4/24
(5/21)
Travel Day
The nice couple who runs our Avignon Hotel were already asleep when we got back from Marsailles, and unfortunately for them, we needed to catch our train back north ASS EARLY.
We were left with the choice of disturbing them at night, or waking them ass early to check out.
We decided to go with the later, based on the small possibility that if they’re going to bed this early, maybe they get up very early to run their hotel.
Nope, we had to wake them up to check out.
That was the grumpiest we ever made anyone on the trip (as far as we know).
Train to Lille (Flanders). Lunch there.
We feel like we can say we’ve BEEN to Lille, since we left the train station to have lunch, as opposed to simply being in the station for a layover.
Back to Calais and the ferry.
Boat to Dover and the train to London.
We’re in the home stretch of our trip now!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Blissfully weary.
4/24/08
4/24/08
Ah, back on a train, again, and again.
Today we travel from Avignon (in the south of France) to Paris to Lille to Calais, all by train. In Calais we’ll catch a ferry across the English Channel (ou La Manche) where we’ll catch another quick train to London. There we’ll spend almost a week with our dear friend Emily from New York, and I also expect to hook up at least once with Clown Compatriot Wiina Msamati, who lives there. I have three more days of workshops to teach in London and Oxford. Then it’s home again, home again, jiggety jig!
We’re travel weary, though still having a wonderful time. Walking and exploring foreign cities has become practically an addiction at this point. We’ll wake up sore and tired, resolving to ‘take it easy’, but as each new location begins to unfold for us, we suddenly have the energy (after finding food and caffeine) for just a little more walkabout. We love hoofing around cities since it affords us the opportunity to discover nooks and temperaments that would typically pass us by. It’s better for our spirits than it is for our knees and our feetses.
I haven’t journalled at all since we were heading into Stuttgart. I’m hoping to use today to catch up on the dear diary element of the blog, though of course it may be another day or so before we actually get it posted, depending on our access to internet connection.
4/24/08
Ah, back on a train, again, and again.
Today we travel from Avignon (in the south of France) to Paris to Lille to Calais, all by train. In Calais we’ll catch a ferry across the English Channel (ou La Manche) where we’ll catch another quick train to London. There we’ll spend almost a week with our dear friend Emily from New York, and I also expect to hook up at least once with Clown Compatriot Wiina Msamati, who lives there. I have three more days of workshops to teach in London and Oxford. Then it’s home again, home again, jiggety jig!
We’re travel weary, though still having a wonderful time. Walking and exploring foreign cities has become practically an addiction at this point. We’ll wake up sore and tired, resolving to ‘take it easy’, but as each new location begins to unfold for us, we suddenly have the energy (after finding food and caffeine) for just a little more walkabout. We love hoofing around cities since it affords us the opportunity to discover nooks and temperaments that would typically pass us by. It’s better for our spirits than it is for our knees and our feetses.
I haven’t journalled at all since we were heading into Stuttgart. I’m hoping to use today to catch up on the dear diary element of the blog, though of course it may be another day or so before we actually get it posted, depending on our access to internet connection.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Marseille, France
As we began this day trip to Marseilles, we swore we weren’t going to walk so much. We’d been walking our asses off in every city we’d been in, and mutually decided to take it easy today.
We’d see some of the town, try to catch some beach, take busses, maybe even a cab, and simply take it easy.
Well, getting off the train, we might as well walk a bit? Right? Just to stretch our legs.
Oh, and now that we’ve walked just a bit, we’re not far from this interesting church.
Well, now that we’re already halfway there, we might as well walk down to the shore.
Oh, the Mediterranean is beautiful, and we can see that beach around the bend, we might as well just WALK there.
At a certain point we just resigned ourselves to the fact that we’re walking all day again. Up the hill tot he Notre Dame, cathedral, all the way back to the train station.
Apparently we simply love walking through foreign cities.
We may be walkoholics.
There’s no twelve step program for walkaholics. Bill W tried at one point, but if you start a walkhoholic on those first twelve steps, they just keep walking.
We’d see some of the town, try to catch some beach, take busses, maybe even a cab, and simply take it easy.
Well, getting off the train, we might as well walk a bit? Right? Just to stretch our legs.
Oh, and now that we’ve walked just a bit, we’re not far from this interesting church.
Well, now that we’re already halfway there, we might as well walk down to the shore.
Oh, the Mediterranean is beautiful, and we can see that beach around the bend, we might as well just WALK there.
At a certain point we just resigned ourselves to the fact that we’re walking all day again. Up the hill tot he Notre Dame, cathedral, all the way back to the train station.
Apparently we simply love walking through foreign cities.
We may be walkoholics.
There’s no twelve step program for walkaholics. Bill W tried at one point, but if you start a walkhoholic on those first twelve steps, they just keep walking.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Perfect Day
Tue 4/22
(5/21)
Perfect Day
The soundtrack for this entry is Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”, but without any of the cynicism or sarcasm that one assumes just because it’s Lou Reed.
Mainly we walked around Avignon. It’s a beautiful French city dating from before the middle ages. It’s historic, quaint, fun.
While we took on the vistas of the Papal Palace, we were also distracted and enthralled by a kid on his little red bike. On a day out with his dad, he was using an angled cobblestone as a ramp and having a dandy old time in high energy.
Weird enough a couple hours later when he buzzed by again. Now we were a couple of miles from the Palace where we first saw him, we’d been enjoying the warm sunny south-of France day, absorbing the ancient architecture, and generally feeling really good about the set of choices we’d made that led us to this day.
On this trip we generally ate fairly cheaply. We ate more sandwiches than I’d like to admit, and we rejected more than one menu based on the idea that we could get a cheaper meal fairly quickly.
Not tonight, though. Tonight it’s time for a nice meal. A nice meal on an ancient medieval square looking over an old church adorned with Klu Klux Klansmen kneeling to Jesus Christ.
A meal with wine and pate and a “floor show” of small, loud birds acrobatically flocking and swarming above us.
A meal with good wine, and friendly waiters, and a table of happy Frenchmen at the other restaurant on the square, adding the music of a laughing French conversation from a distance.
A good meal with wine and pate and a southern French seafood dish and the kid on a bike.
For the third time in the day, our leitmotif returned and buzzed through the square, as full of happy bike energy as the first time we saw him. If I was shooting a film or writing fiction, the third appearance of the kid on the red bike might have seemed heavy handed, but in the reality of our actual perfect day, it was simply perfect.
It’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you/
Such a perfect day,
You just keep
Me hanging on!
(5/21)
Perfect Day
The soundtrack for this entry is Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”, but without any of the cynicism or sarcasm that one assumes just because it’s Lou Reed.
Mainly we walked around Avignon. It’s a beautiful French city dating from before the middle ages. It’s historic, quaint, fun.
While we took on the vistas of the Papal Palace, we were also distracted and enthralled by a kid on his little red bike. On a day out with his dad, he was using an angled cobblestone as a ramp and having a dandy old time in high energy.
Weird enough a couple hours later when he buzzed by again. Now we were a couple of miles from the Palace where we first saw him, we’d been enjoying the warm sunny south-of France day, absorbing the ancient architecture, and generally feeling really good about the set of choices we’d made that led us to this day.
On this trip we generally ate fairly cheaply. We ate more sandwiches than I’d like to admit, and we rejected more than one menu based on the idea that we could get a cheaper meal fairly quickly.
Not tonight, though. Tonight it’s time for a nice meal. A nice meal on an ancient medieval square looking over an old church adorned with Klu Klux Klansmen kneeling to Jesus Christ.
A meal with wine and pate and a “floor show” of small, loud birds acrobatically flocking and swarming above us.
A meal with good wine, and friendly waiters, and a table of happy Frenchmen at the other restaurant on the square, adding the music of a laughing French conversation from a distance.
A good meal with wine and pate and a southern French seafood dish and the kid on a bike.
For the third time in the day, our leitmotif returned and buzzed through the square, as full of happy bike energy as the first time we saw him. If I was shooting a film or writing fiction, the third appearance of the kid on the red bike might have seemed heavy handed, but in the reality of our actual perfect day, it was simply perfect.
It’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you/
Such a perfect day,
You just keep
Me hanging on!
Monday, April 21, 2008
You can't leave Paris
4/21
(5/20)
You can’t leave Paris!
We had a few days between our week in Paris and our expected arrival in London. We knew we wanted to spend a few days in non-Paris France, and figured some of our new Parisian friends could give us some good advice.
Our Parisian friends did help us, or tried to. Invariably when the topic came up, someone would give a great suggestion of a town to visit, all would agree that’s a wonderful place to go…
Unless you want to try THIS place.
Yeah, that’s a great place to visit too!
Oh, and there’s always that other place.
Yeah, that other place is great! Hey, so is YET ANOTHER place!
So we had four or five group conversations (!) that seemed as though they were going to be helpful, but turned out to be not so much useful as simply a list of all of the cities and towns in France.
Finally, we picked Avignon. It’s a town in the south of France. You know how we love our cities with walls. It’s proximate to more-expensive Marseilles, where we ended up taking a day trip, and it’s the seat of the Avignon Papacy, and you know how I love those political / religious schisms.
It looked for a bit as though we weren’t going to get the hell out of Paris. We had so few problems traveling that it ultimately made sense that they all conspired to give us a single snaggy day.
The first snag occurred when we tried to make our train reservations to Avignon from Paris. We had Eurail passes which acted as our tickets throughout, but on the TGV (Trains de Grande Vitiesse, AKA Trains of Large Speed) one needs to make reservations before hand, and some routes, (like Paris to Avignon) are only served by TGV.
We hadn’t had any problems with same-day reservations previously, but on this Monday 4/21 our TGV desk agent seemed certain that there simply wasn’t ANY WAY we were going to be able to get to Avignon before Thursday.
Well, we’ve spent too much time traveling on trains to believe anyone who tells us that it’s impossible to get to one location from another location. I’d be lying if I said the hour we spent on various lines and at various computer kiosks wasn’t stressful, but eventually we pieced together an alternate route to Avignon that got us to our destination hours, not days, later than our original plan.
When we landed with the exact same TGV desk agent to purchase reservations for our alternate path journey, he apologized for not having though to check that route himself.
Thanks dick.
The extended Paris layover allowed us to explore the Jardins des Plantes et le Jardins Luxemborg which, by the way, has the coolest playground in the world! Not to mention the kids sailing little boats in the big fountain.
We’d dropped our rucksacks in the train station lockers in order to take our little excursion. Unfortunately we lingered by the boats in the fountain for just a bit too long and after hustling back down the LONGEST STREET IN PARIS we made the locker-room in EXACTLY enough time to grab our bags and make our train.
The locker “key” was actually a ticket to reinsert, and to keep that ticket undamaged, I stowed it in my passport.
Despite my keeping the ticket sans fold or wrinkle, the LED display informed me, in Francais, that THIS TICKET IS DAMAGED AND CANNOT BE READ.
What?
Shit!?!
There is a man who works the locker room. My terrible high school French was made worse by my eagerness to not miss the train route we’d gerry rigged. I’m sure to him my sentences sounded something like:
“Key not work”
“Please thank you help”
“Luggage in box stuck”
I’ve never seen Jenn so red and pissed as when the attendant lazily began to disassemble the entire mechanism of the locker. I swore over and over that I simply could NOT have damaged the key card, but I think she still believes that I somehow crumpled, sweated upon, or chewed it up.
We finally retrieved our bags, minutes to go! Following the signs to the correct platform and we ascend the wrong stairway! Why is have they hidden track 10? If we were already in London, I’d be sure that this was some sort of Harry Potter hidden magical platform. Down these stairs, up those! Ah, there’s the track, simply through that glad door and…
Just to add insult to panic, I chose the door of the set that was locked. In my rush I didn’t quite understand what had happened until I’d been knocked back a few feet.
We made the train with a breath of relief. Nothing that happened in the sequence was unusual for the type of travel we were doing, except that it all happened at the same time. Generally our actual travel was event and anecdote free.
Thank the goodness!
(5/20)
You can’t leave Paris!
We had a few days between our week in Paris and our expected arrival in London. We knew we wanted to spend a few days in non-Paris France, and figured some of our new Parisian friends could give us some good advice.
