With our day packs affixed to our backs and our instruments already heavy in hand did we board the locomotive in Denver. Oh, what a tragedy to abandon my dearest fossil collection and worse!, my various heights and colors of tophat. Such amenities are not for the traveler, dearest reader, indeed not.
The trickle of dusty coal through the window inspired Kayne (of whom I shan't refrain from calling "the GlockenspielSpieler" (this being the likeliest of titles by which a Bavarian would refer to such a musician (of course, Der Glockenspiel being his primary focus))) to venture further East aboard our mechanical caterpillar.
In the dining car sat a collection of lewd-tongued ruffians remarking intoxicatedly on their relative manners of dress. Apparently the traditional habberdashery and tailor were of no use to them. Their rawness of demeanor in regards to women was also most appalling and before long, Kayne and I, and a redheaded fellow of the Jewish faith, made our way to the lower, less frequented portion of the car.
The bartender begged us for a tune or three and on the spot we didst lay down quite an array of tunes with accompaniment from a traveling Clarineticist and Guitar fondler. Our redheaded friend played an Apache flute as well, whenever the key was appropriate, and we didst have a jig that would make a leprechaun tingle.
Kayne took refuge in the sleeping car and the redheaded chap and I carried on a conversation long into the night. Oh the blather we stirred over the Philistines and the People of the Book. It was rather silly...or was it? The whiskey had taken its toll and, as I sobered, it occurred to me that, perchance and persimmons, this man may just be famous. He let fall a little hint at his involvement in the election of a certain Israeli official. "Well," I pondered "indeed." I never did catch his name, and, though we passed thrice again on the locomotive, we did not talk again. Did I know too much?
The steam-powered land snake paused in the fair city of Chicago. We set forth from the station on footback to find a vendor of one of the local delicacies. Alas, all was fanciful and hastily prepared slop and we settled on a tin of beans.
We continued our voyage half past six and woke only as the distant lights of Anne Arborre appeared on the horizon. Drew Pennycoat found us at the station and pushed aside the loads of hay in his wagon to ship us off to his home. He fed us tea and biscuits and we slept upon the floor of one of this cozy rooms.
In the morning, Mr Pennycoat left for the field, but not before giving us a short lift to the city centre. Anne Arborre is no bustling metropolis, but it has quite an established University. Students, and their diabolical love of science, arithmetic, the arts. I share those passions.
In the evening, we put on quite a show in a house deemed Black Elk. The slovenly hoard of students swayed often with our fictionally scientific tunes and one man bought 3 of our canisters after making what I deemed to be an overt sexual pass at the GlockenspielSpieler.
The Pussy Pirates and members of the Mothguts orchestra also played, igniting the crowds to ever higher degrees of ecstacy and slovenliness, until which time the local guard appeared and forced an immediate dispersion of the evenings' events.
We retired to the Pussy Palace and sleepily quaffed wine, listened to field recordings on canister and ate a lovely meal of gerbil filet on millet.
Thank you dearly most esteemed members of the Pussy Pirates, for your lovely hospitality and unfailing musical prowess. Mothguts, you may consider yourselves dear friends of ours (if you so wish) and we are unfailingly yours.
