Since I wrote yesterday I’ve had therapy, made poutine, see The Bee Eaters with Sean Watson, and gotten an infusion. I could say that I’m tired just thinking about it but that’s a lie. I’m tired because I got home after 1 AM and my infusion was at 8 AM and I didn’t sleep well. I’ll just concentrate on the important things.
When I get to the waiting area for my therapist I always move the table by the chairs over so I can put my feet up on it. My therapist usually hears it so now that I’m there. Yesterday she didn’t and said, “I didn’t hear you come.” She tried to gloss over that, but I immediately jumped in and said she could be in trouble if anybody heard that. There are challenges to being my therapist.
I tried something different with the poutine the second time. I thought the gravy was not as thick as I’d like so I reduced this time. I might have reduced it too much, a factor of two, but it was great. I’ll do that for now on even though it’s not as easy as heating it in the microwave. I will be eating poutine until I run out of curds. It’s the food that made Canada great.
The Bee Eaters and Sean Watson were playing at one of my favorite House Concert Series, The Jenkins Concerts. That makes it a home game. It’s even the easiest house concert series for me to get to. It’s on the West Side. I have never seen the Bee Eaters before, but I’ve been looking forward to seeing them for years. Tristan Clarridge, the cellist from Crooked Still, is in it. He lives in California and since Crooked Still stopped touring, except for a reunion every 5 years, I don’t see Tristan. I told him that he has to bring the Bee Eaters to New York. A few months ago, when I saw Crooked Still I talked to Tristan and he told me they were playing at the Jenkins. I put it on my calendar that night. No way I would miss that. The rest of the band is Tristan’s sister Tashina on fiddle and Simon Chrisman on hammered dulcimer. It takes a lot of drinks to get a dulcimer hammered. You probably know Sean Watson from Nickelback Nickel Creek and the Watson Family Hour.
This was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. The level of musicianship was incredible. They did some instrumentals composed by Simon and I had to tell him that he’s an insanely great composer. Usually when I hear a chamber folk band the mood it evokes is Mozart or Bach. Simon has Beethoven’s insanity. It always feels like it’s about to run off the rails, but it doesn’t. It stays right on the edge. It’s a surfer pushing it till he almost wipes out but stays in the curl. When the show was over I heard one person say to another, “Simon is unbelievable.” The person she was talking to said, “Yeah, great hammer dulcimer.” She said, “I mean the composing.” I’m glad someone else caught it.
Everyone in the band plays like a demon. Are demons great musicians? I know the Devil likes fiddle contests. Why do people sing like angels and play like demons? Now I’m running off the rails. I would see any project anyone in the band was in. This was great music.
Even though any show at the Jenkins house is a home game I usually don’t know that many people there other than the Jenkinses, Sandy, Rich, Cassie, Steph, and Reid. I’ve known Steph by far the longest and the best. Reid had a gig himself. They are a musical family. The other people I knew were David, their neighbor, who I only know from the shows. It was his 73rd birthday. There was a cake and we sang. I said it wasn’t his 73rd birthday it was the 60th anniversary of his bar mitzvah. He ran with that. He’s my people. Stephanie Coleman was also there, she’s a fiddler and a friend of Steph Jenkins. I am now ashamed. I have been calling them the Stephani. What kind of pseudo-intellectual pedant am I? It should be the Stephanae. I’m sure all my friends that actually know Latin have been mocking me all these years. I sat with Jim. He works with Fred. I met him at the last Crooked Still show. I told him then that he should go to this one. It’s funny, I’ve seen Jim twice and Fred wasn’t there either time. He was at the shows I’d have been to if I wasn’t at this one, Mya Byrne then Everything Turns to Color at Rockwood Music Hall stages 1 and 3. Get it together my musician friends, you have to coordinate your schedules so I don’t have to make Sophie’s choices.
Tonight, I’m off to a chocolate party. Right now, I’m off to make breakfast.
Wise Madness 