TML 10, Audience 8

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So here I am, liveblogging from the NorthStar.  

M and Professor L gave a great lesson and as I write there are 5 couples on the floor, all of them with at least one beginner.

A very nice crowd - and more so, since our local tango orchestra, Tango Much Labia, seems to be taking the night off.

I am not surprised as this is the first full week of school; the violinist teaches at the local school system and if it were me I'd take the night off too.  They will be back in two weeks.  

I hope.

TML is a game bunch and very talented, to boot.  I've written seven or eight tangos with them in mind - or ear.  Not all are performed but they are seriously considered.  There isn't time to play every clever piece that comes down the pike.

My friends played a part in last weekend's shennanigans up in Thomaston.  They provided the first night of music for Saltwater Tango and also played on Labor Day at the Picnic for Alternative Energy in Union.

I suppose there are lot's of reasons to take an alternative approach to Labor Day.  Anything that takes away from an holiday ("a holiday"?) meant to make American celebrations of labor a part of the agenda of industrialists is a good thing in my book.

This particular event was about as alternative as they come.  For one thing it was so alternative that no-one seemed to know about it.  For another it struck me as strange that the second thing set up (besides a rather nice portable stage/sound system) was a large gas-fired outdoor barbecue immediately employed to start scorching beef for alternative burgers.

Or maybe they were cleverly disguised ears of corn.  I don't know.  I suppose they were using propane as an alternative to using wood.  I never would have thought of that.  Perhaps if I thought less then global warming would go away.

Or not.

TML played a solid set very much like those we hear at the NorthStar - considering the venue that seemed a good choice.  Additional support came in the form of 6 demonstration dancers (a demonstration - you see, it really was "alternative") who danced to the music.

I was thinking fast enough to set my laptop up in front of a speaker in an attempt to capture some audio from the gig.  The sound was not the best, of course, but the parts were all there.

It was one of those strange affairs made up of having a crowd smaller than the performing ensemble.

There was every good chance that more people would have shown up in time, I mean, what with the barbecue and all, but I didn't have time to wait.  Sadly TML opted to be foolishly professional, both starting and ending on time, leaving the potential for a larger crowd for later groups.

What is the moral of this story? 

Hell, I have no idea.

Rings in your ears, not in your brain

Oh yeah.

This has been a busy weekend, what with balloon festivals, tango lessons, a milonga, a choreographer's showcase, a sushi raid, all sorts of stuff.

And then, Friday night, I snuck out of the Portland Ballet's "Portland Dances" choreographer's showcase, which was sad because there was some really good dancing going on - but good, because two of my friends I came there to see weren't in it - snuck out to attend the Portland appearance of the "Good Cheer Brigade", a honk band from Providence, RI, who were on their way to Machias for some kind of subversive event or other.

Ariel had heard about this and managed to get them to stop off on their way.

She is part of a twenty-something community here in town - not really college students per se, just folks that are around doing cool things and making stuff happen.  

It's really funny to see the differences in approach to life in some people.

I saw a flyer on the board in Congo Square and so made a note on my iPod ("iPod, therefore i Am) to sneak out of the showcase and go hear these guys.

The house was one of those three-story multi-unit houses, right next to the railroad running through Woodford's Corner.  There were a couple of guys from Esperanza there (with whom I'd done the Moxie parade last year) and we caught up while waiting for the band to beam in on their way to Machias.

Finally, comma, they rollled up about 30 minutes late.  I parked myself on the living room floor on the second story.  The windows were all closed, covered with either futons or thick wool tapestries of tigers.  The furniture was all used (actually the owner came by, having moved out a year before and had quite an emotional reunion with the couch - it was quite touching and you wanted to kind of turn away).

There was a big-ass pirate flag on the wall over the couch.  They need a velvet Elvis but it was all good.

It was neat to hang out with a group of people totally in the present.  I don't hang out with twenty-somethings much, I don't know why, it just has worked out that way. 

That may have to change.

So the band trooped upstairs - two tubas, two trumpets, three bones, an alto, two basses, a a triple-tenor player (with a spock added to the set so it was really quads) and a cymbal player.

The band basically sounds like the Dirty Dozen, a kind of balls-to-the-wall, take no prisoners attitude that I found very refreshing - especially in contrast to the ballet showcase I'd just come from.

This is not to denigrate "Portland Dances", of course - it just measures the distance of the differences between the two.

Let's face it - these are the mothers your band director warned you about.  Come to the dark side, my children.

I did try to take some pix with my new phone but they just didn't come out.

I will finish with this - it was fun, and it was something terribly authentic and honest.  I have a lot to think about because of this - and working in the Orchard will be part of it.

I'm posting a YouTube of the band - you have to imagine this level of mayhem - serious mayhem, bedlam, outright 'round the freakin' twist craziness - happening in the space about half the size of a Starbucks. Also, did I mention the twenty-five other sweaty people hopping up and down in the room?

(NOTE - must sent thank you note to building inspectors at City Hall.)

Seventy-Five minutes before the mast

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I've been reworking the Children's Theatre of Maine website - it may not be the most complex website but it's better than a lot of them and very easy to use.

I also like the tone of voice it has ... and the info it presents.  This last was one of the holdups - I had to get all the final versions of information straight before deciding how to present it.

This involved a lot of sketching, flowcharting and other mental gymnastics prior to actually coding the site.  I know there are clever piece of software that can do this stuff - but back when I first had  a need to do these things I couldn't afford them - still really can't - so I had to learn to do it on my own.

Fortunately this is much the same kind of layout used when you edit a piece of music for printing - it actually wasn't very had at all, once I learned the grammar.  It was kind of like writing music as you were coming up with something people could share and experience.

But this process takes a certain amount of time and brainpower - and with my thoughts now turning to working in the Orchard my brain got a little soggy.

My Lord Sebastian was none-too-subtly suggesting I get out of the house for a while so he could cat nap in peace and I took myself down to the Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal.

The annual crush of tourists usually insures that riding the boats - hell, even just sitting around waiting to get on the damned things - is about as pleasant as eating Texas dirt.  

And less nourishing.

Still, it was a lovely day, one of the few in a very rainy summer (and the contrast brought up the subject of rain a lot amongst these people - you'd think they'd just talk about how nice it was without bringing up the subject of how bad it had been) and I felt glad to get out and walk down to the terminal.

The boat pulls out with an incredibly loud blast on the horn, backing from the dock and into the bay.

Several boats passed us, heading both in and out of the bay.  Almost all of them in the inner harbor were working boats - and I count tour boats as working - fleecing hard-shelled tourists out of their greenbacks.

Having a sweatshirt in your backpack helps - it can get much, much colder on the water than on the land.

We made three stops going out, four coming back - motoring out as far as Long Island.  A.W. keeps telling me and anyone else who will listen that we need to go out there and check it out.  If there is tie I will.

You need to feed your eyes with beauty on a regular basis - and the inner island of Casco Bay will serve for that.  Things are seen - boats, wakes, patterns of metal on a railing; sounds are heard like the whistles, sea bird, waves, voices of kids asking questions, the occasional dog (almost inevitably a Lab - black or brown) ....

... and it all goes rolling across the water to each small, discreet port of call.

I don't think the crew - or aging members of the supercargo - had any dusky maidens awaiting their arrival - and since this particular boat was coming by every 90 minutes they could rely on homebound company.

So my soul was restored and I could relax for a short while before the hard work of leisure came to an end.