Sunday, November 29, 2015

balkanized

I just stayed up way later than I planned, which means I'm going to get up later than planned, which will throw my morning plan of writing/gym/brunch (in some yet-to-be-determined order) into chaos. However, today was okay, and tonight was great, so I have no regrets. I spent the day hermiting out, although I left the apartment to write for a couple of hours at Philz. I also grabbed pho at Mangosteen, which was tasty, but my walk home through the Tenderloin left me despairing about the human condition.

So when I got home, I canceled my plan of walking to the Mission (I couldn't handle the idea of more filth), took a brief nap, and then drove to the Mission instead. On the way, I picked up Katrina, who was the instigator of tonight's fun times. We found parking immediately upon arrival at our destination (Thanksgiving weekend, with everyone out of town, is magical), and we had a drink at Zoe's (I misordered, since I should have had the rum drink of my heart rather than going for the more 'respectable' gin and egg white concoction....but my drink was called 'Trouble and Strife', which was appropriate, and it tasted good enough). We caught up on life while hanging out at the bar, which was lovely...

...but we weren't there to see each other. We were there to walk down the street to Red Poppy Art House, which would better be called a room, since it is a single room. We got one of the last good spaces upon arrival (there were no chairs left, but I grabbed a barstool and Katrina grabbed a pillar to lean against, and we could see over the chairs in front of us, so it wasn't that bad), and the venue kept packing people in to the point that I started daydreaming about all the fire code violations.

But there was no fire, only music (and dancing). The performer was Istanbul Connection, which is some strange Balkan/Latin music collaboration between members of a bunch of different bands (including Inspector Gadje, whom Katrina adores). They started off playing rather Balkan-sounding stuff, which I really enjoyed a lot. But the second half of the set was a little too dominated by Latin music for my tastes - I would have rather kept with the Eastern European theme.

However, the woman who danced for some of the songs was excellent, and there were some really excellent musicians (I love drummers, and the clarinet and sax players were both quite good). There was one strange moment where an audience member got up and danced in front of everyone, but that just added to the surreal experience (and my sudden, crushing desire to run away and have an 'Eat Pray Love' moment and eventually write a memoir).

So the concert was great, and a perfect mellow way to spend a Saturday evening. Once it was over, I dropped Katrina off at home, and then came home and have been messing around on my computer since then.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

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