Dreams, Carnaval, Open Mic Night, etc.

Last night I dreamed that my parents were looking for kittens, but could never find one suitable. So they decided to clone our old cat, Tatertot, which, for some reason, made me really angry. I kept insisting that it wasn't fair to get the same cat as before, but then he was too cute to stand against and I went with it.

There hasn't been a lot going on lately, in the way of school, and then suddenly I have tests and presentations and a lot of Italian to study this week. My history test will be one question on "a character" from any time in the reign of Louis XV, which I think is a kind of ridiculous topic, considering we're talking about a 60ish year time period, with multiple wars on two continents and a constant stream of changing financial ministers and foreign allies, not to mention mistresses, legitimate and illegitimate children, etc. We'll see how it goes. Apparently the French kids are also being tested over five random dates from the time period, but that's "too hard" for us. Gee, I'm glad we're reduced to one question, since the probability that one of us foreigners won't understand any given sentence isn't at all a factor. Sure seems like more questions would be a boon.

There. Boon. Since when did I say that kind of thing? I get more colloquial every day I spend here.

Yesterday was the Carnaval, which turned out to be a very slow and somewhat ill-managed parade through downtown, starting just on the other side of the Pont de Pierre. I went with Danielle and Alex, and when the sun was shining the weather was agreeable. The kids wore costumes, mostly of different kinds of animal heads crafted from papier mâché and bicycle helmets over suits, for some reason. There were giant dancing puppets weaving through the crowd, supported by harnesses that their puppeteers wore. They were the most interesting part, to me, which I guess is evident since the overwhelming majority of my photos are of their gnarly faces and awkward limbs.

There were bands aplenty. Marching drum corps and brass bands for the most part. One of those had accordionists, too -- loads of them. It wouldn't have been a French event if there hadn't been, I guess.


There were kids everywhere with bags of purchased confetti and cans of silly string. They mostly shot the performers, with a particular penchant for shooting the puppets' faces, which was funny because their puppeteers had to sort of bend over and get someone from the crowd or the parade to take the silly string off. I ended up with so much confetti in my hair that my bedroom floor is now multi-colored, and I was shot by many a giggling child. Some of the brass players had put pantyhose over the bells of their instruments, presumably to keep out confetti and silly string goo, but it there is something quite ridiculous looking about pantyhose feet suspended over the bell of a tuba.

There weren't as many spectators as I expected, possibly because the parade moved impossibly slow, having to stop at red lights because the traffic wasn't blocked off, and moving at a leisurely pace even when it was moving forward. We stopped quite a few times, and there were still performances by the bands while everyone sort of stood still and talked. Lots of the musicians were managing to roll cigarettes and carry instruments at the same time, and many were holding cigarettes for quick drags during measures of rest.

People came out onto their balconies to watch, and to dance. We followed the parade only as far as Hotel de Ville, next to our apartment, which is a maybe seven minute walk extended into an hour and a half of parade-time.

Last night was open mic night at the pub downstairs, and the two guys who are in charge of bringing amps and mics and guitars were the only musicians to show up, for once. Usually there's a line of people waiting to play, but this time they were basically just playing a couple hours of covers and some of their own material, asking around every few minutes to see if there were any musicians. One of them convinced me to play, and I played "No Children" by the Mountain Goats and "Goodnight Elisabeth" by Counting Crows, though that second went less well than the first. It was an interesting experience. I'm proud of having had the guts to do it, though I don't think I sounded very good. One of the things I noticed is that it takes a lot of concentration to continue singing into a microphone -- not looking at your chord grips while playing a stranger's guitar is somewhat difficult and complicates the situation.