Category: Non classé

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Confinement, day 4

As much as I almost hate to say it, I honestly think the thing that’s helped me get through this week the most has been teaching online.

 

I mean, it kills a couple hours a day, at the very least.

 

 

 

Tonight during the 20h00 applause for the healthcare workers, I saw the neighbors who live across from me for the first time. Well, saw them clearly, more like.

 

They’re a young couple. I was already leaning out my window when they finally opened theirs. We didn’t greet each other; there was just a moment of acknowledgement. The girl started clapping, and I put my phone away (I was filming the scene right before then) and clapped along with her. A moment of solidarity.

 

 

I keep seeing photos and videos of people outside, flaunting the confinement measures in an attempt to prove how overblown this all must be and how invincible they are. I mean, I won’t lie, given how lovely it was out today, I would also have spent the entirety of my afternoon outside, and yet…here I am.

 

 

And normally, I’m all for pushing boundaries, especially when those boundaries are set in place by a system that I fundamentally disagree with. But these are not normal circumstances.

 

I want this to end sooner rather than later, though I know we’re in for the long haul. But every day this selfishness keeps happening is another day (at minimum) the rest of us will have to spend almost entirely cut off from our surroundings.

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Confinement, day 3

I sat in my armchair and read for two hours today.

 

I tossed my phone onto the bench I normally sit on, far out of reach. I needed to quiet my brain down.

 

 

The sun was out. It was warm, so I opened the windows. I could still hear faint sounds of traffic, but mixed with those were also the sounds of birds, of neighbors popping up to their roof for a quick cigarette, of someone shaking a rug out their window. I could even smell the aromas of something really nice cooking from one of the apartments below.

 

 

And I felt myself relaxing, my brain quieting, my teeth unclenching–I’ve noticed that’s a new stress indicator for me now.

 

 

But my legs still crave stretching. I’m not sure that will ever change. Have to stay strong though, for however long this lasts.

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Confinement, day 2

Things I wish I had with me, a growing list:

 

  1. My flute

 

All this talk of using the time we have while in this situation to learn or improve upon a skill/ability, and the one thing that came to mind for me was this instrument I hadn’t seriously thought about picking up again in years. And there was even a minute where I thought I had it stored somewhere here. But I was misremembering. It’s perched on a closet shelf, but that shelf is in my childhood bedroom in California.

 

 

Teaching with zoom has yet to result in the chaos some other of my colleagues were experiencing, but I felt the distance more with my students this time. In my literature class, the spontaneity, the free flow of conversation was gone, and all I felt was dead air. And then I felt as though my capabilities as an educator were being tested.

 

In between classes this afternoon, I went downstairs to take out the trash, and lingered in the courtyard a bit longer than usual. Most people had only been in isolation since Monday, but I’ve been inside four days at this point (yeah, the count in the title is off, but mostly because I chose to base it off of France’s official confinement start time). I needed to let my whole body breathe in air…yes, even the slightly smelly air next to the trash bins. Standing at my desk is all good, too, but my legs needed a stretch. I miss walking already.

 

I didn’t stay out too long though, maybe a minute. Enough for a brief respite before running back upstairs because the reminder of why I need to stay inside–because it might help save someone, or at least slow things down a bit–never leaves my head.

 

But then it’s in the silences once I’m inside that I think of the other thing I wish I had, and that maybe I’ll write more about one of these days…

 

2. Direct human contact.

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Confinement, day 1

Today, I had to chastise a student for videoing in to our virtual classroom while they were DRIVING THEIR CAR.

 

 

I think that short statement is enough to give a reasonably accurate description of this first day of a “yet-to-be-determined” lockdown.

 

 

Overall, not too bad…yet. I made sure to do my morning workout as usual, as well as keep to the rhythm of my morning routine as best I could (including showering and putting on a proper shirt instead of slugging around in sweatpants) so as to have some kind of normalcy in my day. One admittedly nice thing was that I was able to actually do a longer (and more intense) workout this morning, since I didn’t have to deal with the added stress of catching a train. Yay.

 

 

First day of teaching on Zoom was…interesting. It went alright in the sense that the technology worked fine, and discussion was able to be facilitated in a way that didn’t turn into total chaos, but not even an hour in I was already getting this strange feeling in my stomach…like something was not quite right. It’s partially the screen and the fact that all of us are so removed from each other spatially (and to a degree, temporally) when normally we are in the same present spatiotemporal moment in regular class time.

