So We've Been Told

Artscape, America's largest free art festival (ho ho!) has been taking place in Baltimore this weekend. Steven and I went Friday and met up with a friend of his from the Peace Corps for a little music at the beautiful Corpus Christi church.

Is veddy veddy nice, no?

We went, intrigued by this description from a long list of events: Larksong, A Cappella Concert. Lovely melodies from the medieval era to the present, ring through the church as the Larksong voices weave and blend without musical accompaniment.

Which should have read: Larksong, A Cappella Concert. All songs from the medieval era, excepting a southern gospel and a Beatles song, which will be manipulated to sound exactly like what you've already been listening to for the last hour. All of this will ring through the church, ring into your brain, and blend into time until you can no longer remember from whence you came or where you are going. *muwahahahahaha*

The only relief was the nearly inaudible spats of witt in between pieces:

You may have noticed our clothing is a little different. *twittering laugh* It's the traditional dress of the Tudor era, however, most days we look just like all of you. *eye twinkle*

Thank you, Larksong, for your effortless entertainment.

http://www.larksongsings.com/

To be fair, they did sing very well, and they did their best to entertain us with the feathers in their caps and the occasional sweeping of their velvety arms. But they overestimated people's feelings for the medieval style by, like, a million. Larksong is best suited for the Renaissance festival, where I can listen to their melodious blends as I'm walking past them on my way to the jou$ting tournament.



All in all, our Artscape experience wobbled on the bizarre side. From Corpus Christi, we went to a cafe for some free Sangria and chips and salsa. The flatscreen over the bar was playing Kill Bill (1 and 2).

Then we planted ourselves on a crazy steep hillside for the main entertainment of the evening, American Idol winner (season three), Fantasia. We stuck around for most of the show -enjoying her barefoot and laid back style- but left before the finale because, frankly, we were musiced out.

Waiting for the subway to take us home, we talked with a couple of women, one who echoed something I have been thinking since we moved here:

"Ya'll need to find some black friends."