Remainders: several recollections of "The Best 1.7 Weeks Ever"

This really was a phenomenal 1.7 weeks. So good, really, that I was unable to get around to blogging about its goings on.

• The Ann Arbor Art Fair came and went. Sure, it ain’t art. You’re danged right it ain’t fair. I’ll say nothing of the prices, the traffic, or the suburbanites-with-strollers theme that the event seems to have adopted for every year I’ve been part of it. But! the Art Fair does have two good points: sidewalk fairs and concession stands. I picked up a jacket, two shirts, a t-shirt, a pair of pants, Japanese fried noodles, pad thai, chicken on a stick, and probably more over the course of three days for somewhere south of $50. Note to insidious yuppie plotters: fifty bucks to keep me fat ‘n’ clothed for a year is all it takes to keep me quiet.
• Plus, my parents came down for one of the days.
• Just returned from Chicago with Jessica, where we attended the Pitchfork Music Festival. My take on it: I always say I’m too old and crabby for live music, and that’s largely because the live music I tend to take in considers itself too hip and detached for stage presence. Throw me into a two-day, 95-degree festival, though, and things change, for some reason. I did enjoy it, with special regard to Glenn Kotche, actually. Didn’t stick around for Os Mutantes, Sunday’s headliners, as I had to wake up at five the next morning to catch my train back home, and I’m just a half-assed music snob in the first place.
• Missed the Mountain Goats and Matmos. Crap.
• Best part of Yo La Tengo’s blah setlist: hearing tiny Ira Kaplan say his band’s new album’s title out loud.
• Okay, and the best news for last: I’ve got a second job now, tutoring the LSAT. Things are looking good!