 

 

In short, I think I am really going to miss being in front of my students. And it didn’t quite hit me until I was in front of my 12th graders.

 

 

To be clear, one of those 12th graders was also DRIVING THEIR CAR WHILE VIDEO CALLING (yeah I’m going to keep putting that in all caps), but this particular class is still very special to me for several reasons, chief of which being the fact that they are the first class I will have seen from 10th – 12th grade (the high school here is 3 years instead of 4). The thought that we may not have another in-person class together is something that I am going to likely be grappling with even more as the days (or weeks…or months) continue on.

 

One thing that helped get at least some semblance of being in a classroom though was creating a sort of “standing desk” situation by placing a stool on top of my coffee table, two puzzle boxes on top of the stool, and my laptop on top of the boxes. Honestly, anything that keeps me from sitting down all day is a godsend at this point as far as I’m concerned. Because sitting has meant nothing but restlessness…and stress. I tried reading a bit…it didn’t work.

 

 

My other strategy: yoga in the evening. Who knows, maybe I’ll become super flexible by the end of this (unlikely).

 

 

And if all else fails, there is always the option of sticking my head out the window briefly and letting some of the fresh air and echoes of the sounds of the city in. It’s getting very quiet here, the kind of quiet that I normally only hear on Sunday mornings. An anticipatory, yet also melancholy quiet.

 

 

But a necessary quiet. Our individual actions can end up determining the magnitude of the wave that’s about to hit. It’s our responsibility to take care that those around us stay safe.

 

 

In the meantime, there’s always group video chats with friends over drinks to keep spirits up.

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Back to Genet (and turning 30…)

 

So, I’m actually writing this while balancing my laptop atop two large rolls of paper towels, minding the first layer of a carrot cake I’ve got baking in my oven. This is the first time I’ve actually made my own birthday cake (because why not), and of course I’ve decided to be ambitious(…ish).

 

 

But more on that in a minute.

 

 

After a (very) quiet October, my theatre-going has ramped up again, with, as a little bonus, a return to a writer (and a play) that not only largely defined a large part of my graduate work from my first masters all the way to—and even through practically the first half of—my PhD.

 

 

Les Bonnes by Jean Genet, directed by Robyn Orlin, Théâtre de la Bastille, November 9, 2019

 

I find it almost amusing that, despite having written a good part of my first masters’ thesis on productions of this play, I had never—until this performance—seen it live. Despite that, and just based on the sheer number of recordings of live productions I’ve watched, I went into this half-expecting it to fall into a trap that is not necessarily present in all of Genet’s pieces, but, I would argue, is very much a factor here: pacing.

 

 

Generally, when first getting introduced to Genet, one of the first things that comes up is his pointedly ritualistic aesthetic. While this is of course very evident in his writing—and this goes for his novels as well as his plays, what with their constant repetitions of gestures/phrases, circular structures, and evocations of the divine or a process of ascension towards a moment of transcendence in the lowest, most abject of settings—, what it has also led to is a tendency to almost always literally translate that to the staging. Les Bonnes (The Maids) is only one act long but is often stretched to close to 2 hours or more, in part because of the tendency to really “amp up” the ritualistic aspect.

 

 

 

I mean, I can remember at a certain point during my research, after watching the I-can’t-remember-which-number version of the piece, thinking ‘We get it. It’s meant to be precise and de-li-ber-ate. But is there really only one way to evoke this…?’

 

 

 

Thankfully, this version did not fall into that trap.

 

 

It also—and this is a rarity for this piece, despite it actually corresponding more closely with Genet’s original intentions—featured an all-male cast.

 

 

Yeah, funny how this need to emphasize ritual makes exceptions for certain things. Then again, this piece did originally premier in 1947, and back then the biggest issue was people not believing that their maids would ever speak of them in the way Claire and Solange—the maids of the title—do of their mistress (who is only ever referred to as Madame).

 

 

Different times.

 

 

 

Anyway.

 

 

What may have partially contributed to this piece’s divergence from the “standard” aesthetic was Orlin’s background as a choreographer. That, and the fact that she grew up in South Africa. With the dancing, the influence was seen in, of course, the way the performers moved and carried themselves, but more significantly (for me, at least) was its effect on the overall rhythm of the piece. Namely: it actually had one.

