Yay! Rambling fangirl post! Ye have been warned.
Last night, I managed to drag my brother Brendon to The City to see my favorite twin quasars of rock (They Might Be Giants to the common peoples). They are currently promoting their new book, Bed, Bed, Bed, so they were in town to give an in-store performance at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books on Geary.
We arrived about an hour before the scheduled appearance, to be confronted with a big crowd already milling about inside the store. A table was set up right near the store entrance, stacked with shiny new copies of Bed, Bed, Bed, so I snatched one up before braving the crowd. We managed to find a spot to stand, kinda behind some book displays, but it sufficed.
Brendon made me feel old by commenting, “Hmm, this is an… older crowd.”
Gawd. I’m old.
I was pleasantly surprised that the Johns performed almost an hour worth of music (interjected by their trademark witty banter), including Bed, Bed, Bed and Impossible (from the book)… Robot Parade and Violin from the children’s album No!… Cyclops Rock, Wicked Little Critta (audioblogged in the previous post), and Drink! (especially for the adults, “’cause it’s about alcoholism”) from the album Mink Car. Old favorites such as Dr. Worm, Why Does the Sun Shine?, Particle Man and Istanbul (not Constantinople) were also performed.
After sixty gleeful minutes of free TMBG tunes, it was time for the performance to end, and the book signing to begin. We were lucky enough to be standing against the wall where they begun the line, so I was face to face with John & John pretty swiftly. They were looking road weary, but still quite cheery.
This picture was more trouble than it was worth. As Brendon was pressing the shutter release on my camera, the battery died… so he whipped out his own camera and turned it on. Flans and I took our pose once again, and Brendon said he had to wait for the flash to charge (what kinda digital camera needs to charge the flash?).
*groan* We look at each other with exasperation, throw our arms down and sigh. Flans signs a few more books, and takes the pose with me again. As you can see, he looks a bit… um, tired. Exasperated, perhaps?
I kid. It was just an off moment, and we were unsure when the camera was going to fire.
Flans, as always (based on my past experiences with the band), was the personable, friendly one, standing up to greet people, ushering them in…while Linnell was the reserved, quiet one, sitting at the table and flashing occassional smiles. Sounds like a boy band description, heh. I didn’t get to speak with Linnell, but he did sign my book. Flans enscripted “Courtney, Age 27″ on the “This book belongs to” bookplate, and signed it “John Flansburgh, Age 43″.
I took some other pics and a video on my camera, but I gotta wait for it to charge before I upload it. Wait for it.
Neat pic of you and Flans! Cant wait for their visit here in NYC.