Our Parisian friends did help us, or tried to. Invariably when the topic came up, someone would give a great suggestion of a town to visit, all would agree that’s a wonderful place to go…
Unless you want to try THIS place.
Yeah, that’s a great place to visit too!
Oh, and there’s always that other place.
Yeah, that other place is great! Hey, so is YET ANOTHER place!
So we had four or five group conversations (!) that seemed as though they were going to be helpful, but turned out to be not so much useful as simply a list of all of the cities and towns in France.
Finally, we picked Avignon. It’s a town in the south of France. You know how we love our cities with walls. It’s proximate to more-expensive Marseilles, where we ended up taking a day trip, and it’s the seat of the Avignon Papacy, and you know how I love those political / religious schisms.
It looked for a bit as though we weren’t going to get the hell out of Paris. We had so few problems traveling that it ultimately made sense that they all conspired to give us a single snaggy day.
The first snag occurred when we tried to make our train reservations to Avignon from Paris. We had Eurail passes which acted as our tickets throughout, but on the TGV (Trains de Grande Vitiesse, AKA Trains of Large Speed) one needs to make reservations before hand, and some routes, (like Paris to Avignon) are only served by TGV.
We hadn’t had any problems with same-day reservations previously, but on this Monday 4/21 our TGV desk agent seemed certain that there simply wasn’t ANY WAY we were going to be able to get to Avignon before Thursday.
Well, we’ve spent too much time traveling on trains to believe anyone who tells us that it’s impossible to get to one location from another location. I’d be lying if I said the hour we spent on various lines and at various computer kiosks wasn’t stressful, but eventually we pieced together an alternate route to Avignon that got us to our destination hours, not days, later than our original plan.
When we landed with the exact same TGV desk agent to purchase reservations for our alternate path journey, he apologized for not having though to check that route himself.
Thanks dick.
The extended Paris layover allowed us to explore the Jardins des Plantes et le Jardins Luxemborg which, by the way, has the coolest playground in the world! Not to mention the kids sailing little boats in the big fountain.
We’d dropped our rucksacks in the train station lockers in order to take our little excursion. Unfortunately we lingered by the boats in the fountain for just a bit too long and after hustling back down the LONGEST STREET IN PARIS we made the locker-room in EXACTLY enough time to grab our bags and make our train.
The locker “key” was actually a ticket to reinsert, and to keep that ticket undamaged, I stowed it in my passport.
Despite my keeping the ticket sans fold or wrinkle, the LED display informed me, in Francais, that THIS TICKET IS DAMAGED AND CANNOT BE READ.
What?
Shit!?!
There is a man who works the locker room. My terrible high school French was made worse by my eagerness to not miss the train route we’d gerry rigged. I’m sure to him my sentences sounded something like:
“Key not work”
“Please thank you help”
“Luggage in box stuck”
I’ve never seen Jenn so red and pissed as when the attendant lazily began to disassemble the entire mechanism of the locker. I swore over and over that I simply could NOT have damaged the key card, but I think she still believes that I somehow crumpled, sweated upon, or chewed it up.
We finally retrieved our bags, minutes to go! Following the signs to the correct platform and we ascend the wrong stairway! Why is have they hidden track 10? If we were already in London, I’d be sure that this was some sort of Harry Potter hidden magical platform. Down these stairs, up those! Ah, there’s the track, simply through that glad door and…
Just to add insult to panic, I chose the door of the set that was locked. In my rush I didn’t quite understand what had happened until I’d been knocked back a few feet.
We made the train with a breath of relief. Nothing that happened in the sequence was unusual for the type of travel we were doing, except that it all happened at the same time. Generally our actual travel was event and anecdote free.
Thank the goodness!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Edith Piaf sang here!
4/19
(5/20)
(I can’t believe these events are already a month ago. In some ways it feels like last week.)
After an afternoon workshop in the Paris Suburbs, the leaders of Eux treated us to a WONDERFUL dinner at Ian’s favorite restaurant Chez Papa. The restaurant specializes in southwest French food. After the excellent meal, we decided to see The Improfessionals in a mix-show: one in which they performed in rotation with another improv group and several standups, poetry-jammers, et al.
The show was to be mostly in French, but we’d already enjoyed shows in German, my French is better than my German, and at very least our presence would support our new friends. Seeing an improv show in French wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Little did I expect that I’d be asked to play!
The Improfessionals were short, they only had 3 players at the show. In my workshop with them a few days ago, we’d played around with some highly physical, highly theatrical, anything-goes, avant-garde improv techniques. They felt like playing with some of that and who was I to turn down another opportunity to play an international show?
The room was hot and stuffy. I hadn’t seen the entire show leading up to our late appearance, but the reception that a couple of the previous acts got led me to believe that I was stepping in front of a hostile-ish audience. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in front of a hostile house, it wasn’t even the first time I’d played in front of a hostile house internationally. The vibe stepping on stage actually reminded me of one of the shows I played in Dublin while in college. The audience HATED having a yank on stage and refused to give me any suggestions other than the titles of Irish-language folk songs that I clearly would not know.
It was a moment of Déjà vu as Caspar began to take a phrase for each of the players on stage. I just KNEW that someone was going to give me a French phrase that I didn’t know.
No matter, I am an INTERNATIONAL IMPROVISER! I’ll be able to play with whatever phrase I get, even if I don’t understand it!
“And let’s have a phrase for our American guest!”
Oh shit, here it comes!
And then a voice from the audience! A combination of a generous French audience member, along with the gods of luck, serendipity, and goodness (each of whom I honor on a regular basis):
“Let’s Go!”
Impossible! Not only did they give me a phrase in English, but they gave me a phrase in English that I actually know in French! Not only did I just sort of maybe know it in French, like most of the French I know, I actually, confidently knew the phrase in French, and showed them so as I repeated the phrase to the house!
“Allons-y!”
And the audience roared! We had them from that point on!
I found out from Nabla later (one of our Eux friends) that part of the positive reaction was to my “adorable” awful American accent in attempting to speak French.
Whatever. I’ll take adorable if it gets the audience on my side.
You’ve heard people say that if you attempt to speak French, that Parisians will have patience with you, no matter how bad your accent or vocabulary is. I take this anecdote as solid proof of that theory.
I also take this story as proof that if you can ‘hook’ the audience early, it’s easy to keep them involved in your whole piece, as long as you play with honesty and strength.
The show that followed was indeed filled with free-form craziness, and the audience loved it! We played in both French and English and even that was ok for my terrible French. The show was free-form enough that even when I didn’t understand the language well, I was able to survive with strong, physical scenework.
The show was great fun, another tribute to the open, fearless, trusting style of The Improfessinals.
And it took place in the Café de Paris, where I was told Edith Piaf once sang. So there’s that!
(5/20)
(I can’t believe these events are already a month ago. In some ways it feels like last week.)
After an afternoon workshop in the Paris Suburbs, the leaders of Eux treated us to a WONDERFUL dinner at Ian’s favorite restaurant Chez Papa. The restaurant specializes in southwest French food. After the excellent meal, we decided to see The Improfessionals in a mix-show: one in which they performed in rotation with another improv group and several standups, poetry-jammers, et al.
The show was to be mostly in French, but we’d already enjoyed shows in German, my French is better than my German, and at very least our presence would support our new friends. Seeing an improv show in French wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Little did I expect that I’d be asked to play!
The Improfessionals were short, they only had 3 players at the show. In my workshop with them a few days ago, we’d played around with some highly physical, highly theatrical, anything-goes, avant-garde improv techniques. They felt like playing with some of that and who was I to turn down another opportunity to play an international show?
The room was hot and stuffy. I hadn’t seen the entire show leading up to our late appearance, but the reception that a couple of the previous acts got led me to believe that I was stepping in front of a hostile-ish audience. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in front of a hostile house, it wasn’t even the first time I’d played in front of a hostile house internationally. The vibe stepping on stage actually reminded me of one of the shows I played in Dublin while in college. The audience HATED having a yank on stage and refused to give me any suggestions other than the titles of Irish-language folk songs that I clearly would not know.
It was a moment of Déjà vu as Caspar began to take a phrase for each of the players on stage. I just KNEW that someone was going to give me a French phrase that I didn’t know.
No matter, I am an INTERNATIONAL IMPROVISER! I’ll be able to play with whatever phrase I get, even if I don’t understand it!
“And let’s have a phrase for our American guest!”
Oh shit, here it comes!
And then a voice from the audience! A combination of a generous French audience member, along with the gods of luck, serendipity, and goodness (each of whom I honor on a regular basis):
“Let’s Go!”
Impossible! Not only did they give me a phrase in English, but they gave me a phrase in English that I actually know in French! Not only did I just sort of maybe know it in French, like most of the French I know, I actually, confidently knew the phrase in French, and showed them so as I repeated the phrase to the house!
“Allons-y!”
And the audience roared! We had them from that point on!
I found out from Nabla later (one of our Eux friends) that part of the positive reaction was to my “adorable” awful American accent in attempting to speak French.
Whatever. I’ll take adorable if it gets the audience on my side.
You’ve heard people say that if you attempt to speak French, that Parisians will have patience with you, no matter how bad your accent or vocabulary is. I take this anecdote as solid proof of that theory.
I also take this story as proof that if you can ‘hook’ the audience early, it’s easy to keep them involved in your whole piece, as long as you play with honesty and strength.
The show that followed was indeed filled with free-form craziness, and the audience loved it! We played in both French and English and even that was ok for my terrible French. The show was free-form enough that even when I didn’t understand the language well, I was able to survive with strong, physical scenework.
The show was great fun, another tribute to the open, fearless, trusting style of The Improfessinals.
And it took place in the Café de Paris, where I was told Edith Piaf once sang. So there’s that!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Werdness and irony at Versailles
4/18 Friday
(5/20)
That Thursday we made the requisite trip to Versailles. Caspar from The Improfessionals joined us and the three of us had a lovely, tourist-crowded time.
All of the Louis XIV grandeur was, of course, grand, and ostentatious. One can look back at my open letter to the Hapsburg Dynasty and re-address that to the Bourbons as well.
My favorite bit of irony in the palace includes the Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed.
As one passes through the galleries leading into the Hall of Mirrors, it’s necessary to pass a portrait of Alexander pardoning his defeated Persian foe Darius. While the scene in the “historical” portrait never actually took place, the story it portrays is clear: The victorious Alexander strengthens his victory and therefore his empire by showing mercy on his defeated enemy.
The diplomats and statesmen who signed the Treaty of Versailles must have walked past this painting, on their way to humiliating and emasculating Germany and setting the stage for World War II.
The weirdest part of the complex is the Marie Antoinette estate. Slightly weird is the small baroque opera house she had built for herself, in which she performed French comedies as a clever method of learning the language after her move from Austria. Clearly she’d never heard the phrase that all one needs for theater is “two planks and a passion.”
Very weird is the miniature peasant village. As a faux-intellectual, the queen fundementalized some theories of Rousseau which declared the nobility of the peasantry. In an attempt to return to these noble peasant roots, the Hapsburg queen spnt a fortune to have her own little Disneyland peasant village built. She and her court would dress in country garb and go slumming in this weird, scaled down rural village. There are several small farmhouses, a scaled down mill with a scaled down water-wheel, and presumably “real” peasants to work the town when she felt like attending her own personal amusement park. If I was an 18th century peasant and I knew she was passing her time in an expensive movie-set peasant village, I’d be screaming for her head as well!
Don’t forget there’s an actual town of Versailles in addition to the palaces. For lunch we took our customary diversion from the tourist track and found ourselves a wonderful, not so expensive restaurant just 15 minutes or so from the palace complex. It’s well worth it to avoid the museum café for lunch.
(5/20)
That Thursday we made the requisite trip to Versailles. Caspar from The Improfessionals joined us and the three of us had a lovely, tourist-crowded time.
All of the Louis XIV grandeur was, of course, grand, and ostentatious. One can look back at my open letter to the Hapsburg Dynasty and re-address that to the Bourbons as well.
My favorite bit of irony in the palace includes the Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed.
