Silent Movie at the Early Music Festival

I hope my readers had a great summer weekend. Friday evening Travalon and I went to the little restaurant in the Lakeview Mall, called Elie’s, for fish fry. It was very similar to our neighborhood place, the Northside Restaurant. I figured that if you could see the lights of the mall from the Monona Terrace, it only stands to reason that you can see the Monona Terrace from the mall, and you can! I still want to try the café there, and there is a shop in the mall where you can make pottery and fused glass, which might be a fun activity for us Rosary Ladies – I couldn’t interest Travalon in it. After dinner he and I went to the East Side Club, which was lively that evening – there was a middle-aged woman in a cowboy hat and boots doing the hula hoop on the dock! It’s like everyone’s communal backyard.

Saturday Travalon and I met Rich and some other people for coffee downtown, then Travalon took a walk with Rodney to the Union Terrace while Rich and I went to a free organ concert at the Overture Center. After the concert Travalon kind of wanted to see Art Fair on the Square, but it was super crowded, so he and I went to Tenney Park and walked out onto the pier. In the evening Tiffy came to town, and she and I went to Kabul’s for dinner before the first Early Music concert. It was a group called New York Polyphony, but guess what? The countertenor is from Oconomowoc! How cool is that? They were amazing. Afterwards Tiffy, the Daughter of Denii, and I went to Portabella to enjoy the lovely evening and an equally lovely pitcher of white sangria. I got home kind of late, but Travalon was out later, at a concert put on by most of the members of the Grateful Dead. He recorded “Dire Wolf” for me, and it looked like a really fun concert, with lots of hippies in tie-dye throwing a beach ball around.

Yesterday after Mass, Tiffy, Travalon, and I went to Estrellon for brunch, then Travalon and I walked around Art Fair on the Square. (We did not check out Art Fair off the Square, since that was absolutely jam packed, probably because the art there is way more affordable.) In the late afternoon I met Tiffy, the Daughter of Denii, and some other people for beer at Mr. Brews, then we went to Estrellon for tapas, but the others left so it was just the three of us. After dinner we went to the Newberry Consort performance at the Early Music Festival – I’m not sure if it would be called a “concert,” because what they were doing was providing background music to a 1912 movie about Queen Elizabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt. The movie was in poor shape and was sort of odd to our modern sensibilities, like the queen’s death was so hilarious we were all howling although I doubt that was the response they were going for when they made the movie. The Elizabethan music the group played along with the movie was wonderful, though. This year I am once again just attending concerts at the Early Music Festival, not taking classes. This is mostly because there is too much going on at work right now to take a week off, but also because I am getting lazy in my old age. Before the concert on Saturday we saw my OTHER choir director, and he asked if I am singing less, and if I am still writing masterpieces like “Polyhymnia.” The answer is that all my creative endeavors have been suffering. He said Travalon is my song now, which is very poetic, and true.

Famous Hat