Wednesday evening Irish step resumed after the summer break. But instead of 10 am on Saturday, class is now at 7:30 pm on Wednesdays. As someone who's usually in bed by 9:00 I was a bit concerned about whether I'd have the energy for this, but having slept through almost the entire day (more on this later) I certainly did.

About half of the core group from the previous three sessions is back and it was great to see everyone again. There are a lot of new people who also seem very cool, so that's nice. I had not been practicing as frequently as I should have been (especially toward the end of the break) but previously tricky stuff came more easily; it's good to know that my brain had been consolidating everything we learned during the break instead of forgetting it all.

Tuesday evening was Weird Al Yankovic, which, it goes without saying, was fabulous. As a bonus he performed at a venue that lets lawn ticket holders bring their own food and drinks, and I cannot tell you how wonderful this is. You can get to the venue before doors, grab a good spot once you're in, and just relax and enjoy a massive picnic until the show starts instead of going hungry and thirsty for 2+ hours or cursing the world because they're somehow charging $40 for a 12 ounce can of the shittiest domestic "beer" and heat lamp tater tots.

We went with M.O., a party member from Oldest D&D Game (alas his wife stayed home with a recovering kiddo), and two of the Geek BBQ crew (a third had a seat in the arena, so we never managed to catch up him) and spent the time between doors and the opener chatting D&D and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The opener was Puddles Pity Party, who we were vaguely aware of as a previous opening act for Primus. He was very entertaining and I would definitely see him again. He has stage presence, a great voice, and a wickedly sly sense of musical humor. For instance, he added little musical quotes from Disturbed's The Sickness to his cover of Little Roger and the Goosebumps' Stairway to Gilligan's Island...but you had to already know Disturbed to catch them; he did not point out what they were. There were a bunch of other moments like that, too, and I just really appreciate people with the confidence to trust that the audience will either get the punch line without rubbing their nose in it, or enjoy the performance without realizing there was a joke at all. I'm sure there were a bunch of other musical references I did miss, and I enjoyed the show anyway.

And then, holy crap, Weird Al. This was the third time we've seen him live and he just gets better. He is so talented, and such a consummate performer, and you can tell he is having the time of his life on stage. He opened with Tacky--a personal favorite--and things just got better from there. I was really hoping he'd play Foil, which I've never seen live but thought there was a good chance would be on the set list as Lorde has a new album out. But alas, it was not to be. (Maybe it's too expensive to perform now that Lorde has a new album out?) But he did do Mission Statement, Party in the CIA, Smells Like Nirvana, and Dare To Be Stupid, which I loved given that Devo were local heroes when I was growing up. Then he performed Fat, complete with the costume, at which point the GC turned to me and said, "...This has not aged well, has it?"

And no, it hasn't. I know it's historically one of your biggest hits, dude, but maybe retire it?

Anyway, after that he played eBay, Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me, White & Nerdy (for which I popped), and Amish Paradise. The encore included Yoda and The Saga Begins (for which the Geek BBQ crewmembers popped). And then it was time to go home.

We got back to the car and out of the venue in under 15 minutes--record time, compared to the hour+ it's taken us after previous shows we've seen there. We drove M.O. to congenial place to grab an uber sans surge pricing and then headed home, congratulating ourselves on how early it all was.

( Haha. )

Which was why I slept through most of Wednesday. So that was a bit of a damper on an otherwise fabulous show, but at least we ended up waiting somewhere relatively safe and came out of it having lost nothing more than several hours out of of our lives and a good night's sleep.

これで以上です。

I can't believe the week is half over already. I got an indulgent amount of reading done over the weekend, so now I am writing it up.

What I Finished Reading This Week

The Beat Cop – Michael O'Malley
Being a biography of Francis O'Neill, who went from 17 year old immigrant from rural Cork to well-regarded chief of police in early 20th century Chicago. It's a generally well-written and entertaining read, in no small part because O'Neill led a fascinating life: the youngest son of a petty Irish landlord, he fled Ireland to avoid being forced into the priesthood, sailed the world from Britain to Japan to the Kingdom of Hawai'i, cut lumber in Georgia, herded livestock in the Sierras, taught in rural prairie schools, got shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, promoted the first Black policeman to the rank of desk sergeant in Chicago (and possibly the US), protected Emma Goldman(!!!) from violent interrogation after her arrest, and more. He also published O'Neill's Music of Ireland, a compilation whose influence on the modern understanding of "Irish music" would be difficult to exaggerate.

The genius of this book is how O'Malley centers all of this in the context of the times: the collusion between English colonizers and the Irish gentry that drove mass emigration to the US, the late 19th and early 20th century globalization that redefined people's sense of self from inhabitants of a town or region (Tralibane, County Kerry) to a citizens of a country or members of a race (Irish, Lithuanian), economic shifts from individual to aggregated production, and how all of that created drives to categorize, label, standardize, and define, whether in the field of policing, in grading the quality of grain or meat, or in collecting and taxonomizing heretofore hyperlocal music. O'Malley also makes a pretty convincing case that O'Neill desired to collect and categorize "pure" Irish music in part to create an "Irish" identity that sidestepped emotionally or politically fraught issues: his family's role in exacerbating the famine; his position in the graft-driven patronage networks of the Irish immigrant and Chicago political communities; his police duty to protect the interests of the politically and economically powerful, often to the detriment of fellow immigrants; his opinion on whether Ireland should be independent or not; his opinion on whether the struggle for Irish independence should be violent or not. And O'Malley is not writing a hagiography: he readily calls out the disingenuous aspects of O'Neill's memoirs, his abuses of power to collect tunes, his support for torture as an interrogation tool, his mistreatment of a mentally disabled musician.

But several elements keep this really good book from being a great one. One or more glaring typos occur in every chapter and the otherwise excellent endnotes. O'Malley gets very basic, fundamental facts wrong (boy howdy, jigs are not "usually in 3/4 time"), and his efforts at academic analysis can stray into the ridiculous: he spins an entire metaphysical theory out of Irish English speakers "having tunes" versus English or American English speakers "knowing tunes". But this is just a function of how possession (including of knowledge) works in Gaelic languages. It's a grammatical artifact, not a damning indication that O'Neill policed, colonized, and dispossessed anyone of "the community's music". Again, these are significant irritations that keep a good book from being excellent, but The Beat Cop is an entertaining and fascinating read despite them. I'm going to buy a personal copy because I will definitely read this one again.


What I Am Currently Reading

Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
Selected as a beach read and eminently suitable for that purpose.

The Story of Irish Dance – Helen Brennan
Surprisingly well-written, scholarly, and serious given the cheesy cover.

[.....] – [.....]
Being the second draft of a friend's novel, which I and many from the GeekBBQ crew are beta reading.


What I'm Reading Next

This week I picked up Caged by Joe McKean.

これで以上です。