Halloween Pageant

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Originally uploaded by rob helpychalk.

I haven't felt this excited before a live performance since I don't know when. Maybe some occasion in college where I drove a long distance to see, like, Sonic Youth, or something.

Caroline and her classmates at the Little School got through two songs before the agony of being up on stage when the rest of the family were sitting in the small plastic chairs got to be too much, and she ran down, gave Joseph a big hug, and jumped into my lap.

Like all good performers, the other children knew that the show must go on, so several more songs were performed. Artists often look to each other to determine the acceptable boundaries of their art, though. Thus one of the other children, upon seeing Caroline decamp to her family, decided to decamp to hers.

One of the nice things about Children's Pageants that you don't see much in adult art is do overs. For one of their songs, Mrs. Randi decided they could sing louder, so she had them do it again. The only time I've seen adults do that was a concert by Sebedoh, where Lou decided that the first run through of the song was too slow, so they played it again at a faster tempo. It did sound better that way.

It turns out my camera was almost dead when I got there, so there aren't too many pictures. Click the above photo to get to Flickr where you can find the others.