I got the Bradford Pox, and the general jungle fever.

Bradford Cox made me feel like the prettiest girl at Prom tonight, even if I do have bad skin and sandbag fat pockets in the creases of my arms. I SAW ATLAS SOUND TONIGHT. HI! Well, that's not where it started. I ate dinner at a really weird restaurant that was garden gnome themed; it turned out not being just garden gnome themed though. It was garden gnomes giving peace signs themed. But it wasn't just garden gnomes giving peace signs themed. It was gay men in blue railroad overalls with predatory facial hair themed. And it was also not asking me how I wanted my burger cooked themed, and it was also bad dinner themed. But it was a nice atmosphere. The tables looked picnic-y, and the view was of Gare l'Est, I'd say one of Paris' primary 5 stations. It's actually a beautiful station when you walk by it, because it's an enormous alabaster tomb-ish mecca of transportation, with rotund windows and a huge courtyard, and behind it, as you walk parallel to its platforms, are train tracks that run out of the city in a gated off range, for what seems like miles isolated. Above the tops of the platforms are canopy roofs, and cresting those are apartments that are authentic in their homogeneity: some lights are incandescent and some are off, in what seems to be a tastefully Middle Class compound of spaces. It reminded me of China weirdly- probably because of its repetitiously binary arrangement of tasteful windows, impersonal, distant windows (literally) into peoples lives. The city is just like New York in so many ways. I mean, it's about as different as a city can get in most ways, but it still has the collaged, haphazard, irreconcilably diverse feeling that New York does. The black population generally dwells in a less strategized sect of the city, carrying out the same routineness that we suction forward in les Banlieues. It's an interesting city dynamic. You don't feel the anger here, or the restlessness. That's probably foreboding to Americans, who might see that as an acceptance of immobility. Regardless, it is what it is, and it's a city at peace. OKAY?
Okay. So I bopped through the slums to my favorite venue, Point Ephemere, where I made it to the front of the queue, having strategically purchased my ticket already, and I hunkered down front row center. I made a pit stop at the bar for a 50cl Stella, but they were sans gas. Still gets me. I made it up front though. And the opening act was on in about 20 minutes. They're called Choir of Young Believers, and they're actually really great- they're expressive, structured, dynamic-, but it's hard to really feel strongly about a band before you hear their studio material. They were really sweet though. They are Danish and all they could say was "Thank you very much," and "okay, you are good." You could tell they were grateful though. They reprised their time on stage by accompanying Atlas Sound on his opening song. It was fucking beautiful. The lead singer had a very Samuel Beam beard. There was a pretty blonde celloist.
But Bradford Cox, the solo-artist, a member of Deerhunter- a band that has recently assumed hiatus, is Atlas Sound. And he is so Atlas Sound. He used an acoustic guitar, a drum set, and a distortion set to create a concert that goes in my type five of all time.
My favorite five, off the top of my head:

1. Sufjan at Town Hall,
2. Animal Collective at ATP,
3. Dizzee Rascal, or Dark Was the Night. This is hard.
4. Sufjan for the BQE
5. Atlas Sound

Anyways. Bradford and I are friends. Boyfriends, but in the way that girls say it. Like, "she is my girlfriend!!" and then people make fun of her for saying that. Don't make fun of us. We are best friends. When he finished his first solo song, I whispered to him, "you're really good," and he laughed. Then I said something that he thought was funny and he laughed for ten seconds while the audience was quiet. He would speak to me in between songs and I would tell him things like, "even your flaws are perfect." At the encore, he asked me what he should play. When I suggested "The Screens," my favorite B-side, he spoke to me for a full minute on stage about how improvizing over music machines is so difficult. At the end of the show, he smiled at me and handed me his guitar pick and set list. Okay? It Happened. Sorry if you are having trouble dealing with that.

In my subsequent daze, I wandered through the worst neighborhood back to the Metro, accidentally boarded the metro that is supposed to connect my to my line, in the wrong direction. I didn't notice until I was at the end of Porte Cligancourt, which is the bootleg leg of the medena. Bootiful. It was because I was BBMing and I lost track of time. I BBMed Carly after I boarded the Metro heading south to St. Michel- this was unintentionally because my mistake was a Carly de Feis oldie-nor-goodie. Anyways, I picked up a Crepe au Nutella and plopped on the 10, arriving at the platform as the train was pulling in, and now I'm here! Happy! Going to a concert alone is lonely, but this one ended up being like Warped Tour, but for people who are alone and probably would get in a little too much of a nappy mood at warped tour.

My weekend was so great. Saturday is most worthy of mention though. I got my Eiffel wet (in three senses) with the VannaWhitious Katie Hiltz(on). The early afternoon? Hiking the Eiffel tower in a fucking typhoon, that we both got a couple of beautiful pictures out of, a lot of love, a couple of laughs, and a rainbow at the top. It was beautiful. When we peaked our heads over the railing, the sun tore through the clouds, settling the horizontal gradient from grey to blue evenly. The sun barked onto the Seine, which expressively, powerfully, but tranquilly whispered its redescent to relaxation. Then the rainbow, pouring onto the SacreCoeur. Katie and I made our way down, hesitant to wear out the good times that the tower was showering us with (heh), and, on our crossing over the Seine back to Trocadéro, we picked up popcorn with table sugar, strawberry ice cream and French Fries. We parted ways only to reunite for a fucking awesome evening. We met at Odéon, and bypassed Smelly Bar to clink Biere Sirops (grenadine, seltzer and beer) at Divey Bar, another main-squeeze of mine. We dined at a pub in Cluny, watched the Ireland-France match, made German/Morrocan/French friends, sang along to a bar performer who kicked it off with "Kiss," a la Prince, and ended with Elvis. We crawled back to Biere Sirops at Divey Bar (en route, indulging in some nutelligence) and kicked it for another hour. She's the best.

And Friday, I spent some time with Helene, who is Gelman's cousin. She's a sweetheart, and we had a really nice night of drinks and catching up. It's really nice to spend time in the city with a real Parisian who is my age. Here's the kookiest shit though. I was crossing the alleyway to meet Helene at the Cluny MacDo's (McDonalds' abbreviation in French), and as I passed through the crowd, someone in my counter-current broke loose and stood at me, with a gaping, familiar smile. Holy shit. It was Kevin, who is a Feb, two years my Senior. I met him when I visited Charlie. My visit to Charlie had an auspicious mama-mia moment when I flew next to Senator John Glenn (in a plane, I wished I could have showed him a better time, but what really would impress him at this point). Now in France, pre-Midd, I bump into Kevin and his Dad in the middle of a mystically Midd monde. Anyways, they were unsurpisingly so friendly, and we spoke for a little before we both had to break off. Later that night, when I called Gelman to tell him about this, I collided with Kevin and his Dad again mid-conversation. I don't know how the world works, but it does. And lately, I'm sure everything's gonna be just okay.

I'm off to Stooge-Snore. Love!