Weekend Part II: Sunday in the Park with C

If you've been reading this blog long enough to have read my account of the New Order concert, you know I'm not much of one for new music. It's all about familiarity, and most of us suffer from it: You listen mainly to what you like, and you like it because it sounds like what you've heard before.

This is why when I listen to rock music I usually wind up saying the same things I hear from people I introduce to opera:

1. Why are they screaming?
2. I can't understand what they're saying.
3. Is there supposed to be a melody in there somewhere?
4. Doesn't this get on your nerves after a while?
5. Hey! Would you like to maybe watch TV instead?
   

Well, C's musical taste is about as far from mine as you can imagine. On the other hand, he has a gift for making gentle introductions. Franklin, meet David Bowie. Franklin, meet Prince. Franklin, meet Peaches.

That last one didn't go well, I admit, but in general I've had my horzions broadened to the extent that I now have been known willingly to listen to albums released during my lifetime by musicians who are still performing.

On Sunday, I experienced massive mind-expansion at Chicago's Intonation Festival, an Indie/Alternative gathering in Union Park on the West Side.

Some notes:

• I realized halfway through the afternoon that this was the first time since my college commencement that I've engaged in a mass activity intended for people my own age.
  
• In a crowd of at least 2,000, I was the only person without visible tattoos.
• I am not immune to the amusement that comes from watching an intoxicated thirtysomething suburban guy in a polo shirt get hot 'n' funky to a hip-hop dance mix of "Darling Nicky."
• There is no part of the body so small or hard that it cannot be pierced repeatedly.
• Skulls are out, robots are in.
• You can buy stuffed toys in the shape of poo (not Pooh), roast beef, and pickles.
  
• The afro is back.

After catching a performance by OUT HUD and playing Scrabble under the trees, C went off to volunteer at the Neighborhoodies booth:



And I found a nice bench in the shade, equidistant from both stages, and knit a whole lot of Susan's Elizabeth Zimmerman Pillbox Hat. It's going well. Pictures forthcoming.

I like Neighborhoodies and wanted one of my own, so I picked one out (all the while flirting madly with the salesman, even kissing him at one point) and was delighted with the result. I was hoping the kiss might get me a discount, but no. I am now proud to be playing shortstop for the Middlemarch Marauders (sponsored by Vincy's Dry Goods).



If you don't get the joke, Google "George Eliot," and shame on you.

C had his purple t-shirt printed up with the words "wrecka stow," which will strike a chord in Prince fans who remember (in spite of their best efforts) Kristin Scott Thomas's immortal performance in Under the Cherry Moon.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I loved everything I heard. (There was one band that came all the way from Oakland to sing falsetto Japanese baby talk, and I hope they will decide en masse to enter a religious order that requires a vow of silence.)

But for all the amplified sound I did have a marvelously peaceful and restorative day, with an appropriately splendid sunset:



And a terrific closing performance by The Decembrists:



Perfect training for next weekend's adventure: Lollapalooza.

I wonder if I can get something pierced and/or tattooed by Friday?