel. i was watching the orchestra. they started with heroes. i had no idea what to do. i mean NO IDEA. i got it, i could see what they were doing, but i wasn't in any way prepared. i might have lost it a little (to the delight of the people on either side of me. yes, this is what you are in for. sharing a row with THIS GIRL. on the other hand, the couple to my left were irritating as shit. he was all over her, and during the quiet bits, most of what i could hear was HIS HAND LOVINGLY CARESSING HER SLEEVE. BARF).
i was, quite literally, on the edge of my fucking seat the whole time. leaning forward, i have to catch every note, every dynamic shift, every ornamentation, every coloration. biko, a sea of fists. in your eyes, all the hands going up. signal to noise. what the fuck. the rhythm and the heat. MERCY STREET. secret world oh god oh god fuck. i filmed red rain on my phone, but can't get it off until i get home. the colors aren't quite true (i was at an odd angle), but the sound is amazing. the conductor. usually i'm on the other side of the conductor, attempting to interpret his wild gesticulations and translate it into music (or at the very least follow along and not miss the one beat), but this time i got to enjoy it in an aesthetic sense. it wasn't like watching any symphony orchestra i've ever seen. he was incredibly clear in his movements, and also incredibly graceful. it was like watching someone fly. what could be more perfect.
I WANT TO PLAY IN THE NEW BLOOD ORCHESTRA // SOMEONE TELL ME THERE'S A RECORDING OF THIS SHOW
occasionally pg asked us to clap, and we did, but not so thunderously as to drown out the orchestra. i had no idea a summerfest audience could be so subtle and observant. (and neither did rob thomas, apparently.) also, i've never gotten to go WOOOO for a conductor before, and certainly never for an arranger! not that i haven't wanted to (really i have). it felt good.
i don't know if i feel like i saw PETER GABRIEL. i mean obviously i did. but it wasn't my focus, i guess. i've seen the secret world live dvd too many times, maybe. or, more likely, all i wanted was the orchestra and everything else was incidental. which is not the right word. it's more like (or sort of like) i didn't have a choice. the orchestra was where my attention was absolutely supposed to be. not that i wouldn't have chosen to see pg given the chance, but THIS. fuck it i don't have a clue how to explain myself.
i love orchestras. i love how a symphony is basically teaching an elephant to minuet, and then having it minuet through the eye of a needle. everything could go so horribly wrong. this organism is huge and unwieldy and awkward and made up of all these smaller beings, and if they won't work together then all you have is a dissonant, painful mess and a pissy conductor. but when it works, you get beethoven's 3rd. and haydn's 6th. and schubert's 8th, and handel's water music, and stravinsky's firebird, and copland's appalachian spring. and sometimes you get something really special like this. it's a certain kind of magic that seems easy to produce, sometimes even to the players, but i think it takes a particular talent, and a willingness to work with all those other small beings to make your great creature.
waited for cordy, then couldn't wait any longer or i'd miss my bus. said goodbye to andrea, shoved my way back through the 'fest throngs to an exit, any exit, and pushed my way up to jackson and over to michigan. bus? nope. however, i recognized a dude from the bus to summerfest, and asked if he thought we were in the right spot. he did think so (at least that's what the driver told us at 5), and lo, the bus didst appear. got on, curled up in a seat, checked my red rain video to make sure it had decent sound (it does), turned florence back on, and pretty much checked out for the entire ride back to madison.
nelle and mel picked me up, nelle got pulled over for the FIRST TIME EVER for a burned out headlight, and they dropped me at home. zzzzzzz.
thursday! i took nelle out to brasserie v for lunch, since she had been driving me all over creation and i felt i owed her at the very least for coming out and getting me the night before. she also had a bucky book coupon (two for one lunch!), and it was lovely. we ordered frites which came with this amazing cajun aioli. we had beer (a saison for me, a porter for her), she got a whole sandwich, i got a half and some very eastern european cabbage soup, and it was all extremely lovely. back to her place, back to dad's place.
lisa showed up later (did i mention she and dad are engaged now? yeah), and despite my reservations we had a very nice evening.
friday! the three of us hung out the next day, and sometime in the afternoon lisa took the zoe puppy back to her mom. dad was sort of heartbroken, it was very sad. nelle came and picked me up about 3:30, and off we went to mineral point and brewery creek, nelle's parents' inn and brewery! it is in a building from the 1850s with three foot thick stone walls, and truly kickass. i am IN FUCKING LOVE with her dad's summer shandy. god i could drink it by the gallon. her mom told us that room 2 had not been rented that evening, so we were welcome to stay the night since after dinner we were off to american players theatre, aka my favorite place in the world. nelle had never been there before! i'm a little sad that her very first play was not a shakespeare, but richard brinsley sheridan's laff riot the critic was as good an introduction as any. a review in the isthmus said that it was bloody hilarious, but at points almost collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity. which i have to agree with, but i also think that if they'd pulled any comic punches, it wouldn't have gone off nearly as well. also, it's almost a guarantee: if APT actors are in 18th century costume, you are going to laugh your arse off. (oh look, there it goes now.) a splendid time was guaranteed for all (despite it being about 94˚ until 11p when it cooled off to 89˚). back to the inn for the night, sleeping in blessed a/c.
