Nebunele.com

I’m sitting on Ben Evan’s couch composing this blog entry on his computer. I’ve spent so many of my waking hours in town, since transportation is tricky in Boulder when you don’t have your own wheels, that internet access has been sporadic; but today is a slow morning of sleeping in and taking my time about getting ready to rejoin the waking world. Boulder has been lovely. The day we arrived, everyone was tired, and David (Claytie’s stepdad) picked us all up from the airport; Scofie and I dropped off our bags at Ben’s and hitched a ride downtown with David, and Claytie and Anna went home to their rooms at David’s while Scofie and I explored Boulder for a few hours. We found some killer burritos at a place called Illegal Pete’s and figured out that the buses stop running here at 9pm–bit of a pity, since our first two shows wouldn’t even START until 10pm. Well, it’s a short cab ride. Boulder’s public transportation system leaves something to be desired, compared to New York.

But what a lovely little town. Everyone we’ve met has been incredibly nice and willing to go out of their way for a stranger. The folks who are running the Fringe are SO welcoming and excited to have the artists around, and the beaurocracy of the event has been astonishingly minimal. Unlike New York, the artists here recieve 100% of what they take in at the Fringe box office, and the festival is run on initial festival fees, t-shirt sales, and generous donations. The community here seems more than willing to support the event, and attendance at our first two shows was enormous compared to our best night in New York. The space we’re performing in is the Dairy Arts Center, and I haven’t seen a more lively space dedicated to the arts; there’s a coffeeshop in the atrium, several art galleries, and three performance spaces housed in one building, and any day or time you go there the place is full of people mingling, emerging from shows or waiting to be seated, drinking coffee and talking about theatre or the Fringe or what shows to see, and strolling through the galleries. It really feels like a living space, a true art-centered social arena, which is rare these days, and I love it. If there’s something like this in Seattle, I want to see it; where people don’t go for a specific event and leave, but linger, check out associated events, share their opinion, and finally wander home.

Our first two shows here have been quite successful and we have generated a good buzz for this weekend. Yesterday I stopped by University Bicycle and rented some wheels, so now I can get into and out of town with a bit more freedom, and travel from venue to venue with more time to spare. I’ve seen some great shows here (and some bad ones; that’s Fringe) but I have really enjoyed Maria Est Perdue, a play directed and created by my genius friend Liz Watt from the International Theatre Collective and two other performers; Arachne, a puppet/mask/classical Greek show by Sophie Nimmannit, another ITCo gal, and directed by Ben whose house we’re staying at; and Curriculum Vitae, a one-man comedy show about the difficulties of getting a job (and the author’s own employment history) by a charming fellow who is also going to San Francisco after this, and who we promised to cross-promote with when we arrive there. Last night we finally got to mingle with the Fringe crowd out at a bar called Trinity. The company was fantastic, the bar terrible; at a quarter to one, when apparently not many people were ordering drinks, they went around bellowing “last call” and turned the lights up bright to make everybody leave. When people stayed, finishing their recently-ordered drinks and talking, they starting asking everybody to leave because the staff wanted to go home. Mind you, this is about 1:15 on a Thursday night. I’ll not be back there.

Wednesday I got to go out to Brainard lake and Long lake with my ITCo friends, and it was lovely to see some national-park wilderness so soon after leaving the concrete-and-neon jungle of New York. I jumped in an ice-cold lake and jumped right back out again, and life was good.

That’s the mundane update! I think Nebunele is starting to get a little tired. We’ll need our week at home for recharging before we head off to San Francisco, our final leg. On the road, la la la…

-Alissa

There is something about a train pulling up into the subway and slowing to a stop that makes me feel rather like a little metal ball in a roulette wheel; in which car will I ultimately come to rest? Will I join the teens in party clothes, coming home to Jersey from a night of jubilant clubbing, tired and satisfied? Or will I sit in silence across from the fat man reading the newspaper, grunting over stories of foiled terrorist plots, and next to the nervous man in a National Guard T-shirt, his 7-year-old son asleep on his shoulder? In this rather crowded car, or that nearly empty one, or the one where the conductor occasionally pops out to make an announcement via an arcane, complicated, and inefficient intercom?

Something in me hopes for a friend, most times. I peer through the windows as they go more and more slowly by, looking for the person who is alone, who looks receptive, who isn’t holding a book or flipping through songs on their ipod. I take a few casual steps this way or that to increase my chances of alighting in the car with the best prospect.

Most of the time the train ride is over before I think of the first thing to say.

-Alissa

Surely the sound of rushing
water did not spring forth from the sluggish wet
garbage-laden trickle of moisture that wends its
inexplicable way
from nowhere to somewhere down the center
of the tracks.
There’s a warm pipe, running straight
up the pole next to the one I lean my sweaty hair against,
that is the source of the properly musical,
hidden-waterfall tinkle. A carefully tuned decorative fountain
or a merry stream of urine in a lonesome bowl
makes that sound.
A constant lilting rush suggests the runoff from furious rain,
despite the skies’ relentless cloudlessness
when I descended into this too-hot land of concrete and steel.
One brave rat
noses its way through the soggy newspaper in the pit of the tracks,
darts under the third rail
when the station begins to rumble with the approaching train.
I looked for him again in vain, that native
of this unnatural country,
persistent even in this sooty, sweaty, greasy,
in-between land of sparks and
muted voices
that echo on down the line.
A cave of going
somewhere else.
The Wood Between the Worlds
with riveted trees,
cement clouds,
and smudged and oily tile shrubbery.

-Alissa

Hurrah, I finally figured out how to do this blogging thing again! It’s been a while. Hello, everybody!

New York is awfully fun. I’ve not done any of the things you’re supposed to do in New York; I haven’t visited any monuments or even gone to any museums yet. I’ve seen a lot of plays, but all in the Fringe festival; nothing yet on Broadway (though Wicked is on my list for sure.) What I have been doing is running about advertising our show, going shopping (I have some killer new dress shoes) seeing fringe shows (from the very very good to the very very bad–the best and the worst were both yesterday) finding awesome hole-in-the-wall restaurants (yesterday I had dinner at a hummus place. Yes, a place that serves only hummus. Most of their entrees consist of a giant bowl of hummus and homemade pita to mop it up with. Sounds boring, but oh. my. god. was it good. I have set a whole new bar for pita bread; the store-bought stuff I don’t think I will ever eat again.) and drinking elegant cocktails in various locales. I haven’t really strayed outside of Manhatten yet, but I keep brushing up against famous places. I peered into the pit that was the World Trade Center and felt a little sad. I watched the sun set over Jersey from the Battery Park waterfront.

Today I’m taking it easy, answering emails, eating leftover risotto, avoiding the humidity outside. It’s after 2pm and I’m still in my pjs. I suppose it’s time to drag myself to the shower and face the world; there’s a show I plan to see at 4:30 today; I have Fringe business to attend to for Boulder and San Francisco. It’s nice to have a morning that doesn’t involve running out of the house the moment I get up. At some point I suppose I need to figure out my laundry. Hmmmm.

All right, icebreaker post finis. More as it comes. Hurrah New York!

-Alissa