Annual Bluegrass

It is hard for me to go a full year without at least one day at a bluegrass or old-time festival of some kind, but we had for the past couple, so today I took advantage of the annual labor day festival up in Kendallville to hear some live banjar. When you are not around a banjo, the idea of a banjo is funny. But when there is a banjo near you and it is ringing, you realize that is is not funny at all: it is, I don't know, not funny. It's cool.

A lot of the bands that played were full of young'ns. My favorite of the night, Midnight Ramblers, looked just old enough to drive their van from their home in Virginia--after they changed out of their awesome big white hats and matching pink shirts (really, they looked awesome--I wish I could pull that look off sometimes) they had this quasi-Abercrombie & Fitch look to them. It was a jarring change.

The crowd at these things often skews old, though; I don't know where the young fans are. B isn't one yet. He just wanted to go find dogs to pet.

The highlight of this festival is always the one or two groups that get up there and play some great clawhammer or at least something old, maybe something Ralph Stanley played. And then there are always the hats that you get to see, and you get to watch people eating a lot. A lot of people eating a lot.

A skatepark fundraiser bake sale. How fantastic is that! I stood around this booth for awhile thinking maybe that all the local skaters might ride through and raid the place, doing ollies or whatever on the pies, and how funny that would be, but they never came.

Don't even ask me what B ate for dinner. I'm too ashamed. But when you're around people eating the way these people were, your idea of what is normal gets warped quickly.

Raising the stakes

Look at this cool invite Sarah Jane made for our club. Cath saw it and said, "we have to get serious about this." Time for practice.

Kaifei

Our own Mason Hunter just released an ep under the name Kaifei, and it sounds a lot like a record made by Panda Bear's imaginary friend. I don't think Mason would disagree. It's great stuff. In one of the comments below, he gave the url where you can download it.

If I remember right, he told me that he produced most of this using a program called Fruity Loops. I downloaded the demo and it's pretty danged cool. I can almost imagine myself using it to fulfill my dream of becoming a DJ--even better, a vegan, skate boarding, documentary film-making DJ. School has started, but maybe I'll give that dream a shot next summer.

Cut it out.

What a cool idea. I wish I had seen these examples of book cut-outs before we made ours in Club last spring. I have a couple of books left over and a lot of Mod-Podge, so I might have to try something different. It would take an incredibly sharp knife to make those, though--we had a fair bit of trouble with our big squares.

Assistantships, cont.

As an fyi to this year's seniors, I am willing and able, I decided, to take assistants for any period of the day except 7th. If you're interested, send me an email.

Harvest Rule

If you grow tomatoes, it is a rule that, when your tomatoes come in, you have to take this exact picture. It is part of keeping your garden's Martha certification or something. So . . here is ours.

I must be the laziest vegetable gardener. I have watered that garden exactly none times--oh, but I do love to knock down weed starts with this old-timey hoe I got from my gramma Pierce. I forgot that I did that--so, not so lazy, maybe.

Catching up

Okay, that was some nice time off. First, some older snaps from a couple weeks back at the county fair:

Here is Michelle in her favorite barn at the fair, with this crazy kind of bunny that has to be the fluffiest thing in nature. Really, if every home had a couple of these sitting around the living room to pet every once in awhile, we, as a nation, would be a lot more chill.

Mike, showing my kids how to steal their first peak at a tractor pull. B was pretty into it.

The first "freak show" style exhibit I've ever noticed at our fair. And yes, we all paid to see her, and yes, it was sad and we felt bad afterwords, or at least weird.

And . . . school is coming. I know, because the marching band for the school near my home has begun practice and as always I can just hear the drum line practicing their Indian-drum style war-chant. It always makes the idea of the first day of school take on an ominous tone, but I'm excited for it, myself. School! Any AP kids from last year who are looking for an assistantship during 1st period, let me know.

1/2 Party

So we pulled off the last-minute party to celebrate spending half our lives together, Cath and me. People came. Their hearts were only half in it. They brought half-pizzas and half bottles of wine and had a so-so time.

J & B follow the chalk time-line of our lives that Cath drew. It was missing a lot of detail, so I wonder how much of it she actually remembers.

Every time Sarah Jane sews herself a new top, she has to buy a new phone to match it. It's a fact.

Eric, posing like he's some Three Rivers Festival superhero. What strange powers he must have.

We decided to let Smokey drink; it was a party, after all.

Cute Overload

I swear, on my honor, that five minutes ago I just witnessed, out my own kitchen window this morning, the above baby rabbit and (at least what appears to be) a baby chipmunk playing. It was more than mere playing, actually, it was out and out frolicking. They may have even gamboled a time or two. I almost dropped my bagel with the last of the cream cheese on it (but didn't thank god). It was, needless to say, so cute. I will never be able to eat rabbit or chipmunk again. From now on, I am a rabbit and chipmunk vegetarian.

Pitchfork

Not a ton of photos this year because I thought my camera's battery was dead when it was actually user error, so bummer for that. This was a better Saturday than last year's, all told, and that's mainly because of Animal Collective's set. That band--good lord. I think they're the only relevant band making music these days. Other folks make nice stuff to listen to, but A.C. is just on a different level. Can't believe I didn't get to hear "Brother Sport," though.