saturday! took a roundabout and absolutely gorgeous route back to madison.
went up to state street to hit up a room of one's own for two books: bright's passage by mr josh ritter, and american gods tenth anniversary (the authors preferred text) by mr neil gaiman. found them both. hojeez i spent a lot on books today, but i spent it at room, so i'm not complaining. nelle dropped me off at home, where i interrupted dad's nap, and polished off bright's passage in about six hours (counting food and conversation breaks). i was disappointed and somewhat alarmed to find that mr ritter has apparently fridged a girl in order to make his plot go. SIGH. I THOUGHT BETTER OF YOU, SIR. i'm going to have to read it again.
so that's basically that. it is now saturday night, i can't believe i've done all the stuff in only a week, and i still have a week to go! this coming week is even more jam-packed than the past one, so don't expect awesome epic posts like this (even though i would love to keep it up). i mean, u2 tends to fuck my posting plans quite thoroughly. but i will try. because going through every minute detail of my days is sort of fun (provided interesting things happen during those days).
This entry was originally posted at http://izzy.dreamwidth.org/1579117.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
ok, tuesday i basically just hung out, caught my breath, petted zoe, went to pasqual's for dinner with dad, had a massive margarita, and bought a bus ticket so i could go to summerfest on
wednesday! took the car downtown, and dad took me to the union so i could catch the bus. had a lovely ride to milwaukee, during which i listened to the florence + the machine mix that
tenar made. it is awesome. she is awesome. they are awesome. there's a HARP. i mean, that's epic. i can't wait til the 6th. the bus dropped us 'fest-ers at jackson and michigan, which isn't quite 'fest grounds, but close enough. i worried a bit when the driver said we should go back there to catch the bus back to madison, but whatever, i was off! walked down to the grounds, got in, and realized i had to play the game that all midwesterners despise: finding your mates at summerfest. called cordy: they weren't even out of illinois yet. mom texted and was like "we're in this one place" and i got there and no they weren't, plus there was a trumpet (stab), so i started to text her back, but then she called, and i had to run away so i could talk. and then she was like "why don't you just text me" and i said "yeah that's what i was doing when you called thanks" and she said "oh. bye." ha. so eventually we found each other and she bought me beer, and we went and got food, and sat by the lake. meanwhile, everyone in the city got out of work and came to 'fest and it was fucking insane.
cordy and andrea and their friend showed up, we found them, dear god it was crowded, and so we went to look at the lake again. climbed to the lawn seating at the top of the marcus amphitheatre so we could look at the actual whole lake, not just the lagoon bit. it was pretty amazing. i hadn't been in marcus since about 1997 or so when i saw bob dylan and paul simon, so this was pretty fucking cool. boats. did i mention boats are the best?
made our ways back down to our seats, which were all over the place. i was fairly close-- not as close as i would have liked, but high up enough to see much of the orchestra (if the piano had been elsewhere). before the show i was like "they can't fit an orchestra in front of that screen, what are they going to do?" and andrea and cordy were like "just wait." when i got to my seat, i could see that the orchestra was behind the screen, but i was still confused. "just wait."
uh i honestly don't know if i can really write about the fucking new blood orchestra. i mean. i wasn't really watching peter gabriel. i was watching the orchestra. they started with heroes. i had no idea what to do. i mean NO IDEA. i got it, i could see what they were doing, but i wasn't in any way prepared. i might have lost it a little (to the delight of the people on either side of me. yes, this is what you are in for. sharing a row with THIS GIRL. on the other hand, the couple to my left were irritating as shit. he was all over her, and during the quiet bits, most of what i could hear was HIS HAND LOVINGLY CARESSING HER SLEEVE. BARF).
i was, quite literally, on the edge of my fucking seat the whole time. leaning forward, i have to catch every note, every dynamic shift, every ornamentation, every coloration. biko, a sea of fists. in your eyes, all the hands going up. signal to noise. what the fuck. the rhythm and the heat. MERCY STREET. secret world oh god oh god fuck. i filmed red rain on my phone, but can't get it off until i get home. the colors aren't quite true (i was at an odd angle), but the sound is amazing. the conductor. usually i'm on the other side of the conductor, attempting to interpret his wild gesticulations and translate it into music (or at the very least follow along and not miss the one beat), but this time i got to enjoy it in an aesthetic sense. it wasn't like watching any symphony orchestra i've ever seen. he was incredibly clear in his movements, and also incredibly graceful. it was like watching someone fly. what could be more perfect.
