SO Santa Fe Saturday!

We had a new drum beat in African dance class today that made for fun and freedom (not to mention a bit of flailing around!). This is a real stretch for me (pun intended), but it's such a release not to have to think about anything except for putting my legs and arms in the right places. And that's absolutely all I do, no thoughts about anything else at all. It's a bit expensive, $10 a class, but worth it for the exercise and challenge of putting myself out there with all the young girls who can just throw their bodies around so freely. LOTS of fun!

Class today was followed by something else very unusual too: Phil Kline's Unsilent Night. This is a music performance piece for tape cassettes (back then) and boom boxes (now, along with MP3 players and I-phones) started in NYC 18 years ago and performed in a number of cities around the world. It was a walk around downtown Santa Fe with all these music-playing devices, each randomly assigned one of the four CDs or downloads that make up this musical composition. It was really quite beautiful and evocative (especially in the parking garage), very winter-holiday sounding, nothing cacophonous like new music can be. If you've ever listed to Hearts of Space, you'll recognize this type of music. I enjoyed it (Edward sat it out in the library, it was just too cold for skinny men), although it was sad that only 15 people showed up to participate. As the name suggests, it should have taken place at night, but the city would not grant a permit for that. It was organized here by a group called Santa Fe New Music, that operates on a real shoestring. I got involved with them by giving them free rooms for their musicians from time to time. Since then, we've been invited to all sorts of quirky things. Last year they brought in this killer accordianist Guy Klucevsek, who was just mind-blowing, his fingers flew over the buttons and keys, punctuated with stomps, yells and banging on the box - I loved it! I still can't play my pretty little Italian box, sigh, I have such respect and envy now for the Sunday morning Yankovic polka crowd that we laughed at back then.

Snow is predicted for tomorrow, I'm glad I got my laundry on and off the line today. Tomorrow, Jessica, Evelina and I go to the Nutcracker, another lucky freebie (more rooms to give away) that we are making into a tradition. I just love that Tchaikovsky, especially at the end of the first act when the snowflakes fall!