Day started out with the sweetest of rains, so gentle, like it didn't want to trouble you with getting wet, and then it left and the clouds just kept the sun off you for much of the afternoon. Cath and I were ready with our parkas and hats, though, just in case. Later in the day, Cath got to meet the designer of the Califone t-shirt she's wearing here, just by chance.

Apart from the music, this festival is all about ironic t-shirts and tattoos. I wonder if some day kids will get ironic tattoos. Most of the "clever" t-shirts just make you go "ugh," especially the hand-scrawled tank-top that read "This shirt is not ironic." Whoa--what a head scratcher that one is. Two shirts made me laugh: (1) 20-something guy wearing a shirt that said "#1 Grandma"; and (2) a shirt that said, simply, "Pot." Not that I condone drug use, but that is funny.

Almost all the tattoos I saw, including the one above, were ugly. I think tattoos need to be simple, in clean lines, iconic. Those like the one here just get too busy and from afar end up looking like bruises.

These two guys were sitting next to us before the A.C. show started. One of their friends found them and asked what happened and one answered "we fell." I think they thought they were at Burning Man, where antics like this are taken as evidence of . . I'm not sure what, but it's something the cyber-hippies out there would appreciate.

Did a fair bit of lounging around at stage B, playing Gin with these cool card Cath bought. For the record, these were my favorites sets of the day:

1. Animal Collective. I need to devote my life to seeing these guys live as many times as possible. That, and being a good parent to my kids, but really the latter. Kids will raise themselves.

2. Caribou. They played pretty early, and not as long as they could have, but I really liked the way they all faced each other and the drummer-facing-drummer drumming. I didn't expect him to be able to make his music translate live, but it was pretty dang great to see and hear.

3. Ruby Suns. Lots of this had to be looped or played-back or whatever, and I really wish he had brought one more band member there to flesh out the live sound. But still, the beats were really great and some of the harmonies, too.

4. F*** Buttons. Two guys with suitcases full of electronics facing each other across a table, but totally dynamic. It was cool how they cut their last song on a dime and then just walked off the back of the stage.

5. Atlas Sound. Dude was totally nervous at the beginning, but it was great for the 20 minutes or so I saw before we had to go to try and get a good position for A.C.

I missed some good stuff, like Dizzee Rascal and The Hold Steady, but there were more tough decisions this year than there were last year, with more good stuff going on at once. A great festival though, with lots of nice folks everywhere you go.

And I can't believe I missed out on running into Nathan and Joe. I was completely looking forward to watching A.C. with them especially, but after seeing them briefly during Caribou, I lost them and never saw them again all day. Shoulda had their cell # with me. Next year, we'll plan it better.

And Joseph, if you're back from Ghana yet, I only had one key--it takes two keys to open your apartment. No big deal. You can just pay us half the cost of the hotel room we ended up getting. (jk--not sure how I messed that up)

Half a Life

Cath and June, last visit to Julierette's

Oh, I love this picture of my wife. As of Wednesday, we've spent half our lives together. It sounds important, but you never hear of people, or even Hallmark, recognizing the achievement in any way. We had the idea to celebrate this milestone by organizing a "half-assed party," but we never got around to it.

Sitting here, remembering and all, I can't believe all the fun stuff I've done with her, my Catherine--like the time we went to that one place, and then there was that one other place, too, and also that time that we just stayed home. I mean, dang.

I've been thinking lately that we should have just gotten hitched that very first summer we met when we were still dopey teenagers--how amour fou that would have been. But I have been saving the fou. There will be lots more fou.

In for Pitchfork

Seeing the schedule/ times for Pitchfork is what finally helped make up my mind--I don't know how I waited this long to pull the trigger. Saturday looks to be better than last year, easily, and presents a couple of tough decisions with Fleet Foxes and F* Buttons playing at the same time and Dizzee Rascal overlapping with Ruby Suns.

Anyway, one call to my folks to confirm baby-sitting and I got our two tix. Can't wait.

More Michigan

I know there has been a high photo-to-text ratio here lately, but summer photos tend to speak for themselves.

Cousin Sarah, with Dilly Bar

June, tree

Birk: Lord of the Flies trainee

Michigan

Cousin Henry's poker face

Cousin Will, up a tree

June. Windy day at Sturgeon Bay

Austen countdown

Pride and Prejudice sure seems to get most of the attention, but to me, it's not in the same league as Sense and Sensibility. The narrator isn't nearly as sharp, doesn't have the same wit, despite the famous opening line. Elizabeth just doesn't do it for me quite the way Eleanor does and Sense has more sweet suffering, I think.

So here is my ranking as of today:

1. Sense and Sensibility
2. Emma
3. Pride and Prejudice

I won't let myself read another one until next summer, so this ranking may hold for awhile.

Wrapping things up

4th of July in tiny Sugar Hill, N.H.

Hitting the Franconia library's book sale on the way out of town

Freakish booth at this creepy flea market I visited in Vermont

This last photo . . . wow. I can't believe people sell this stuff out in the open like this. I don't even know what to say.

Camp

The sleeping loft/study/changing room

The closet

Tent art

Andy Goldsworthy does these cool "rain shadows" when it starts to rain, but you can imagine my surprise when I packed up my tent today and discovered that it had the same idea. Such an inspiring, arty place this part of New Hapshire.

At The Frost Place

Driving through New York

Driving through Vermont

Shara McCallum's great reading on Monday night

Lunch break.