I WANT TO PLAY IN THE NEW BLOOD ORCHESTRA // SOMEONE TELL ME THERE'S A RECORDING OF THIS SHOW
occasionally pg asked us to clap, and we did, but not so thunderously as to drown out the orchestra. i had no idea a summerfest audience could be so subtle and observant. (and neither did rob thomas, apparently.) also, i've never gotten to go WOOOO for a conductor before, and certainly never for an arranger! not that i haven't wanted to (really i have). it felt good.
i don't know if i feel like i saw PETER GABRIEL. i mean obviously i did. but it wasn't my focus, i guess. i've seen the secret world live dvd too many times, maybe. or, more likely, all i wanted was the orchestra and everything else was incidental. which is not the right word. it's more like (or sort of like) i didn't have a choice. the orchestra was where my attention was absolutely supposed to be. not that i wouldn't have chosen to see pg given the chance, but THIS. fuck it i don't have a clue how to explain myself.
i love orchestras. i love how a symphony is basically teaching an elephant to minuet, and then having it minuet through the eye of a needle. everything could go so horribly wrong. this organism is huge and unwieldy and awkward and made up of all these smaller beings, and if they won't work together then all you have is a dissonant, painful mess and a pissy conductor. but when it works, you get beethoven's 3rd. and haydn's 6th. and schubert's 8th, and handel's water music, and stravinsky's firebird, and copland's appalachian spring. and sometimes you get something really special like this. it's a certain kind of magic that seems easy to produce, sometimes even to the players, but i think it takes a particular talent, and a willingness to work with all those other small beings to make your great creature.
waited for cordy, then couldn't wait any longer or i'd miss my bus. said goodbye to andrea, shoved my way back through the 'fest throngs to an exit, any exit, and pushed my way up to jackson and over to michigan. bus? nope. however, i recognized a dude from the bus to summerfest, and asked if he thought we were in the right spot. he did think so (at least that's what the driver told us at 5), and lo, the bus didst appear. got on, curled up in a seat, checked my red rain video to make sure it had decent sound (it does), turned florence back on, and pretty much checked out for the entire ride back to madison.
nelle and mel picked me up, nelle got pulled over for the FIRST TIME EVER for a burned out headlight, and they dropped me at home. zzzzzzz.
thursday! i took nelle out to brasserie v for lunch, since she had been driving me all over creation and i felt i owed her at the very least for coming out and getting me the night before. she also had a bucky book coupon (two for one lunch!), and it was lovely. we ordered frites which came with this amazing cajun aioli. we had beer (a saison for me, a porter for her), she got a whole sandwich, i got a half and some very eastern european cabbage soup, and it was all extremely lovely. back to her place, back to dad's place.
lisa showed up later (did i mention she and dad are engaged now? yeah), and despite my reservations we had a very nice evening.
friday! the three of us hung out the next day, and sometime in the afternoon lisa took the zoe puppy back to her mom. dad was sort of heartbroken, it was very sad. nelle came and picked me up about 3:30, and off we went to mineral point and brewery creek, nelle's parents' inn and brewery! it is in a building from the 1850s with three foot thick stone walls, and truly kickass. i am IN FUCKING LOVE with her dad's summer shandy. god i could drink it by the gallon. her mom told us that room 2 had not been rented that evening, so we were welcome to stay the night since after dinner we were off to american players theatre, aka my favorite place in the world. nelle had never been there before! i'm a little sad that her very first play was not a shakespeare, but richard brinsley sheridan's laff riot the critic was as good an introduction as any. a review in the isthmus said that it was bloody hilarious, but at points almost collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity. which i have to agree with, but i also think that if they'd pulled any comic punches, it wouldn't have gone off nearly as well. also, it's almost a guarantee: if APT actors are in 18th century costume, you are going to laugh your arse off. (oh look, there it goes now.) a splendid time was guaranteed for all (despite it being about 94˚ until 11p when it cooled off to 89˚). back to the inn for the night, sleeping in blessed a/c.
saturday! took a roundabout and absolutely gorgeous route back to madison.
went up to state street to hit up a room of one's own for two books: bright's passage by mr josh ritter, and american gods tenth anniversary (the authors preferred text) by mr neil gaiman. found them both. hojeez i spent a lot on books today, but i spent it at room, so i'm not complaining. nelle dropped me off at home, where i interrupted dad's nap, and polished off bright's passage in about six hours (counting food and conversation breaks). i was disappointed and somewhat alarmed to find that mr ritter has apparently fridged a girl in order to make his plot go. SIGH. I THOUGHT BETTER OF YOU, SIR. i'm going to have to read it again.
so that's basically that. it is now saturday night, i can't believe i've done all the stuff in only a week, and i still have a week to go! this coming week is even more jam-packed than the past one, so don't expect awesome epic posts like this (even though i would love to keep it up). i mean, u2 tends to fuck my posting plans quite thoroughly. but i will try. because going through every minute detail of my days is sort of fun (provided interesting things happen during those days).
This entry was originally posted at http://izzy.dreamwidth.org/1579117.html. Please comment there using OpenID.