Posts Tagged gorge

Date: August 11th, 2009
Cate: dreams

harry potter dance party! (dream)

Apparently my dream-center wasn’t feeling like generating any new content last night – so it mashed up a bunch of old stuff.

I went to CMD, to either drop something off or pick something up, and noticed a big long table sitting outside, which people were beginning to set with food. I went in through the front doors of CMD, and although the decor and the people were the same, the layout was a lot more like another web agency (I forget what it was called) – there was no lobby or elevator, just a stairway going up to an overlooking second-floor, where all the people were currently in a meeting.

I snuck in like a cat, making no sound, only briefly knocking into something with my backpack – above me, someone (I think it was Jeremy) glanced down, noticed me, but grinned and nodded, and didn’t report me – he was on my side. After I did whatever I was there for (don’t remember what) I left. Outside, the parking lot was  like a weird combination of three places: the real CMD parking lot, the playground and field outside of Richmond Elementary (where I went to K-5th) and the Gorge Amphitheater – so a field, some pavement, a fence around the whole thing, except for an entire border made of a huge jagged canyon cliff.

For some reason I noticed that there were a bunch of fence peices in the dumpster – big red slats with points on top, nailed into two cross beams, with posts at either end. I was considering taking them for firewood, or maybe to give to my parents to use in their backyard, but I couldn’t seem to pull them out, and get them on my car. But I kept trying it – I suddenly realized it was dusk, and just starting to get dark.

Behind me, I heard a bunch of people shouting – I turned around, and saw fireworks going off, and a crowd of people gathered around the tables I’d seen earlier. I ran over, and found – ready for this? It was Harry Potter’s birthday party! None of his wizard friends were there – it was just him, a bunch of people more or less my age, and suddenly, I was there too. I don’t know if Harry knew who I was, or actually if he’d noticed that I was there, but I wasn’t told to leave or anything, so I just joined in, eating, talking to the random people around me, occasionally shouting “Happy Birthday” in chorus with my fellow party-goers.

Then, the party started to wrap up – the lights dimmed, people drifted away, and Harry sort of hooked up with a girl that was there – I was spying on them as he convinced her to let him give her a kiss, and I suspect they would’ve done more, except that it was a false ending to the party! The lights suddenly came back on, and dance music was pounding! Some skinny black guy in tight jeans and an open shirt bounded over, and pulled Harry into a little synchronized dance routine, which we all tried to copy. Yay! Dance Party!

… the end. (I had some other facet of this dream that involved an amusement park, which I think I’d dreamt about before, running around between the stalls, the rides, the tents and RVs where the staff lived while they were running it… but I barely remember it.)

Let’s think about what we’ve got here. CMD is where I used to work (and where I’ve been told I’m actually not allowed to b re-hired,) Richmond is my old elementary school, the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington is where I’ve gone for three years now to see the Sasquatch Music Festival. CMD is usually on my mind in some way or another, since I liked working there, and my two roommates (and lots of my friends) still work there. I’m not sure about Richmond, but last night I was looking at the list of acts I’d enjoyed at Sasquatch, so that’s where that’s from.

The big red fence slats that I wanted for my parents back yard were in fact the fence that used to be in their back yard – I remember it as a kid. It was rotting and falling apart. It got torn down, but my parents have been having trouble with the neighbors’ kids coming into their backyard and messing stuff up, so I wanted to put the fence back to stop that. Possibly the reason that I couldn’t get the fence to move is because I couldn’t when I was a kid either – it was too strong to break apart, and I know I played around with doing that back then.

I just had a birthday party, and I was just watching this thing about Harry Potter in a rap battle with Voldemort – see, there he is, and there’s the black guy, and there’s all the people who aren’t his wizard friends, but who like him nonetheless.

So it’s a bunch of random stuff that I had bouncing around in my head, and my brain was like, “I can make a cool remix out of this!” Iiiinteresting.

Date: May 27th, 2009
Cate: matt's life

matt at sasquatch ’09

Spoiler alert – there will be no psychedelic notebook pages this time around – I took it easy. This year was fun, in a more sedate, sunburned way. Let’s take a look at how my weekend went:

Day One

  • The Gaslight Anthem
  • Doves
  • Passion Pit - I remember not liking them as much as I expected to.
  • M. Ward - not really the type of music I listen to, but good music.
  • Shearwater – I only heard a little bit of their performance, but I really liked what I heard.
  • Tim & Eric - terrible. not funny at all. non-stop scatological and misogynistic jokes just don’t sit well with me, I guess, along with making fun of people that are mentally challenged.
  • The Decemberists - good, as always, their set consisted of playing straight through their new album (The Hazards Of Love) in its entirety.
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs - loved these guys, even though it’s probably not something I would generally choose to listen to, the lead singer was spunky and everyone was talented. Also, there was a huge inflated eyeball floating above the players for their entire performance.
  • Crystal Castles - disappointing! They sound so good on the album, but live, the female singer’s voice was terrible, just a bunch of screams… the music was otherwise good (if a bit screechy, poorly mixed perhaps) but I expected a lot more from these people.

