End of the Summer

 

Mia, Nora and our neighbor girl performing Oogie Boogie Guinea Hog. Part hula dance, part ecstatic ceremony, all their own invention. Aunt Joan says it comes from an unconscious search for spirituality. I say yeah, bring it on.

 

Here's the Ashland El stop after Joanna Newsom performed at Pitchfork. That brewing storm cut short the Bjork set that followed. I felt like I'd walked onto the set of Girls at Pitchfork: braids, tattoos, flowers in everyone's hair. I saw a boy with an enormous scab cratered like the surface of Mars on his knee, a girl with a Bjork swan costume, a woman sucking on a binkie - is that a meth thing or an X thing? I forget. The frat boys clustering around the stage during Newsom's set cracked me up - the crowd was hushed and reverential during her eighteen minute arrangements for harp and voice. And vegan options at every food tent! Heavenly.

Another songbird, our little Nora, performed the part of Wolf Number One in a production at Smash Up at the Music Institute in Evanston that the kids wrote in five days. I made the ears and tail out of fake fur from Vogue fabrics on Dempster.

And then Nora killed in Frozen Banana Stand's debut at the Rock House. Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends," the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," "Day Tripper" and "Hard Day's Night." 

Waiting my turn and taking my turn on the rope swing. Whee! Family Weekend at Camp Wandawega was downright awesome too - a highlight of the summer and a sweet rural contrast to our bright lights, big city vaca in NYC.

Mia and me in Central Park. We're on our way to the Guggenheim - my friend Emily told me a great story about visiting the museum in the '80's when the area was dicey. Her dad said, "Take your car" because he didn't want his broken into. And hers was, just like he said, for the radio. The hood looks much tonier now. Our only problem was trying to catch a cab on 5th Ave. during Friday rush hour.