As one passes through the galleries leading into the Hall of Mirrors, it’s necessary to pass a portrait of Alexander pardoning his defeated Persian foe Darius. While the scene in the “historical” portrait never actually took place, the story it portrays is clear: The victorious Alexander strengthens his victory and therefore his empire by showing mercy on his defeated enemy.
The diplomats and statesmen who signed the Treaty of Versailles must have walked past this painting, on their way to humiliating and emasculating Germany and setting the stage for World War II.
The weirdest part of the complex is the Marie Antoinette estate. Slightly weird is the small baroque opera house she had built for herself, in which she performed French comedies as a clever method of learning the language after her move from Austria. Clearly she’d never heard the phrase that all one needs for theater is “two planks and a passion.”
Very weird is the miniature peasant village. As a faux-intellectual, the queen fundementalized some theories of Rousseau which declared the nobility of the peasantry. In an attempt to return to these noble peasant roots, the Hapsburg queen spnt a fortune to have her own little Disneyland peasant village built. She and her court would dress in country garb and go slumming in this weird, scaled down rural village. There are several small farmhouses, a scaled down mill with a scaled down water-wheel, and presumably “real” peasants to work the town when she felt like attending her own personal amusement park. If I was an 18th century peasant and I knew she was passing her time in an expensive movie-set peasant village, I’d be screaming for her head as well!
Don’t forget there’s an actual town of Versailles in addition to the palaces. For lunch we took our customary diversion from the tourist track and found ourselves a wonderful, not so expensive restaurant just 15 minutes or so from the palace complex. It’s well worth it to avoid the museum café for lunch.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Show on a boat!
Weds 4/17
4/24/08
The Improfessionals are an English speaking impro group based in Paris made up mainly of expatriates. The group I met on Tuesday night for a workshop includes two Americans, a Brit, a Canadian, a German, and a Dane. Just my type of improv group! They hired me for an editing technique workshop, but had such fun with one of the improvised –freeform movement warm-ups that we actually spent about half of the workshop expanding on those exercises.
Then on Wednesday I was scheduled to perform in a show with them. Though I’d never played (or even rehearsed) their format, the team is such a fun, open, trusting group of talented individuals that I never felt anything but part of the team as we were playing. The audience reacted well and seemed to like the whole show which, by the way, was performed on a BOAT! It’s a barge on a quay and is better equipped than most OOB theater spaces in New York City.
Great fun!
(Improv talk ahead)
Luckily we won the audience over early, for there was a single set of scenes which were my worst time on an improv stage in recent memory.
The Improfessionals format is a directed improv. A single player will interact with the audience for a scene or set of scenes and guide the rest of the cast through their paces. In this instance, Caspar requested that the audience provide a location.
Zimbabwe was the response.
Caspar, being the skilled and experienced improviser that he is, asked that the suggestion be made more specific, for we all know that a nation doesn’t really give the players on stage the same sort of gift that a specific, non-geographical location will give.
However, in being more specific, the audience member responded “Harare”.
This show is being performed in English. Caspar the Dane speaks five languages, English and French being two of them.
The audience member was French, I know this because the French do not use the letter “H”. (Or the letter “D” by the way. I spent a week in Paris not teaching Harold, but teaching Arol.)
While I understood that the French audience member had said Harare, because it’s one of the first associations I have with the country Zimbabwe, Caspar thought the man said “An alley”.
An alley in Zimbabwe would be a wonderful place to begin an improv scene. It might even include some political satire, not to mention kids huffing glue.
But this was not to be!
Unfortunately the audience member was fairly insistent that the scene take place in Harare, and repeated his suggestion, much to the chagrin of Caspar, who still believed he was receiving an insistent request for an alley.
This is where I stuck my fat nose in.
--- That’s actually as far as I got on that leg of the journey. I was running down on battery power and it was time to change yet another train. That travel day took a week, but we were rewarded by finally landing in London Town and our wonderful friend Emily. She’s teaching at NYU/London this semester, and her flat has been our home base for this trip. We’ve already crashed here twice on the trip, but this is the first time we’ve been here WITH her. I continue these entries from her living room with floor to ceiling windows and panoramic 13th floor views (yes, much less superstitious than in the U.S.) of Southwark (pronounced “southark”, duh!) London. We can see Big Ben, The London Eye, the smokestacks from the album cover of Pink Floyd’s “Animals” and the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral that you comedy geeks will remember from the closing credits of Benny Hill. It’s now 4/26 and in a few hours we’re off to catch a production of Lear at the reconstructed Globe Theater. I’m very excited.
All right, back to Paris last Wednesday.---
Ok, the audience member had clearly been reading about Zimbabwe in the paper and Caspar didn’t understand the Harare clarification. I am absolutely not criticizing the Improfessionals for not knowing anything about Zimbabwe. I didn’t know anything about Zimbabwe before I was about to meet my new Zim friends in Holland in 2000.
Well, I did meet my now-old friends from Zim in 2000 and subsequently traveled through Zimbabwe after playing and teaching at the Harare festival in aught one.
Therefore I do know something about Zimbabwe, and said so. To help Caspar I hopped on stage and explained that Harare was the capitol of Zimbabwe. In an effort to get the scene finally started, Caspar placed the scene in “The President’s office” in Harare and off we went.
A quick survey of the eyes of the rest of the company showed that none of them knew much about Zimbabwe or the current political turmoil, so I cast myself as Bob Mugabe speaking to a nameless aid in the wake of the recent real-life election.
I’d like to humbly boast that I was able to lead the subsequent series of scenes in a subtle, informative, character driven manner. That I flawlessly shared enough actual information with my teammates that we were easily able to flow into honest, provocative scenic games which rivaled the political satire which the International Clowns improvised in Harare Zimbabwe in the midst of a social and political crisis.
I’d like to be able to boast all of that, but the resulting sequence was clunky, heavy handed, and awkward. Wow.
The rest of the show was great fun. I knew that I was walking into a hellatious idea-driven world of my own head when I began the scene, but also saw no way out of it. There are several old western movies when our hero, usually a white man being initiated into an indigenous tribe, must walk stoically through a gamut of braves attacking him with kicks, punches, clubs and fire. He knows what’s coming and knows that he has no choice but to walk through the gamut. As we began the Zimbabwe scenes, I took that same deep breath that our usually-white initiate hero takes before walking up that path. My only regret was that I felt as though I was dragging the rest of that team through the alley (Harare) of abuse.
If I’d seen any other way, I would have saved them. I swear!
The rest of the show was brilliantly fun, though. And by the end the audience and the Improfessonals had forgiven me for being Mugabe.
Thank the goodness!
On the other hand, I’d far rather run through that metaphorical gauntlet on an improv stage than be actually effected by Mugabe’s ambition and douchebaggery on a day to day basis.
Sigh.
4/24/08
The Improfessionals are an English speaking impro group based in Paris made up mainly of expatriates. The group I met on Tuesday night for a workshop includes two Americans, a Brit, a Canadian, a German, and a Dane. Just my type of improv group! They hired me for an editing technique workshop, but had such fun with one of the improvised –freeform movement warm-ups that we actually spent about half of the workshop expanding on those exercises.
Then on Wednesday I was scheduled to perform in a show with them. Though I’d never played (or even rehearsed) their format, the team is such a fun, open, trusting group of talented individuals that I never felt anything but part of the team as we were playing. The audience reacted well and seemed to like the whole show which, by the way, was performed on a BOAT! It’s a barge on a quay and is better equipped than most OOB theater spaces in New York City.
Great fun!
(Improv talk ahead)
Luckily we won the audience over early, for there was a single set of scenes which were my worst time on an improv stage in recent memory.
The Improfessionals format is a directed improv. A single player will interact with the audience for a scene or set of scenes and guide the rest of the cast through their paces. In this instance, Caspar requested that the audience provide a location.
Zimbabwe was the response.
Caspar, being the skilled and experienced improviser that he is, asked that the suggestion be made more specific, for we all know that a nation doesn’t really give the players on stage the same sort of gift that a specific, non-geographical location will give.
However, in being more specific, the audience member responded “Harare”.
This show is being performed in English. Caspar the Dane speaks five languages, English and French being two of them.
The audience member was French, I know this because the French do not use the letter “H”. (Or the letter “D” by the way. I spent a week in Paris not teaching Harold, but teaching Arol.)
While I understood that the French audience member had said Harare, because it’s one of the first associations I have with the country Zimbabwe, Caspar thought the man said “An alley”.
An alley in Zimbabwe would be a wonderful place to begin an improv scene. It might even include some political satire, not to mention kids huffing glue.
But this was not to be!
Unfortunately the audience member was fairly insistent that the scene take place in Harare, and repeated his suggestion, much to the chagrin of Caspar, who still believed he was receiving an insistent request for an alley.
This is where I stuck my fat nose in.
--- That’s actually as far as I got on that leg of the journey. I was running down on battery power and it was time to change yet another train. That travel day took a week, but we were rewarded by finally landing in London Town and our wonderful friend Emily. She’s teaching at NYU/London this semester, and her flat has been our home base for this trip. We’ve already crashed here twice on the trip, but this is the first time we’ve been here WITH her. I continue these entries from her living room with floor to ceiling windows and panoramic 13th floor views (yes, much less superstitious than in the U.S.) of Southwark (pronounced “southark”, duh!) London. We can see Big Ben, The London Eye, the smokestacks from the album cover of Pink Floyd’s “Animals” and the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral that you comedy geeks will remember from the closing credits of Benny Hill. It’s now 4/26 and in a few hours we’re off to catch a production of Lear at the reconstructed Globe Theater. I’m very excited.
All right, back to Paris last Wednesday.---
Ok, the audience member had clearly been reading about Zimbabwe in the paper and Caspar didn’t understand the Harare clarification. I am absolutely not criticizing the Improfessionals for not knowing anything about Zimbabwe. I didn’t know anything about Zimbabwe before I was about to meet my new Zim friends in Holland in 2000.
Well, I did meet my now-old friends from Zim in 2000 and subsequently traveled through Zimbabwe after playing and teaching at the Harare festival in aught one.
Therefore I do know something about Zimbabwe, and said so. To help Caspar I hopped on stage and explained that Harare was the capitol of Zimbabwe. In an effort to get the scene finally started, Caspar placed the scene in “The President’s office” in Harare and off we went.
A quick survey of the eyes of the rest of the company showed that none of them knew much about Zimbabwe or the current political turmoil, so I cast myself as Bob Mugabe speaking to a nameless aid in the wake of the recent real-life election.
I’d like to humbly boast that I was able to lead the subsequent series of scenes in a subtle, informative, character driven manner. That I flawlessly shared enough actual information with my teammates that we were easily able to flow into honest, provocative scenic games which rivaled the political satire which the International Clowns improvised in Harare Zimbabwe in the midst of a social and political crisis.
I’d like to be able to boast all of that, but the resulting sequence was clunky, heavy handed, and awkward. Wow.
The rest of the show was great fun. I knew that I was walking into a hellatious idea-driven world of my own head when I began the scene, but also saw no way out of it. There are several old western movies when our hero, usually a white man being initiated into an indigenous tribe, must walk stoically through a gamut of braves attacking him with kicks, punches, clubs and fire. He knows what’s coming and knows that he has no choice but to walk through the gamut. As we began the Zimbabwe scenes, I took that same deep breath that our usually-white initiate hero takes before walking up that path. My only regret was that I felt as though I was dragging the rest of that team through the alley (Harare) of abuse.
If I’d seen any other way, I would have saved them. I swear!
The rest of the show was brilliantly fun, though. And by the end the audience and the Improfessonals had forgiven me for being Mugabe.
Thank the goodness!
On the other hand, I’d far rather run through that metaphorical gauntlet on an improv stage than be actually effected by Mugabe’s ambition and douchebaggery on a day to day basis.
Sigh.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The catacombs.
Weds 4/16
4/24/08
When you go to Paris, don’t miss the catacombs.
In the late 17th century Parisians discovered that the “Cemetery of the Innocents”, located next to the famed Les Hales market, was leading to the contamination of the local groundwater. The decision was made to move the entire effing graveyard outside the (then) city limits, so under cover of night, they began dumping their millions of long-dead citizens into an old rock quarry.
