Friday, October 5, 2007

in and of the world


I went missing, eh? Not exactly intentional, but a month has slipped past. My life feels not my own at times, and I'm trying to correct that, as much as possible... At the same time, there are things I simply can't share~ because they're not really mine to share, and I have to respect the boundaries and privacy of other people in my life.

So what can I share that is mine enough to share?

Last weekend was Lotus Festival, a magical event that I look forward to each year. The colorful character to the right is a member of the first group we saw on Friday night~ The Dhoad Gypsies. They made bizarre and intriguing noises and did bizarre and intriguing things! In the photo, he is balancing a vessel full of water on top of two glasses on top of his head. He danced around, stood on nails and a sword with bare feet, bellowed fire... I had to look away a few times!

There's always so much running around at Lotus, skipping in and out of venues, trying to catch bits of as many acts as possible. Along with the Dhoad Gypsies, we saw Balkan Beat Box on Thursday night, and snippets (some more snippety than others) of MC Rai, 17 Hippies, Red Stick Ramblers, Amazones, March Fourth Marching Band, Golem, Javier Garcia, Chic Gamine, and Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas. (I'll add links later... I'm supposed to be asleep right now.)

So much wonderful music! And amazing performers. I think that my favorite actual music was from Chic Gamine. They have an album coming out in November, I think... I will be having a copy. Oh, yes.

The other really lovely thing about Lotus is all the people who come back to Bloomington for the festivities. I got to see so many people that I hadn't seen in too, too long. Amen and hallelujah to that!

Now, as noted, I need to vegetate. Tomorrow is another busy day, and I've been a sleepyhead of truly great proportions. I didn't manage to habeas my corpus out of bed until after noon today, and even then, I only got up because I had a 1:00 meeting to scram to. Tomorrow I have to be ready to leave at eleven. Can you imagine?! Woe to me, y'all. Woe to me. But it's all worthwhile~ it's my grandpa's 80th birthday, and he most certainly deserves to be celebrated. :)

So, here I go. I'll be back much sooner this time...

3 comments:

Jennifer/The Word Cellar said...

It seems like a lot of bloggers have been on sabbatical lately. I took a two-week hiatus myself. Must be something in the air. Glad to have you back!

Steph said...

This was my first lotus and I had a fantastic time! Did you hear the Tuvan throat singers? Wow. I wish I had heard more of Chic Gamine - I heard only a snippet. They reminded me a lot of a group I heard 2 years ago (part of opening night Lotus, so I guess this wasn't really my first time) called the Wailin Jenny's? I love, Love, LOVE them!

Safe travels this week!

Anna said...

Thanks for being here, Jennifer and Stephanie! S, did you listen to the songs on Chic Gamine's myspace page? I'll have to find some Wailin' Jennys music, too. :)