Yarn Bar and Conflux Festival

I stopped by La Casita with my friend Laura, puppet builder and knitter extraordinaire to do some chatting and crafting. This yarn bar in Carroll Gardens offers a variety of yarn to purchase as well as knitting classes to take. You can snack and sip a latte or glass of wine while you knit.

This weekend was NYU's 7th annual Conflux festival which features artists and technology events in New York City. Another fellow puppet builder Matthew Brennan did a music performance using cassette tape loops and a mixing board on the sidewalk. He even played his handmade guitar (made from a gas stove and guitar strings) that utilized his found sound recordings. The unique guitar was played with tape recordings, hitting strings, and blowing air into a tube to create an interesting effect that was picked up by a microphone. Matt's extended the idea of "found" sounds and musical collage with instruments created from found objects. I especially liked the use of continuous tape loops that played sounds, music, and spoken diary entries by unknown people. Listening to music on a cassette tape is a thing of the past but I was excited to receive one of Matt's tapes entitled, Decrepit Jaw, which I can pop into my Sony Boom Box.