The civil engineer who takes credit for the idea apparently noticed that huge piles of bones dumped in a hole is a less than dignified way to spend eternity, and encouraged the decorative arrangement of the former human beings.
The result is fascinating, strangely beautiful, and not nearly as creepy as you’d think it should be. The bone masons seem to have worked primarily with femurs and skulls, building retaining walls, which held back the remaining thousands of human bones. They decorated skulls into abstract geometric patterns, crosses, even a valentine. All of the bodies anonymous. Some of them famous before their demise.
I haven’t yet had time to satisfy my remaining curiosity about the catacombs: Who were the workers who constructed the designs? Was there a trial and error period as they found the best bones to work with? Did they strip the flesh off of the fresher corpses, or were those left to rot elsewhere?
Apparently non-tourist sections of the catacombs (they stretch for miles) attach to the city sewers, and there are corpse-spelunkers who (illegally) explore the vast network. I wonder if I can hook up with a group of them for my next Paris visit?
4/24/08
When you go to Paris, don’t miss the catacombs.
In the late 17th century Parisians discovered that the “Cemetery of the Innocents”, located next to the famed Les Hales market, was leading to the contamination of the local groundwater. The decision was made to move the entire effing graveyard outside the (then) city limits, so under cover of night, they began dumping their millions of long-dead citizens into an old rock quarry.
The civil engineer who takes credit for the idea apparently noticed that huge piles of bones dumped in a hole is a less than dignified way to spend eternity, and encouraged the decorative arrangement of the former human beings.
The result is fascinating, strangely beautiful, and not nearly as creepy as you’d think it should be. The bone masons seem to have worked primarily with femurs and skulls, building retaining walls, which held back the remaining thousands of human bones. They decorated skulls into abstract geometric patterns, crosses, even a valentine. All of the bodies anonymous. Some of them famous before their demise.
I haven’t yet had time to satisfy my remaining curiosity about the catacombs: Who were the workers who constructed the designs? Was there a trial and error period as they found the best bones to work with? Did they strip the flesh off of the fresher corpses, or were those left to rot elsewhere?
Apparently non-tourist sections of the catacombs (they stretch for miles) attach to the city sewers, and there are corpse-spelunkers who (illegally) explore the vast network. I wonder if I can hook up with a group of them for my next Paris visit?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hey, We're in Paris!
4/15
4/24
That last batch of entries from Germany were composed on the leg from Avignon to Paris. We just changed trains (changed train stations, in fact) and now have a quick jaunt up to Lille, while we have an hour layover before our trip to Calais.
One last note before I jump to our arrival in Paris: Our new German friends are great! Thomas arranged the workshop with his company nicely and professionally and was a wonderful guide and host. The people in his company “Der Kleine Grinsverker” (The Little Grin-Train) are fun and funny, and I wish we’d had the chance to hang socially with more of them.
We caught a TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse, or Train of Great Speed) from Stuttgart to Paris. MMMM le Train de Grande Vitesse! (I’ll do an entry specifically on the trains presently).
We’ve yet to enter a city where we’ve avoided the constant amazed whisper: “Hey, we’re in [enter appropriate city here]!”
This mantra was even more frequent and even more amazed as we hit Paris. As we made our way from the train station to our host’s apartment the amazingly expected sights of citizen’s carrying baguettes, the Napoleon III style architecture, and café’s serving tiny espressos on cobblestone squares consistently evoked “Hey! We’re in Paris!” whispers and cries from your favorite traveling couple.
The night of Monday 14th wasn’t much of a tourist night, I had my first workshop with one of two groups I’m working with in Paris. The group Eux (“They” or “Them”, and the word doesn’t sound anything like “Eau” or water) was originally a student improv group which has lasted beyond the graduation of some of its members. They’ve discovered longform through books (particularly Charna & Del’s “Truth in Comedy”) and are (as far as we know) the only company attempting longform in France.
Skipping ahead (for the moment) to Tuesday the 15th, we took another of the Sandeman “free” walking tours of Paris and had a good time. Our guide wasn’t quite as confident, funny, or knowledgeable as our Berlin guide, but he was slightly new, so he couldn’t be as confident; he was American, so he couldn’t sound like Eddie Izzard, and your humble narrator happens to be interested in weird, obscure items as we walk around, so we can’t really blame him for losing the “stump the tour guide” game.
Of course the constant emergence of landmarks and monuments with which we were already familiar continued our canon of “Hey! We’re in Paris!”
4/24
That last batch of entries from Germany were composed on the leg from Avignon to Paris. We just changed trains (changed train stations, in fact) and now have a quick jaunt up to Lille, while we have an hour layover before our trip to Calais.
One last note before I jump to our arrival in Paris: Our new German friends are great! Thomas arranged the workshop with his company nicely and professionally and was a wonderful guide and host. The people in his company “Der Kleine Grinsverker” (The Little Grin-Train) are fun and funny, and I wish we’d had the chance to hang socially with more of them.
We caught a TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse, or Train of Great Speed) from Stuttgart to Paris. MMMM le Train de Grande Vitesse! (I’ll do an entry specifically on the trains presently).
We’ve yet to enter a city where we’ve avoided the constant amazed whisper: “Hey, we’re in [enter appropriate city here]!”
This mantra was even more frequent and even more amazed as we hit Paris. As we made our way from the train station to our host’s apartment the amazingly expected sights of citizen’s carrying baguettes, the Napoleon III style architecture, and café’s serving tiny espressos on cobblestone squares consistently evoked “Hey! We’re in Paris!” whispers and cries from your favorite traveling couple.
The night of Monday 14th wasn’t much of a tourist night, I had my first workshop with one of two groups I’m working with in Paris. The group Eux (“They” or “Them”, and the word doesn’t sound anything like “Eau” or water) was originally a student improv group which has lasted beyond the graduation of some of its members. They’ve discovered longform through books (particularly Charna & Del’s “Truth in Comedy”) and are (as far as we know) the only company attempting longform in France.
Skipping ahead (for the moment) to Tuesday the 15th, we took another of the Sandeman “free” walking tours of Paris and had a good time. Our guide wasn’t quite as confident, funny, or knowledgeable as our Berlin guide, but he was slightly new, so he couldn’t be as confident; he was American, so he couldn’t sound like Eddie Izzard, and your humble narrator happens to be interested in weird, obscure items as we walk around, so we can’t really blame him for losing the “stump the tour guide” game.
Of course the constant emergence of landmarks and monuments with which we were already familiar continued our canon of “Hey! We’re in Paris!”
Monday, April 14, 2008
Cliché fulfilled: Oktoberfest!
4/14
4/24
Those of you who know anything about Oktoberfest know that it’s a festival that really only takes place in Munich. Those of you who don’t know anything about Oktoberfest can easily guess that it’s a festival that typically only takes place in October. Well, in Stuttgart they’ve got a spring festival that I will continue to refer to as Apriltoberfest!
There’s a huge amusement park complete with haunted houses and roller coasters and snacks and sausages, all surrounding the huge, perfectly typical, exactly as you would imagine it: Apriltoberfest tent!
This massive arena of a tent contains hundreds of wood planked tables and benches bolted to the ground (all the better to dance upon) lining up towards a high bandstand. The band itself is dressed in bits of 18th century Prussian military regalia (much more popular here than 20th century German military regalia) and plays traditional German call and response drinking songs between longer sets of American rock and pop covers.
And yes, there are the huge full liter glasses of beer hauled around by waiters and waitresses in dirndls and lederhosen!
I’m led to understand that the high volume of the beer is due to the lower alcohol content in the southern-German brew. I believe this, since I didn’t really feel much of an effect after drinking one glass of my own and helping Jenn finish hers. I should say I didn’t feel much of an effect in my head. I certainly felt an effect in my bloated belly, which for a short time held a full liter (plus) of big brew. Thank the goodness that the Aprltoberfest people don’t believe in pay toilets. They’d make a fortune, I suppose, but there would likely be karmic wrath.
4/24
Those of you who know anything about Oktoberfest know that it’s a festival that really only takes place in Munich. Those of you who don’t know anything about Oktoberfest can easily guess that it’s a festival that typically only takes place in October. Well, in Stuttgart they’ve got a spring festival that I will continue to refer to as Apriltoberfest!
There’s a huge amusement park complete with haunted houses and roller coasters and snacks and sausages, all surrounding the huge, perfectly typical, exactly as you would imagine it: Apriltoberfest tent!This massive arena of a tent contains hundreds of wood planked tables and benches bolted to the ground (all the better to dance upon) lining up towards a high bandstand. The band itself is dressed in bits of 18th century Prussian military regalia (much more popular here than 20th century German military regalia) and plays traditional German call and response drinking songs between longer sets of American rock and pop covers.
And yes, there are the huge full liter glasses of beer hauled around by waiters and waitresses in dirndls and lederhosen!
I’m led to understand that the high volume of the beer is due to the lower alcohol content in the southern-German brew. I believe this, since I didn’t really feel much of an effect after drinking one glass of my own and helping Jenn finish hers. I should say I didn’t feel much of an effect in my head. I certainly felt an effect in my bloated belly, which for a short time held a full liter (plus) of big brew. Thank the goodness that the Aprltoberfest people don’t believe in pay toilets. They’d make a fortune, I suppose, but there would likely be karmic wrath.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Worn out and Restored
4/12/08
Worn out and Restored.
If you’re reading this blog and actually paying attention to the dates upon which I actually composed them, you’ll see that everything since we first went to Germany has been written in the last couple of nights, which will lead you to the question: What’s up? Nothing to do at night in Vienna besides write in your stupid journal?
Well, sure, I’m certain there would have been plenty to do at night in Vienna. The truth is that we simply couldn’t handle it. We’ve been Power Tourists for the past three weeks solid. Our Keene’s have clocked several sightseeing miles every day. Not that we’re afraid of public transportation, we’ve made it a point to do a subway or tram trip in every city. On the other hand we’ve got somewhat of an unofficial policy that if we possibly CAN walk a route, we do. We love discovering small, weird, hidden away gems that can only be found by keeping a walking pace. So we walk. And we still cover quite a bit of ground.
The presence of our wonderful – fun impro friends in both Hamburg and Berlin also meant that I haven’t yet had a night in Germany that saw sleep previous to the wee hours. The presence of ourselves in new, foreign cities also meant that “sleeping IN” has never really been considered a morning option. By the time we hit Austria, we were worn out. Oh, we still trucked through the sights of Vienna! We are, after all, Power Tourists. But nighttime was restoration night. We rested and I answered the call of those of you who complained that I wasn’t keeping up with the travel-blog.
I hereby declare myself CAUGHT UP on the blog! At least until I’m not anymore.
So now the ball is in your court. Now we want to see that you’re actually reading. We want to see your comments!
What’s next for us?
We’re on the way to Stuttgart. That’s whereBMW Mercedes-Benz is headquartered. But that’s not why we’re going there. Tomorrow begins my solid week-plus of improv workshops (and a performance). It’s Sunday in Stuttgart, then Monday through next Sunday in Paris France. Power Tourist by day! Power Impro-structor by night.
I’ll do my best to warn you, my kind and loyal readers, when I’m going to expend text just talking about the improv class, since I know that’s not going to be interesting to most of you. On the other hand, it’s part of my trip, so I’m going to effing write about it.
Love and Iron-Rail-Cat-Naps
Rob & Jenn
Worn out and Restored.
If you’re reading this blog and actually paying attention to the dates upon which I actually composed them, you’ll see that everything since we first went to Germany has been written in the last couple of nights, which will lead you to the question: What’s up? Nothing to do at night in Vienna besides write in your stupid journal?
Well, sure, I’m certain there would have been plenty to do at night in Vienna. The truth is that we simply couldn’t handle it. We’ve been Power Tourists for the past three weeks solid. Our Keene’s have clocked several sightseeing miles every day. Not that we’re afraid of public transportation, we’ve made it a point to do a subway or tram trip in every city. On the other hand we’ve got somewhat of an unofficial policy that if we possibly CAN walk a route, we do. We love discovering small, weird, hidden away gems that can only be found by keeping a walking pace. So we walk. And we still cover quite a bit of ground.
