Month: June 2007

Summer of Love or Hate?

While we were out getting drinks tonight, I spotted a psychedelic sign advertising a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of “Summer of Love” in Northampton. The advertisement said that the event would feature bands like Jefferson Starship, Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin’s old band), and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Granted, this “Summer of Love” won’t nearly be as cool as the one that featured Joplin in her hayday, Hendrix, The Who and Eric Burdon. And it won’t be full of LSD and rampant sex (or will it?).
But a part of me looks at that sign and thinks, “What I wouldn’t do to be a wild, crazy, free-loving hippy back then!”.
It would’ve been so exciting to be part of such a passionate event, to And as much as I know it’s dangerous to use mind-altering substances, a part of me wishes I was part of that wild, trippy pandemonium that was so full of hope and thoughts about a “new world”. It was almost a lavish, childlike hope. It was a solidarity of a generation, and a passion for music which America had never seen before, and I doubt will ever see again. Can you imagine watching Hendrix light that guitar on fire? Somehow anyone trying to copy the original, raw rock attitudes that were brought on back then just seems corny. It was a time when old-fashioned communication was still valued, and no one was text messaging their friends which bands were playing. You were either there or you weren’t, and you were living it up.
I’m sure that if I went to this new “Summer of Love”, I’d be sorely dissapointed. Grace Slick isn’t as “slick” as she used to be, and half the performers will probably need walkers to get on stage. I’m sure it will be too much patchouli and arm hair, and people still acting like “hippies” who shouldn’t be (C’mon now, 40-somethings, get a job!!).
But that silly daydreamer part of me that always gets into trouble wishes I could go there and relive that crazy time just a leeeeetle bit.

Magician of flight prices

Prices on air travel sometimes are a mystery to everyone. Got an email about a concert in Texas and for the hell of it I check what it would cost to fly out to Texas, and it was about 800 bucks or so, which seemed a little high to me. So I surfed over to the south west vacation site (awsome site which we have bought a couple things from) to check some prices. As it turns out I could go to Orlando, stay at a Disney hotel for 5 nights for the same price. Ok I know that Flordia has a lot more flights going to it, but the pricing difference makes no sense. Maybe they are just trying to keep everyone out of Texas 🙂

Puccini for Beginners

We went to see this movie tonight as part of the GLBT film festival going on this week in Brattleboro. A movie about a hopeless bisexual writer (who claims she’s mostly lesbian) who finds herself constantly “playing the field” and getting into trouble with her relationships. After being dumped by a serious girlfriend, she tries to go on an introspective journey in the hopes that she’ll regain her lost love. What she ends up doing is getting messed up in a seriously screwball love “quadrangle”–she falls for a guy AND a girl and is oblivious to the fact that the guy and girl are actually in a relationship with each other as well!
The character who plays the hopeless commitment-phobe in this story, “Allegra” (Elizabeth Reaser), is funny and incredibly endearing. The characters have great chemistry and the dialogue is well thought out. All in all a great movie to see, even if you’re not in a love quadrangle! (And guys, please do go with your girlfriends. Yah it might be a sappy sounding story but it does involve some girl on girl action-so c’mon and make your lady happy, huh!)
Gets 4 stars in our book. *(Oh and if you’re wondering why it’s called “Puccini for Beginners”, the main character loves opera.)

What’s a “Shirtain”?

To help with boredom on long road trips, Chris and I create little games to play on the way. Aside from buying a big box of Jelly Belly’s and guessing the flavors (which Leah is much better at than Chris!) and counting how many signs or restaurants of a certain kind we see along the way, we’ve started to invent new words and definitions for things. We’ve been doing it so often that we’ve decided to dedicate a whole blog category to it! This will be an ongoing post in which others are free to add their own made up words to.

First word: “Shirtains”. When an individual will use sheets or shirts as curtains in their windows. Often used by lazy college frat boys or individuals who live in trailors or “trouses” (see definition below).

“Trouse”: When someone decides to add an addition on to their trailor to make it look more house-like; for instance adding a porch, a master bedroom sweet, or an above ground swimmin’ pool. Often this new addition will lead to skimping in other areas of house upkeep–hence the usage of “shirtains”.

