So I took sleep aid pills to correct my sleeping hours and combat jetlag and now here I am shlumming in my sister's place while Tanja went to Broadway to fix her ticket for tonight.

For now, all I can say is that The Swell Season concert was amazing. Glen Hansard is too chatty, so chatty that for a while I thought he could have a career at being a stand-up comic. This is practically the way he handles himself onstage: first he'll introduce the song and describe what it's about, which is usually about the disconnect between the heart and the mind (one can guess as to which one many of the songs veered towards), that the heart is like the lion, blah blah blah. Then, as if the song needed further explaining, he'll give a metaphor, or if not, he'll allude to Ireland.

It's as if the song introductions and the performances have their own universes. The introductions don't really explain the songs and when you do get to hear them, you start to wonder if Glen's intro made things clearer or more confusing. Either way, one develops varying levels of patience for both the intros and the songs. Either way, one falls in love with the intros and songs in a different way.



This is a hazy picture of Glen and Marketa sharing a microphone. A feat, since my sister and I were seated at the back, thereby prompting me to rush up front and stealing a shot. I had to steal a shot; security was shooing some audience members who were waving their cameras at the performers.

Next time: on the moment I realized white Americans all look the same to me.