these people

There are some times, not very many times, but some times, when you meet people, as a musician, other musicians, and you fit together so so perfect, like hands folded, like of course, this is what it means, to play together, not play with, but play together; and they are with you anywhere you go, anywhere you take the phrase, and you are with them, the same, because it's a dance, but no one's leading and no one's following, you're just all dancing, together, like breathing, or knowing, and there are no sheets, no scores, because you're not music reproducers, you're music makers, right now, this and this and this, and really you're not even music makers, but music maker, one, together, and we could have gone on like this forever.

Lea, Guido, Francois, cello, violin, bass, thank you for reminding me, for playing with me, for playing together.

X e

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le recordation

This week's international viola caper = a week recording with parisienne singer-songwriter Pollyanna. In her parents' disneyland for emma home half an hour outside paristown.

This house!

A) Has a pool. Which is essentially my private pool (pollyanna tells me, over one of our typical four course, two wine meal breaks that her parents bought the house _despite_ the pool...) and i swim every morning, after an exploratory run.

B) Has a fossil room. Set up like a museum exhibition, with thousands (3000 says Pollyanna's father, though this is the same number he uses to describe his wine collection so perhaps it's just french for 'very big number') of hand collection fossils and geological specimens. I love this. I hang out here while i wait for the shower to become free.

C) Has a wall-mounted exhibit of gigantic butterflies, beetles and spiders, mostly collected in Guyana. I love this too, but some of the other musicians do not.

D) Has two wine cellars, with those 3000 bottles. Choosing for dinner (twice, as the cheese course requires a seperate red) is intense, but worth it.

E) Has hundreds upon hundreds of panpipes. (3000?) Pollyanna's father is a Bolivian music enthusiast and performer. He and his wife are away for the first few days at a festival for such things in sweden. Which is quite far from Bolivia.

And it's my job to hang out here. My job! Thanks Cherie.

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warm fusion

Oh, you Germans! Stop being so nice! Seriously. You guys are off the nice hook.

You remember fusion festival from last year, when i played with babel? On the former East German Soviet air base? Well, i came back, only this year as a solo act, The Waitress for the bees.

And, even though wake up was at 2.30am, for the heathrow bus at 3.25am and then going and going until my gig at 18.30 (that's how they say it...fitting ,airbase and all), and beyound to the point where roadie help and good friend support Sue and I are squished into some kind of dance party made to look like a russian grandma (baba?)'s house, everyone was so damn nice that tiredness just didn't make sense.

Like the shuttle driver who drove 3 hours just to pick us up at the airport and bring us to the fest. Just us ,no other artists. Or the hipster kids who bought more CDs and sat/stood in silence and listened, tent full. Sat and listened?! At a festival? And all the free food. Including three different kinds of perogies. We're not in the UK anymore...

But, really, the best, nicest thing, was the lake. There's a bus that runs every half hour that will take you ,in all your festival stinkiness, to a beautiful, warm, ducklingful lake. Swimming and music. Best ever.

Thanks fusion. See you next year...?

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Lushfest.

The Thursday before Canada Day is not just the Thursday before Canada Day if you are a lucky employee of the hand-made soaps and cosmetic company, LUSH. No, no, in that case, it is also LUSHFEST! A festival, an entire, big! (three stages! Silent disco! Two different ice-cream vans!)festival put on exclusively for Lush employees from all over the world, from Vancouver to Dubai (to the UK. All of them, to the UK for this festival).

I don't work at Lush, but I do work as a freelance violist, so I, too, got to experience this. I was hired in to play, along with the other beans, with the Nightjar Orchestra (we all wore matching red shirts with nightjars on them), a band that composed and performed the soundtracks they have playing in the Lush spa when you go to get your massage or pedicure. Lots of viola required for that kind of relaxation, of course.

I got so much free soap. I got to make my very own bath bomb, filled with whatever I wanted. I filled mine with christmas holly and vanilla pods. Because I love christmas and vanilla pods are expensive. I got a giant block of something that looks like chocolate but isn't edible, really. Instead it can dye your hair, somehow. And lots more.

What an amazing thing for a company to do for its employees. If I'm honest, I wasn't a huge fan of Lush, it was too smelly for me, generally. But I'm impressed by this. If, for some unexpected reason, I ever need to buy soap that looks like food or soap that explodes in your bath, I'll be happy to give them my custom.