Since that time, as you'll be aware if you read this regularly, we booked and took a vacation in Provincetown. And then spent the long Memorial Day weekend digging in the yard and fixing stuff around the house.

So it was the first day back to work. Not an altogether great time for staying out late, lest the second day back to work drag somewhat in the afternoon, around naptime.

I left work a bit early, walked & bussed to the Square, and got to the station just as a subway train was pulling out. Drat. So I hiked to the other end of the platform, to be better poised for a quick getaway upon arrival at the Park Street Station, where I'd arranged to meet toxicfur for dinner and the above-mentioned concert.

The train was kind of pokey, stopping often between stations to wait. When we made the Charles Street station, we waited several minutes, amid periodic announcements that we'd be underway shortly. And then that there was an "emergency in the downtown area" and we were being held.

So I got off the train, left a message on toxicfur's phone, and walked to Park Street. We met up, in one of those quintessentially 00-ies moments where we're within sight of each other whilst conversing over the cell phone. Fire engines were trying to counter-propagate on the one-way Tremont Street to get to the subway station. I was glad toxicfur had made it, and wasn't, say, stuck someplace between stations in the Orange Line tunnel.

It turned out there was an electrical fire in the tunnel between Park Street and Downtown Crossing, which led to both stations being evacuated.

I suppose if I'd caught that train that was pulling out as I got to the station, I would have been in the middle of all that.

20 minutes or so later, we looked up from our fajitas and 'ritas to see packed buses going by labeled HARVARD STATION; the substitute busing for the Red Line, now closed because of the fire. It's rather remarkable how quickly they got that running.

And to watch a TV film crew pack up. Average size guy with TV camera, unplugs mike and begins securing equipment in the back of a huge black SUV with mirrored windows. Cute little chick keeps the microphone, gets into the passenger seat, and immediately begins working over her makeup while she waits for her cameraman and chauffeur.

Anyway, nobody was hurt, and they got the trains running again in a couple hours.

The concert was all kinds of fun. We were treated to a couple of songs where she made extensive use of the loop machine. It was this skill of real-time layering of herself doing vocals, guitar, and percussion on her song about the Black Horse and the Cherry Tree that hooked me, early last fall when someone here linked to it on youtube.

This time she also had a band, with amazing keyboard/vibe/trumpet player, amazing lead guitarist, upright bass/cello, and a drummer.

Quite the showperson; she's really very entertaining to watch. Though how she can manage to sing and play a guitar when she's dancing around like that is quite beyond me. She somehow always ends up next to the microphone when it's time to sing.

The Orpheum was full, and hot. As always. We were near the back corner of the orchestra section, and got to watch the same six people go in and out and in and out and in and out all evening.

For my money (well, actually it was free because of a credit card rewards program) (file under "you kids get off my lawn") they could have left the audio system six notches lower in the linear regime, as the saturation effects made it difficult for me to understand the lyrics. But then I guess the lyrics in this case are not all that important. The knuckle-dragging beat and interesting tunes and harmonies are where it's at. Definitely danceable music.

A+++ would go again.

And now for something completely different.

Various people around here have lamented the fact that National Novel Writing Month comes around in November. I wonder if there'd be interested among the husi crowd in doing novel-sized projects, in, say, July. With each other to cheer us on, make snarky comments, and generally join in the fun.

I, for one, have 3 or 4 (depending on how you count the interrelated efforts from 2005 and 2006) NaNos that haven't ever been revised or edited or anything. Surely somewhere in all that prose there's something worth reading, if only I could find make time to make it happen.

We can quibble about groundrules and guidelines, but I'm imagining committing something like 50 hours of work during a month's time to a significant artsy project, whether it be a novel, novella, recording a concerto, spiffing off that album you've always wanted to pull together, recording the complete works of AA Milne in your own voice, or maybe a portfolio of pictures or something.

We've got lots of really creative people here. Let's create!

Whddya'll think?