 

 

This isn’t to say that the piece was sped through, but more that there was both a sense of reverence AND a sense of urgency in play (often tricky things to try and strike a balance between, but also elements that underscore a number of Genet’s dramatic works). Honestly, it was almost like seeing the piece with fresh eyes.

 

 

As to Orlin’s origins, these, according to her director’s note, had a more direct influence in her approach on the casting. Though her version still highlights the commentaries on class division and the sometimes ambiguous dynamics of dominant/submissive relationships, Orlin (who is white) chose to integrate an additional element through her casting of two black actors in the roles of Claire and Solange and a white actor in the role of Madame. It’s a move that evokes the apartheid-era South Africa Orlin grew up in, as well as the very much still-present racial disparities not just in South Africa, but in much of the West as well (including France).

 

 

 

And the way she has the public confront these disparities is rather fascinating, in that it is based in a way of consuming media and information that is both familiar and yet, when it is transposed to a theatre setting, rather destabilizing.

 

 

 

The stage at the Bastille was rather bare, save for a clothing rack stage right, two stools upstage center with a small camera propped on a tripod in between them, and a DJ booth stage left. A video screen on the back wall played scenes from a 1970s film version of the piece, first as a sort of way to set up everything that happened before the opening scene (mainly the arrest of Madame’s husband, the appropriately-named Monsieur, based on a false tip letter sent by Claire to the police, which is brought up several times in the course of the piece), and then, through the use of freeze frames, as a sort of virtual scenic design.

 

 

 

As for the camera, the actors—especially in scenes featuring only Solange and Claire—spend a good chunk of their time when on stage playing to it rather than facing out and playing to the audience. What this meant was that, physically, their backs were facing us, yet at the same time, the projection of their faces on the screen—and therefore in the environment of the ‘virtual space’—meant that they were still performing to us. Yet, this manner of performing, and more precisely of consuming performance, through a video screen (as though on a Youtube channel, or, perhaps more relevant here, through camming) is both isolating and voyeuristic. Isolating in that it evokes private moments at home when one streams a new video from a Youtube content creator or adult cam performer. Voyeuristic in that there is the sensation that we are not meant to be seeing this. Indeed, we can’t be seeing this because if Solange and Claire’s roleplay sessions as Madame in the latter’s absence become exposed, the two are, for lack of a better word, fucked.

 

 

 

But then, when Madame does eventually make her entrance, she pulls out an iPhone and, after filming Solange and Claire in close to extreme close-up, turns the camera on the audience commenting on some pieces certain patrons were wearing. It was a moment very much anchored in camp—Madame’s coat made up of a bunch of child-size pink puffer jackets attached together added delightfully to this effect—with an added palpable threat. Madame could loosely slap Solange or Claire’s visors (worn as part of their uniforms) to the sides of their faces, sometimes swiping at their dreadlocked hair in the process, without even the hint of a potential rebuttal. She, in the end, is more powerful than perhaps anyone wants to let on.

 

 

And I think before I move on from this, I just want to say that should Orlin ever decide to stage another of Genet’s pieces, I would be one of the first in line to buy a ticket.

 

 

 

Actually, to be perfectly honest right now, I did not get a good amount of sleep last night (oh hi winter cold and your nonsense), so my brain is having a bit of trouble concentrating/remembering things. Though this could also have something to do with a big milestone that I’m going to be hitting tomorrow, November 16.

 

 

 

Turning 30 is something that, even up to now, seemed both inevitable and so far away. Though I think I’ve been able to avoid most of the absolute ageist nonsense that is often marketed toward women regarding reaching this particular birthday, I have nevertheless spent the past week or so reflecting on the last decade of my life, trying to figure out the best way to summarize it.

 

 

Because I went through—and did—a LOT over the last ten years.

 

 

I graduated from my undergraduate program, then 2 masters programs, and started my PhD.

 

 

I lived in so many different places: Irvine, Paris, Boston, and now back in Paris again.

 

 

I visited new countries I’d never seen before, both solo and otherwise:

 

  • Czech Republic (Prague)
  • Spain (Barcelona)
  • Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh)
  • Poland (Krakow)
  • Iceland (Reykjavik)
  • Canada (Montreal)
  • Italy (Rome and Bari)
  • Croatia (Dubrovnik)
  • Sweden (Stockholm and Uppsala)
  • Germany (Berlin)
  • Hungary (Budapest)
  • Belgium (Brussels)
  • Netherlands (Amsterdam)

 

And I saw more of the countries I call (and called) home, as well as the country I call my homeland.

