Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
Saturday morning, we were up bright and early to move more stuff for my sister. I was in town for the State College Arts Fest, and she was also in the process of moving to her new place.
While my sister and her boyfriend had managed to bring over a lot of the larger furniture earlier with the help of a friend, we decided to transfer some more loads on Saturday.
We all three took our vehicles, loaded them up, took them back and unpacked them. Then we did the whole thing one more time. By the time we were done it was 4:30 p.m. We'd started at 9 a.m.
After showers, we got out on the town, at last.
We wanted to catch some music, and we checked out first Mike Swavely and the Chrome Magnatones. Mike Swavely is another State College musician who's been around forever. I remember when he used to front a band called the Brown Eyed Handsome Men. As always, he crooned and swaggered, with the collar of his white button-down shirt turned up.
They were playing mostly cover songs, some with a Fifties feel but most of them honky-tonk. We had fun, standing on the sidelines, drinking our iced coffees and trying to be cool. In my case this was easy, because I was wearing a houndstooth miniskirt, black shirt, Army boots, a pearl choker and purple sunglasses.
They ended their set with an Elvis song, "Suspicious Minds." About halfway through the song they kicked in with a really fast beat and I started dancing wildly, as if possessed by the music. My sister was laughing. Then I stopped suddenly, acted disoriented, took another sip of my iced coffee and launched into another dance explosion.
"Come on, join in," I urged. My sister and her boyfriend just laughed and shook their heads.
When the song ended, I said, "Woo! That's some great coffee."
As the crowd dissipated, we ran into a friend of my sister's boyfriend. I think his name was Alex. He had these great sideburns and big, Seventies style sunglasses, paired with a vintage T-shirt. He reminded me of Beck. He told us about a party that was happening later that night which, he promised, would be way cool.
"Will Jesus be there?" my sister's boyfriend asked. "Jesus was way cool."
We were on Allen Street, once more, talking in front of one of the overpriced clothes stores that have taken over the space of more useful stores, like G.C. Murphy's, that were there in my day.
We hung out for awhile, joking around. My sister and I walked up to the Daily Grind, a coffee shop, every once in awhile to use the bathroom and bother my sister's friend Jen, who was trying to read a used copy of "Last Exit to Brooklyn."
One time I came out of the coffee shop and there were three guys gathered around my sister and Jen. One of them was trying to convince my sister to let him give her a foot massage. She very politely declined and said her boyfriend was more than happy to give her all the foot massages she wanted.
But he was insistent: "It will be a really good foot massage," he said. He turned and flashed me a smile, and I glared at him in such a way as to make it extremely clear how close he was to getting an Army boot up the bum. I think it was only this that convinced the three to move it along.
"It's a little early to be that drunk, isn't it?" I asked.
I was in big sister/Wonder Woman mode the rest of the night, keeping an eye out for the women around me. If anyone began hassling them, I kept a close eye, ready to step in. The Female Avenger.
We had dinner at a place called Panera's, which has coffee and salads and a variety of other foods. We had big salads, but my sister found a fly in hers, disoriented, covered in salad dressing. She returned it and they replaced her salad. When she returned, I asked her if they'd found out if she wanted flies with that.
"Spent all this time thinking that up?" she asked.
"Pretty much."
We got back to the Allen Street stage in time to catch Urban Fusion, another local band which blends funk, jazz, R&B, Latin and reggae. Alan Jackson, formerly of the Earthtones, was on drums again, wearing a dark purple and gold dashiki.
They played a great set, mostly jazz, but they mixed it up with some funky flavors. They had a keyboardist/flute player/vocalist who did a kicking version of "Criminal" by Fiona Apple.
There were a lot of us down front dancing and having a great time. A lot of these people I'd never seen before, but for the rest of the weekend we saw them everywhere. "The dancers are here," my sister and I would tell each other, pleased but never truly surprised that they would have showed up at the same places.
There was a girl with a silver jacket and spiky hair who went everywhere with a long-haired blonde who may or may not have been her girlfriend. And there were a couple "Emo" types, naturally, with their horn rim glasses and vintage clothing store togs.
While I was dancing, I looked across the street and saw a dog that looked like a male version of my dog, Una, pink nose and all. I had to go say "hi" to him and pet him. His owner said that he was part Vizsla.
The very last song, Alan Jackson was on the microphone and he dedicated it to "the dancers."
Afterwards, I went up and told him it was a great set, as always. He said, "Thank you. Good to see you here."
We met up then with my sister's friend Jen and walked up to Memorial Field for the performance by a group called Strange Fruit. They strap themselves to four-meter high poles and then they sway and dance and perform amazing tricks, dressed in suits and stylized evening gowns, faces painted white.
We loved Strange Fruit even though, when you thought about it, they were really mimes on sticks.
After the performance we met up with my sister's boyfriend again and debated whether to go to the party. It was on the far end of the student district on College Ave. But it wasn't so much the prospect of the walk out there but the walk back that made us think twice. We finally decided that between the four of us, we could split a cab when we were ready to leave. So we set out.
As soon as we got to the address, we heard voices in the backyard and walked around back. The first sign it would be a cool party was the bonfire, which was greatly welcome. Down in Philly, it's almost as hot at night as it is during the day, and I was no longer used to the kind of summers that require sweaters at night (though, fortunately, I'd been clever enough to bring one along).
The next sign it was a cool party was that they were projecting some kind of a movie on the white stucco wall of the building next door. Since it was being projected from a second floor balcony, at an angle, the images was distorted. Even so, it was only a few minutes before I realized it was "A Clockwork Orange." They had the sound turned off and were played alt rock music, for an ultimately strange and wonderful effect.
The most serendipitous moment was when they were playing "I Got High" by Afroman during the reprogramming sequence, where they're flashing images in front of Alex's eyes.
We agreed it might have been better if they'd been showing either something psychedelic, like "Yellow Submarine" or image rich, like "2001." Either that or something silly and cheesy, like a "Godzilla" movie. The problem with "A Clockwork Orange," which you don't normally consider, is that a lot of it is psychological. There are long moments where people just stand on the screen, not doing anything.
In the meantime, Jen was teaching me some dance moves she'd learned in her African dance class. We got a small circle dancing for a short while. Some of the dancers were there, and they were happy to learn.
The host of the party came out on the back porch with a megaphone. He said, "There are three 'P's" to remember: party, piñata and late night porn." Cheers rose up from the lawn.
They brought out a piñata and blindfolded one of the guests. She managed to hit it after a couple tries, and candy went everywhere, Tootsie rolls and hard candies.
That's when I noticed the police officer. He was talking to the host of the party and writing something on a notepad. I leaned in a little closer to hear what he was saying. "Just tone it down," he said.
Surprisingly, they didn't turn the music off when he left but just turned it down a notch. After the police left, they brought out a second piñata. This one was demolished by a muscular party guest, and it had far more candy in it. I scooped some up to have later.
By now, it was getting late and although we'd talked about checking out Sister Hazel, who were playing into the wee hours in front of Old Main (part of the strategy to keep students from rioting, like they did in the late '90s), none of us could remember what songs they played.
I tried to convince everyone to stay around for the late night porn, but nobody seemed terribly interested. Everyone was tired but me.
We got a cab and headed back to my sister's place. Turns out the cabbie was the former roommate of one of my brother's close friends. We caught up on old times and when we got out, gave him a fat tip.
To be continued...
In tomorrow's installment, Rasta-robics.
Other Arts Fest entries:
Moral:
If you're projecting porn without a permit, you should avoid announcing
it on a megaphone.
Copyright
2003 by Alyce Wilson
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