The presence of our wonderful – fun impro friends in both Hamburg and Berlin also meant that I haven’t yet had a night in Germany that saw sleep previous to the wee hours. The presence of ourselves in new, foreign cities also meant that “sleeping IN” has never really been considered a morning option. By the time we hit Austria, we were worn out. Oh, we still trucked through the sights of Vienna! We are, after all, Power Tourists. But nighttime was restoration night. We rested and I answered the call of those of you who complained that I wasn’t keeping up with the travel-blog.
I hereby declare myself CAUGHT UP on the blog! At least until I’m not anymore.
So now the ball is in your court. Now we want to see that you’re actually reading. We want to see your comments!
What’s next for us?
We’re on the way to Stuttgart. That’s where
I’ll do my best to warn you, my kind and loyal readers, when I’m going to expend text just talking about the improv class, since I know that’s not going to be interesting to most of you. On the other hand, it’s part of my trip, so I’m going to effing write about it.
Love and Iron-Rail-Cat-Naps
Rob & Jenn
Be Warned
4/13
4/24
This is Improv talk. Be warned.
First of all, next time I do a big trip like this, I’ll START with an intense week of improv training and THEN do some free-style vacationing. Heading into Stuttgart we’ve already been through Vienna and Prague and Berlin and Hamburg and Edinburgh and a teeny bit of London, so I’m going into these workshops a bit worn out already.
Fortunately, I really like improv and I like teaching, and ultimately everyone I’ve worked with so far (composing on 4/24) has been enthusiastic enough that my energy level in the workshops have been no problem.
The language barrier was a bit weird but not insurmountable. All of the students passably understood English, sometimes with a bit of translation help, so I taught in English and they performed in German. I don’t know any German but I know improv, so I actually didn’t have too much trouble identifying some of their problem areas and giving exercises to work on.
Most of the work was on points that were fairly universal: Heightening physicality in scenework and initiating with power.
Other elements are somewhat cultural. Most European improvisers like to improvise with a concern towards driving the overall story forward, and therefore make their improv moves and individual choices based on how they are likely to effect the overall story. European improvisers are influenced primarily by the writings and practice of Keith Johnstone. All American improvisers have at least read his opus “Impro”, but he’s not our main influence.
(Somebody has borrowed my hard cover copy of Impro, by the way. Do you have it? It’s black with yellow type and has a b/w picture of two actors doing mask work on the dust jacket.)
American improvisers, on the other hand, working from the Chicago style are influenced primarily by the work of The Second City, Del Close, Mick Napier schools and styles. Story isn’t nearly as important to us in our individual scenework as is relationship and game. We generally prefer to allow the structure of the longform itself help drive the story of the overall piece. Hence the importance of the FORM of longform improvisation.
I do not claim any level of objectivity in my preference for the Chicago style. That’s how I’ve been trained and I find it a much easier way to play. The Europeans with whom I’ve worked so far seem to be appreciating the Chicago-style tools I’m giving them, and I expect they’ll have success adopting some of these tools into their generally Johnstone style.
I hope.
4/24
This is Improv talk. Be warned.
First of all, next time I do a big trip like this, I’ll START with an intense week of improv training and THEN do some free-style vacationing. Heading into Stuttgart we’ve already been through Vienna and Prague and Berlin and Hamburg and Edinburgh and a teeny bit of London, so I’m going into these workshops a bit worn out already.
Fortunately, I really like improv and I like teaching, and ultimately everyone I’ve worked with so far (composing on 4/24) has been enthusiastic enough that my energy level in the workshops have been no problem.
The language barrier was a bit weird but not insurmountable. All of the students passably understood English, sometimes with a bit of translation help, so I taught in English and they performed in German. I don’t know any German but I know improv, so I actually didn’t have too much trouble identifying some of their problem areas and giving exercises to work on.
Most of the work was on points that were fairly universal: Heightening physicality in scenework and initiating with power.
Other elements are somewhat cultural. Most European improvisers like to improvise with a concern towards driving the overall story forward, and therefore make their improv moves and individual choices based on how they are likely to effect the overall story. European improvisers are influenced primarily by the writings and practice of Keith Johnstone. All American improvisers have at least read his opus “Impro”, but he’s not our main influence.
(Somebody has borrowed my hard cover copy of Impro, by the way. Do you have it? It’s black with yellow type and has a b/w picture of two actors doing mask work on the dust jacket.)
American improvisers, on the other hand, working from the Chicago style are influenced primarily by the work of The Second City, Del Close, Mick Napier schools and styles. Story isn’t nearly as important to us in our individual scenework as is relationship and game. We generally prefer to allow the structure of the longform itself help drive the story of the overall piece. Hence the importance of the FORM of longform improvisation.
I do not claim any level of objectivity in my preference for the Chicago style. That’s how I’ve been trained and I find it a much easier way to play. The Europeans with whom I’ve worked so far seem to be appreciating the Chicago-style tools I’m giving them, and I expect they’ll have success adopting some of these tools into their generally Johnstone style.
I hope.
To Stuttgart
4/13
4/24
To Stuttgart
In my 4/12 entry I mistakenly described Stuttgart as the capitol of BMW. It’s actually where Mercedes is headquartered. My confusion was immediately cleared up as we approached the city by rail and were welcomed by that Mercedes propeller-logo, twenty feet across and rotating from the highest tower in the city.
In all of these medieval towns we’re visiting or passing, one can see the ancient fortress tower looming overhead to impress the locale with the lord’s political or military might. Other towns’ center around a church steeple impressing all around with the local variety of Christian spiritual (and political and military) might. In Stuttgart it’s Mercedes-Daimler who has declared lordship over the populace. Most of the town either works directly for the plant, or in a sub-contracting business.
Our host Thomas was in New York with his lovely girlfriend Regina a few months ago. We’d connected online before that, and when he asked if there was any good improv in NY during his visit, I confidently replied that he should come experience the premiere performance of “Vicious Pimpery”, which is the new group I perform with. Thank the goodness that our show went off well, or this whole leg of the German trek may not have panned out at all.
Thomas’ first treat was to bring us to the top of the Mercedes logo tower, where we caught a panorama of Stuttgart under the silent rotation of a perfectly engineered gargantuan hood ornament.
We picked up Regina, and had an even nicer treat as they walked us around her nearby town of Tübingen. It’s a small college town that I must admit I’d never heard of before. Its small, winding cobblestone streets and ancient plaster-beam houses retain the old-world charm of a medieval village without feeling cheesy or tourist-trappy.
The evening finished at a hamburger barbecue with some friends of Thomas and Regina’s. Apparently the three couples gather periodically to try different recipes, and they’d already decided upon a hamburger evening before they knew there were Americans coming. Teenage student Marie adorably insisted on practicing her English with us, though in fact her parents have a very good grasp of the language. Even funnier was Marie’s friend, whose name we never learned, since she was too shy to try her own English on us and simply whispered topic suggestions in Marie’s ear.
The gourmet evening progressed into some tasting of differently aged balsamic vinegars, which degenerated into a mocking taste test of different brands of Worcestershire sauce. This was all in fun, of course, but even more fun for me will be to start the rumor that all Germans sit around after dinner and taste teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce.
And as long as we’re starting generalized rumors about Germans:
Apparently all Germans have an intense Steely Dan fetish. They can’t get enough of those guys.
Seriously, all Germans LOVE Steely Dan!
4/24
To Stuttgart
In my 4/12 entry I mistakenly described Stuttgart as the capitol of BMW. It’s actually where Mercedes is headquartered. My confusion was immediately cleared up as we approached the city by rail and were welcomed by that Mercedes propeller-logo, twenty feet across and rotating from the highest tower in the city.
In all of these medieval towns we’re visiting or passing, one can see the ancient fortress tower looming overhead to impress the locale with the lord’s political or military might. Other towns’ center around a church steeple impressing all around with the local variety of Christian spiritual (and political and military) might. In Stuttgart it’s Mercedes-Daimler who has declared lordship over the populace. Most of the town either works directly for the plant, or in a sub-contracting business.
Our host Thomas was in New York with his lovely girlfriend Regina a few months ago. We’d connected online before that, and when he asked if there was any good improv in NY during his visit, I confidently replied that he should come experience the premiere performance of “Vicious Pimpery”, which is the new group I perform with. Thank the goodness that our show went off well, or this whole leg of the German trek may not have panned out at all.
Thomas’ first treat was to bring us to the top of the Mercedes logo tower, where we caught a panorama of Stuttgart under the silent rotation of a perfectly engineered gargantuan hood ornament.
We picked up Regina, and had an even nicer treat as they walked us around her nearby town of Tübingen. It’s a small college town that I must admit I’d never heard of before. Its small, winding cobblestone streets and ancient plaster-beam houses retain the old-world charm of a medieval village without feeling cheesy or tourist-trappy.
The evening finished at a hamburger barbecue with some friends of Thomas and Regina’s. Apparently the three couples gather periodically to try different recipes, and they’d already decided upon a hamburger evening before they knew there were Americans coming. Teenage student Marie adorably insisted on practicing her English with us, though in fact her parents have a very good grasp of the language. Even funnier was Marie’s friend, whose name we never learned, since she was too shy to try her own English on us and simply whispered topic suggestions in Marie’s ear.
The gourmet evening progressed into some tasting of differently aged balsamic vinegars, which degenerated into a mocking taste test of different brands of Worcestershire sauce. This was all in fun, of course, but even more fun for me will be to start the rumor that all Germans sit around after dinner and taste teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce.
And as long as we’re starting generalized rumors about Germans:
Apparently all Germans have an intense Steely Dan fetish. They can’t get enough of those guys.
Seriously, all Germans LOVE Steely Dan!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Dear The Hapsburg Dynasty
4/12/08
4/12/08
That’s right, I’m not post-dating crap for this entry!
Dear the Hapsburg Dynasty
We just left your former capitol and are currently on a train across Germany to our next destination: Stuttgart.
Of course Vienna is still the capitol of Austria, it’s simply the former capitol of your Hapsburg Empire, alternately known as The Austro-Hungarian Empire, or The Holy Roman Empire (neither Holy or Roman, actually) or sometimes referred to as Most of Europe. World War I pretty much put an end to all of that empire stuff, didn’t it? Not such a Great War for you Hapsburgs, huh? Though you did have a pretty good run as a dynasty for about a millennium.
I know there aren’t really any Hapsburgs of any note left behind, but I write to thank you for our few days in your old stomping grounds. Vienna specifically, not just Most of Europe. The architecture throughout is beautiful and ornate. Each corner we turned provided another picture-postcard-worthy shot for my talented photographer girlfriend.
Now, as we depart Vienna there does remain one single, overriding impression:
We fucking get it!
You fuckers were rich and powerful, we fucking know! You’ve made your fucking point!
Seriously, does every fucking doorframe and window sash need to be a beautiful fucking work of art dedicated to the fucking glory of your fucking god via the glory of the fucking Hapsburgs? Jesus Christ! Literally and figuratively! You waged some good fucking wars and arranged even more smart fucking marriages! Yeah, we fucking know! You controlled most of fucking Europe and were able to tax and oppress the fuck out of enough people to foster and hire the best fucking artists and craftsmen from all over your fucking empire! It’s so fucking beautiful I’m literally snotting all over myself. LITERALLY! Fuck!
Best of love to your entire anti-Semitic family, particularly to that fat prude Maria Theresa who inspired such strategic placements of fig leafs and flowing sculptural drapery.
Rob & Jenn
4/12/08
That’s right, I’m not post-dating crap for this entry!
Dear the Hapsburg Dynasty
We just left your former capitol and are currently on a train across Germany to our next destination: Stuttgart.
Of course Vienna is still the capitol of Austria, it’s simply the former capitol of your Hapsburg Empire, alternately known as The Austro-Hungarian Empire, or The Holy Roman Empire (neither Holy or Roman, actually) or sometimes referred to as Most of Europe. World War I pretty much put an end to all of that empire stuff, didn’t it? Not such a Great War for you Hapsburgs, huh? Though you did have a pretty good run as a dynasty for about a millennium.
