I Swear I'm OK

The one-month paternity leave I'm taking from work was supposed to give me more time. More time to get things done around the house, more time to help V get settled in with the baby, more time to catch up with things now that the hard part's over. This hasn't proved to be the case, and I guess if you've been checking in regularly to see if I've updated, you know this to be true. (And for everyone who's emailed me in the past couple of weeks, I'm really sorry I haven't e-mailed back. It is honestly really great to hear from you, and I'll catch up when I get a minute.)

An awful lot has happened here that I've been meaning to blog about, and I've even "written" a number of posts in my head about the World Cup, French movie theaters, Bastille Day, the heat wave, the price of beer, the kafkaesque trials of obtaining the proper papers for a child born in France, et cetera, et cetera. I'll get around to these eventually. In the meantime, here are a couple of snaps I took on the day of the Fete de la Musique, a couple of days before Tadpole was born.

You thought only Carrboro celebrated the Fete? Au contraire. Here in Lyon, free live music all over town, all day, all night. Great, huh? Well, not exactly. See this picture?

These folks are enjoying the smooth mellow sounds of two guys drawing a sizable crowd doing Lionel Richie covers... complete with singalongs to "All Night Long". (Hey, jambo jambo!) For this shot, it was difficult to hold the camera still while simultaneously jamming a Phillips screwdriver through my eardrums.

I should note also that it should be punishable by flogging for anyone of caucasian descent to cover Bob Marley's "Redemption Song".

OK, here's another band (pic 2).
They're playing mostly straight-ahead bar rock I don't recognize, either originals or covers of French songs I don't know. Not terrible, and the open-topped bus is a nice gimmick (probably makes the load-out a lot easier, too).

Here's the rub. Both pictures were taken from the same spot on my balcony. And at the same time. What I didn't get a picture of was a third band, this one doing Circle Jerks-style 80's SoCal hardcore, on a side street between the two. The effect was something like one of those Flaming Lips concept albums of four discs meant to be played simultaneously.

This went on until approximately 1AM. I guess there's more than one reason the summer solstice is the longest day of the year.