A Lazy DayMy archenemy followed me to Canada. When I lived in Rochester, a murder of crows would roost in our backyard, right outside my bedroom window. There were hundreds of crows that seeme to populate the cemetary near where I lived. But some apparently liked to sleep in our backyard. At least, they would sleep until about 5:30 or so in the morniing. It's really hard to sleep when crows are talking right outside your window.Anyway, instead of being woken up by the sounds of breakfast being prepared by other campers, a crow was apparently perched in a tree right above our tent. And it was calling for others. After a few minutes, it seemed to quiet down. At that point I managed to go back to sleep.But an hour or two later, apparently another crow arrived, and the two began talking to one another. The noise was too much, and I decided to get up. It was about 7:30. I will say, though, despite all the complaining I've done about the noise, sleeping in the tent was really fine. What would wake me up was a combination of the early light (because of how far north we were, the tent was lit up by about 5:30, it seemed) or the noise. But it wasn't uncomfortable at all. After Ronni got up and we had our iced coffee, we headed back to the showers. The lines seemed a bit shorter today. Apparently, some had followed the example set by the day before, because a few women trickled out of the men's showers. Once more, I didn't care, but a few men in front of me did. One of them complained that that's why the line was moving so slowly, because women are slower in the shower than men. I thought that this was funny. I'm pretty certain I take longer than Ronni in the shower, though I take less time in the bathroom altogether. The women coming out didn't seem to have spent extra time in the shower. So I chalked it up to someone just wanting to complain.But then he observed that women wouldn't like it if men got in line to use the women's showers. I suspected he was probably right. But the difference is that women might complain out of concern for their privacy. His concern wasn't with his privacy; it was with how fast the line was moving. If I thought he was really worried about a woman seeing him naked, I might have taken his complaints seriously. As it was, I was a little disappointed by his attitude.But once I got into a shower myself, I quickly forgot the earlier silliness. After getting myself cleaned off, I checked my voice mail (outside of the showers, so that I wasn't taking any longer than necessary). Ronni's car was fixed and ready to be picked up. It was a relief knowing we had a ride home from Grand Forks on Monday. One thing I noted was how dark the sky had gotten. I was told that it was a long Folk Festival tradition to have rain at least one day of the Festival. We had had a day and a half of gorgeous (if sometimes overly sunny) weather. It looked like today might be the day for rain. And, I remembered, I had left the tent fly open to try to get some air going through the tent. Rain meant everything we had with us was going to get soaked.So when Ronni came out of the showers, we hurried back to the campsite. Sure enough, on the drive back, a few rain drops fell on the windshield. I parked as quickly as I could and ran down the path back to the tent to zip up the fly. But while a few drops had fallen, we never got a proper shower. Instead, we just finished getting ready to head to the festival for the day. This time we did catch the morning shuttle to the festival site. We got some breakfast, which I ate probably faster than I should because we got a few more rain drops. But proper showers again failed to materialize. So after we finished eating, we headed to the Music Tent to buy more music. After we satisfied our digital fix (as a friend of mine in college used to say), we headed to the "Techno Bauble" workshop. I had been interested in seeing this particular workshop, so we found a place in front of the stage, and started to make ourselves comfortable. This turned out to be harder than we thought. We had both worn jeans to protect ourselves from the sun. We also had no intention of going back to the campsite. (And we were damn sure going to take the shuttle if we did. The walk yesterday had cemented that lesson in our brains.)But now we were too hot. And while the music was good, it wasn't holding our attention closely enough to take our mind off of the heat of the sun, which had finally burned off the cloud cover. So we decided to blow off the workshop and head to the shade of the Li'l Tavern. We wound up hanging out under the tent of the Li'l Tavern for nearly three hours. We could hear the bluesy music coming from the workshop nearest the tavern's