So, I rose early yesterday morning (that should have been the first clue that it was going to be a different sort of day), went to the early church service, and met up with Katy Redmond and some folks at the Fidelity Jumper Classic at Myopia. This show was the real deal: the world's best riders on horses that in many cases are worth $2-3 million. Yikes. I suppose watching one of these horses at work should be like comparing a priceless Bourdeaux to a Trader Joe's $1.99 red, or glancing back and forth between a Pacer and an Aston Martin: even amateurs like your inexperienced author should be able to note the difference in a heartbeat. All I can say is that the horses looked pretty good to me. . . . Here are some shots I got:
Looking good.
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Leaping!
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Good effort!
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A good girl that I saw. The best part about horse shows is that all the dogs make sure to attend.
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Katy and friend.
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The author posing with a moose.
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After watching the truly impressive jumping and maneuvering our way into the V.I.P. tent party, we strolled through all of the very cool shops that were set up in booths around the grounds. We ran into my Aunt Ginny and cousin Pam buying some attractive shirts/neckwear (there's a term I'm forgetting here) to add some flare to their fall hunting outfits, and one shop was selling those great Argentine belts and leather goods. I had a bunch of measurements of my feet taken, and I was told that a pair of buttery-leather paddock boots would be custom-stitched for me down in Ecuador and shipped to me in December. Looking forward to walking around in those babies.
We then strolled across the street (literally) to the Myopia Polo grounds to catch the second half of the match. Here are some pics from that:
No brakes!
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Katy brimming with excitement!
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Everybody act like you know where the ball is!
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Well, I raced home immediately after polo to change and pick up my pal Jay Sweet. Jay is senior editor at Paste magazine, the cutting-edge magazine for the hippest music fans, and he also owns a firm that puts music in movies, commercials, etc. The point here is that Jay is always cruising around the country on tour with bands, writing articles about them and hanging out backstage. He's like a grown-up version of the kid in Almost Famous, but with bands that are actually famous. So, Jay invited me to go to the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston to see The Flaming Lips, a hugely popular in-the-know band that I just don't know how to describe. (For more, read Jay's cover story on the band from Paste:
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http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_id=2825
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It's a great article.)
The Flaming Lips in one of their more normal moments.
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A Flaming Lips show must be seen to be believed. The closest I can come to capturing it to say that it's a celebration of uniquely festive music and atmosphere, complete with crazy costumes, hundreds of giant balloons bouncing around the audience, high-powered confetti-launchers, and bizarre videos. Here are some pics:
The band dresses up a select group of young screaming female fans in crazy constumes and gets them to dance on the stage for the entire concert. This time, the girls on the left were dressed as martians (purplish-silver dresses and green rubber martian heads), and the girls on the right were dressed as Santa Clauses. Pretty normal. . . .
Can you see all of the Santas dancing to the right of the bass player (who's wearing a skeleton costume, by the way)? Also note the confetti and giant balloons. 
Of course, here's your standard rock-band-with-teletubbies-video moment. . . .
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After the concert, Jay and I went backstage to hang out with the band, who were most amiable.
Jay with lead singer Wayne Coyne.
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Your author with lead singer Wayne.
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