Highlights from the Northwest Folklife Festival, 2010.

 - Buskers.  Buskers, buskers, buskers.  Buskers with didjeridoos, buskers with drums, buskers twiddling Labyrinth-type glass spheres, buskers with one-man-band getups, buskers in clusters, buskers going it alone.  Incredibly talented buskers and buskers operating on sheer chutzpah.  Folklife is buskers, at its heart; the rest is just icing.  I noticed accordions were big this year.  I didn't see anyone painted all one color holding really still, though; apparently that schtick has gone out of fashion.

 - A music/dance performance by the Northwest Korean Arts Center, a marvel of precision and grace... aside from the children's dance number, which was an utter disaster (missing every cue and getting all clustered up and tripping over each other, one tiny girl standing there bawling over a minor injury while the others danced on without her) and which, of course, completely stole the show.

 - Watching a guy surprise his girlfriend by showing up from out of town right after her East Indian dance performance.  Her response was priceless.  (She sort of yelped, and then she stood there for a beat and looked at him, and then she hugged him, and then she shoved him away and yelled, "You are such a liar!" and then she hugged him again even tighter.)

 - Coyote Grace: If I were writing ad copy for this band, I would namecheck Old Crow Medicine Show and Martin Sexton.  Of course they weren't as good as either of those, I mean come on, but still: extremely listenable.

 - I got three contra dances in.  Gary (#1) kept telling me "The important thing is to have fun," probably because I was having trouble getting my shoulders out of the "freeway driving" setting, but still, that's really not something you want to hear from your dancing partner.  Will (#2) was terrific, though, lively and infectiously cheerful and conscious of the subtleties that make everything go smoother. And Justin (#3) was very patient even though I could not seem to remember for the life of me how a "hay-for-four" works, ugh.  Oh, but the band was called Full Moon and they were super good.

 - Dinner and catching-up with MikenViv, who were generous enough to put me up on short notice in very comfortable quarters, and even let me snuggle their dog.  They are remarkably cool people I could easily have missed the opportunity to get to know, and I'm so, so glad I didn't.

 - Saanish (Coast Salish) storyteller Che Oke' Ten cramming a remarkable array of stories, music, and tradition into a half hour.  This guy was good.  I don't wanna get all mystical on you here, but seriously, his funny story about his mother trying to chase down a dachshund named "Handsome" was a better sermon in six minutes than I usually get at church in forty-five (and my preacher is no slouch).

 - Mingushki, a smokin' world music trio with a sinuous trumpet, saucy percussion, and an accordion-shaped heart.  The tunes they played were mostly from Eastern Europe and Central America, and their time signatures were insane.  Apparently they also play with a larger Balkan ensemble, one of whom was absolutely certain he knew me from somewhere (we couldn't figure it out, and before you ask, no, he wasn't playing it like a pickup line).

 - Salmon with cilantro sauce and rice.  (Would you like a samosa for $2 more?  Um, yes. Yes I would.)

 - Eavesdropping on a fortune teller who does divination with toy dinosaurs.  She was saying things like, "...but another thing about Stegosaurus is, he has two brains, one in his head and another in his tail, which relates to dividing your attention between two areas of focus," and her teenage customer was nodding his hoodied head very seriously.

 - A toddler who waved and said, "Hi!" as though we were old friends.  Unclear whether this had anything to do with the knit cap with bear ears I was wearing at the time.

 - A brief baptism in the sea of electronic sound at the 8-Bit Showcase.  The band I caught, Fighter X, were doing that looping-electronic-performance thing where they twiddle their equipment while bobbing their heads, then jump and flail around wildly, then go back to twiddling.  Repeat ad hilarium.  The Sky Church has this giant video wall that was looping brilliant blinky patterns.  The effect was mesmerizing, but about as far from folk music as you can get.  "Scream if you want more bass!" hollered one of the musicians, as if you could even hear the crowd over the music, and then they bumped it way up and the notes vibrated all through my tired muscles.  Ahhh.

 - Mr. Yuk was there. Mr. Yuk! I thought he was dead!  I also thought he was two-dimensional.  Shows what I know.  I gave him a hug, and he gave me a bright green pencil with WASHINGTON POISON CENTER on it. POISON HELP, it says, with a handy number to call in case I need any help poisoning someone.