tent. We met a woman who had worked for the festival and was now volunteering. She told us a lot about the work that went into the festival and how it comes together. With good music in the background, shade over head, it was interesting learning more about the festival and meeting some interesting people.The one workshop we had hoped to make started at four, so we finally left the protection of the Li'l Tavern and headed to the Shady Grove stage. The workshop was called "There Are Places I Remember," and it had a big group. Stephen Fearing, Christine Lavin, Lindsay Jane, Romi Mayes, Indio Saravanja, Keri Latimer (from the band Nathan), and Death Vessel. The show was amazing. Christine Lavin was hysterical. Lindsay Jane and Romi Mayes were as good as we had come to expect. Keri Latimer was a wonderful surprise. She has a gorgeous voice. We had unfortunately missed Nathan the night before. When they were doing their short set on the Main Stage, we were off buying drums. But we immediately liked what we heard. I felt a bit badly for Indio Saravnja. He was quite good, but he had sat next to Christine Lavin, so it was always his turn to play right after she had played. And if you've ever heard Lavin, you know she's a tough act to follow. Death Vessel was the biggest surprise. I'm not certain that it was a whole band, or just the lead, Joel Thibodeau. Ronni and I had sat back away from the stage in the trees. So we couldn't see the stage all that well. We heard a man introduce the first song Death Vessel was to play. But the woman's voice that came back to us was confusing. Had a man introduced the song and then a woman began to sing? It took us a bit to work it out. But the program confirmed it, the same person introduced the song and was singing it. The program puts it this way: "You've never heard a voice like this coming out of a man's mouth before: crystalline, soprano, and startlingly androgynous..." Ronni looked at me and said, "That's not androgynous, that's a female voice." And she was right. That wasn't a man doing a falsetto, it sounded like a woman. But when he spoke, it sounded like a man. It was, in a word, the weirdest thing we had heard yet. It was lovely. We were fascinated. But it was weird, too.Christine Lavin, for her last song, got the crowd into it. She explained she wanted to do an updated version of "Wimoweh" and broke the audience into groups. The first group was to chant "Wolfowitz" (the wimoweh part). Our group got "Al-ber-to... Gonzales." And the next group got "Dick Che-ney, Dick Che-ney, Dick Che-ney... is a Dick." Then there was "In the White House, the might White House, the liar sleeps tonight." And finally, "Oooh... Condaleeza Rice and Karl Rove." The audience loved it. After the workshop, we headed out to get some dinner and decided to eat it under the tent of the Li'l Tavern. While that worked well from a perspective of staying cool, the noise under the tent made it harder to hear the acts on the Main Stage than we realized it was going to be. That was too bad because I had been interested in hearing Ndidi Onukwulu. She was described by the program as a blues artist, and the program did a good job in piquing my interest. I didn't get to hear as much as might have liked, but what I did hear I really liked. When we finished eating, we moved into the field to better hear the show. Ronni and I were both a bit tired from all the events. Most of the performers on the Main Stage, while good, were playing instrumentals. Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist from Minnesota. Boom Pam is an Israeli band that uses surf guitars and a tuba. It was wild. And the artist I was most familiar with this night was Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. They also put on a great show. But I think our energy reserves were too tapped. Boom Pam had sung a little, and the short set performers had sung as well, but I think the instrumental pieces, that we might have otherwise loved, were starting to lull us to sleep. Once Bela Fleck finished his set, we decided to skip the last performance of the night and head back to camp.It had been a good day. Rather uneventful. The rain never came, and we heard some good music. Nothing truly amazing had happened, but also nothing terrible. I think you need days like that every once in a while. Just pleasant. Day 3 CDs purchased:Crooked Still Shaken by a Low SoundCrooked Still hop highTania Elizabeth SomethingMichael Franti and Spearhead Yell Fire!Romi Mayes and the temporarily employed The Living Room Sessions, vol. 1Romi Mayes Sweet Somethin' SteadyNathan Key PrinciplesTomorrow: Day Four "Our Festival Moment"(This post also appears on my blog Over A Candle. There are pictures there.)