Day Two

  • The Red Wine Boys - I only caught the end, but it was a comedic duo whose performance involved a lot of wine. Also, they get points for lots of audience interaction.
  • Aziz Ansari - clever and funny, probably the best comedian I saw, apart from the Whitest Kids on the next day.
  • Zach Galifianakis - he’s funny, and he plays piano. what’s not to like?
  • TV On The Radio - I only saw the end of this show, and I liked what I heard.
  • Nine Inch Nails - Great stuff, although I started getting bored when the songs got less pounding. Trent Reznor continues to know exactly what he’s doing, and it’s always impressive, inspiring even, to watch a master at work. I’m not generally a huge NIN fan (apart from the Year Zero album, which I really liked) but I definitely enjoyed the show.
  • Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head - After I left NIN, I headed over to see Deadmau5, and caught the end of NPSH, which has an awesome name, and almost seemed like a jazzy jam band that had thrown in a couple of synthesizers. Good stuff.
  • Deadmau5 - certainly the best electronic show I saw this year. Not as good as Ghostland Observatory last year, but easily better then the Crystal Castles. I slipped through the crowd until I was right up front, jumping around and getting pushed in all directions, soaked in sweat, dancing until I was exhausted. It’s kind of a fun experience to be in, but I got tired, the music wasn’t doing it for me, so I left a bit early to go back to camp and eat.

Day Three

  • Santigold - I didn’t get to see these people, but I heard them on my way into the venue, and they sounded intriguing, so I’ll have to look them up later.
  • Whitest Kids U’Know - just as funny in person as they are in their online sketches.
  • Monotonix - This was the most incredible performance I saw this year, period. Basically, it involved three Israeli guys, skinny, mustachioed and hairy, beating the shit out of their instruments, and spending all their time in the audience, not on stage, while still managing to continue playing. Just to give you an idea about the extremes they went to, I arrived at the stage just as the lead singer climbed on top of the bass drum – and the bass drum was being held up by the audience, about a dozen feet away from the stage. And that was nothing. Throughout their set, they had the audience carry them and their instruments all over the grounds, continuing to play – at one point, the lead singer crowd-surfed his way all the way to the opposite end of the field, climbed up on the rigging for the sound booth (about 20 feet up in the air, maybe), and announced to the crowd that he was going to count to 4, and then jump down, and they were going to catch him – and he wasn’t lying. I was incredibly impressed with Monotonix – to be honest, the music wasn’t my favorite, but it didn’t matter.
  • Silversun Pickups - talented group, to be sure, but I realize that I don’t like them nearly as much as a lot of other people seem to… there wasn’t really anything unique or appealing to latch onto, they were just a good band.
  • Girl Talk - when I first heard Girl Talk, I didn’t know the circumstances behind the creation of his music – that it’s all one big long mashup mix. Now, knowing that, I enjoyed the hell out of the show – there was some great stuff, and the crowd loved it. Speaking of which, he dealt with the issue of watching a single DJ triggering samples on a mixer board being a little boring by populating the stage entirely with party people – people in costume, people shirtless, everyone dancing. At one point, they passed an enormous inflated while out to the crowd – it was about 2/3 the size of the stage itself, which was awesome.
  • Tobacco - Cool electronic stuff, although I don’t think I had taken enough drugs to appreciate it properly – other people, however, seemed to have taken exactly (or perhaps more) then enough. The music was pretty interesting, coupled with the visuals – an ongoing video remix of old horror video, apparently from inside an elaborate haunted house event.
  • Chromeo - I’m not usually a fan of DJ sets, since it’s kind of like listening to the radio: every once in a while you hear songs you like, but a lot of the time you end up just waiting for the current song to be over so you can get to another one that you like. Chromeo was a good DJ, but I wasn’t very into it.

So in conclusion, I would recommend checking out Girl Talk, Monotonix, Santigold, Shearwater, and The Decemberists.

It took me all day Tuesday to sort of get back up to speed with not camping and not listening to music constantly, but now I’m feeling pretty good. I picked up some aloe vera cream stuff which will probably not have any actual effect on my sunburns, but the psychological reassurance is worth it.