Monday, May 28, 2007
Cherry Blossom Girl, and Sasquatch
Oh dear.
I'm totally into Cherry Blossom girl all over again. This is dangerous. I think she needs a name. I'll think of something.
My weekend was sweet, but strange. Our five hour drive to the Gorge involved stops at Wal-Mart (terrifying) for cheap wine and Tim's Cascade Jalapeno chips (only the best potato chips ever made). We spent the night at a freeway rest stop, which involved some classy wine-drinking straight from the bottle and about a half hour of Bound, before the dvd player died. I love that I totally forgot how cheesy and ridiculous and full of corny stereotypes that movie is. Yikes. But it's also sexy and sexily violent, so I can't help but enjoy it.
So the whole time she was driving I was thinking, "wow, what excellent comfortable silences we have," and then she said exactly that. This happened all weekend. At one point at the festival we watched a guy who was holding his girlfriend's hand totally abandon her when they had to get across a big rock in the dark. The girlfriend stumbled, and we looked at each other and I said "wow, he just completely abandoned her there." And she said "Yeah, I was just thinking the exact same thing." Later I said, "hey, there are no recycling bins here," and she said she'd been thinking the same. When I was tired and wanted to go home, so did she. When I couldn't make a decision about buying a t-shirt, neither could she. When I thought music sucked, she agreed. When I thought something was brilliant, she was on board. It was eerie. She's so stunning and compassionate and aware and well, funny. She laughs at my jokes. She tells her own jokes. I think she's neat. There she is above.
Maybe I should tell her that I want to go out with her. Good idea? Bad idea? What do you think?
Sasquatch was okay, although MIA's absence was painful, and the weather was poor. It was either scorching hot or freezing cold with gale force winds. We actually left before the Beastie Boys, Interpol, and Michael Franti went on because we were too cold and tired from waiting in the wind and cold for an hour and a half waiting for the show to start again. The amphitheatre's right on the edge of a precipitous cliff, with the Gorge behind it, and it's beautiful but totally unprotected from the elements. At one point they actually had to stop the show because the 
lights and speakers were swaying back and forth perilously in the wind. You can see in the photo that the stage doesn't even have a backdrop. It looks like it's floating in that endless sky.
The highlights were definitely adorable little Khaela Maricich of The Blow, who performs this totally unpretentious solo indie pop that's really believable in its down-to-earth dorkiness. Then there was Mirah, who was the only one to express outrage about MIA's visa being denied. Hearing her perform Cold Cold Water live was like, well, cold water in the desert -- absolutely sublime. Bjork was brilliant, and brilliantly weird as always, and her performance of Army of Me, complete with green lasers and video game sound effects, was actually one of the most dramatic things I've ever witnessed. Sadly, she didn't wear the swan dress.
I was in the front row to see Smoosh, the adorable girl-band from Seattle, and let a few little fans in front with me so they could see better. It was amazing, aside from the very bad behaviour of a few very drunk guys who thought it would be funny to make icky remarks about sleeping with little girls and yell inappropriate bullshit in my ear for an hour. One of them tried to mosh to the last song and hit one of the little girls standing next to me in the eye. That was most uncool. But Smoosh was incredible, especially the drummer, Chloe, who grinned the whole time she was playing. It was neato. That's Chloe on the right.
We slept in the back of the truck, warm in sleeping bags, and cooked salmon burgers on a little charcoal grill. It was rustic, and quite pleasant. She drove all night and I got home around 4:00, my clothes smelling of coal smoke and Maya looking sleepy but very glad to see me.
In other news, I've decided to stop complaining about my unfinished novel and start writing the damn thing again.
Oh, and I might have to quit my job. Again. Good times. I'll keep you posted.
Hope you all had a great weekend.
Love,
N
