Days of Shades

I bought eyeshadow yesterday!

AND I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT.

*checks to see if anyone who knows her in meat-space has fainted yet*

See, in April I bought a bunch of little pots of snazaroo face paint for carrying around at festivals and painting friends, family, and random strangers. Snaz is very, very easy to clean off, extra-specially non-toxic, and comparatively cheap -- all good qualities when painting strangers for free. Unfortunately the packaging and the little pallets in their kits suck -- so I bought a 2$ crayola water-color box, gave the watercolors to E's god-daughter, and stuck the paint pots in the box with double-stick tape.

I've now used it at both ArtsWalk and Folklife (and made Instant Friends with multiple small children by doing so). Turns out the double-stick tape doesn't hold its stick, and the discs of paint come loose and rattle around. Also the kit would be nicer smaller. The watercolor box isn't huge, but given the frequently crowded conditions and the amount of stuff I sometimes carry smaller = better.

The cheap eye-shadow compact has eight colors in a box roughly half the size of the crayola one, and the compartments are molded in, so rather than tape the plastic face-paint pots in I can scoop out face-paint and reform it in the eyeshadow divots (after removing eyeshadow, obv). I can even put two colors in one divot if I want, giving me an up to 16 color pallet in a box that's less than 5 by 5.

I am psyched!

I'm not sure what I'll do with the eyeshadow. Possibly frighten my housemate. It has a little "how to" key on the back so I suppose I could actually try to use it. That'd be odd.

Tomorrow I'm playing for one of the first dances of this year's Northwest Folklife Festival, the gigantic cultural shindig in Seattle that a friend of mine once called "The high holy days of our sect."

This is the FIRST year I'm 'officially' performing, instead of just busking, so it's the first year I officially get all the official perks instead of borrowing a friends badge and unofficially getting all the official perks.

I'm playing with my friend Jesse (whom I've been jamming with for ages) and old-pro guitarist Jay, who has more years than both of us put together and provies rock solid rhythm*. We've had a BLAST at rehearsals (All three of them, not counting the spur-of-the-moment 'ah, why not?' 2 hour one where we recorded the demo); it's gonna be GREAT. And we're only playing four contras and a waltz (A WALTZ WHICH I WROTE HOT DAMN), so it's not the endurance event playing for a 'real' contra dance is.

Anyway.

Anyway.

Things to pack. Things to do. Mend the tie-dye dress. Mend the tie-dye thigh-highs. Reassure tumblr that I do not, in fact, plan on wearing two clashing tie-dye articles at the same time, and that the dress is really very tasteful. (The thigh-highs are another matter, but who could possibly resist rainbow tie-dye thigh-high socks? NO ONE REASONABLE, THAT'S WHO).


*He can tell metronome numbers by watching his hand move while strumming. Dude's serious.

On Friday Pinniped played at Kitzel's Crazy Delicious Delicatessen to an awesome ArtsWalk crowd. We didn't get people really going until the last couple of tunes, but we had people up and stomping and clapping to two sets at the end, one of which we hadn't performed before, so that was awesome! I'm especially thankful to the group of ladies who'd been holding up the wall most of the show; for the last few tunes they came right up front, even though it meant sitting in tiny kindergarten-size chairs, and having people up front really helped get the energy going.

westrider and Kiyoko and a friend of hers made it down in time for the concert, and a whole bunch of our music friends dropped by.

The space is high and echoey, so we probably should have taken the time to set up a monitor, but once we'd played a few tunes and corrected the sound it was great! At the last minute E's coworker volunteered her husband to run sound for us, and it was just fantastic to have someone else focus on that part so we could focus on playing. We may have to find a way to bribe him to come to our next show, because he was great.

Also, I now know to start with the fiddle mic at ~60% compared to everything else for decent balance. The sound-guy was actually impressed that I figured that out -- probably because he's not used to people asking for less of themselves in the mix. :P

After the show one of the brave kindergarten-chair ladies approached Erik about this producer she knew in Seattle who we should really get in touch with. I heard the tail-end of the conversation, and, sure enough, the producer in question is Hearth Music, the brain-child of my music acquaintances Devon and Dejah Leger. I told her I knew them and occasionally played music with 'em, and it turns out Kindergarten-Chair Lady is Dejah's aunt. Small world!

Before the show I spent quite a bit of time coming up with new graphic ideas for the PinniPage and business cards, which I should be able to finalize fairly quickly, so things are moving right along.