 

 

Speaking of the homeland, I also got my Greek citizenship and with that, a passport that has changed my life in more ways I could imagine.

 

 

 

I ate so many delicious things, discovered my love for red wine, whiskey and bourbon, and upped my tolerance for all things spicy.

 

 

But with that I also had to learn (and am still learning) how to cultivate a healthy relationship with my body. Developing an actual love for working out (and discovering HIIT training) when I was 24 helped.

 

 

I fell back in love with theatre again. I performed on stage fewer times than I would have liked, but I also saw shows (Hamilton in London, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 in Boston, and Bovary and Sopro in Paris come to mind) that reminded me why I love theatre in the first place.

 

 

And with all the moving and show attending and studying and starting over, I found my independence. I learned that, yes, I could do things on my own. I could move to a new country, a new city and figure out my life, deal with apartments that were absolute shit, live in dorms and realize that what mattered there was less the accommodations and more the people I was sharing the space with, and find a sense of determination and stubbornness that would help me deal with almost any “no” that came my way.

 

 

And I learned how to advocate for myself.

 

 

Hell, I travelled by myself.

 

 

And as for love, I felt love—and loved—and knew love in many ways, two of them more significant than the rest. And there was heartbreak. But there is also hope. And there is the feeling of telling someone you care about them, and knowing you’re cared for in return. And there are also those things that still haven’t changed: like getting the courage to open your heart up to someone. But then there’s also that feeling of being held, of feeling someone pull you into them, steady you for a moment, and knowing that maybe being vulnerable wouldn’t be such a bad thing sometimes. That maybe someone will be there to catch you.

 

 

I laughed a lot—so many more times than I can even remember. Yes, there were tears too (and oh god with a PhD there are always tears), but it’s the laughter that stays.

 

 

I still feel like I barely know what being an adult is, but at the very least, I do have an ever-growing list of recipes to keep me well-fed while I figure that out.

 

 

 

So, with that, farewell to my 20s. You were, in the ups and downs, truly wonderful.

 

 

Now bring it on 30.

 

 

From 20…
…to 29
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Something for 2019

I was joking around with my family this year that if I had to pick any resolution to stick to, it would be to resolve myself every year to get a little bit closer to becoming a millionaire.

 

 

See, that works because it is incredibly vague to the point that even if I ended the year with 1 cent more in my bank account than what I started with, at least I still accomplished my goal.

 

 

 

All this is basically to say that I kind of want to throw New Year’s resolutions out the window. I’ve already got enough concrete goals and deadlines to meet.

 

 

 

Speaking of which, I actually managed to write a little over 16 pages while on holiday, so at least I don’t have as large a mountain of work waiting for me to finish when I get back to Paris. The February deadline to apply for completion funding for next year (yeah, I am incredibly ready to be done with this project) is just shy of a month away, but meeting the requirements for it no longer seems as impossible as it once did (to a certain person who I am sure is reading this right now…yes, yes, you were right; getting this done wasn’t quite as impossible as I told myself it would be).

 

 

 

But anyway, in spite of my sometimes aversion to making New Year’s resolutions/the whole new year/clean slate thing, I figured why not try and think of a succinct way to sum up the year that was.

 

 

 

This year was…hard. Well, the last few months of it at least. Sometimes I still go back in my head and think about things I could have done or wish I had done differently, but it doesn’t do to dwell on that for too long. Besides, there were quite a few good things that outweighed the bad. In no particular order, some highlights:

  • Getting back into physical theatre, and meeting some of the best people I can now count amongst my friends (and also relishing in the power of female bonding)
  • Writing and successfully submitting my dissertation prospectus
  • Writing a chapter draft (still hate it, but at least I did it)
  • Going on my first solo trip/crossing another country off my list
  • Surviving a year of teaching three different class levels
  • Successfully installing a washing machine
  • Getting to show old friends around the city
  • HAMILTON
  • Walking the entire length of the city of Paris multiple times and never getting sick of it.
  • Allowing myself to open up to someone again, putting myself in a much more vulnerable position than what I’m used to. This is probably the thing I’m most proud of, but it’s also the hardest to grapple with. What I mean by this is that I’m not sure if or when I’m going to be ready to do it again, and part of what I’ve been ruminating over in my head is the fact that I can be okay with this. I kind of want to just focus my attention on the people I’ve let in to my life already for the time being, on cultivating those relationships, and making more memories in 2019 through them.

