it's not late; it's only dark

Can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but Mason found a cool little brew pub in the tiny downtown where I live. It used to be a knitting factory, and they have spindles and sock forms up on the walls. This immediately made me hot to organize a local Drunken Knitters. The first one will be Friday, and now I'm just trying to get the wording right for the flyers, so I can post 'em on library billboards, which are notorious bastions of sobriety and hard work. (I'm not even trying the community centres, who need the flyers approved by the Mayor's office a month in advance. I'm not Friendly Rich; I don't have an in with Susan. So I'll just skip that idea.)

If you're a local knitbuddy who wants to come out and you haven't seen the postings, please contact me. The more people, the more validated I'll feel.

I found out about the need for mayoral approval this afternoon, when Mason & I bought new gym memberships. I was trying to give Jessamyn's gym a chance, but when I called to use the "free" 3 day passes, they insisted on administering a fit test and then tried to charge us $35 when we couldn't make it on time. I balked at the fit test to begin with; Nic refers to it as "some energetic asshole like me telling you you're unfit and trying to sell you personal training." I still remember how crushing it was five years ago when they changed my assessment from "healthy" to "unhealthy" with the stroke of a pen.

So we're hooked up with the community gyms, which are good for a number of reasons and attract far fewer asshats ramming around the parking lot in a dangerous cloud of impatience and testosterone. This afternoon we did our first session, which was productive but boring. I have to drop by Bat Masterson sometime soon so I can pick up my Walkman; perhaps listening to tapes made seven or more years ago will take the edge off continuous golf coverage on the monitors. Apparently? Older white men can still accomplish things. Who knew?

On Friday night Mason & I attended our third Arts & Crafts concert of the week: Timber Timbre. (I introduced myself to Stephan the merch guy, figuring that I now see him more frequently than I see my parents.) Timber Timbre is a skinny guy with a dog who plays stripped down gothic folk, or death blues as it is sometimes described. He and his live band – a guitar, a bass drum, a pedal steel, a sax & a violin – put on the scariest show I've ever been to. It took place in a pitch dark Anglican church, lit only by dozens of votive candles and the arc-sodium lights outside shining through the stained glass and turning Christ orange. Mason & I were in the second row of pews, right next to the sound board, and I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

It was an album re-release party, to celebrate a new signing with A&C. They played through the 8 songs with hardly a pause between them. I have to imagine that few people knew the album, as the merch table was mobbed at the end and Mason & I seemed to be the only ones who knew the words. Then again, I couldn’t see anyone so maybe they were all lip-synching along. During the first three songs, there wasn't a single bit of sound from the audience, and I was the first to shatter the reverent silence by whooping applause at the end of the third. People joined in, relieved to be able to make noise, I suppose.

Then again, people may not have been ignorant of the material so much as terrified by it. Again: it was the spookiest show I have ever been to, and I felt at several points that I had died and gone to hell, where my fears were being drawn out of me through purest art. The silences between notes were terrifying, and the melodies themselves almost crushed us with awe. It was a terrible beauty. I was glad that we had gone. But I was a little relieved when it was over, and I could take a break from fear and reverence.

Labels: drunken knitters, health, music, outings

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/19/2009 10:05:00 p.m.