“Nass-crack”. If ,at a Nascar event, you chance to become the unlucky sap who is downstream of some heavy buttcrack viewage–Big Bertha’s thong might be showing from her low-riders, or BillyBob decided to skip underpants and join the plumbing profession. That, my friends, would be the “Nass-crack”. Will often cause visual trauma.

“Placist”. A form of prejudice involved with where people come from. Also known as, “y’aint from around here, are ya?”. A lot of times this is when an individual makes fun of someone who comes from the South, he or she is being “placist”.

Twinsington’s Syndrome (we were gonna call it “TSS” but those damn toxic shock people stole it!): A very heinous form of fashion adultery in which couples wear creepily similar clothing on a daily basis. We’re not talking about matching tats here, we’re talking shirts, pants, dresses…the whole 9 yards. If you see couple’s wearing identical holiday sweaters or matching fannypacks and t-shirts that say “I had fun in the Poconos”, you know that you ‘ve encountered this disease in it’s most acute form and you should notify the fashion authorities immediately. Next thing you know they’ll be finishing each other’s sentences and singing campfire songs about Schnauzers.

Home Appraisal

Whew our home “passed” the realtor test. Only have to do some minor painting and the best news is I don’t have to put in a new floor upstairs. Now of course this means we have to decide when to put our house on the market and where we want to live when we sell it.

Enjoy Troy.

This weekend we went to the 4th Annual River Street Festival in Troy. It was FREE (free parking and everything!) and we heard that They Might be Giants would be playing there for free! Troy is about an hour and 45 minutes from us, and although most of what we heard about Troy wasn’t very positive (my sis went to RPI there and in that area it was a PIT), we decided why not give it a try. The “free” thing being the operative word.
Well, we lucked out that the weather was nice and it didn’t thunderstorm as it was predicted, it was just hot as hell. There was actually a pretty dope arsty scene in the area of Troy that we were, and we stopped into some neat little antique stores and cafes. We had some kickass Lebanese food for cheap, some Gelato (!!) from a cute little cafe, and some great vodka-infused lemonade from a bar called Daisy Baker’s, which looked like it was in a renovated church. The bartender was the epitome of a sassy new yorker and we loved her. She was telling people, “what do ya want? I’m the only person behind the bar, here, so cut me some slack alrrigggght?”. Apparently her vodka-lemonade concoction was invented in a drunken frenzy the night before.
There were some great live bands sponsored by WEQX, the Vermont alternative station–we were extremely impressed by Mink and Stars of Track and Field in particular.
Later in the day, it was indeed announced that They Might be Giants were playing! I was suprised that they would be doing a free concert in Troy, and I assumed that it would be short. When they got on stage we were so impressed. First of all, I was happy to see that they are just as deliciously dorky in real life as they sound, and they still got it going on. They were having WAY too much fun performing and getting the crowd involved. They played several songs from their new upcoming album, “The Else”, and we were thrilled to hear the oldies-but-goodies, “Istanbul”, “Particle Man”, and “Birdhouse in your soul”. There were also some great songs that we had never heard before that involved: Telephoning the Dead; Creating an Impromptu conga line with the audience (who totally messed it up!); a sort of Drinking Song; and a song about Messopotamians. They played a good hour long set and had so much energy it was hard to believe they were any older. Then for encore they came back and did four more songs! All for a free concert–TMBG Rules! We would definitely go to this festival again, and now that we know they weren’t lying about the free good music and the area wasn’t a piece of crap, we would invite other people to go with us next summer too!

Troy 2 Troy 3

A house by any other name is still a house

Why is it weekends in the summer always just fly by, wish the winter months could go by so quickly. This weekend was a whirlwind of activity most specifically because the realtor is coming to appraise our condo tonight, Gulp!!! Spent a lot of the weekend cleaning up, putting in a a new heavy duty outlet for the microwave I installed above the stove, upgrading an outlet to a GFI, cleaning any spot of dirt we could and numerous other home projects. Hoping our upstairs capet will pass the “test”, otherwise I will be ripping it up and putting down a bamboo floor, which of course would suck up another 40 hours of time I don’t have.