So, as frequent readers may have surmised, it's been raining quite a bit. Vicky and I were getting really overwhelmed with working on the show, so we took a longer weekend than normal.
Friday, we spent the day in Leamington. We went to the old pump rooms, which have been turned into art galleries and are very well preserved, and we had some of the famous "healing" mineral water which was running from an old stone fountain. It made my teeth feel weird, but basically tasted like water, which is to say nothing (or everything. ooooommmmm)
Saturday, we went to London. We'd planned to go to Kew Gardens (not totally sure what they are; Vick swears they're amazing) but since it had been raining so much, we thought the British Museum might be a better choice. I didn't absorb very much in the museum. It was actually quite stressful! There are approximately a billion exhibits and we ended up sort of half-assedly rushing through. And then we realized that the whole time we'd been in the museum, the sun had been shining outside. So we promptly exited. My favorite bit, since I know you're dying to hear, was in the Roman invasion section of the Great Britain timeline exhibit (was that confusing? The exhibits are set up chronologically based on geographic area. They also have a little drop-down guide giving you a world context for whatever item you're looking at - "This Egyptian pot was being crafted around the same time Stonehenge was erected. To see more on Stonehenge, visit exhibit 3, room 5." USEFUL, ENGLAND. Well done.) ...I've lost myself with the parenthetical. My favorite bit. Yes. They had found well-preserved letters from, god, must have been 90 A.D. or something, written in Latin. Scholahs (scholars, but read it with a really pompous accent... ssss-kOHluuuuhz) translated them into English.
(To the best of my memory)
"Dearest Brother,
Father has been writing me about the location of the spindle. I have said to him that I do not have knowledge of it, but he will not believe me. Sparitus claims he did not even know the spindle was missing. Please send me four bags of grain so that I can replace it, or Father will continue to write. You owe me four bags anyway from your visit."
"Dear Sister,
I am writing to invite you most humbly to my birthday party, which will be held 11 September. Please respond if you are able to attend."
How humanizing. After 2,000 years, we're still pretty much writing about the same things.
After we left, after we loafed around a park for a while with Vicky reading sections of a cheesy 60's yoga book for housewives ("yoga can help develop your delicate feminine beauty, as well as give you strength to complete those stressful household chores!" -real quote) we met up with one of my best friends from days gone by. All the way back in little Athens, we used to watch Harry Potter and talk about how we'd go to London and Scotland, and it's so fitting that the first time we see each other in four years would be on Oxford Street. Sara's one of those friends - you know the ones - where there isn't the awkward re-get-to-know-you thing. It felt like we'd just seen each other a week ago.
So we left dinner early to catch our train, but hey, guess what? We missed it. Because that's what we do best. We were both a bit, "Whelp, time for the old hair shirt," but it's hard to beat yourself up for too long in a place as cool as London, with sunset as late as it is and the weather so nice. We met some cool girls from Athens, Georgia in the hostel and walked around getting snacks from various convenience stores until we felt sick. And may I say, Cadbury eggs and Ribena, though you'd THINK it wouldn't be, is a delicious combination.
Bop bop, we got back, all was well. Perhaps pockets a little lighter.
Our SHOW, which I've weirdly talked very little about, is taking shape. Vicky's sister found an article over the winter about a whale that sings higher than any other whale and can neither hear, nor be heard by, other whales. It travels alone, and has been dubbed, "The Loneliest Whale."
At first, we were drawn to it because of the romance of being a lone mammal, lost in the ocean. We felt like we, too, were lost in the waves of new technology, new ways to "connect."
The more we thought about it, though, the more we got interested in the glamorizing of... I mean, of a whale. It's "the loneliest." People write poetry about it. A group of deaf Americans suggested that the whale might be deaf, and a mother whose child has autism wrote about why the whale was autistic. People are projecting their problems onto this whale. And no one has ever seen the whale. For all we know, it might NOT be travelling alone. Maybe it's companions are just really quiet.
Anyway, that (and my credit card getting hacked) got us thinking about how even things and people who don't know they're being observed ARE being observed. Privacy in the age of facebook and all that.
We scrapped most of what we were working on before, very willingly, and now have a skeleton of scenes and characters that we'll be fleshing out over the next few weeks. We'd planned a showing on the 30th for friends, but NAH WAY is that gonna happen without us ripping each other's throats out, so it's the shows in August and then hopefully a few fringe festivals next year if we like what we've made.
I'm going to make a quick playlist before rehearsal, and I thiiiink I've exhausted our adventures anyway, so ta ta for the moment.