 

 

Actually, come to think of it, maybe this will be a resolution for 2019: be more present for  people. There were a number of moments this year where I reached out and someone was there to help, and I want to give that back. I want to tap into my strength again and use it to boost those I care about up, as I’ve been doing with myself (I’ve gotten better at not criticizing myself as harshly for one thing). I want to be more selfless, say I love/appreciate/care about the people in my life more.

 

 

 

 

I didn’t get the coin in the vassilopita this year, for once. To be honest, I’m not that mad about it. That thing has brought me quite a bit of nonsense the last few times I got it, so maybe it’ll be good to take a break from it for a while.

 

 

 

Other than that, I think we can all agree that, personal issues aside, this was a bit of a dumpster-fire of a year for the world in general. I will say, however, that checking my email to find another New York Times alert about a new indictment coming through–patience does pay off sometimes–did bring me quite a bit of joy.

 

 

 

As to my time in California, well, I ate a lot, slept a lot, and wrote a decent amount. I would call that a success.

 

 

Now to get through an 11hr flight, 3hr layover, 1hr flight and a hopefully not-nonsensical RER ride before I am back in my undoubtedly freezing apartment (thank goodness for the insulating curtains I have up though…literally saving my life).

 

 

 

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Parallels

I’ve been thinking a lot since my last post about when to update again. At first, I thought I’d write something during my vacation in Greece this August, but internet connectivity being almost non-existant where I was, I put that off.

 

Besides, disconnecting for a while felt pretty nice.

 

Then I came back and what with la rentrée/back to school in full swing, and the general hectic nature of September, I almost felt as though I had no time to myself to think of anything but what was happening the next day — hell, the next few hours.

 

And so I figured the best way to come back would be to write a post after seeing my first play of the season, Infidèles by tgStan at the Théâtre de la Bastille.

 

The play happened.

 

Then this past weekend, the rug was pulled out from under me once again.

 

I couldn’t help but think of parallels today while I was teaching, how similar certain events in my life have been, how I’m in a somewhat similar place now that I was a year ago. Somewhat. The difference is in the details, and the circumstances being what they are, I feel a slight tinge of hope this time around. Not necessarily  for any particular outcome, but hope in the unknown, in the not closing of a link, a connection. Hope in realizing that there are wonderful people who we want in our lives, who we choose to want in our lives. And who, sometimes for reasons we can barely comprehend, choose to want us around as well, even and especially in the shit times.

 

And I feel lucky this time around that, when loneliness almost snuck on and grabbed hold of me, I knew exactly who I could contact. That’s a pretty wonderful thing to be confident about, isn’t it?

 

I’m going to be wading through some heavy things these next few days, so you all might have to bear with me. For now though, I can say that I feel okay. Someone dear to me told me I was strong this morning, and I believed them. So there must be some truth to that.

 

I am a lion. I can still roar.

 

With that, the plays I saw this week.

 

 

The first, as I mentioned, was Infidèles at Bastille. I figured going there for my first show of the year was a good choice, given that it is still my favorite theatre in the city. And this show did not disappoint. It’s based off a script of a similar name by Ingmar Bergman, and I’m just going to take this moment right now to say I have never seen anything by Bergman. So, we can all just get that little bit of nonsense out of the way.

 

The play centers around the retelling of a woman’s infidelity, her journey from faithful wife and mother to woman who sleeps with her husband’s best friend (and the fallout that follows, especially for her 9-year-old daughter, here played by an actress in her forties. Trust me, it actually really works). The opening sees the four actors – two men, two women – standing downstage, and instead of launching straight into the narrative, begin by performing a sort of character creation exercise. Essentially, one of the male actors turns to one of the women, and asks her to describe the woman at the center of the story – who she, it becomes abundantly clear, will eventually be playing. She in turn gives a bit of information about her – her name, age, career, a bit of her personality – before, in the course of describing her family, designating the principle roles the other  actors will play (her husband, her daughter, the husband’s friend who she eventually sleeps with). From there, the play moves into the narrative, but not before some comments are made over whether or not this retelling will ‘work’ (sly glance at audience who they know are there to see a play).

