magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

'So what you're saying is that somewhere on Lafayette Street, at sometime this evening, you may or may not be playing bass in a band for the first time in public?'

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I spent a significant part of this work week playing with dinosaurs. The bank is sponsoring an event at the Museum of Natural History, and one of the things that they are doing is to recreate a 3D dinosaur puzzle that is sold in the museum gift shop at little kid life-size. I was in charge of putting together production graphics for the blown-up version.

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At 6.30 Chris calls. 'Do you have a pen to write this down with? It's at 440 Lafayette, on the 2nd floor, sometime between 9 and 10.'

'That's kind of a difficult time. I mean what am I supposed to do for the next three hours?'

'You should call and see what Dave's up to. Or get dinner. But do whatever you've got to do. It might all just be a noisy disaster. And there's supposedly a lot of bands playing. And I don't even know when we're supposed to go on.'

I ended up going to see a movie. I don't know why I tend to forget that movies exist. It's not at all a bad way to fill a couple of hours when going home would just be a waste of the subway ride up and back. And I certainly could stand to see more of them.

Tonight's choice was between The Aristocrats and Crash. The former, newly opened, I figured would be crowded, and went with the latter. In a way, it was typical of the genre: a bunch of bad things happen to a tenuously interconnected cast of a dozen or so people over the course of of a few days in Los Angeles (cf Two Days In the Valley, Go, Magnolia). Which, granted, is a genre that I tend to enjoy. And Crash was good. Maybe a little bit too obvious at points, and maybe hung a little bit too heavily on the racism theme, but nicely shot, well acted, and on the whole a good film.

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I got to the show at about 10. Saw some bands. Had some beers. Hung out with Chris and Jen.C. Chris's roommate's band, the one that he is playing bass in, finally went on at around 1AM. In spite of having pre-written songs (which Chris was studying crib-notes for all night) it came off as fairly improvised, noise-rocky. To me, dinnerless and a little tipsy, it sounded like two distinct movements (Chris said it was four songs), the second more musical than the first. I had a good time though, and am jealous.

Afterward, standing around on the street waiting to bum a drag off of someone's cigarette, I didn't suggest, 'We should go somewhere where there's water, like Battery Park. And drink beer until dawn, tossing the empty bottles into the ocean.'