Love to you from across the blue.
Friday, we spent the day in Leamington. We went to the old pump rooms, which have been turned into art galleries and are very well preserved, and we had some of the famous "healing" mineral water which was running from an old stone fountain. It made my teeth feel weird, but basically tasted like water, which is to say nothing (or everything. ooooommmmm)
Saturday, we went to London. We'd planned to go to Kew Gardens (not totally sure what they are; Vick swears they're amazing) but since it had been raining so much, we thought the British Museum might be a better choice. I didn't absorb very much in the museum. It was actually quite stressful! There are approximately a billion exhibits and we ended up sort of half-assedly rushing through. And then we realized that the whole time we'd been in the museum, the sun had been shining outside. So we promptly exited. My favorite bit, since I know you're dying to hear, was in the Roman invasion section of the Great Britain timeline exhibit (was that confusing? The exhibits are set up chronologically based on geographic area. They also have a little drop-down guide giving you a world context for whatever item you're looking at - "This Egyptian pot was being crafted around the same time Stonehenge was erected. To see more on Stonehenge, visit exhibit 3, room 5." USEFUL, ENGLAND. Well done.) ...I've lost myself with the parenthetical. My favorite bit. Yes. They had found well-preserved letters from, god, must have been 90 A.D. or something, written in Latin. Scholahs (scholars, but read it with a really pompous accent... ssss-kOHluuuuhz) translated them into English.
(To the best of my memory)
"Dearest Brother,
Father has been writing me about the location of the spindle. I have said to him that I do not have knowledge of it, but he will not believe me. Sparitus claims he did not even know the spindle was missing. Please send me four bags of grain so that I can replace it, or Father will continue to write. You owe me four bags anyway from your visit."
"Dear Sister,
I am writing to invite you most humbly to my birthday party, which will be held 11 September. Please respond if you are able to attend."
How humanizing. After 2,000 years, we're still pretty much writing about the same things.
After we left, after we loafed around a park for a while with Vicky reading sections of a cheesy 60's yoga book for housewives ("yoga can help develop your delicate feminine beauty, as well as give you strength to complete those stressful household chores!" -real quote) we met up with one of my best friends from days gone by. All the way back in little Athens, we used to watch Harry Potter and talk about how we'd go to London and Scotland, and it's so fitting that the first time we see each other in four years would be on Oxford Street. Sara's one of those friends - you know the ones - where there isn't the awkward re-get-to-know-you thing. It felt like we'd just seen each other a week ago.
So we left dinner early to catch our train, but hey, guess what? We missed it. Because that's what we do best. We were both a bit, "Whelp, time for the old hair shirt," but it's hard to beat yourself up for too long in a place as cool as London, with sunset as late as it is and the weather so nice. We met some cool girls from Athens, Georgia in the hostel and walked around getting snacks from various convenience stores until we felt sick. And may I say, Cadbury eggs and Ribena, though you'd THINK it wouldn't be, is a delicious combination.
Bop bop, we got back, all was well. Perhaps pockets a little lighter.
Our SHOW, which I've weirdly talked very little about, is taking shape. Vicky's sister found an article over the winter about a whale that sings higher than any other whale and can neither hear, nor be heard by, other whales. It travels alone, and has been dubbed, "The Loneliest Whale."
At first, we were drawn to it because of the romance of being a lone mammal, lost in the ocean. We felt like we, too, were lost in the waves of new technology, new ways to "connect."
The more we thought about it, though, the more we got interested in the glamorizing of... I mean, of a whale. It's "the loneliest." People write poetry about it. A group of deaf Americans suggested that the whale might be deaf, and a mother whose child has autism wrote about why the whale was autistic. People are projecting their problems onto this whale. And no one has ever seen the whale. For all we know, it might NOT be travelling alone. Maybe it's companions are just really quiet.
Anyway, that (and my credit card getting hacked) got us thinking about how even things and people who don't know they're being observed ARE being observed. Privacy in the age of facebook and all that.
We scrapped most of what we were working on before, very willingly, and now have a skeleton of scenes and characters that we'll be fleshing out over the next few weeks. We'd planned a showing on the 30th for friends, but NAH WAY is that gonna happen without us ripping each other's throats out, so it's the shows in August and then hopefully a few fringe festivals next year if we like what we've made.
I'm going to make a quick playlist before rehearsal, and I thiiiink I've exhausted our adventures anyway, so ta ta for the moment.
Love to you from across the blue.
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