words cannot describe the sheer frenzied insanity of a gogol bordello show. i really wish i had brought a camera to demonstrate how insane it was. there was a girl on stage playing a bass drum, right? she tossed it into the audience and jumped on top of it, surfing the crowd on a giant drum, beating the crap out of it to the rhythm. it was amazing.

with no photos to post of the insanity, you're just gonna have to take my word for it.

sorry this took so long. here's the dream i was talking about a few posts back:

A boy, about 7 years old, is running down a dark, dusty hallway. In one arm he's cradling a big glass ball, like a giant marble, murky, about 12" in diameter. Under his other arm he's got an ornate frame, oval, painted in faded gold leaf, it houses an oval piece of rounded glass, convex, kind of a bluish tint.

He turns a corner, and finds himself in a big open stage, behind some tall, heavy wine-colored velvet curtains. They slide open, and there's an audience sitting there, staring at him, silently. They're like caricatures of rich people; top hats, monocles, opera glasses, mink stoles. And they're sitting there with dead emotionless expressions, and they're staring at the boy.

And he bows to them, and he puts the framed curvey glass thing in a copper stand, so it's standing up. He takes the giant marble and he holds it up to them; he lowers it behind the curvey glass thing, and when he brings it up again, there's another frame behind the first one. He does this again, and the new frame is gone, and in its place is a bouquet of flowers, made out of glass. He does it again, and a little glass bird is sitting there. So it's a magic trick, and he's performing it without any joy, with no emotion at all, and the audience is watching him joylessly too, and the whole hall is silent and emotionless and dead.

And he finishes the trick, and he turns to the audience, and there's a moment of complete silence, and then they erupt into thunderous, but emotionless, applause: they're clapping as hard as they can, but they don't smile, or cheer, or even turn to one another.

And the boy bows hurriedly, and grabs his things and runs from the stage, down another hallway, to a specific room. There's a large window, with red velvet drapes and red velvet cushions, and he drops the glass things on the floor and clambers up into the windowseat. It's black outside the window, and he presses his face hard to the pane.

Suddenly, outside the window lights up, and it's a green, green garden, like the impressionists paint, all light and color and life, and toddling around the garden is a little girl, maybe 3 years old. She's being trailed by an inky black cat, and she's happily making her way thru the tall grasses and touching the flowers. And the boy exhales, and fogs up the window a little. And a few seconds pass, and the window goes dark again. And he leans back on his heels, sadly, and climbs down from the windowseat, grabs the magic items and starts running back to the stage to start the whole thing over again.

And I realize these things before I wake up: the girl in the garden is the boy's sister. He's dead, and she's alive, and he wants to be able to see her, he desperately needs to see her. And seeing her, thru the window, for just a few seconds, is his reward the audience gives him for performing the magic trick. And he's been doing this, the trick and the reward, for a very long time, and he's not going to stop any time soon.

fin!