 

In some ways, this sort of putting into performance of the process of ‘becoming’ that often defines a large part of an actor’s work seemed very similar to what I saw in Bovary last year. Exposing the invisible processes of the actor’s craft to draw attention to the theatricality, the fictionality of what was about to happen. It renders the whole thing less illusory but also more honest…? As in, there is no question here of anyone trying to get  anyone else to believe, truly believe anything. And it works rather well in cases like this because when small flubs happen, there is already an understanding in place about the possibility of imperfection. Imperfection, in fact, becomes part and parcel of the whole experience. And in the end, when the actors reconvene back downstage and – while sometimes quickly glancing back out at the audience – ask if what they did worked, if it ended up being a show after all, there was in that question a recognition that, despite anything that did/did not go as planned, it was still theatre. Theatre in its (almost) entirety, creation to presentation. The moment before to the moment after. Yes, none of it is « real », but does that really matter?

 

 

And the second show was one I saw yesterday, Sunday, at Nanterre. How appropriate, to find a temporary moment of solace in something I love.

 

Hilariously, the play was called Hate, but that didn’t really have much to do with my current state of mind. Just a weird coincidence.

 

The subtitle of this play (and I’m going to translate from the French), is « an attempted dialogue with a horse », and yes, before any of you ask, there was an actual horse on stage.

 

A horse, and a naked woman. Well, almost naked. She wore a belt with a fanny pack full of carrots (for the horse), and a small holster where she placed a plastic sword.

 

It goes without saying that this whole thing was really more of a monologue than a true dialogue, although about a third of the way through, the actress, Laëtitia Dosch, who also wrote the piece, also started speaking as the horse. That choice itself speaks to the overall question of power that underlines the production as a whole. As Laëtitia slowly begins to develop a more and more intimate relationship with the horse – don’t worry though, no actual sex happens, though the possibility of it is very explicitly alluded to – the question arises as not really the ‘authenticity’ of this relationship (again, horse), but the agency of one of the two parties involved. The horse’s voice can be provided artificially, but this nevertheless still anchors him as an object, as a piece of whatever narrative his human counterpart is in the process of creating. He has no true agency, at least not enough to make him a subject. The relationship, in other words, exists within the context of only one of their points of view.

 

 

It’s a rather interesting way of exploring this kind of relationship, these imbalances of power.

 

Anyway, I should perhaps write more on this, but I’ve got dinner to make. And to be honest, my brain is a bit exhausted.

 

 

But if anyone wants to reach me, you know where I am. I may be a bit under water right now, but I’ll be ok. I’ve got good people in my life, people who choose me to be in their lives in various capacities. And something else I’ve started to realize over this past year is the value of that. Fine comes with time. Besides, the sun was out today. How wonderful that life can still have such beauty in it like that.

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One year on (302 – 306)

My how time flies…

 

 

According to Facebook, it’s been a year since I originally started this thing. One year. I honestly almost can’t believe it, especially when I think back to where I was physically, mentally, emotionally this time last year, and just how much has happened in the meantime.

 

 

Taking stock : I feel stronger, happier, more confident in myself than I did a year ago. Oddly enough, I think the general feeling of hopelessness and desperation I felt after the rug was pulled out from under me contributed in large part to this. Looking back, I think I figured that I had already sunk so low, felt so small, that stumbling along, being a bit more daring even, wouldn’t hurt as badly as the hurt I felt in those early weeks. And it was hurt. Body-aching, mind-stripping, cry until you can only heave out air because the tears are dried up hurt. But I made it. I surprised even myself and I made it.

 

 

Throwing myself back into this city when I did pushed me, helped me get back in touch with a kind of strength that I could feel somewhere within me, but hadn’t accessed for a while. It also made me more vulnerable, or rather more comfortable with being vulnerable. I used to hide a lot of the rawer parts of myself from people, thinking that I had to keep up this act of having everything together, of everything being fine. For whose benefit? I’m not entirely sure. If I had to guess : to prove to myself the extent of my independence and ferocity.

 

 

But one night a few months ago, I was asked why I was hiding how upset I was about something. This came as a shock to me because I thought I had been putting on a pretty good façade. Apparently not.

 

 

And so I decided to open myself up more, to speak out a bit more when something was bothering me. I was allowing myself to experience even small moments of vulnerability and it felt good. And then this good feeling extended outwards into how I projected myself into the world. I knew I could still stand on my own, that I could still handle almost any bullshit life (or bureaucracy…) decided to throw in my way, but this time I could do it knowing that I could allow myself to feel small, bare in front of someone again.

