Caitlin having sent me sidestep.com, a search engine that finds the location of the cheapest ticket possible for you, I have booked all the travel anyone could possibly want.
October: SF, Portland, SF.
November: SF, Indianapolis, Ithaca, Los “Thanksgiving” Angeles, San Antonio.
December: Denver.
January: Denver, New Orleans.
The more things change, the more you get on a plane.
My good friend Kristel, former SLE kid, EBF roomie, fellow member of the EBF Management Team of Stars, and video artist extraordinaire, has a new blog about her experiences in moving from Estonia to Vancouver. She and MiQ will arrive on December 30th, 2007.
“A record of an Estonian video fiend and a Canadian audio contortionist moving from the eastern end of Europe to the western end of Canada, after meeting in San Francisco and getting married in the middle of the Baltic Sea.”
I think this has to do with style, too – the style in which we live these days, between and among many nations and continents. Kristel, Henrique, and other friends of mine who manage to be multinational nomads are people I admire greatly. They bring worlds together. Here’s to getting out of the States in 08.
Yesterday our progress to Portland was delayed by a brief visit to the Eugene ER, where we had to stop and make sure the enormous saucer-shaped bug bite on my leg, a souvenir of Crater Lake, was not deadly. But we made it.
I write from Portland, where we are staying with Jessica and Lava. Last night we got Chinese food, did karaoke with a live band at Dante’s, donuts at Voodoo Donuts, and watched a lunar eclipse at 3 AM with Annelise, the 3rd member of Many Hats Collaboration.
Today, we’re going to Powells and I’m having lunch with Melina, the graphic designer for MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL, Roz’s friend, who I’ve actually never met! Jessica and I do our workshop this evening.
Zack and I are crashing in Chenult, having just had a long and beautiful day at Crater Lake. Enjoyed the Pinnacles very much. I had a couple of thoughts, trying to respond to the Robert Negron / Michael Dixon school of the outdoors affecting the arts.
1) that a truly site specific piece would involve responding to the “set,” or the outdoors. And how do you respond to a mountain? A tree? How does it affect the chorus?
2) that it would be great to try to stretch as much distance between two people on stage as there is between Wizard Island and the Phantom Ship – because they do have a relationship, those two islands – just as two people can have a relationship across miles of water. I mean this both literally and in the sense of emotional space.
3) There has to be some way to replicate the thousands of trees. The DENSITY of the forest. And Martha Graham is much closer to it than I am.
Anyway, Chenult. Great cheeseburgers. Lots of enormous trucks. A brand of beer called “Moose Drool.” Good talk with the proprietor, Phil, of the Chalet bar & restaurant next door – apparently a truck stop has moved into town and that’s affected his business. His grandson tends bar and he runs the place. We shot a game of pool while talking with him.
Overheard in said bar: “A little fucking communication goes a long way.”
In preparing for the Menlo Park “House of Flying Daggers” housewarming, I have recreated the Oh snap! infographic on posterboard in our bathroom. I think I’m going to put it on my business cards.
Li Han, my freshman year Mirlo RA, just arrived from London (like Shiyan, she was forestalled at O’Hare) for the party.
Tomorrow begins a Pacific Northwest Odyssey: Zach and I are meeting Mia and Nelle in Walnut Creek, then driving to Ashland and seeing the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Britt Festival with Caitlin, then driving to Portland for a chorus workshop with Jessica Wallenfels, then to Seattle, where I’m (hopefully) meeting with Christopher Frizzelle of The Stranger, seeing my cousins, and hanging out with Sam Cheng of the infamous EBF year. And then back to the Bay on Sept 3rd.
So much for a non-theatrical vacation. But I’m really looking forward to the trip.
I’m writing this morning from a black papasan chair in Menlo Park, where Shiyan, Meredith, Vickie and Melissa (three venture capitalists and one production manager) have a beautiful house.
It feels like home, more so because of all the Stanford-abilia around the place. Pictures of rugby matches and of friends. A giant zucchini from Ali Reichenthal’s garden is in the kitchen. Furniture I recognize from various dorms is in each room. A television the size of a bed is in one corner.
These ladies are letting me store my belongings here while I embark upon a voyage of discovery and freelancing. It really feels like home.
Our trip yesterday was lovely but long – Kersti and I drove down from Ashland in Nancy’s car, with no hitches except a jam around Redding for bridge construction. (We didn’t make it out till 2 pm, after a Dragonfly goodbye breakfast with Jeremy, Mark, Daniel, Robert, & Caitlyn. It was lovely.)
Ashland has been such a good place to me but I feel the blood coming back into my veins being in a major metropolitan area.
We went over the Bay Bridge, straight to SF, and saw her first boyfriend Travis, who’s now out and living at the very corner of Haight and Ashbury with his boyfriend Joe. We had champagne by candlelight, with owls and unicorns watching, overlooking – yes – the corner of Haight and Ashbury.
They have the entire second floor of a building. 3 rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a hallway, a living room. They work in the hotel industry AND the apartment is rent-controlled.
Then I drove to Menlo. I got lost several times, first on Woodside Road and then on Santa Cruz Ave, but eventually I made it. And it’s so, so, so good to be here.
The Crossover interviews continue this week, and I have an interview with TJT on Friday. It’s not exactly a vacation. But it is a great time to rest.
Mallory lent me Rita Golden Gelman’s book, The Female Nomad, as preparation for the journey that is to come.
As an example that should inspire me to reduce my own traveling footprint, here’s what Rita took to Antigua:
“I pack everything I own: two pairs of pants, one skirt, four T-shirts. A sweater. Underwear. A bathing suit. Toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, sunblock, insect repellant, sneakers and four plastic bags. I put in my Spanish dictionary, the Lonely Planet guide to Guatemala, a novel to read and trade, a Swiss Army knife, and a sleeping bag. And finally, I pack two empty spiral notebooks, some ballpoint pens, and the smallest secondhand manual typewriter I can find. I’ve given everything else away.
A friend gives me a threadbare (as requested) face towel that can fit in a small space and dry easily.”
She doesn’t have a lot of cold-weather clothes (not that you’d need them for summer in Antigua) but buying new clothes in different communities becomes a big part of what shapes her travels.
Definitely makes me feel like getting rid of the computer speakers, among other things.
I’m going to apply for Servas and the Hospitality Club to get things started. Both of them are organizations that offer housing to travelers.
Dara Weinberg 