A Hot Threesome
Ok, first of all, people — I know where you work. You work in research labs. You work in hospitals. You work in film studios; some of you are artists and musicians. You have tools! They’re shiny and clinky and oily and rough, they’re whirry and radioactive and smooth. They’re really cool. Talk to me about them. What, you don’t like to talk about what you do? For shame! ;-)
Secondly, on Saturday — a sweltering 100 degree day — we decided that really, we weren’t quite hot enough, and needed to be around blazing columns of fire. The good people of Providence (bless their tourist-seducing hearts!) do this thing, see, every summer, where they light wonderful smoky woody torches all along their river, accompanied by things like living statues, live jazz stages, totally awesome capoeira performances, and a continuous soundtrack of opera-lite and new age music. And, of course, the requisite fried dough and hot dog stands. It’s really quite lovely; everyone is very chilled out, puppies and epsilons abound.
The funny thing is that according to their website, the concept (and name) of Waterfire Providence are proprietary. See that little trademark symbol? It says: You just try building another quaint little city full of charming architecture and tree-lined hills, calling it Providence, and recreating our idea! Hah! We’ll sue your asses! Of course, they did this so that they can sell merchandise and photographs of the event for lots of money, which I understand — it’s just that I think in order to trademark it, they had to declare the whole shebang was a “sculpture.” The torches, the music, the performances (what about the fried dough?) — they all add up to one great big sculpture. Kind of weird, eh?
The heat is making everything very slow and syrupy, including my synaptic activity, so I’m going to go watch another episode of Buffy (I knew Glory was a god!) while you all write epic poems about your test-tubes and oscilloscopes and film reels.
June 27th, 2005 at 11:01 am
Ooh, who works in film studios? I miss film studios.
I was gonna post on the last one but studying for the bar just SUCKS.
Ok, I have something I got hoodwinked into buying called a Guitar Guizmo (yes, spelt that way). It’s, like, cheapo needle nose pliers with wire cutters. Those are infinitely helpful to me when I change strings (before I got them I pulled my pegs out with the back of a hammer and cut my strings with scissors — not recommended). Then there are these hex wrenches and other strange metal pokey things folded into one handle that are for fancy things like “adjusting your truss rod,” which (a) sounds a little kinky, and (b) is beyond my guitar set-up skills at the moment, so those are mostly for decoration right now. In the other handle is an arm on which to attach either a peg winder (also a string-changing tool) or this little teeny flashlight (which I would imagine is for when I have to change strings in dark smoky clubs — also currently not a problem I have). And the whole thing folds up and comes in this little nylon-and-velcro pouch that I could throw in my gig bag, if….I gigged.
It’s handy to have, those pliers get a lot of general use also (like when I accidentally bend my roommate’s plug prongs….that sounded dirty too), but in the grand scheme of things I think a REAL, separate, hardware-store-purchased set of pliers, wire clippers, etc., would be….sturdier.
Ok. That’s my tool. I don’t know if I can describe it in the nice pretty terms that you use, because the only descriptive words that come to mind are “awkward” and “cheap.” I also have an invaluable electric tuner. That’s pretty cool. Most important tool, of course, is my fingers :)
Oh, and this is not my profession (in reality, though it is in my head), but the tools of my “profession” are, well, lame. Not nearly as much fun as something called a “Guizmo.”
Your pictures look cool. I can’t believe you went out in that, though. I refused to leave the house all day. Did you see MC?
June 27th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I’ve heard about this Waterfire Providence ™ event, and that it’s worth a visit. I’m jealous. I’m hoping to get out there for some dancing in August.
And I’m not avoiding the tools question. I’m in the process of composing my response.
June 29th, 2005 at 7:48 am
Sorry, CT, your comment got stuck in the moderation queue for some reason — weird! I’ll have to check the default “taboo” words list.
June 29th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Must be “guizmo”
Or possibly “pokey”?