 

As to the name change. The old blog title hasn’t really been true for several months now for a number of reasons, from the content of my posts to the state of my personal life. I wanted something that, going forward, would better reflect my relationship to the city and my work now.

 

 

I also really like alliteration, and have been very into the letter ‘S’ lately so…there’s that.

 

 

Beyond that, the content of the blog isn’t really going to change much, though I’ll probably start to pepper in more dissertation-related thoughts in the near future. Yes, everyone, the time has come to finally begin the long process of writing the thing. Am I nervous about it? Oh god yes. Is there nevertheless a thrill coursing through me when I think of my impending jump into an intellectual abyss of my jumbled thoughts? Definitely.

 

You need a bit of fear to push you along through this I think. Makes it all a bit more exciting.

 

 

With that, I leave you all with a picture of a salad – yes, you read that correctly – I had a couple nights ago while I was out with two friends from the theatre workshop. Normally, this salad is served with a fried egg on top. Unfortunately, no matter how much has changed for me in the past year, I still can’t stand eggs (exceptions, again, being in quiche, frittata and strata forms). Sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of consistency.

 

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I like long walks…and symmetry

 

Yes, yes, I know I’ve been silent for a while but things have been…hectic…to say the least (blame in part the practice baccalaureate exams my seniors had to take + the fact that I have to grade them).

 

But I did see quite a bit of theatre this week, so let’s just speed through all that. Yes, it’s the return of bullet point thoughts.

 

 

First: La Démangeaison des ailes at Nanterre (not pictured because for some reason the photo won’t transfer from my phone, and I don’t have the energy to figure out why).

  • This show just happened to fall on the last day it snowed and of course to enter the theatre we had to go around the back. Meaning, we had to wait outside. There was a point to all this, as the idea was to have the audience enter from backstage, cross through the set (in a way that mimicked the way that other actors would enter on stage) and then find our seats, but I just found it hilarious that of course it was snowing.

 

  • There’s no real plot to hash out here, since this thing was more of a mix between theatre, performance art, and art installation (the use of multimedia elements contributed to this last bit the most). Just…a lot of wings and…flapping about.

 

  • Oh and there was a dog. An adorable little papillon (or papillon-corgi mix maybe) named Salsa.

 

 

On to the next!

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The movies come to the theatre

 

  • M comme Méliès at the Théâtre National de Chaillot. Yes, a love-letter to cinema in play form. Overall, cute. For a show designed for young audiences, the energy was a bit low for a good part of the beginning, which is a shame since a large part of it was devoted to trying to re-capture the playfulness and whimsy found in Méliès’s films. They did have some fun with mirrors though which was…nice. And it made me remember why I fell in love with Méliès/that time period in general.

 

And now, this.

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This week is about new things…

 

  • One thing I’ve never done in my life is walk out of a show. Usually it’s because I figure that I basically paid a decent amount to be there, I might as well get my money’s worth (need I remind anyone how annoyingly expensive theatre tickets can get in the States?). The great thing about living here is that because going to the theatre is actually more or less affordable, any of that sort of guilt has essentially been washed away. And thank goodness because…oh boy.

 

  • Those who can read French will note the listed run time as just under 4.5 hours. To be more precise, that’s 4.5 hours without intermission. I mean, there’s definitely a bit of daring in that, but you’d think that if you were going to ask people to sit for over four hours you’d give them something stimulating to distract from the time passing. No. This was like watching molasses run through a river of mud. I left after an hour. Did I feel a little bit of remorse? Maybe. Who knows? Perhaps it got more interesting. But I had work to do, and I wasn’t in the mood to stay up until who knows when finishing it.

 

In other news, I had some other friends in town this week that I got to show around a bit, which was an excellent change from my normal routine. Research-wise, still waiting on word back about the second draft of my prospectus I sent out about a week ago. In other words…feeling in a bit of a rut. But that happens.

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On my flight back from San Francisco today, I tried this new thing where I free-write to pass the time. Turns out, it’s pretty effective.

Did not sleep a wink though because my row partners were a two year old and his baby brother.

And what did I have waiting for me when I got home? Forms to finish filling out. Why? Because I’m going to start teaching again.

Now to figure out why in the world it seems as though I have two French social security numbers….