I know there aren’t really any Hapsburgs of any note left behind, but I write to thank you for our few days in your old stomping grounds. Vienna specifically, not just Most of Europe. The architecture throughout is beautiful and ornate. Each corner we turned provided another picture-postcard-worthy shot for my talented photographer girlfriend.
Now, as we depart Vienna there does remain one single, overriding impression:
We fucking get it!
You fuckers were rich and powerful, we fucking know! You’ve made your fucking point!
Seriously, does every fucking doorframe and window sash need to be a beautiful fucking work of art dedicated to the fucking glory of your fucking god via the glory of the fucking Hapsburgs? Jesus Christ! Literally and figuratively! You waged some good fucking wars and arranged even more smart fucking marriages! Yeah, we fucking know! You controlled most of fucking Europe and were able to tax and oppress the fuck out of enough people to foster and hire the best fucking artists and craftsmen from all over your fucking empire! It’s so fucking beautiful I’m literally snotting all over myself. LITERALLY! Fuck!
Best of love to your entire anti-Semitic family, particularly to that fat prude Maria Theresa who inspired such strategic placements of fig leafs and flowing sculptural drapery.
Rob & Jenn
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Dear Persephone
4/12
4/10
Vienna
Dearest Persephone, Goddess of the Spring.
Thank you so much for meeting us in Vienna. It was delightful to have you around. We certainly don’t wish to imply that we didn’t enjoy Prague while you remained in your hellatious winter residence, but there were certainly moments in which we cursed your love of pomegranate.
Your arrival in Vienna just when we showed up created quite the perfect warm, green atmosphere for our long walks around the former capital of the whole Austro-Hungarian empire slash the Holy Roman Empire.
I do, however, have the slightest complaint. Your presence seems to have brought about the budding of some specific pollen bearing bud which doesn’t typically come to life in North America. I’ve had slight bouts of what we mortals refer to as “hay fever” in the past, but this particular Austrian bud seems to have turned my face into what we mortals refer to as a “snot sieve”. Again, I do not wish you to infer that we didn’t have a wonderful time on our long walks about all the Baroque, Neo-Romanesque, Neo-Baroque, Baroquesque, Romano-Baroque, and Neo-Neosque architecture. We had a wonderful time! It was simply necessary for me to have that wonderful time through flow of Neo-Mucousque fluids consistantly draining my various face orifices.
All the best to the family, though with hope that you’re not back to see Hades presently. Particular love to your mom, whose harvested grains I’ve been particularly enjoying in the shape of Prague beers. While we’re on that subject, let Dionysus know that we’re heading into wine country and will be seeing him soon.
Rob & Jenn
4/10
Vienna
Dearest Persephone, Goddess of the Spring.
Thank you so much for meeting us in Vienna. It was delightful to have you around. We certainly don’t wish to imply that we didn’t enjoy Prague while you remained in your hellatious winter residence, but there were certainly moments in which we cursed your love of pomegranate.
Your arrival in Vienna just when we showed up created quite the perfect warm, green atmosphere for our long walks around the former capital of the whole Austro-Hungarian empire slash the Holy Roman Empire.
I do, however, have the slightest complaint. Your presence seems to have brought about the budding of some specific pollen bearing bud which doesn’t typically come to life in North America. I’ve had slight bouts of what we mortals refer to as “hay fever” in the past, but this particular Austrian bud seems to have turned my face into what we mortals refer to as a “snot sieve”. Again, I do not wish you to infer that we didn’t have a wonderful time on our long walks about all the Baroque, Neo-Romanesque, Neo-Baroque, Baroquesque, Romano-Baroque, and Neo-Neosque architecture. We had a wonderful time! It was simply necessary for me to have that wonderful time through flow of Neo-Mucousque fluids consistantly draining my various face orifices.
All the best to the family, though with hope that you’re not back to see Hades presently. Particular love to your mom, whose harvested grains I’ve been particularly enjoying in the shape of Prague beers. While we’re on that subject, let Dionysus know that we’re heading into wine country and will be seeing him soon.
Rob & Jenn
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Quick update
4/9/08
YES!
I know I haven’t blogged well over the past week, when we haven’t been pulling all night laugh/drink/improv brainstorm sessions with old friends, we’ve been power touristing and passing out.
It’s been great and I promise that within the next couple of days I’m going to regale all with tales of Hamburg / St. Pauli, Berlin, Prague, and (starting tomorrow) Vienna!
Another thing to look out / check back for: We’re taking a TON of pictures but haven’t had a chance to sort through them. Jenn will be posting some appropriate pics onto the blogs I’ve already written, and a bunch more photos somewhere else.
Sorry for the delays.
Thanks for your interest.
We promise that more is coming soon!
Rob
& Jenn
YES!
I know I haven’t blogged well over the past week, when we haven’t been pulling all night laugh/drink/improv brainstorm sessions with old friends, we’ve been power touristing and passing out.
It’s been great and I promise that within the next couple of days I’m going to regale all with tales of Hamburg / St. Pauli, Berlin, Prague, and (starting tomorrow) Vienna!
Another thing to look out / check back for: We’re taking a TON of pictures but haven’t had a chance to sort through them. Jenn will be posting some appropriate pics onto the blogs I’ve already written, and a bunch more photos somewhere else.
Sorry for the delays.
Thanks for your interest.
We promise that more is coming soon!
Rob
& Jenn
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Dear Prague Castle
4/11-12
4/8
Dear Prague Castle,
You loom high over a very pretty city. Really you do. It’s a city where every snapshot is a post card and every beer is the best one we’ve ever tasted. Seriously, the city you loom over is so pretty it eventually makes one want to crap.
All of this beauty despite the rain. We’ve toured Prague over two meteorologically miserable days of cold winds and colder rain. We’ve climbed the steep steps to your strategically imposing position, and paid a good deal of money for access to your rooms and sights, in my case mainly to see a specific fenestra. You know, a window from which a particularly (one of three, actually) famous defenestration took place.
And the building which housed that window? Closed! In fact several of your important buildings were closed for repair or renovation or whatever it is that you thousand year old castle complexes do! Oh, I get it, you can’t keep up your girlish castle looks from oppressing the peasants any more, but when we buy tickets your people should have told us that there would be no defenestrative clowning today! For indeed I would have clowned up some defenistratociouty!
All and all it was a good day, despite the closed buildings, despite the rain and wind, despite the complete lack of signage and information about the historical aspects we’ve paid to see. I further recommend that when your people are selling us our expensive access tickets, and we decline to pay for a guided tour or an additional book, that they be trained to say:
“Are you SURE you don’t want to pay for a guided tour?”
or
“Do you REALLY think that the Prague guidebook that you brought with you from home will be enough to get you through this castle?”
and especially:
“Do you REALLY expect to see a room from which a defenestration took place?”
All the best to Good King (actually a Duke) Wenceslas and that St. John who his great grandson threw off of a bridge.
Rob
4/8
Dear Prague Castle,
You loom high over a very pretty city. Really you do. It’s a city where every snapshot is a post card and every beer is the best one we’ve ever tasted. Seriously, the city you loom over is so pretty it eventually makes one want to crap.
All of this beauty despite the rain. We’ve toured Prague over two meteorologically miserable days of cold winds and colder rain. We’ve climbed the steep steps to your strategically imposing position, and paid a good deal of money for access to your rooms and sights, in my case mainly to see a specific fenestra. You know, a window from which a particularly (one of three, actually) famous defenestration took place.
And the building which housed that window? Closed! In fact several of your important buildings were closed for repair or renovation or whatever it is that you thousand year old castle complexes do! Oh, I get it, you can’t keep up your girlish castle looks from oppressing the peasants any more, but when we buy tickets your people should have told us that there would be no defenestrative clowning today! For indeed I would have clowned up some defenistratociouty!
All and all it was a good day, despite the closed buildings, despite the rain and wind, despite the complete lack of signage and information about the historical aspects we’ve paid to see. I further recommend that when your people are selling us our expensive access tickets, and we decline to pay for a guided tour or an additional book, that they be trained to say:
“Are you SURE you don’t want to pay for a guided tour?”
or
“Do you REALLY think that the Prague guidebook that you brought with you from home will be enough to get you through this castle?”
and especially:
“Do you REALLY expect to see a room from which a defenestration took place?”
All the best to Good King (actually a Duke) Wenceslas and that St. John who his great grandson threw off of a bridge.
Rob
Monday, April 7, 2008
Dear The Orf
4/11 -
4/7
Prague
Dear The Orf,
I owe you an apology:
I am sorry that I pretended to understand you.
I am sorry that I pretended to understand as you explained the difference between any beer that I’d ever tasted and beer in the Czech Republic.
I was interested, I promise, but I didn’t truly understand you as you spoke about how “Budweiser” was simply an aborted rip off of a Czech budovar.
I did indeed think I was catching a bit of your poetic waxing about the ancient reinheitsgebot purity laws, but I did not understand.
I did not understand until that first amber flow of un-pasteurized love first flowed down my throat. Until I tasted a silky smooth entity for the first time. An elixir that reminded me slightly of a mere beverage I had once consumed, a beverage called “beer”.
The Orf, I can only ask for your forgiveness
Please let us all know when The Orf The Younger makes his/her appearance.
Rob
(sans “The”)
4/7
Prague
Dear The Orf,
I owe you an apology:
I am sorry that I pretended to understand you.
I am sorry that I pretended to understand as you explained the difference between any beer that I’d ever tasted and beer in the Czech Republic.
I was interested, I promise, but I didn’t truly understand you as you spoke about how “Budweiser” was simply an aborted rip off of a Czech budovar.
I did indeed think I was catching a bit of your poetic waxing about the ancient reinheitsgebot purity laws, but I did not understand.
I did not understand until that first amber flow of un-pasteurized love first flowed down my throat. Until I tasted a silky smooth entity for the first time. An elixir that reminded me slightly of a mere beverage I had once consumed, a beverage called “beer”.
The Orf, I can only ask for your forgiveness
Please let us all know when The Orf The Younger makes his/her appearance.
Rob
(sans “The”)
Saturday, April 5, 2008
What's that smell?
4/11
4/6
Berlin
Smells like an impro fest!
What’s this?
What’s this happening in a little theater, slightly off the beaten path?
It smells familiar!
It smells like love and playtime and learning and sharing.
It smells like an international festival.
I’m not participating in this one. Well, I’m participating in the post-show party, but I’m an observer this time. I’d rather REALLY be participating of course, but this is still nice. It’s a comfortable, fun place to be, even as an outsider.
What’s THAT smell?
It’s Bowmore, a single malt scotch from Islay.
Smells like another absacker or two with a great German improviser.
Yeah, I know that smell.
4/6
Berlin
Smells like an impro fest!
What’s this?
What’s this happening in a little theater, slightly off the beaten path?
It smells familiar!
It smells like love and playtime and learning and sharing.
It smells like an international festival.
I’m not participating in this one. Well, I’m participating in the post-show party, but I’m an observer this time. I’d rather REALLY be participating of course, but this is still nice. It’s a comfortable, fun place to be, even as an outsider.
What’s THAT smell?
It’s Bowmore, a single malt scotch from Islay.
Smells like another absacker or two with a great German improviser.
Yeah, I know that smell.
Dear New Berlin walking tours
Composed April 11
Post Dated April 5
Dear all of you who are reading …
Dear both of you who are reading our Jenn / Rob “New Trip to the Old World” blog!
Clearly most of these “letters” are jokes, just to give some structure to the journal. Since this one is a fan note, I’ll actually be sending it to the Sandeman’s New Europe Tours people:
http://www.newberlintours.com/nbt/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/lang,en/
Dear New Berlin Walking Tours:
Last week we followed several suggestions and joined the New Berlin free tour. We’re not typically fans of guided tours, generally preferring to guide ourselves with books, information, and our guts, all of which generally serve us well. We figured that if the tour sucked, we could simply peel off at any time, and if we stuck to it but were uninspired, we could respond to the final request for tips with a polite few euro.
Our guide Per was simply great. His enthusiasm for Berlin itself shows quite clearly throughout the tour, and his informative, entertaining narrative gave context and life to the disparate tidbits of information tied together by the four-hour walk. Even the facts and information we were already aware of were given a new point of view by his wonderfully subjective lessons.
