weather/pundits & Peeps/weekend
Apr. 21st, 2003 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enteleinThe weather has cooled again to a solid, flat grey. The exhaust from a speeding car actually rested on my tongue in black and dingy brown tang and I thought about my aunt who is always so worried about me living in the city with all the pollution - air, noise, crime, negative energies criss-crossing like some nasty web. All I know is, when allergy season hits, I can actually work and play and live and think, here in the city. If worst comes to worst, I still have an air purifier my friend Tom bought for me, for the apartment living.
Dinner tonight was leftover Easter food - slices of ham, hard-boiled egg, sour white borscht with bits of sausage chopped into it, thick and hearty and sopped up with fresh sweet rye bread.
Easter was sunny and pastel and gorgeous - clouds high up and sky blue and clear. Everyone in their dressy clothes, little kids romping about in mini grown-up clothes. For one of the first times in recent history, it felt like a balm to be in the midst of this suburban complacency and luxury. Soothing reminders of being a kid and having hunts to go on, of sugar comas and dishes with jellybeans, fingers stained with dye from eggshell speckled in cerulean and fuchsia.
Soothing, yes, until the meal, when the rah rah started, the calling for Hollywood (as some sort of beastly commie pinko entity, of course) to apologize (for what, I am not sure, still), the thumping of chests and the general patting of selves on backs for a job well-done, pass the horseradish, please.
Not once were any religious connotations of the holiday brought up. Not once. Oh, OK, the prayer before the meal, which was the same adolescent mumbled generic ramble that my step-nephews do for every big family gathering. The meaning of the was lost as praise for bombings and the Government overflowed and boomed loudly somewhere in Hoffman Estates.
Just one day, you know? Free of that? A remembrance of what the day was for would've been nice, even though I'm personally not a believer. Maybe a moment of silence for the fact that we had a war, at all, not this slavering roaring heaping of platitudes.
I managed not to say a thing, for who or what am I going to convince of anything? What can I say any more? There is nothing to say. The damage is done. People won't be any less dead for my words, the people around the table very ready to shout down any disagreement that we did "a damn fine job."
Dismaying. Nearly lost my appetite, the borscht and the paszteciki my very favorite things about this holiday, suddenly completely unappetizing.
Deep breath, clearing of the head, sips of the coffee, a quick check on what felt like nervousness really amounted to a feeling of unfocused anger. There is just no discussion any more.
I managed to get through the meal, drinking more coffee than I should have.
The previous portion of my weekend was really fabulous and heartening, though, in spite of the discomfort I felt on Sunday. Thursday night had me at the Metro for the Neofuturist's 30 Girl Bands in 60 Minutes, which was a really grand time. Two bands out of the thirty I'd seen open for Over the Rhine (Trigger Gospel, Sons of the Never Wrong), and then there was Tiombe with Preston Klik Ritual, who I know, several bands that were very generic and tended to suck, and then the astoundingly funny Weird Sisters, who did "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and brought the house down. They stole the show, with their heavily-kohl-rimmed eyes and satiny froufy black hats and dresses. Butterfly Kiss stole the show right back from them, seriously, the 4 women dressed in Britney and Spice Girl splendor, spoofing on every girl star and bubblegum pop Lolita ever. My friend Karen, I am proud to say, was part of it, and she was fantastic. Elizabeth Conant and Fareed Haque did a sweet little number, Elizabeth holding her 2-days-from-popping belly in front of her and looking breathy and radiant. Ah, so much to say about that night, but overall, it was really a great time. I hadn't been to the Metro in a while, and it felt like being back at a friend's, the well-worn stair banisters leading up to the main floor, the balcony stretching along the back above us, the sound board mammoth and dead center back on the main floor. I have a fierce nostalgic love for that place, no matter how smoky it gets.
More about the weekend later, perhaps.
Dinner tonight was leftover Easter food - slices of ham, hard-boiled egg, sour white borscht with bits of sausage chopped into it, thick and hearty and sopped up with fresh sweet rye bread.
Easter was sunny and pastel and gorgeous - clouds high up and sky blue and clear. Everyone in their dressy clothes, little kids romping about in mini grown-up clothes. For one of the first times in recent history, it felt like a balm to be in the midst of this suburban complacency and luxury. Soothing reminders of being a kid and having hunts to go on, of sugar comas and dishes with jellybeans, fingers stained with dye from eggshell speckled in cerulean and fuchsia.
Soothing, yes, until the meal, when the rah rah started, the calling for Hollywood (as some sort of beastly commie pinko entity, of course) to apologize (for what, I am not sure, still), the thumping of chests and the general patting of selves on backs for a job well-done, pass the horseradish, please.
Not once were any religious connotations of the holiday brought up. Not once. Oh, OK, the prayer before the meal, which was the same adolescent mumbled generic ramble that my step-nephews do for every big family gathering. The meaning of the was lost as praise for bombings and the Government overflowed and boomed loudly somewhere in Hoffman Estates.
Just one day, you know? Free of that? A remembrance of what the day was for would've been nice, even though I'm personally not a believer. Maybe a moment of silence for the fact that we had a war, at all, not this slavering roaring heaping of platitudes.
I managed not to say a thing, for who or what am I going to convince of anything? What can I say any more? There is nothing to say. The damage is done. People won't be any less dead for my words, the people around the table very ready to shout down any disagreement that we did "a damn fine job."
Dismaying. Nearly lost my appetite, the borscht and the paszteciki my very favorite things about this holiday, suddenly completely unappetizing.
Deep breath, clearing of the head, sips of the coffee, a quick check on what felt like nervousness really amounted to a feeling of unfocused anger. There is just no discussion any more.
I managed to get through the meal, drinking more coffee than I should have.
The previous portion of my weekend was really fabulous and heartening, though, in spite of the discomfort I felt on Sunday. Thursday night had me at the Metro for the Neofuturist's 30 Girl Bands in 60 Minutes, which was a really grand time. Two bands out of the thirty I'd seen open for Over the Rhine (Trigger Gospel, Sons of the Never Wrong), and then there was Tiombe with Preston Klik Ritual, who I know, several bands that were very generic and tended to suck, and then the astoundingly funny Weird Sisters, who did "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and brought the house down. They stole the show, with their heavily-kohl-rimmed eyes and satiny froufy black hats and dresses. Butterfly Kiss stole the show right back from them, seriously, the 4 women dressed in Britney and Spice Girl splendor, spoofing on every girl star and bubblegum pop Lolita ever. My friend Karen, I am proud to say, was part of it, and she was fantastic. Elizabeth Conant and Fareed Haque did a sweet little number, Elizabeth holding her 2-days-from-popping belly in front of her and looking breathy and radiant. Ah, so much to say about that night, but overall, it was really a great time. I hadn't been to the Metro in a while, and it felt like being back at a friend's, the well-worn stair banisters leading up to the main floor, the balcony stretching along the back above us, the sound board mammoth and dead center back on the main floor. I have a fierce nostalgic love for that place, no matter how smoky it gets.
More about the weekend later, perhaps.
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Date: 2003-04-21 05:31 pm (UTC)