Weekend rundown

We need the rain, but I can't bring myself to lament gorgeous clear autumn skies too sincerely. It's been ridiculously beautiful all weekend, and for once there have been things to do. Metro did its best to make sure that nobody made it to anything on time, but lo, we would not be thwarted.

• The LOC book festival was reedonkulously crowded, which is how it should be. I skidded in just in time to hear Michael Dirda's intro to Terry Pratchett (summary: You know who he is, I think he's as good as Chaucer, without further ado etc.), who was his usual engaging self. The news that Christopher Lee will be voicing Death in the next movie sent me scrambling for my phone to call Weebat as soon as the speech was done. Also the story about how the ALA's Carnegie medal is just the same size and shape as a chocolate coin, and fun to be had with that information, was a classic.
• Magical Montgomery, conveniently close to home, was full of dancers, volunteer coordinators, and local artists, some quite good. I picked up a triptych of photos from one booth, each showing a different path through woods or boulders. The Joy of Motion tribal-fusion belly dancers were very impressive, smiling faintly while they demonstrated first-rate (from my uneducated perspective) torso work and hand precision, and it was hard not to be charmed by the tiny and distinctly non-Celtic moppets performing soft-shoe Irish dance with a ceilidh band.
• Watching a dress rehearsal of La Mère's tai chi group at the Lisner, I boggled again at the coaches' daughters, who are hyperflexible and strong and look far too sweet to be the kind of martial artists they clearly are.
  
• Crafty Bastards was worth the trip, but a leetle too insanely packed with the city's entire hipster population (I ran into Rockninja and the Object, who agreed that it looked like some of Brooklyn's population might've been bused in). I give some negative marks for overuse of felt and Bob Ross as self-consciously ironic jokes, but there were still things worth checking out.
• Fiesta DC 2007, up in Mount Pleasant, featured a lot of great demos by local dance groups, including a Bolivian troupe who soldiered along despite wearing clothing not at all suited to the 80-degree weather. It takes guts to pay tribute to Pachamama when you're in a swampy Indian summer day and wearing three layers of nylon and corduroy. I especially liked Batala, a DC-based all-female samba drum band, and the various groups wearing huge frame-and-feather sequined costumes.
  

The only problem with a weekend like that is that it's hard to get motivated to do actual exercise. I felt triple guilt: One friend rode a century race on Sunday (clearly not the act of a mentally balanced individual, but there it is), the DC triathlon meant that the streets near the book festival were fill of tasty sinewed folks in spandex (reason enough to make that a regular event), and my masseuse on Friday pointed out that my lack of flexibility is putting further strain on my back and hips. Damn, there really aren't any good excuses for dodging exercise, are there?