Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Clearwater
First Post. I really can't do any better as a starting place than the weekend I just had, so although the geekery I'll usually be discussing is of a different sort altogether, I'm going to start off being a tremendous geek about music.
(Firstly, though, I'm going to borrow the xkcd definition of "geek." It's in the alt text.)
Two weekends back I attended my first ever Hudson River Revival, Clearwater's annual festival concert.
A little background: I grew up listening to The Weavers, and rediscovered them in high school. Going through my parent's records I also found one of the original Clearwater albums, and got my dad to tell me what that was all about.
I'd had no idea that this thing was still going on until my friend (and now roommate) Sanford mentioned it in passing a few years back. Immediately I wanted to go; there have been conflicts every year until now. Sometimes serendipity works out and gives you what you need when you need it.
I'm broke as hell so I decided to volunteer. Turns out this was the better choice for me anyway; I like being involved, I like being busy, I like being helpful. Plus the camping was free and the food was excellent.
I'd tapped my evil twin and comrade-in-aventures Jeff to come with me on this trip. We left Friday morning, taking the 'pike West with a stop in South Lee to see my mom, and turned south down the Taconic Parkway. My mom had warned me to drive slow because there were a lot of animals along that road; we saw four deer on the drive down. (And I caught sight of two more on the festival grounds, including a fawn. Awesome.)
This place...this place was amazing. It felt familiar in a way we decided was half like summer camp and half like a family reunion. (And, Friday evening, there was a little bit of the air of showing up at a new and unfamiliar larp, too.) For me, though, I have to think that I spent so much time as a kid imagining this sort of environment that it felt like a real memory by the time I got there.
And I had; this is where I get really geeky. Something about the folk movement sparked my imagination as a kid. The idea of using music as an instrument for social change and as a way to bring strangers together as friends - why have we moved away from this?
In starting art school last semester, I was asked a lot of times in the first few weeks who my creative influences were. And in listing them (Alphonse Mucha, VNV Nation, Dave McKean, John William Waterhouse, Edna StVincent Millay, etc.) there were two that I completely forgot to mention, I think because they sit so far down and so far back in the way I think about the world: those are Jim Henson and Pete Seeger.
So Saturday morning I found out that Pete doesn't really sing anymore. He's 91 years old and as the weekend went on it became increasingly clear that he kinda just wanted to hang out and not be made much of and enjoy the fact that this thing he built is in good hands. And of course, he's kind of a big deal. So people kept wanting him to sing and taking pictures and stuff. And the times that he was on stage it was with kids of various ages doing most of the singing. So that's cool.
Saturday afternoon I'm sitting in the Circle of Song tent listening to these excellent people lead a singalong, with contributions by all sorts of people, and enjoying the hell out of it - group singing is one of my favorite things in life - when someone pulls back the chair next to me. And when the song ends I look over, and Pete Seeger and his banjo are sitting next to me.
Cool.
His banjo says around the edge, "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender".
He said he'd come down for the gospel singing, led by Marva P. Clark, that was supposed to be starting up; they said they were waiting for the electricity to get hooked up so they could begin. Pete said something like, I don't see why we need electricity, and he and Marva proceeded to take us all in hand and teach us call and response, and harmonies, to When the Saints Go Marching In, Down by the Riverside, and a few more.
I really don't have the words to describe how much this was the realization of a dream for me. The kind of dream you've had so long that you've forgotten that's what it is, because it's become part of the fabric of who you are. The kind of thing you've been telling yourself is impossible since you were a kid, coming true when you least expect it. Yeah. This really happens. This really happened.
Sunday evening, too, he showed up for the reunion of the Hudson River Sloop Singers.
There's seriously nothing in the world like a big group of strangers singing together. It creates instant trust within that circle.
The whole experience was phenomenal. Volunteering was great, (we got serenaded by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra during dinner on Saturday night, which reminds me about Honk! festival in September...) Fireflies by the millions, 800 like-minded people plus audience, really great music, incredible energy. Complete magic, even though I forgot to pack the air mattress. : j This was the kind of adventure that makes me feel like I'm getting closer to the person I want to be.
