Most awesomely: At the recommendation of one of the women I work with, I went to see a group called The One-Man-Band Band. (They’re French Canadian, so I guess the real name would be L’Orquestre d’Hommes-Orquestres. It was in Spanish here, obviously.) You can see a youtube video of them performing, and see just how awesome it is. They are, more than anything, performance art — they cover Tom Waits songs, but I think “interpret” is a better word, and it’s the word they use. They’re ridiculous, and tons of fun. I was very glad to have been told about it in time to go. (Read more about it, if you like.)

They played in one of the many Canal de Isabel II buildings, up in the north-west of the center. It’s a huge complex, but the theatre itself was about what you think of when you think medium-to-small school theatre, although very new and well-set-out. And the group, who sung entirely in English of course, were clever and talented. They made me want to listen to Tom Waits more. I need to get his music off of my external hard drive and put it onto my computer.

I went with Ashley and Mateo. Ashley is really into Tom Waits, but I think all three of us ended up liking it — as music, as performance, as odd-thing-to-do-on-a-Sunday-evening. So, hurrah!

Last night, we had a sort-of-birthday-party for Ashley, at my friends’ place. There were maybe twelve or thirteen of us there. We played the forehead game (I suppose it has a better name, but I like calling it this — some of you may know it as the game they play in Inglourious Basterds, where you put a famous person’s name on someone else’s forehead and they have to guess who they are; I don’t remember where I learned about it but it’s been a favourite parlor game for a few years now), and had some drinks, before heading out to a club.

Now, most of you who know me are aware that I’m not much of a club person. I like dancing perfectly fine, when I’m pressed into it; I’ll have a drink or two. But clubs seem to expect a lot more than I’m willing to give. Drunkenness, rampant spending, and so forth. Not things I consider anathema, but neither my favourite sports. So it’s quite odd that I went to a club not just last night, but the night before as well (that time, with my flatmates). I think I’m worn out on the whole deal for a good while, now. In any case, last night we ended up at a well-known club in Madrid called Kapital. It’s famous not least in part because it has got seven floors; it was quite packed. There’s a dance floor, and then floor upon floor of bars, and so forth. Most of us who were at the party ended up going to the discotheque. All of us, maybe? In any case, I ended up going in with Mateo and Ashley, Mateo’s sister Sarah, who studies in Salamanca, and her friend Dan, who was visiting and was pretty awesome (and now not in Spain. sucks, don’t it?). The five of us paid our €20, and after some talking finally ended up dancing down on the main dance floor, with a girl named Molly and her friend Alicia. The dance floor was packed, the music was reasonably good, and every five minutes or so a heavy spray of mist, more like fog than anything else, was thrown down into the dance floor, cooling people down — probably the coolest thing about the club, in my opinion. But to be honest, as usually happens to me in clubs, I have the most fun observing — I like dancing, sure, and it was fun to dance with Sarah and Dan, but watching the people around us is half the enjoyment for me. Like the guy in the striped sweater who kept staring at Sarah and Molly. Or the kid who followed our friend A. around, until Molly yelled at him and got someone who worked there to get him to back off.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, and it was a late night, as clubbing in Madrid tends to be, so I’m going to publish this and hope it’s coherent. I intend to write some teaching stories sometime soon. And so I shall.