"pick-nick"

Tonight I went to a picnic. Why didn't I bring my camera? It was dumb. I didn't know how nice it would be. You go behind the Bahnhof (train station) and through the neighborhood called Gundeli to Margarethenpark. There's a open green space surrounded by trees, and a playground and fountain on your right, and a path leading uphill. You go up, and keep going up, to the left, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of fields of grass, and cultivated strawberries, and you're above the town and isolated from it by trees, and something else, like quiet.

In the group the following countries were represented: France, Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Colombia, and the US, of course. A generous mix of French, German, Spanish and English was spoken, and many delicious French cheeses were eaten. I even tried some hard salami made out of duck. I know. Since it is light so late, we didn't even meet until 8; we stayed in the field until 10:30, and it was only just getting too dark and cold to be out in the grass. Then another two hours were spent at the hostess' house, where some neighbor Argentinians joined the group. The South American contingent sang us songs and played skilled guitar while the rest of us drank red wine in admiration for their talents. What an international city I live in.

In other news, the river seems to have quieted down, and the weather has certainly heated up, so there may be some river-swimming in my future. We'll see.

To avoid a photo-less post I'm including this poppy from the botanical garden. A present for you.

smoke machine

Last night, I went out. 

I know, it was totally crazy.  But I wasn't going anywhere new; the Werkraum Warteck, which houses Druckwerk, has a show space on the ground floor called Sudhaus, which basically means brew house.  They still make beer, I had some, it was light, of course, but pretty good.  The Sudhaus is a nice space for seeing music; in the back there's a balcony with a bar, foosball, and a few tables, then the main area has the stage and lots of standing room (grooving room ha ha).  I went to see a rock band called The Besnard Lakes.  Here's a representational video of them from the Jimmy Fallon show:

I had heard of them, I think, through the SXSW information mill last month.  I'm sure if I were to attend their show at the Independent, in SF, which will happen in a month or so, I'd be somewhere in the middle back, I'd barely be able to see, and I'd have drunk, oxygen-deprived girls fainting all around me (like at the St Vincent show I went to at the Great American Music Hall back in February).  Last night I started at the front of the crowd, right below the stage, with machine-fog and drums dominating the perspective.  The drummer had a righteous beard, which must have helped his sound.  After moving around a bit, I ended up by one of the walls, still close to the stage, but with the sound more diffuse; it was close enough to feel involved, and far enough away to preserve the mystique of the band members (too close, and they look too human).  I'm a firm believer in maintaining some distance from the music.  Ironic, no?  At any rate, the show was great.  Just the right kind of music to be hearing for the first time: loud and melodic. 

Riding home on my bike was nothing short of magnificent.  Cold night air, no cars, going as fast as possible.