Per was a great listener as well. He quickly realized that I share his opinion about “Run Lola Run” being one of the greatest movies ever made, and he went out of his way to point out various locations where the film was shot.
Perhaps it’s just because they’re both English, but Per’s delivery, timing, and inflection reminded both of us of Eddie Izzard. He did indeed conduct the entire tour in men’s clothing, at least as far as we could tell.
The only bummer of the tour was that the afternoon break took place at a nice, comfortable, American chain Schlotsky's. We would have loved to be pointed towards a good shack for a sausage and a beer.
Instead of shelling out a few polite euros, we ended up digging through our pockets and handing over all of the cash we had on us. Unfortunately for Per this amounted to only twenty euro and some change. At ten euro each, it was well worth it.
We’ll be recommending “New Europe Tours” to our friends, as I’m doing now by posting this note in our blog:
http://jennrobeurope08.blogspot.com/
We’ll also be looking for subsequent “New Europe” tours later on our trip. We’ll be in Paris and London over the next couple of weeks, and we easily would have taken a New Vienna tour.
All the best,
Rob & Jenn
Post Dated April 5
Dear all of you who are reading …
Dear both of you who are reading our Jenn / Rob “New Trip to the Old World” blog!
Clearly most of these “letters” are jokes, just to give some structure to the journal. Since this one is a fan note, I’ll actually be sending it to the Sandeman’s New Europe Tours people:
http://www.newberlintours.com/nbt/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/lang,en/
Dear New Berlin Walking Tours:
Last week we followed several suggestions and joined the New Berlin free tour. We’re not typically fans of guided tours, generally preferring to guide ourselves with books, information, and our guts, all of which generally serve us well. We figured that if the tour sucked, we could simply peel off at any time, and if we stuck to it but were uninspired, we could respond to the final request for tips with a polite few euro.
Our guide Per was simply great. His enthusiasm for Berlin itself shows quite clearly throughout the tour, and his informative, entertaining narrative gave context and life to the disparate tidbits of information tied together by the four-hour walk. Even the facts and information we were already aware of were given a new point of view by his wonderfully subjective lessons.
Per was a great listener as well. He quickly realized that I share his opinion about “Run Lola Run” being one of the greatest movies ever made, and he went out of his way to point out various locations where the film was shot.
Perhaps it’s just because they’re both English, but Per’s delivery, timing, and inflection reminded both of us of Eddie Izzard. He did indeed conduct the entire tour in men’s clothing, at least as far as we could tell.
The only bummer of the tour was that the afternoon break took place at a nice, comfortable, American chain Schlotsky's. We would have loved to be pointed towards a good shack for a sausage and a beer.
Instead of shelling out a few polite euros, we ended up digging through our pockets and handing over all of the cash we had on us. Unfortunately for Per this amounted to only twenty euro and some change. At ten euro each, it was well worth it.
We’ll be recommending “New Europe Tours” to our friends, as I’m doing now by posting this note in our blog:
http://jennrobeurope08.blogspot.com/
We’ll also be looking for subsequent “New Europe” tours later on our trip. We’ll be in Paris and London over the next couple of weeks, and we easily would have taken a New Vienna tour.
All the best,
Rob & Jenn
Friday, April 4, 2008
another wall
Composed April 11
Postdated April 4 for that continuity thing
another wall
You know we’re doing the literal backpacking tour thing. We’ve got big ol’ rucksacks which carry everything we’ll want with us for the five-plus weeks of this crazy journey.
To further the cliché we’re traveling on a literal Eurail pass. All the traveling we’ve done since we’ve landed in London has been overland, except for the ferry ride from Dover to Calais, which was not only over water, but shared with several busloads of rowdy teenage rugby players hauling palettes of beer.
We hit the train station for the new city, get the hell off the train. Pull off to an area of less traffic within the station, take turns running for the toilet, and get ourselves strapped up for the walk or the public transport ride to wherever we’re staying. Or to the theater where we met Hidden Shakespeare in the case of Hamburg.
When we hit Berlin, we hopped a commuter train to the station closer to our hostel, and began to hoof it the mile or so from the station to the hostel.
As is true of many of the cities, the area immediately surrounding that train station is relatively desolate. No worries, we check our compass, check the map, and we’re on our way!
Across the busy road is a long section of a wall covered in graffiti. No surprise, we’ve already seen a ton of graffiti throughout Germany. I’m this close (fingers close together) to making a joke about how we’re looking at The Berlin Wall and I realize: We’re looking at the Berlin Wall!
We’re not on a tour! We’re not following a map! We’re schlepping our big effing bags from the train station to the hotel and we’re gazing at what is known as The Eastern Gallery. It’s about a mile of all that’s been left standing with some wonderful graffiti art. Most of it political, some of it simply artistic, some of it just made by asshole tourists who want to be a part of it all.
A historic wall has somehow dominated every city we’ve been in so far. Some are to keep people out, others to keep people in. Meanwile we’re tripping around from country to country with very few worries: Where can we do laundry? Can we get an internet hook up? Can we find an affordable place to eat before we want to kill each other? We’ve never feared for our safety or wondered if we might be refused access to a destination. Nobody’s even checked our passports since we landed in London almost three weeks ago.
Most of the walls we see are simply sections. Even the complete walls stand for the sole purpose of allowing tourist assholes like us to climb on them, snap pictures, and ogle at the historical richness.
Those that stand for greater reason than as a tourist attraction remain as a monument and a celebration that this specific wall is really no longer necessary. Or indeed that it basically failed in its intended purpose.
Really any of those reasons are kind of nice.
You know?
Postdated April 4 for that continuity thing
another wall
You know we’re doing the literal backpacking tour thing. We’ve got big ol’ rucksacks which carry everything we’ll want with us for the five-plus weeks of this crazy journey.
To further the cliché we’re traveling on a literal Eurail pass. All the traveling we’ve done since we’ve landed in London has been overland, except for the ferry ride from Dover to Calais, which was not only over water, but shared with several busloads of rowdy teenage rugby players hauling palettes of beer.
We hit the train station for the new city, get the hell off the train. Pull off to an area of less traffic within the station, take turns running for the toilet, and get ourselves strapped up for the walk or the public transport ride to wherever we’re staying. Or to the theater where we met Hidden Shakespeare in the case of Hamburg.
When we hit Berlin, we hopped a commuter train to the station closer to our hostel, and began to hoof it the mile or so from the station to the hostel.
As is true of many of the cities, the area immediately surrounding that train station is relatively desolate. No worries, we check our compass, check the map, and we’re on our way!
Across the busy road is a long section of a wall covered in graffiti. No surprise, we’ve already seen a ton of graffiti throughout Germany. I’m this close (fingers close together) to making a joke about how we’re looking at The Berlin Wall and I realize: We’re looking at the Berlin Wall!
We’re not on a tour! We’re not following a map! We’re schlepping our big effing bags from the train station to the hotel and we’re gazing at what is known as The Eastern Gallery. It’s about a mile of all that’s been left standing with some wonderful graffiti art. Most of it political, some of it simply artistic, some of it just made by asshole tourists who want to be a part of it all.
A historic wall has somehow dominated every city we’ve been in so far. Some are to keep people out, others to keep people in. Meanwile we’re tripping around from country to country with very few worries: Where can we do laundry? Can we get an internet hook up? Can we find an affordable place to eat before we want to kill each other? We’ve never feared for our safety or wondered if we might be refused access to a destination. Nobody’s even checked our passports since we landed in London almost three weeks ago.
Most of the walls we see are simply sections. Even the complete walls stand for the sole purpose of allowing tourist assholes like us to climb on them, snap pictures, and ogle at the historical richness.
Those that stand for greater reason than as a tourist attraction remain as a monument and a celebration that this specific wall is really no longer necessary. Or indeed that it basically failed in its intended purpose.
Really any of those reasons are kind of nice.
You know?
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Greatest Improviser who has Ever Lived!
Composed April 10-11, 2008
Postdated April 3, 2008
Hamburg
The Box
Thorsten Neelmeier is simply the greatest improviser that has ever lived.
Generally known as Neele, we’ve known him since the 2000 Amsterdam Improv festival and subsequently traveled with him and the rest of Hidden Shakespeare as fellow members of The International Clowns.
We play all of our “Clowns” shows in English (or in a hodgepodge of languages) and while Neele’s English is far better than my nonexistent German, it’s not as good as some of his fellow Hidden Shakespeare players.
I used to believe that this was the reason behind his playing style: He’d generally hang back and support where necessary, including the insertion of jaw droppingly perfect comedic gems which would kill everyone in the audience as well as on stage. This type of move is the origin of The Legend of Candy Stomach, for which one must scour my alternate journals.
Now that I’ve watched him play in German, I now know that that’s simply his playing style, and his self-conscious English has very little to do with how he plays with us.
I also learned that he’s the most brilliant, most committed improviser who has ever walked the god’s green earth. This is how it happened:
After a couple of nights with mein guter freund Frank, Neele was kind enough to host us for our last night in Hamburg. He cooked us weiner schnitzel and EVERYTHING!
As he led us up to the spare room where we’d be sleeping he pointed out the very comfortable looking futon (it indeed turned out to be perfectly comfortable) on the floor, and next to it pointed to a shiny metal footlocker. Neele looked at us seriously and said in a menacing voice:
“Zat box. Do not open it!”
Of course, I know he’s clowning and cannot put my bags down quickly enough to see why I’m “not” supposed to open the box.
Jenn queries, “Why not?”
“Inside, there are…”
And I recognize the face Neele makes when he can’t think of an English word.
“eeet is bigger san a mouse?”
“A rat?”
And I recognize the face Neele makes when he has made a solid connection with an English word”
“YES! Eeet es rats een se box!”
Of course I immediately know that Neele is clowning, why the hell would there be rats in a box next to where we’re supposed to sleep in real life? I can’t wait to open this box that I’m “not” supposed to open. Before I have an opportunity to do so, he calls in German to his lovely goth/punk teenage daughter.
Neele actually has two lovely teenage daughters, and a lovely wife (not a teenager) but neither of them are in this story, though we do appreciate all of them opening their home to us.
Jenny (Neele’s daughter, not Jenn who hates being called Jenny) enters and opens the box, and reveals that inside…
Well inside the box there are a pair of fucking rats!
Seriously, a pair of fucking rats!
To be fair, they’re clearly pet rats (or lab rats) and not nasty, awful, scary sewer rats. They’re tame and soft and not at all scary, except for the simple fact that they’re FUCKING RATS!
Apparently it’s a ‘thing” for goth/punk teenagers in Hamburg to keep rats as pets. Probably because it freaks old assholes like us out to sleep next to a box full of fucking rats!
Neele admitted later that he felt a little creepy when he let the rats crawl on him, and seemed to feel guilty for not enjoying something which his daughter clearly liked. Of course we voiced the likelihood that he felt creepy not because of any problem with father-daughter bonding, but because they were FUCKING RATS.
It was SO FUNNY to us that there would actually be rats in a box that this is what I believe actually happened:
Neele began to make a clowny joke about what was in the (probably empty) box and knew in his heart that RATS would be the funniest thing ever.
Being such a talented and committed improviser, he simply WILLED the rats into being. Hard to believe if you’ve never seen it happen on stage, and I admit that few have ever seen such commitment happen in “real life”, but this was an exceptional occasion, and the one which has led me to the conclusion that Neele is simply the greatest improviser who has ever lived.
His daughter Jenny would easily have played along, if she’d had to, but the truth is that Neele simply willed the whole history of the rats into being in that moment of brilliant creation. In fact, he post-created the fad of goth/punk teenage girls taking fucking rats as pets as easily as I’m post-dating these blog entries.
We noticed there weren’t any holes punched in the metal footlocker.
“Can they breathe in there?”
“We don’t think so.”
If your alarm clock isn’t working for you any more, try setting it with a recording of rats squeaking and scratching at the side of a metal box next to your head. I promise you’ll bolt right the hell into your day no matter how many absackers you’ve had the night before!
Postdated April 3, 2008
Hamburg
The Box
Thorsten Neelmeier is simply the greatest improviser that has ever lived.
