Notes on Last Night

Have you ever seen a punk band, a green-robed choir, a children's Irish step dance troupe, a conservatory string section, a bagpipe police band, and a mad violinist assembled on one stage? It's an awesome sight.

The stages of woman: tween dresses with enormous care, wears a coat because she is forced to, is warm, looks cute when coat comes off; teen dresses with enormous care, refuses to wear a coat, is cold, looks cute throughout; adult dresses with no care, chooses to wear coat, is warm, looks like a mom, doesn't care.

Local identity has its drawbacks, bigotry and xenophobia among them. But I'm still glad my kids have one, especially when they are expressing it loudly in song.

I'm guessing the music I've recently thought about going to see and didn't--Magnetic Fields, Steve Earle, Jonathan Richman, Elton John--would have made life better. The music I finally did see definitely made life better.

Is it worth asking why mosh pits and crowd surfing persist in 2008, over 30 years after "Anarchy in the UK"? I mean, sure they're fun, but doesn't this generation want its own cultural manifestations?

There's an annual show that we and the Lucy family try to go to every year, and every year there's a problem. Someone is sick, someone has to work, someone is in crisis. Even in the car on the way there, I was sure it wasn't going to happen, that we were going to get in an accident, or my phone would ring and we would have to turn around. But we made it, for the first time ever, which I am determined to take as a good omen. Unfortunately, the Lucy family did not make it, as per unfortunate tradition, but next year...next year we'll all be there.