02/07/05 - goodnight clocks & goodnight socks

It was one fucking magical thing after another this weekend. We had four shows in a row: New Haven CT, Philly PA, Providence RI and Portland Maine. The shows got more and more intense each night as brian got over his coldflu and we got more and more warmed up. Regina Spektor is my new hero and I can't wait to tour with her some more. She is just as amazing in person as she seems on record and I was onyl pissed that I never actually got to watch an entire set she played; since she was on immediatley before us we had to be getting ready. But what a soundtrack to hear through the walls, the girl is just on FIRE. We share lots of stories and made fast friends and she and grace, her tour manager, stayed over at my house on saturday and sunday nights after the shows. Saturday was a massive convergence: David J (from Bauhaus) was stayong over Saturday night as well (he was actually camped out here at the cloud club (pope sacrificed his bed) for the entire length of our mini-tour but we only got to see him that one night as fate would have it...he was in town becasue he'd composed some music for some Beckett shorts that were going up in a theater right across the street from us).

Anyway.....saturday night, late...still buzzing from the show and looking into my bedroom and seeing regina playing chopin on my piano while david j stood there listening with his eyes closed...delirious talks and hilarious jokes even though we were all ready to collapse was just......fantasy. life as it should be. all friends, all art, all music, all love, all the time.

This morning regina woke us up and we showed her the top floor of the house (a must) and we blew bubbles with the blue robot-bubble man i got for christmas and we ate muffins and drank tea and I gave regina a bunch of music I thought she would like....Peter Jefferies and Legendary Pink Dots and Neutral Milk Hotel (all of which she's never heard of). We agreed that The Arcade Fire was deserving of the attention. Then we sorrowfully parted ways. Regina left roses on the piano and David J left a little doll.

Having a support act like regina that I could relate to was such a breath of fresh air...I must say it can get tiring to play with rock band after rock band and feel like I have nothing to say to the railthin shaggy-haired brit-poppish singer next to me, even though we're doing superficially similar things.

The brigade performers blew my mind.......it's so amazing watching everyone getting more and more creative and confident and preparing more and more for the shows. Highlights included the gorgeous almost-naked girls in providence and portland who offered their bodies up as a sacrifice to the general public as blank white canvases, the cast of wonderland in new haven, the candy girl in philly (and pacofish the stiltwalking flag-giver-outer outside, who gave me my very own avril flag), the insanely gorgeous living statues in portland and providence and the 10-second date. It's working. It's happening.

Speaking of Avril, we fianlly finished editing the first installment in a new art form I call "Karaoke Verite". Nobody knows quite what to make of it (always a good sign), and so I'll let you judge for yourself and say nothing: http://www.dresdendolls.com/video (it's the video above coin-operated boy).

love
a

recommended reading of the week: "branded: the buying and selling of teenage america" - by alissa quart.
frightening and edifying. makes me want to burn down malls and hug all children.