Saturday night adventure squad

This is Brian Hettmansperger blogging live from Soma Coffee on Chelsea Merta’s username.

I know this is my first post of the evening, but I’ve been busy. Here’s the blow by blow.

7:25-I walk past the Buskirk and there is a big-ass line.  I must see what all the fuss is about. The Anat Cohen Quartet are playing inside. They play lounge style jazz and Anat plays both the clarinet and saxophone. The Buskirk is a great place to see a show (especially during Lotus) because you can actually SIT and enjoy the band. I was way up in the balcony and was memorized by how each member of the band fed off the other. Sometimes Anat would leave the stage completely and let the piano, stand-up bass, and drums do the talking. She’s a great clarinetist but she was at her best with the saxophone. I am a sucker for a sax.

8:15-I headed to the Classic Touch Limousine Tent to see Dhoad Gypsies. I caught a glimpse of them last night, and I made a note to myself to see them again. They were fabulous. At their core, they are a percussion band with at least 5 different drums on stage at a time. The best part of the show comes at the end when Munshi enters the stage. He is a showman in the classical sense.  From balancing a ceramic jug full of water on his head (I saw him empty it backstage, it must have weighed 15-20 lbs) to breathing fire, DG really know how to spark the crowd. Backstage afterwards, Chelsea interviewed him and the band in Hindi (she told me how to say “good job” in Hindi but I won’t attempt to spell it here) and talked to them for quite a while. Hindi? That’s only one of the languages Chelsea speaks. I am so glad she is blogging with me and look for her Lotus Festival story in The IDS Monday.

9:15-Chelsea and I head to First Presbyterian Church to check out Chirgilchin, or “the throat singers” as they’ve been dubbed by Lotus goers.  Chirgilchin hails from Tuva, which is from Asia. I have never seen or heard anything like it and was glad to be in an intimate setting with them. Basically, they specialize in creating multiple notes in their throats at the same time (imagine a bassoon and clarinet; now imagine those sounds emitting simultanously from the same mouth at the same time.  It was worth seeing for sure and if you want, they have workshops on throat singing in California (in the worldly sense, that aint so far, right?)

Ok, so long for now, Soma is closing I’m going to try to catch the end of 17 hippies and then just wander.

Peace,

Brian Hettmansperger