Generally known as Neele, we’ve known him since the 2000 Amsterdam Improv festival and subsequently traveled with him and the rest of Hidden Shakespeare as fellow members of The International Clowns.
We play all of our “Clowns” shows in English (or in a hodgepodge of languages) and while Neele’s English is far better than my nonexistent German, it’s not as good as some of his fellow Hidden Shakespeare players.
I used to believe that this was the reason behind his playing style: He’d generally hang back and support where necessary, including the insertion of jaw droppingly perfect comedic gems which would kill everyone in the audience as well as on stage. This type of move is the origin of The Legend of Candy Stomach, for which one must scour my alternate journals.
Now that I’ve watched him play in German, I now know that that’s simply his playing style, and his self-conscious English has very little to do with how he plays with us.
I also learned that he’s the most brilliant, most committed improviser who has ever walked the god’s green earth. This is how it happened:
After a couple of nights with mein guter freund Frank, Neele was kind enough to host us for our last night in Hamburg. He cooked us weiner schnitzel and EVERYTHING!
As he led us up to the spare room where we’d be sleeping he pointed out the very comfortable looking futon (it indeed turned out to be perfectly comfortable) on the floor, and next to it pointed to a shiny metal footlocker. Neele looked at us seriously and said in a menacing voice:
“Zat box. Do not open it!”
Of course, I know he’s clowning and cannot put my bags down quickly enough to see why I’m “not” supposed to open the box.
Jenn queries, “Why not?”
“Inside, there are…”
And I recognize the face Neele makes when he can’t think of an English word.
“eeet is bigger san a mouse?”
“A rat?”
And I recognize the face Neele makes when he has made a solid connection with an English word”
“YES! Eeet es rats een se box!”
Of course I immediately know that Neele is clowning, why the hell would there be rats in a box next to where we’re supposed to sleep in real life? I can’t wait to open this box that I’m “not” supposed to open. Before I have an opportunity to do so, he calls in German to his lovely goth/punk teenage daughter.
Neele actually has two lovely teenage daughters, and a lovely wife (not a teenager) but neither of them are in this story, though we do appreciate all of them opening their home to us.
Jenny (Neele’s daughter, not Jenn who hates being called Jenny) enters and opens the box, and reveals that inside…
Well inside the box there are a pair of fucking rats!
Seriously, a pair of fucking rats!
To be fair, they’re clearly pet rats (or lab rats) and not nasty, awful, scary sewer rats. They’re tame and soft and not at all scary, except for the simple fact that they’re FUCKING RATS!
Apparently it’s a ‘thing” for goth/punk teenagers in Hamburg to keep rats as pets. Probably because it freaks old assholes like us out to sleep next to a box full of fucking rats!
Neele admitted later that he felt a little creepy when he let the rats crawl on him, and seemed to feel guilty for not enjoying something which his daughter clearly liked. Of course we voiced the likelihood that he felt creepy not because of any problem with father-daughter bonding, but because they were FUCKING RATS.
It was SO FUNNY to us that there would actually be rats in a box that this is what I believe actually happened:
Neele began to make a clowny joke about what was in the (probably empty) box and knew in his heart that RATS would be the funniest thing ever.
Being such a talented and committed improviser, he simply WILLED the rats into being. Hard to believe if you’ve never seen it happen on stage, and I admit that few have ever seen such commitment happen in “real life”, but this was an exceptional occasion, and the one which has led me to the conclusion that Neele is simply the greatest improviser who has ever lived.
His daughter Jenny would easily have played along, if she’d had to, but the truth is that Neele simply willed the whole history of the rats into being in that moment of brilliant creation. In fact, he post-created the fad of goth/punk teenage girls taking fucking rats as pets as easily as I’m post-dating these blog entries.
We noticed there weren’t any holes punched in the metal footlocker.
“Can they breathe in there?”
“We don’t think so.”
If your alarm clock isn’t working for you any more, try setting it with a recording of rats squeaking and scratching at the side of a metal box next to your head. I promise you’ll bolt right the hell into your day no matter how many absackers you’ve had the night before!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Dear The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure,
Composed April 10, 2008
Postdated April 2, 2008
Hamburg / St. Pauli
Dear The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure,
I was not familiar with the product “Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure” before my recent trip to Hamburg, Germany. I was, in fact, not familiar with ANY axe product aside from the pernicious advertising suggesting that any man wearing any Axe product was certain to magnetically attract beautiful women.
Of course I thought that this so called “Axe Effect” was pure hyperbole. The few times I’d had the misfortune to sniff a sample of an axe product gave me the same reaction as I have when an overheated electrical wire begins to cook it’s own insulating plastic.
Boy was I wrong!
Allow me to backtrack:
My girlfriend Jenn and I were happy to be hosted in Hamburg by mein guter freund Frank. The evening began with climbing from a train with our large packs and finding a theater In St. Pauli (don’t call it Hamburg!) we met other old guter freunds, and had the surreal experience of watching those guter friends perform an improv show completely in German. I’m well aware of the playing style of those guter freunds, so for me it was much like the enjoyment one gets from watching dogs play! After much celebrating, mein guter freund Frank took us back to his place where my girlfriend Jenn went off to bed while mein guter freund Frank and I stayed up for a traditional “absacker”. Now I’ve had drinks with Germans before and my previous experience has taught met that “absacker” is supposed to mean “the last drink of the evening”.
I love the way Germans have single words for complicated ideas, don’t you The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure? I bet you do!
Six or seven “absackers” later, mein guter freund Frank and I were still reminiscing over old times, chuckling about the sound of our various words for hippopotamus, and plotting future domination of the international improv world.
It was that next morning that I discovered, in the shower of mein guter freund Frank (he wasn’t in there, it wasn’t that kind of evening!) Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure. The quick bit of googling I’ve just done had led me to believe that you market this product in the U.S. as Axe Body Wash: Recovery.
What a shame!
Yes, when I first began applying the Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure, it smelled and felt as though I were wiping gelatinous Gatorade about my body. Sure enough, I presently felt much better than I previously had!
My girlfriend Jenn and mein guter freund Frank both postulated that the extra hour of sleep, the breakfast, the coffee, and the shower itself probably had more to do with my feeling better than my use of gelatinous, sweet smelling Gatorade, and I might have believed them if not for the events of later that evening:
We had an interesting and fun tourist day, led by mein guter freund Frank in his mini-clown car (appropriate!). That evening, we took a stroll and began our absackers in a St. Pauli bar.
You probably already know this, The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Gelatinous Gatorade Cure, but St. Pauli is a historic port. Sailors have been docking St. Pauli for centuries!
For some reason, the presence of my girlfriend Jenn seemed to block the following effect, (it must have something to do with her offsetting estrogen), but the one time I walked down the block in this neighborhood on my own, I witnessed the Axe effect in person!
Sure enough, as soon as I appeared on a block where several pretty young ladies happened to be chatting, they began drifting directly towards me! They ALL wanted to chat, and one even went so far as to proposition me RIGHT THERE ON THE STREET! I did find it slightly odd that every single one of these very pretty and charming ladies (no joke) wore their pony tail in the exact same way, all had puffy, pastel ski jackets, and acid wash jeans. I suppose that just happens to be the St. Pauli style.
My girlfriend Jenn was clearly jealous of the attention I was getting due to the correctly advertised Axe Effect. She went so far as to suggest that the young ladies propositioning me were prostitutes! CAN YOU IMAGINE! She actually said OUT LOUD that she thought that they were simply offering me sex because they expected me to PAY THEM!
I mean, SERIOUSLY! I live blocks from Times Square in New York City! I know what a prostitute looks like! A prostitute that approaches one on the street is a middle-aged woman (if she’s a woman) who looks beat up, used up, and dragged through a sharp pile of trouble. She’s barely understandable over the delirium tremens and has bad teeth, if she has teeth, if she’s a she. Which isn’t to say s/he doesn’t give a great time for your seventeen dollars!
Thanks again The Makers Of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure! I’ll be certain to buy your product regularly, if I can get over the instinct to shut down all the electrical power each time I catch a scent.
Sincerely,
Rob Reese
Postdated April 2, 2008
Hamburg / St. Pauli
Dear The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure,
I was not familiar with the product “Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure” before my recent trip to Hamburg, Germany. I was, in fact, not familiar with ANY axe product aside from the pernicious advertising suggesting that any man wearing any Axe product was certain to magnetically attract beautiful women.
Of course I thought that this so called “Axe Effect” was pure hyperbole. The few times I’d had the misfortune to sniff a sample of an axe product gave me the same reaction as I have when an overheated electrical wire begins to cook it’s own insulating plastic.
Boy was I wrong!
Allow me to backtrack:
My girlfriend Jenn and I were happy to be hosted in Hamburg by mein guter freund Frank. The evening began with climbing from a train with our large packs and finding a theater In St. Pauli (don’t call it Hamburg!) we met other old guter freunds, and had the surreal experience of watching those guter friends perform an improv show completely in German. I’m well aware of the playing style of those guter freunds, so for me it was much like the enjoyment one gets from watching dogs play! After much celebrating, mein guter freund Frank took us back to his place where my girlfriend Jenn went off to bed while mein guter freund Frank and I stayed up for a traditional “absacker”. Now I’ve had drinks with Germans before and my previous experience has taught met that “absacker” is supposed to mean “the last drink of the evening”.
I love the way Germans have single words for complicated ideas, don’t you The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure? I bet you do!
Six or seven “absackers” later, mein guter freund Frank and I were still reminiscing over old times, chuckling about the sound of our various words for hippopotamus, and plotting future domination of the international improv world.
It was that next morning that I discovered, in the shower of mein guter freund Frank (he wasn’t in there, it wasn’t that kind of evening!) Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure. The quick bit of googling I’ve just done had led me to believe that you market this product in the U.S. as Axe Body Wash: Recovery.
What a shame!
Yes, when I first began applying the Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure, it smelled and felt as though I were wiping gelatinous Gatorade about my body. Sure enough, I presently felt much better than I previously had!
My girlfriend Jenn and mein guter freund Frank both postulated that the extra hour of sleep, the breakfast, the coffee, and the shower itself probably had more to do with my feeling better than my use of gelatinous, sweet smelling Gatorade, and I might have believed them if not for the events of later that evening:
We had an interesting and fun tourist day, led by mein guter freund Frank in his mini-clown car (appropriate!). That evening, we took a stroll and began our absackers in a St. Pauli bar.
You probably already know this, The Makers of Axe Body Wash: Gelatinous Gatorade Cure, but St. Pauli is a historic port. Sailors have been docking St. Pauli for centuries!
For some reason, the presence of my girlfriend Jenn seemed to block the following effect, (it must have something to do with her offsetting estrogen), but the one time I walked down the block in this neighborhood on my own, I witnessed the Axe effect in person!
Sure enough, as soon as I appeared on a block where several pretty young ladies happened to be chatting, they began drifting directly towards me! They ALL wanted to chat, and one even went so far as to proposition me RIGHT THERE ON THE STREET! I did find it slightly odd that every single one of these very pretty and charming ladies (no joke) wore their pony tail in the exact same way, all had puffy, pastel ski jackets, and acid wash jeans. I suppose that just happens to be the St. Pauli style.
My girlfriend Jenn was clearly jealous of the attention I was getting due to the correctly advertised Axe Effect. She went so far as to suggest that the young ladies propositioning me were prostitutes! CAN YOU IMAGINE! She actually said OUT LOUD that she thought that they were simply offering me sex because they expected me to PAY THEM!
I mean, SERIOUSLY! I live blocks from Times Square in New York City! I know what a prostitute looks like! A prostitute that approaches one on the street is a middle-aged woman (if she’s a woman) who looks beat up, used up, and dragged through a sharp pile of trouble. She’s barely understandable over the delirium tremens and has bad teeth, if she has teeth, if she’s a she. Which isn’t to say s/he doesn’t give a great time for your seventeen dollars!
Thanks again The Makers Of Axe Body Wash: Hangover Cure! I’ll be certain to buy your product regularly, if I can get over the instinct to shut down all the electrical power each time I catch a scent.
Sincerely,
Rob Reese
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