Caravanserai

Though it seems contrarian, we both ordered beer when we went to the City Winery last night. Despite the name, the primary attraction at the City Winery is not wine. It's musicians, usually folk-rock or singer-songwriter types.

Last night, however, the City Winery sprouted a dance floor, welcomed a drumming troupe, a Balkan band, and a Middle-Eastern-surf-rock band for a "warm gathering," as one of the bandleaders said.

"We need to devote all of the abandoned places in the city to gatherings like this one," he said, and he was right. People of diverse ethnicities, national origins, languages, clapping styles (on the 1 and the 3, the 2 and the 4, or on the 1, the 'and' of 2, and the 4), and dancing styles came together along long tables for food and wine (or in our case, beer), getting up to dance as the mood struck.

The troupe of drummers punctuated the acts, the surf-rock group (featuring an oud, a clarinet, a tricked-out Middle-Eastern drum set, an electric bass, and an electric guitar run through some classic reverb pedals) played for a traditional dancer, but Chicago's own Black Bear Combo got us all out on the dance floor.

We also got out on the dance floor because we saw one of our co-op friends, and one of our housemates. They practice yoga and capoiera respectively, so we weren't incredibly surprised to see them dancing. We... well, people have learned that Heather and I don't have a square, run-of-the-mill social life, so they weren't really surprised to see us either.

We didn't stay too late, but we did join the dancing circle as the band stepped off the stage and, in traditional balkan-band fashion, stood in the middle of all of us, playing as we danced and clapped along.