My carrier has hung up on *me*!

Latest annoyance: After five years with them, my phone company has gotten tired of being superior to the local provider I dumped them for and has decided to jack up their fees by 261%. I won't go through how difficult it's been to extract information from them, I'll just say that I'm now shopping around for a replacement--which might mean giving up my landline, since AT&T is pulling out of local service in my area and I still haven't forgiven SBC for all those years of dicking me around. Being a consumer would be so much easier if I simply had no pride.

But I'm sick of bitching about how hard it is to be a well-off, homeowning capitalist. Forthwith: My promised review of last weekend--just in time for the next!

Head against the wall, Pat on the head

My promised update has been delayed, primarily by two things: (a) an engrossing but ultimately pretty pointless debate on the future of Social Security and (b) a seemingly endless parade of employees and co-workers looking for advice, approval, or assistance.

Do you ever feel like an old lady whose cats insist on showing her every one of their kills and they won't take the dead mouse away until she pats them on the head and says, "There's a good kitty!"? Some days, this description fits me better than others.

(no subject)

The Venue: Block 37. A parcel of land in the centre of downtown Chicago with a history so convoluted, someone's written a book on it. Now it is the host to Gallery 37, a fancy name for a gravel lot studded with tents.

The Setup: There wasn't nearly enough stuff to fill the space, giving the lot a half-deserted feel. The stage was set up in the northwest corner of the lot; the only open entrance was in the middle of the east wall. The two food vendors were toward the southwest, right next to the Children's Tent and the camel rides. Between here and the stage was a tent with four other vendors in it.

The Vendors: Easily the biggest disappointment of all. The only hot food vendor was Maza, a good (but way overpriced) North African restaurant from Wicker Park. They had only five options, all vegetarian; I got a $5 falafel sandwich from them both days. To their credit, Heavenly Bakery from Skokie actually did serve the best baklava I've ever eaten, but at $2.50 a piece, I didn't eat that much. By some stupid oversight, nobody had any hot drinks. The bakery owner told me they would've brought hot tea, but the organisers told them they had it covered. (All they had were bottles of ice tea.) And no Turkish coffee? What, was this put together by Egyptian Mormons or something? The one music vendor was selling only recordings of the artists present and none of the knicknacks really caught my eye.

The Weather: Saturday, crappy. Cool and cloudy with rain off and on. We took up places in the tent shortly after I arrived and before long a shower had sent most of the audience scurrying into there with us. Others stayed where they were and openned umbrellas, blocking our view and forcing us to take up places outside once the rain had slowed to a sprinkle. Sunday, could hardly have been better: Mild, breezy, dry, and sunny. A little chilly toward evening if you hadn't dressed for it.

The Participants: The first day, I arranged to hang out with `Aţā'ullāh; monshu accompanied me on the second. Crowds were poor both days. Saturday, it could be blamed on the weather, but the only explanation for Sunday is poor planning. Tons of civic organisations seemed to be involved, but the only the Assyrians managed to present a decent-sized contingent. I felt sorry for nice Assyrian baker (okay, I confess, I felt something more than just sorry when I saw him) who I chatted up both days. "I hope you're not taking a bath on this." "Just about."

The Performers: Here's the complete list; I managed to catch:

• The Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian Ensemble
• Jasmin Jahal Dance Company
• Sanabel Palestinian Debka Troupe
• The Assyrian Hakkery Cultural Dance Group
• Bandaleros
• Anda-El, East-West Orchestra/The Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble with Munshid Abdelfattah Bennis and Lior Elmalich

The acts where all over the place. Actually, that's not true; the musicians I saw were uniformly excellent. It was the dancers that ran the gamut from unspeakably amateurish to near-professional. Silk Road did the best, but even they were a little uneven. I particularly remember an Uzbek dance with the founder of the company and one other dancer; surprisingly, it was the founder that looked a little awkward and out-of-step, even though her solo piece was masterfully elegant.

Jasmin Jahal is affiliated with the founder's eponymous academy, which explains the end-of-the-term recital feel of many of the pieces and the slightly homemade feel to some of the costumes. As far as costume go, the Hakkery Cultural Dance Group was flawless, but (a) I'm not part of the camp that thinks that anything which eight year-olds do is so precious it can be admired irrespective of its technical merits and (b) the Assyrian community--whatever their other strengths--must have the most boring folk dance tradition EVER! I know the competition is tight, what with the number of stand-in-a-circle-and-shuffle dances out there, but I think they won it. Plus, they were youth dancers, so the bear factor was zero on stage. (No long curly beards at all! What a rip-off!!) I spent considerably more time scoping out the audience during their bits.

They could learn something from the Palestinians--five performers, but they had more energy than all thirty or so of the Assyrians. The dances required it: They were more in the clogging/Riverdance mode, with performers required to hold their bodies quite straight and leap as they performed difficult footwork. Most impressively, the dancers managed to fuse grace with the appearance that they were really enjoying their dancing.

The heart (and torso, really) of the Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian Ensemble was an oud-playing Armenian of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan-esque dimensions. (When I voiced the comparison, `Aţā'ullāh disagreed, pointing out that this man clearly had hands.) You wouldn't think a man that large could move that fast, but his fingers flew across the strings! Really fantastic playing. Also, the guitarist was 2d4 KEWT! I didn't stick around for much of the Bandaleros. Not that they weren't good, but (a) I heard very little Middle Eastern influence under all those layers of gypsy guitar and rock production and (b) by then, the rain and chill and lack of food choices were beginning to wear on me.

I'm very happy I stayed around for the finale, though. But I'll have to talk more about that later.