they started at 5 am. building. a stage. in the street outside our building. i didn't notice this part, because i was in the back room, trying not to be insomniatic. one of the benefits of not sleeping in this room - which was the bedroom before - is that we are not subjected to the 9 am disco that wafts up ... or rather, assails us from the windows of one of the apartments below us. that window opens onto a pretty big airshaft - which is not quite big enough. i usually only hear bass, but this morning i had the window open. the nine am disco started promptly. hearing the music - loud, monotonous, unappealing "dance music" is no better than just hearing the bass. at eleven, i noticed another sound. they had finished setting up the stage in front, and were soundchecking the speakers. sometimes getting it from both ends is absolutely no fun.
but i've never been able to sit in my window on the third floor and watch a concert before. three bands, even. it's some ... something i can only find information about in hungarian. my friend, esther, says it's probably a memorial concert for my i-book. i <ahem> got upset and threw it out the window a few weeks ago. very amusing story for my writer's group. *different story*
(focus, staz)
But today, i smiled as i was watching The Hooligans perform recycled (but original) punk rock in recycled (but brand new) punk fashion (they hadn't even been conceived *of* yet, much less been conceived on that legendary june day in 1976 when the aggression that launched a thousand bands was performing in manchester.) It wasn't the band itself. (they were adorable.) and it wasn't the fans, really, either - it was a street festival, so there were adorable grandmas and grandpas, and adorable people walking their adorable dogs, and adorable housewives with adorable children ... have i mentioned that i *love* hungary? ... as well as an adorable group of people who'd pushed their way to the front to shake their fists and immitate something along the lines of a possible pogo while they sang along to the anthems of what appeared to be their favorite band. there was an adorable group of people inside the retaining fence, carrying on an adorable hungarian ritual. (fun to watch, hell to be caught up in.) it started out with a couple. and then two more people came to join them - the women got a kiss on each cheek, from each other and from the men - the men shook hands. they found themselves in a kind of a line, as they shifted attention to what appeared to be their friends onstage. then another couple came - and the line turned into a bona fide receiving line. kisskiss, kisskiss, kisskiss, kisskiss went the woman - and the man: shake, kisskiss, kisskiss, shake. each time someone new arrived, the ritual was repeated. in the course of the show, the queue became twelve people long.
but that wasn't it.
so the people in this line were all rocker types - the men had long black hair and tattoos and boots and studded muscle shirts and the women ... were much less interesting. but someone had a *kid* - this little tiny four-year-old rocker boy who just *loved* the hooligans. he was a dancing, bouncy, ricocheting bundle of energy - uncontainable. the excitement finally got the better of him, and he gave up trying to do anything involving coordination, and just started running up and down the length of the fence, where another, smaller boy (he couldn't have been 3 yet) was making careful steps away from the careful gaze of his adorable father. they ran along the fence together, and the bigger boy accidentally fell down. the younger boy sat down, too. they were gazing at each other, and giggling, and came running back toward the stage. eventually, the rocker kid got distracted, or something - but this went on for a good while (in toddler time) - the smaller boy went looking for him, but couldn't get past the fence. couldn't find him, either. from my vantage point three stories up, i could see that johnny rotten junior wasn't hiding from him, or anything - he'd simply found something more interesting to do. he was dancing with some girls. BIG girls. eventually, the younger boy ran too far too fast, and his father swooped him up.
it was an absolutely adorable interaction.
i wish i was as detail-oriented as certain people, so i could convey that part correctly. <g>
