Pilcrow

Last Friday I went to a "bonus" concert, to see my friend Tony Sacco's band Library Science, who played along with Matt Corwine (opening) and Kanda (headlining). I was feeling somewhat mopey and tired again, thinking that I was faced with another whole weekend in the apartment by myself, and I almost didn't go to the show, but fortunately I overcame that. The show was downtown in the "Jewel Box Theater" at Rendezvous.

It was a pretty good show. Matt Corwine was a guy with a laptop doing a continuous mix of electronic dance music. It made me want to go out dancing. Library Science, who play dub-based instrumentals, played a new song, but embarrassingly I failed to pick it out from the rest of the songs. Some of the songs I'm really familiar with by now (though I'm still shaky on the names), the rest tend to blur together. Tony tells me they'll have more new songs at their next show in June, I'd still like to see their sound branch out a little more. Finally, Kanda were new to me - a trio on guitars and bass, with a drum machine, some miscellaneous percussion including a glockenspiel and a toy xylophone, and melodica. Apparently the band is actually a duo - cute Asian girl and nerdy white guy - and the third guy was just a backing musician for the show. Anyhow, their set had some problems with sound and generally things seeming to be not quite together, but they won me over by the end with their very catchy pop. I suspected that they would be better recorded than live, and bought a CD, which I was pleased to discover proved me right. Actually I'm sure they can be just as good live, just this show was somewhat ragged.

The rest of the weekend turned out fairly well. Saturday I slept really late, then went for a walk downtown to pick up a couple tickets for Sarah Vowell's book reading at Elliott Bay Books next Friday (the 29th that is). Though I've been here three years now, this was my first time going to Elliott Bay Books and I was quite impressed, it's very big and cool. That night I went out to dinner with the Saccos - we tried going to the new fancy pizzeria, Via Tribunali, over on Pike, but it had an hour wait so we ended up down Broadway at Charlie's - and that was a very good evening. So, in a much better frame of mind, I was content to spend Sunday basically doing laundry and reading, and also hanging out with TonyD for a while.

I also picked up some garden stones to put into the flowerpot my tree is in, as Nimiel recently took an interest in gardening and has been digging at the soil. The pot was covered with aluminium foil for a week or so, which did keep her from digging, but she kept pawing and biting at the foil instead, and even nibbled off a bit. Now she just goes over and paws at the rocks, but at least that means there won't be soil all over the floor. Next I have to get a bigger pot and transfer the tree - not that that will keep Nimiel away, just that the tree needs that.

This weekend is my board game night for April. Also, I did decide to redo my media center, so it's back to IKEA tomorrow night. Fortunately I don't need much and it's not expensive, because money's been getting pretty tight. Next week, I've got plans to watch The Incredibles with a couple friends (one who hasn't seen it yet), and then Sarah Vowell on Friday. And The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film opens next weekend. And it's John Harper's birthday mid-week.