From February 2009

february is going fast

It’s kind of hard to believe it’s going to be March next week already. February has been full of stuff!

The Spark festival was fantastic, as always. It simultaneously makes me happy to live in such a great creative community and like I’m really not doing enough to contribute to it. I spent a lot of my Spark at the Bedlam Theatre, where, embarrassingly, I hadn’t been since they changed venues. Their newer space is fantastic– bar, food, a main stage and a lounge, plus overflow space upstairs and a smoking deck! The sound system was great; it had been a while since I really pushed bass into the floor and it was really fun. (Getting a cheer for manipulating a cutoff filter sweep slowly from belly-rumble to audible range will always make me really happy.) I also had folks dancing. As I was the main room opener on a cold Wednesday night, that was likewise awfully satisfying. I’m having a lot of fun with newer, more beat-driven tracks.

Last night I played for What She Said to benefit the female slam poet champs’ trip to Detroit for the Women Of The World slam. It was a good time. Good poetry and good beer. I also won a few pounds of nice coffee at the silent auction, so I will be kept in caffeine for a while, hooray! Thanks so much to everyone who came out.

March looks more empty for the time being, which is good- I’ll be busy planning and scheming. Tour ideas are sprouting in my head, so please let me know if you think you’ve got a town I need to visit.

It is snowing like mad today. My evening commitments were canceled due to dangerous driving conditions, which instead makes tonight a night full of pizza and documentary-watching. I can’t wait. I leave you with a favorite from one of the late great Minneapolis band Trip Shakespeare:

It’s coming down…

Flux!

Flux down in Rochester was super fun!! A whole Minneapolis crew came down for the show, which was awesome. The art exhibits were also really good (I especially enjoyed the huge found-object pendulums of local artist John Ready), and the DJ’s Scott and David played really fun dance music to round out the night. There was a small but dedicated group of folks dancing to club beats with frenetic ballroom dance moves, punctuated with the occasional breakdance. Thanks to everyone who came out and who put the event together; I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

One of my favorite things about spending time in a new city is checking out new restaurants. We stayed overnight before heading back up to St. Paul, which gave us time to wander around and get lunch and poke around some antique stores. So I looked somewhat longingly at really cool antique Edison players and a broken-but-still-awesome-sounding toy player piano. I’d never seen a toy player piano before! I also learned that the best portobello mushroom sandwich in the whole world can be had at Jasper’s Alsatian Bistro, which is a nice thing to know, going forward. It might be worth the 1.5 hour drive just to go get that sandwich. It’s rare to find vegetarian-friendly French food at all, let alone stuff that’s so yummy, so Jasper’s was a treat.