Mama's birthday

I helped Mom celebrate her birthday this year by coaxing her off the isle of Manhattan over to my house in Brooklyn, where we meandered our way through Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights over to the new Pier 6 playground and ferry dock. Destination: Governors Island! The boarding line was long and inched along, and the sun was mighty hot, but we had a baguette from Almondine and some Jacques Torres chocolate to sustain us!

The two minute ferry journey behind us, we ambled until we found a shady patch of grass to sprawl out on, and dug into our lazy picnic lunch.

That was all we had really bargained for for the day, but once we took a walk around the island, we realized there were all sorts of enticing things around us. Like public art, and couples riding rental tandem bikes, and the new water taxi beach!

It seemed too perfect to have stumbled upon that, complete with real sand and a beach volleyball court, so we set up shop on our little tatami mat all over again.

And ordered a beer. We played a game of scrabble, and people watched. Stayed for a few songs by the band--not sure but it might have been the Freelance Whales.

The plastic, light-up, blinking palm trees really added to the atmosphere--we were both quite taken by them! Once dusk started to fall, we packed up and headed to the on-location photobooth to cap off our day with a little sponsored photo session:

2 pics x 3 summer days = fun times

SummerStage w/ the gang. Ran into Evan Rock!
Battles (pictured -- not that you can see it), Black Dice and Gang Gang Dance played. It was earsplittingly experimental.
On another night B2 and I went to her friend's art show (I missed most of it, walked in to find this naked girl standing on a podium in the middle of a bar... ok...) but what better way to shrug off the awkwardness than by going to a Jewish LES eatery (Sammy's Roumanian [sic]). There was an old dude playing piano and singing Frank Sinatra tunes (he actually sounded good! We thought it was a CD for the longest time), and they even got people to dance the hora.
All the gentiles in the house say What...(TF)?!!
And last for your viewing pleasure I present the Silent Rave. Another NYC summer oddity -- hundreds (of mostly HS age kids I reckon) gathered in Union Square and rocked out to their iPods.
This reveler's outfit said "Robot" in magic marker across the front.

88 BoaDrum

Before dark:


After dark:

Another killer summer is on the way

The first outdoor scrabble game of the season happened in Fulton Ferry State Park, in honor of Kristina's visit from San Francisco. Things felt a little off kilter and then we realized it was because Banana Hammock man was nowhere in sight. Dunno where he was off to, but condolences to him and his loved ones--I can only imagine that it must have been a serious family emergency to keep him and his fluorescent butt floss away on such a perfect day.



May being bike Month, there were also many Bicycle Film Festival happenings, including a party at Studio B. There was dancing:



There were pals hugging:





And Lucky Dragons did a performance art piece involving humming rocks:



Elliott helped get the party started:





And that's all she wrote for BFF shenanigans:



Two weekends ago there was also a 50 mile bike ride out to a farm in Long Island (thanks for inviting us, Monica!) which involved lots of lycra, excessive heat, and a seaside respite--most of the pictures are on Facebook already but here are a few more:

Taken By Timidity

I went to see the Taken By Trees in-store at Other Music tonight. Sweet indie twee sung by a Swede with the most precious voice, but I gotta say. Victoria Bergsman gives the Chan Marshall of yesteryear a run for her money in the awkward stage demeanor category.

Watch the video here!

Dinner and a show or three

Hey all! After many months away from blog-land because of a lost camera and, let's face it, sheer laziness, I'm back! I think I already love my new camera, even though I haven't yet bought a memory card for it and so am restricted to the seven photos that can fit at a time in the internal memory. I am so ultra devoted to my renewed vow of consistent posting, starting right now.

Audrey's brother Chris was in town from North Carolina for a few days this past week, and on Wednesday night we took him to Pete's Candy Store for some free music, because the Death Vessel show we had planned on going to at the Spiegel Tent would have stretched our meager budgets a little too thin. Obviously, seeing bands you know nothing about is a total crapshoot, but we made out like bandits that night. First up were the Bobtail Yearlings, so awkward and completely lacking in stage presence that it felt like watching a 4th grade talent show. The bass player was wearing one of those beaked masks like the ones the apothecaries wore during the plague, and the cellist had pleather pants and a wig on, and the clarinetist looked like he had just wrapped up a session at band camp, but I thought their sound was kind of beautiful, maybe a little bit Belle & Sebastian-ish. Audrey and I bought a CD while James rolled his eyes and left early. Next up was this singer-songwriter guy with a guitar who was pretty much the polar opposite of the Bobtail Yearlings--spewing charisma and self-confidence, throwing around witty banter, but his music was only so-so, though overall he was entertaining for sure.

The Bobtail Yearlings:

The next night, Thursday, Eric had another CSA veggie potluck, featuring tahini pasta, peach/cilantro/radish salad and a baked peach crumble for dessert.



On Friday night, a group of 13 of us converged on South Street Seaport for the final concert of the River to River festival, with Battles and Deerhunter.


I've seen Deerhunter before and loved seeing them all over again, and this time around I had a much better view of the lead singer's crazy gangliness.

Battles was headlining the show, and to revisit a debate that kept us occupied for much of the rest of the evening, I stand by my take that they were "jammy", "noodly" and "funky". Negative connotations of those adjectives fully intended. And they had button-down shirts on in a matching rainbow of sherbet colors, which doesn't really come across in this photo very well though:

Dinner was at a Malaysian restaurant on Grand Street where Sameer nerded out (is that a redundant word pairing?) with Angelique's glasses and we almost stiffed the waiter for a tip because a certain payroll accountant among us interpreted the bill wrong. Glad Amy Joy doesn't do my taxes!! Kidding.

77 Drums and Beyond!

On 7/7/07, Japanese noise band the Boredoms had a concert with 77 drums. There was a huge line and we felt lucky to get into Brooklyn Bridge Park. They set up the drum kits in a spiral at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Boredoms, or more specifically their frontman Eye, at the center. He led the drums with a big stick and a biiiig head o'hair. Just look at all those drum kits!
And those drummers!


That guy in the striped shirt and baseball cap in the outermost row is none other than Andrew W.K. Even better, when he stood up, he was wearing high-waisted jean shorts. Nice.

Besides the usual contingent of hipsters, there was a surprisingly diverse crowd that also included a girl in stilts and gold spandex.

Not all of us made it into the park; Eric and a friend of his with a rowboat hung out in the East River - a rowboat!! Eric claimed they could hear everything just fine, and I guess I wouldn't be surprised if people could hear it in Manhattan - they did have seventy-seven drums, after all. There were plenty of people crowded up on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway too. After the show, we went down to the "beach" to meet up.

After that, it was just a long night of drinking and being silly.

Eric shows off his iphone.

Fast forward about six hours for these pictures coming up. It's almost morning, but I must've had a lot to drink, 'cause I have what Greg calls "that drunk fishy look." And while Julia looks much more coherent, does she actually remember these pictures being taken?

Why are we cracking up? Is it because we couldn't figure out the timer? Or because we were trying to not all be smushed into a corner of the picture like in the one on the left?


I'm ending this picture series of Newtown Creek with me and Eric because we were the last two left that night! That's right, everyone else punked out on breakfast, but it's not as if I could get home without catching a ride on Eric's handlebars, so maybe it wasn't so much due to my diehard party spirit.

We ran into a few people eating some post-club fried chicken in Greenpoint. I took a pass, but Eric downed it - and threw the bones over his shoulder when he thought no one was looking.


Does this picture really need an explanation?