Day 17

Condo life.

At first it was good, and I'll state right up front it's not bad now, per se, but not as good as it was the first two weeks.

The biggest advantage when I first moved back here is that I was finally able once again to get a normal night's sleep for the first time in literally years.  No television and no high speed internet, but a good eight hours of sleep more than compensated.

Then, the night before last, I once again awoke at around 4:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep.  And last night, I couldn't sleep at all - if anything, I got about an hour's worth of sleep between midnight and 7 am. How tonight goes is anybody's guess.

So back to this internet thing.  I can create an internet hotspot with my iPhone and link the connection to my laptop, but it's a slow connection.  Tonight, UCLA webcast a performance by the Ukrainian ensemble DakhaBrakha, and I missed the first 25 minutes just trying to log in. If you like watching little wheels circle around themselves, you'd like my upload link here, but if you actually wanted to hear the performance, you were out of luck.

I finally did log on, and once there, I was able to enjoy about 50 minutes of more-or-less uninterrupted music.  The redemptive powers of live music still amazes me, like when you've been standing at a venue for an hour ten minutes between sets waiting for the headliners to finally take the stage, but once they do, all is forgiven and the discomfort and annoyance of the wait is suddenly both forgiven and forgotten.

I first heard DakhaBrakha in Seattle during the 2014 Bumbershoot Festival and had no idea what I was in for, but to this day, they are perhaps my favorite band.  That was the one and only time I've ever heard them live, but the webcast tonight, once I finally did get there, was my second best DakhaBrahka experience.

UCLA is going to keep the performance up online for free the next couple of days, and I strongly encourage you to go to online.cap.ucla.edu and watch the recast of tonight's show for yourself.

You can thank me later.