Okay, okay, I admit it. The week before Carnvial 2K6, as cynical as I was about the festival’s suerficiality and commercialism, I did indeed “catch the fever”. I say this with a certain mesaure of relief, because the sense of detatchment I had been feeling was beginning to seem unnatural to me; a kind of exile imposed by the nemesis of Shadow’s Bass Man from Hell, who, instead of commanding me to dance and sing, thought my time would be better spent on the sidelines, like a Greek Chorus, telling everyone what was wrong with the Carnival morass. But here’s the thing – the Chorus never has any fun.
Had I stayed in Trinidad, I would have been pulling strings to get two costumes for Monday and Tuesday and may even have been spotted on J’ouvert morning. But since I’d already booked flights outta here, my Carnival escape was filled with other fun activities, not the least of which was the Chihuly Night Exhibition at Fairchild, which is quite a different experience from seeing the blown glass installations in the daytime. Not being willing to travel with a tripod for my trusty camera, I had to play around with the settings to avoid the harsh glare of the flash, but this is one of the better shots, taken in the Conservatory. The folks at Fairchild really put on a show, complete with violinists to lend even greater ambience.