Cirque Mechanics: Birdhouse Factory

Part way through Thursday, Matt and Rebecca emailed us to see if we wanted to go to the Miller Outdoor Theatre to see a performance by the Cirque Mechanics, an amazing troupe of acrobats, aerialists, contortionists and others from, among other places, Cirque de Soleil and the Moscow Circus.


All performances at the Miller Outdoor Theatre are free to the public, so we knew there'd be a crowd and wanted to be there early enough to get seats in the covered area (there's also a hill at the back where you can spread picnic rugs). Matt and Rebe kindly brought us jumpers as the evenings are quite cool now!


The performance was just magical; really amazing and accomplished, fun and quirky. Every segment seemed perfectly designed to make you think you'd seen the height of their abilities, and then to go that one step further...

If the Mechanics are ever performing near you, I encourage you to check them out!

Friday

On one of the first cool-enough-to-sit-outside-on-the-verandah evenings this year, who'll join us for drinks?

Art and the City

Last weekend I spent a lovely part of Saturday at the Bayou City Art Festival - it's a yearly event here, billed as 'one of the top three art festivals in America' (which, as Dave says, you know means 'the third best') and something I would have been interested in anyway, but as I got free tickets through work I was doubly interested!

My lovely friend Anna picked me up, and we went in to the festival together - it was the first actually-cool weekend so far this year; somewhat overcast for picture-taking but extremely pleasant for walking around downtown.


The festival was held in the closed-off streets of a couple of city blocks, as well as some park space - there were loads of stalls; it was all much larger than I'd envisioned. There was so much to see! Lots of great art and photography, as you'd expect, but also textiles, jewellery, strange sculptures, wooden items... it was very interesting and lots of fun.


Dave and I bought a print - even though the exhibitors came from all over the country, our single purchase coincidentally came from someone relatively local - Jay Long, from Austin, TX.



Afterward, Dave and I went for a coffee in a hipster-cafe, Agora (I am not remotely hipster and Dave not a lot more so than me, but it's still fun to visit such places from time to time)


before going home to hang out with Matt and Rebecca. Cool weather, art, coffee, and lots of lovely friends - not far off the perfect sort of day!