Illustrious Encounters

Well I’m home again, after two weeks back in the United States. The wedding was a truly wonderful experience. My friends rented a summer camp in the Catskills and most everyone stay overnight a couple of days and turned their nuptials into a three-day drunken party of bonfires and middle of the night antics, lake swimming (jumping off this inflatable raft called a blob at 3am) and barbecue, talent shows, square dancing and beyond. It’s so great to see your friends realize so perfectly their vision of their wedding. And it’s so great to have a lot of fun and get to talk to amazing and inspiring people and do it while seeing two people you love get married.

I didn’t have my camera with me but lots of other people took pictures, so I’m hoping they’ll put them up here. The pictures that are already posted there were done by the official photographer. Cool 70’s grainy look to them. My buddy Dz, looks so beautiful, and her beau is one handsome guy. I don’t think I make an appearance in any pics which is fine because I've pretty much been having a 3 year bad hair day.

While there I had very adolescent summer camp experience of being a despised ex-girlfriend. But not by the ex-boyfriend. We get on splendidly. But rather by the friend of another ex-girlfriend of same said ex-boyfriend. Confused? Yeah, that’s okay.

It’s interesting to find out that there exist narratives about your past still circulating amongst people you don’t even know. And then one day you encounter it in the form of “oh…. (coolly, you are looked up and down) so you’re the one who used to date ------.” (silence, clouds of judgment begin to darken the sky). A few nods and you awkwardly scuttle out to the side, racking your brain for what just occurred and wondering just exactly what on earth you did, or has been said about you. Hmmm… I hope it was very sordid and colorful because my life, in comparison to all those rock-star peers I hung out that weekend, could use a little salt and pepper fictionalizing.

As I mentioned, C did not come with me. We just couldn’t swing the cost of two plane tickets and we’ve felt some financial crunch in recent months (special thanks goes to our mayor.) He was lonely and sad to be away from all his old friends. Some of these people he’s known longer than I.

But in deciding to stay home and let me go, he was afforded an amazing opportunity that he would have otherwise missed. He got to work with one very illustrious musician in his studio.


If you don’t already know who this is, you should definitely get acquainted. Especially if your knowledge of Brazilian music begins with some heavy handed samba and ends with drowsy bossa nova. Milton Nascimento is by all accounts the most important name in Brazilian music in the last 40 years. According to C, his voice is still flawless and he said that listening to Milton on headphones as he sung live gave him goosebumps and confirmed that the universe is, despite all recent news to the contrary, still operating in perfect, harmonic order.

Here is one of his tracks from the iconic record Clube da Esquina made by a collective of musicians in the early 70’s.