electrified and acoustic

I've been wanting to see Pilobolus for y-e-a-r-s. I don't know why it hasn't happened until now, but for months I've been looking forward to the free show scheduled by Riverfront Recapture. But the weather forecast was very rainy and they changed the show to indoors at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. We were lucky enough to get a set of tickets -- and this is really lucky because they ran out of tix in less than 45 minutes -- and wow, what a show! Pilobolus defies being pigeonholed into one category. It's art, dance, human sculpture, comedy, drama, acrobatics, ballet -- modern performance art. The music spanned genres including Yo la Tengo, Debussy, and Primus. The individual performances flowed from tender to raucous to jaw-dropping to elegant to electrified. I found a video clip that gives you a glimpse into a show, but it barely scratches the surface of what a live performance holds for its audience.

If Saturday was electrified, then Sunday was the acoustic version of a supremely soul-satisfying weekend. The entire afternoon and evening were spent at the 23rd annual end-of-summer party at my mom's and sister's house, where we were surrounded by nearly 100 good folks, neighbors and friends, most of whom we've known for all of those 23 years and some just a little bit longer. It's seriously cool to have been a part of the original flock of adolescents at these parties and still see many of the same people show up year after year, many of us now with our own munchkins there to have a similar blast.