Back from a long sunny Folklife weekend. I was so tired going up Saturday I thought it'd be a bust, and except for a Quebecois jam in the morning I barely played, but I slept really well in my parents' Posh Suite*, and got my busking spot bright and early Sunday morning. The vendors around me were GREAT -- really personable, appreciative, caring. There was a really cute girl doing coin-op ballet for hours who looked absolutely shot, and they tried to make sure she kept hydrated. Sylvia (of Sylvia Swasey Designs) even gave me a hand warmer when my Reynaud's kicked in...turns out she's a fellow sufferer. Her daughter is just starting violin, and was a great audience.

The other neighbor-vendor was David Kaynor, who isn't this David Kaynor, but his third cousin. They only discovered each other at Folklife, because of all the people like me who ask "So, do you know you have the same name as this fantastic contra dance caller?" The Artist-David-Kaynor was really friendly. He's also an Olympian. He runs an art show every year two blocks from my house.

Dad and I brought along a bunch of shaky eggs, and when little-littles stopped to listen, we had them join in. I think one in fifteen had rhythm, but we're talking two and three year olds, here. Most of them were just amazed that they were Making Noise With the Musicians. We had the biggest line-up of guest-artists under 2 foot 6 at folklife.

I used a LOT of Quebecois tunes busking for the first time, mostly because I needed a change from same ol-same ol, and I think it went over well. They're really cheerful, perfect for bright festival days, and the rhythms are just odd enough that people stop and listen. Dad's learning to play to crooked tunes, too, but he basically has to learn each one instead of just 'jig' or 'reel', which is tough on a drummer. :)

Hung out with westrider, Ran into lots of Fiddletunes buddies and Bellingham buddies, and had lunch with Rob and Terri, my Bellingham parents. The jams in the hospitality suite were great, and made up for not dancing at all (Sat and Sun I was too footsore, Monday Erik came up and wasn't up for it).

Correction for the general public: I wore my coin scarf, and all weekend people told me I couldn't sneak up on anyone. This is incorrect! I could sneak up on Morris Men. It's a bad idea, however, because Morris Men carry sticks.



*My folks booked a hotel room two blocks from the center, and when they got there they found it was a hotel suite, so I slept on the fold-out in their living room. The next night I stayed with my cousin Kelsey, after finding out that the car my fam let me borrow had a broken seat adjustment and was permanently adjusted for my 5'10" brother, NOT the 5'4"-when-very-straight me. A rolled up blanket booster-seat got me safely to Chateau Too-Good in the Ballard/Phinney area.

I think I need a free day post-Folklifee, just to make sure that I've sorted all the e-mails, phone numbers, websites and addresses from new connections and re-connections. The rest of the day would be sent napping and listening to new music or following up new music trails on the 'net.

I ran into the majority of my musician friends in the two days I was in Seattle, as well as a few other less expected reaquaintances - for example, the EMT guys who I played across from last year recognised me (last year's EMT story is pretty amusing, actually) and gave my lil' bro greif about his beard. I played for the stroller brigade to some success, I busked with my Da for the first time, I helped Mom learn some of a new tune, and I got Doozer to contra-dance. The other highlight has to have been seeing Electric Bonsai Band (not electric, not a band!), which was the songwriting third of Uncle Bonsai. I depressed Andrew Ratshin when I had him sign his CD and said that the last time I'd seen him live I was two (My mother said "Don't worry, she's only six now."). When I went to kindergarten my parents warned me not to sing Penis Envy. What a claim to fame.

New people...I met the vendor (vendress?) Sabrina of Sabrina Shane Co, who was next to me at the Oly Folklife festival and was sad that I'd had to move (I didn't know that until this weekend, I thought maybe a vendor had complained, so that was nice to hear). While spending Sun. morning in a coffeeshop I met two Bham based vendors who seems really nice (Beatrice and...? Drums'n'Jewelry). Random meetings in the hospitality room and I now have a microsoft e-mail to send my resume to, not to mention shaking hands with a Seattle Architect who is occasionaly looking for interns (Now, DAMMIT, who was the mutual friend that made that inroduction? Carla? Carol? It was a musicer...this is why I need an admin day!).

Also enjoyable to spend some time with westrider, whom I don't see often enough, ribbitkisser, whom I don't see often enough for entirely different reasons, and zair99 whom I got to contra dance.

Mom and I collected a pretty good set of Folklife Bingo categories for next year. I learned the name of the Scarf Man (The guy with long flowing grey beard and long flowing chiffon skirts - and white sneakers) - Bo. Ate lovely sctuffs. Really didn't buy much other than food (one top, one CD). 50 more bucks'll go into my new-bow-account, which only exists in a conceptual form, since I've spent most of the 200 'saved' dollars on more urgent needs, like groceries.

Unfortunatley, I have 50 pages of reading to summarize and a 10-15 page paper to research and write, so it looks like that's how I'll spend the day. I hope everyone else had a great weekend too!