Leaving again. Leaving again. Leaving again.
Go see this. It's so fucking messy and gross. Some of my favorite actors in the city are in it. A dude pours chocolate syrup all over his head in it. A chunk of it takes place in a pile of garbage from off the street. I saw a rat run under the stage and wasn't sure if it was accidental or not. I was thrilled at points, bored at others. My favorite kind of theatre.
Also, have you seen HAVE YOU SEEN STEVE STEVEN yet? Go see it, Johnny Cakes! It's mysterious and gentle and will maybe leave you spooked, but people are digging it and you will too.
I'm outa here on Tuesday. ROADKILL CONFIDENTIAL is my destination, which apparently lives somewhere in the Berkshires. I hope it's easy to find, 'cause I'm tired and I don't want to strain my back digging in the woods for it.
Also. I want a bowler hat. Where can I find a woman's bowler hat? Anyone?
Sorry this sucks. I'll try harder.
Just got home from LA after a week of working on my new play, which was more work than I thought it would be but is going well. Now I'm home for two weeks, before I go here to work on another play. This morning I woke up in a panic attack, convinced that a friend's baby had died, and that I didn't have a home.
I'm watching some raindrops tremble on the leaves of the wild summer plants outside my window that are dying. I basically planted them for the subletters, because I never got to enjoy them. I just brewed myself a pot of coffee, and the beans I used are a blend called "Carroll Gardens," named after my neighborhood. And last night, Soph went to the bathroom at around 4am and I woke up screaming because I thought he had left me alone in the apartment.
Is it possible to be homesick when one is actually home?
Fun promo for ass-kicky event.
Quick update: Added shows in Ohio and Massachusetts, and a reading in London... slooooooowly taking over the world...
I would love to add commentary to this but frankly I'm kind of paralyzed in that fugue state between laughing and crying, though I can do neither so I'm just staring in horrification. (And yes I made that word up but I feel like there should be a tiny dictionary of new words devoted solely to this clip.)
FINALLY put up descriptions of my newest plays and film/TV stuff, and I took down that one pesky play of mine that I secretly hate. I feel purged.
I also re-organized my sweater and T-shirt drawers, removed a bunch of old mp3's from my startup disk, got a super-short manga haircut, and designed a cool stencil for my otherwise boring workbag. Related? Mayhaps.
Unrelated... this song was playing everywhere in Greece... in the sporting goods store, at a wedding, on the beach... sexy song. Kinda makes me want to lick something.
Click here and hang out a little while.
Questions:
-Do you think those faces actually belong to those asses?
-Do you think they are actors pretending to feel chipper and nonchalant explaining to the anonymous webosphere that water shooting into their genitalia makes them happy, or are they actual consumers who enjoy this product regularly?
-Do you think they came up with their own "click here" rollover faces, or was there a director involved?
-Am I the only one obsessively picturing those people sitting on the can making strange bidet faces?
(Just kidding. I'm not really doing that. Did it once, made me feel yucky.)
-Has anyone else noticed a conspicuous lack of the color brown on the website? Are pastels the new poo?
-Could there possibly be a more honest way of advertising an instrument for washing one's ass? One that somehow addresses the act directly rather than finding the most benign, circuitous avenue around it? "You just sit down, do what you came to do, and then reach for the remote and select the area you want to wash." What is this mysterious area of which you speak, young sprite?
And finally, I just want to share that the faces make me incredibly nervous when they stop moving... dead eyes, dead eyes...
I just spilled beer directly into the right speaker of my laptop. It started sounding weird immediately.
If anyone knows of a device that protects thousand-dollar computer equipment from accident-prone jackasses, please let me know ASAP. Thanks.
Riding in the cab from Berlin/Tegel airport to my hotel in Kreuzberg last Tuesday morning I felt my body relax for the first time in months. Gone was the oppressive heat, the feeling that I was constantly underdressed and overweight, the nervousness that I was on the verge of doing something wrong which was perpetually confirmed by the sneers of various salespeople and waitstaff (the service industry in Greece has a brusqueness that I never quite got used to)... When I left Greece I felt like I was fleeing disaster-- which I was, actually, but I would have felt that way without the fires. When I arrived in Berlin I felt like I was coming home.
Berlin is my city. I feel it in my glands. It has everything I love about New York minus the speed, the impoliteness, the grime, and the moneyed elite. And it is AFFORDABLE. The arts scene there is robust and vital, and audiences of all backgrounds show up. In general, Germany makes a lot of effort to cultivate a high standard of living, which means filling its cities with loads of parks, carving out special bike lanes apart from the roads, supporting cultural events fiscally, maintaining great public transportation, and making leisure time and recreation an essential part of everyone's daily life. And German theatre-goers tend not to feel alienated or threatened by work they may not understand. This embracing of different forms shows an openness that is surprising given its history...
Greece, on the other hand... well I just don't know. Given Greece's history you'd expect more cultural interests, outside of tourist-geared traditional dance festivals, gaudily advertised Aristophanes re-mixes, and the kitchy bouzoukia or skiladika ("dog houses"). But it seems like folks there are more concerned with self-preservation. There's an emphasis on family, which is fierce and admirable, but it translates into insularity rather than openness. You see it in the reckless driving, in the way the children are spoiled rotten (something that everyone complains about but does nothing to solve), and in the way they spend their money-- on goods that show status, on food they won't eat. I'm generalizing, but it's something I heard over and over from the residents themselves.
But the food... holy mama. Everything fresh, unprocessed, impossibly flavorful. Figs and almonds right off the trees, endless grapes picked from the vines on the rooftop, fish caught that morning and chosen from a bed of ice in the lobby of the restaurant. Even the frozen food in Greece is delicious. I filled my fridge in NY with octopus and fruit, but it isn't the same.
In Berlin, all is pastries, bread and meat. And some decent Thai food. But everyone bikes everywhere, so obesity isn't a problem. While I was there I rented a little white cruiser and pedaled around the city with the other Berliners, trying to work off my months of compulsive eating. It was so chilly and crisp. I had to go to a second-hand shop to buy some clothes that were weather-appropriate, since all I had from Greece were little sun dresses and tank tops. In Berlin everyone wears boots and scarves and little jackets.
I feel like I have so much more to tell you... like about the Dutch dude who spoke six languages with whom I had flirty beers in the sun one afternoon at Glyfada... or about one night at a taverna on the beach in the village with Daniella Topol and her husband Joe, when Joe took off his shirt and jumped from our table into the water, swimming off under the stars... or about the excellent German tradition of being invited to a table in a bar by a host to sit around with others and talk about politics, art, news, etc... and how wonderful it was to come back to a wedding in Dumbo where everyone I love was, all looking so beautiful and happy... and finding in my huge stack of summer mail a) a notice that my screenplay is a semi-finalist for the Nicholl, and b) I am finally an official registered democrat.
It's going to be a good year.