(Firstly, though, I'm going to borrow the xkcd definition of "geek." It's in the alt text.)
Two weekends back I attended my first ever Hudson River Revival, Clearwater's annual festival concert.
A little background: I grew up listening to The Weavers, and rediscovered them in high school. Going through my parent's records I also found one of the original Clearwater albums, and got my dad to tell me what that was all about.
I'd had no idea that this thing was still going on until my friend (and now roommate) Sanford mentioned it in passing a few years back. Immediately I wanted to go; there have been conflicts every year until now. Sometimes serendipity works out and gives you what you need when you need it.
I'm broke as hell so I decided to volunteer. Turns out this was the better choice for me anyway; I like being involved, I like being busy, I like being helpful. Plus the camping was free and the food was excellent.
I'd tapped my evil twin and comrade-in-aventures Jeff to come with me on this trip. We left Friday morning, taking the 'pike West with a stop in South Lee to see my mom, and turned south down the Taconic Parkway. My mom had warned me to drive slow because there were a lot of animals along that road; we saw four deer on the drive down. (And I caught sight of two more on the festival grounds, including a fawn. Awesome.)
This place...this place was amazing. It felt familiar in a way we decided was half like summer camp and half like a family reunion. (And, Friday evening, there was a little bit of the air of showing up at a new and unfamiliar larp, too.) For me, though, I have to think that I spent so much time as a kid imagining this sort of environment that it felt like a real memory by the time I got there.
And I had; this is where I get really geeky. Something about the folk movement sparked my imagination as a kid. The idea of using music as an instrument for social change and as a way to bring strangers together as friends - why have we moved away from this?
In starting art school last semester, I was asked a lot of times in the first few weeks who my creative influences were. And in listing them (Alphonse Mucha, VNV Nation, Dave McKean, John William Waterhouse, Edna StVincent Millay, etc.) there were two that I completely forgot to mention, I think because they sit so far down and so far back in the way I think about the world: those are Jim Henson and Pete Seeger.
So Saturday morning I found out that Pete doesn't really sing anymore. He's 91 years old and as the weekend went on it became increasingly clear that he kinda just wanted to hang out and not be made much of and enjoy the fact that this thing he built is in good hands. And of course, he's kind of a big deal. So people kept wanting him to sing and taking pictures and stuff. And the times that he was on stage it was with kids of various ages doing most of the singing. So that's cool.
Saturday afternoon I'm sitting in the Circle of Song tent listening to these excellent people lead a singalong, with contributions by all sorts of people, and enjoying the hell out of it - group singing is one of my favorite things in life - when someone pulls back the chair next to me. And when the song ends I look over, and Pete Seeger and his banjo are sitting next to me.
Cool.
His banjo says around the edge, "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender".
He said he'd come down for the gospel singing, led by Marva P. Clark, that was supposed to be starting up; they said they were waiting for the electricity to get hooked up so they could begin. Pete said something like, I don't see why we need electricity, and he and Marva proceeded to take us all in hand and teach us call and response, and harmonies, to When the Saints Go Marching In, Down by the Riverside, and a few more.
I really don't have the words to describe how much this was the realization of a dream for me. The kind of dream you've had so long that you've forgotten that's what it is, because it's become part of the fabric of who you are. The kind of thing you've been telling yourself is impossible since you were a kid, coming true when you least expect it. Yeah. This really happens. This really happened.
Sunday evening, too, he showed up for the reunion of the Hudson River Sloop Singers.
There's seriously nothing in the world like a big group of strangers singing together. It creates instant trust within that circle.
The whole experience was phenomenal. Volunteering was great, (we got serenaded by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra during dinner on Saturday night, which reminds me about Honk! festival in September...) Fireflies by the millions, 800 like-minded people plus audience, really great music, incredible energy. Complete magic, even though I forgot to pack the air mattress. : j This was the kind of adventure that makes me feel like I'm getting closer to the person I want to be.
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