Mama Lou Strong Woman Reigns Supreme!

Please watch this video of my dear friend, Mama Lou.  She is a fabulous trapeze artist, burlesque dancer, and the world's strongest woman.  See her rip a telephone book in half!!

This is part of a YouTube video contest, so if she gets the most people to watch her video, she will win $10,000.  That's a lot of money for an artist!! She's in third place right now....

Love Letter to New York, Part 1

Liebe Leute--

I am back in NYC for a few days while Jeremy runs around California talking about bugs. Oh! How I love it! I was so lucky to be picked up at the airport by my little sis Daria and Sue (see pictures from Paris-- and also, I promise to change the picture thing soon...), and finally got rid of the Salamander Masks and Boys' Costumes.  Also lucky, now I have a big suitcase that is only half full... hmmm, what to do? I am going to load up on chocolate chips and Converse sneakers (currently selling for $90 in Cologne!).  

After eating an obscene amount of 1/2 price sushi near St. Mark's Place last night with my friends, I was almost bursting with happiness, but I still remembered to watch out for dog poop on the street as we walked back to the apartment.

AND, for you Cologne fans, I saw a keg on Reisdorf Kölsch in the window of a bodega in Chinatown. New York does have everything.

More later!

Sunny Days and Dirty Floors

Ok, I am now done being the Genie of Air (known in the program as the Luftgeist), a job that involved ducking swooping falcons and the magic wand of a certain singer. What a crazy life.

If you would like to see a video of our falcon friend, go to this newspaper article. There is even a few seconds of me on stage near the end. I'm the one dressed in blue.

The weather in Göttingen was so incredibly beautiful the last 2 weeks that I wanted to spend every moment outside. The town has a lot of parks-- my favorite was the one that has 18th and 19th century gravestones and is naturally where the punk kids hang out, juggling and listening to big band music ever so softly on beat-up transistor radios.



I took the Genie of Fire (Feuergeist), Caroline, back to Cologne with me-- she is sticking around Europe because we are going together to a übernerdy baroque dance conference next week. It should be so fun!! Just imagine: papers and workshops-- one even with the delicious title, "Erotische Szenen bei Jean-Georges Noverre". And our other Orlando dancer, Alan Jones, is going to teach a reel for 20 dancers that was done in Colonial America. Whoo-hoo!!

We had a rough train ride back to Cologne, though. We ended up taking the large Salamander masks and the costumes with us on the train because I will bring them back to NYC. It is completely impossible to fit such items in the aisles of a German train (and I defy anyone to find a train more amenable to giant suitcases and boxes), so we shoved everything against the wall near the train doors and hunkered down on the floor. It really doesn't get more bohemian than sitting on the filthy floor in a European train to guard bizarre animal masks (unless you are working at a Belgian opera house and staying in a room without a toilet seat-- close call). Caroline was able to stretch out, though:













To make up for such a disgusting trip from Göttingen to Köln, Jeremy and I had a barbecue in the park with Caroline, impressing her with the amount of people tossing around the volleyball and playing soccer, drinking beer, and grilling huge amounts of meat of a Tuesday evening. And, really, huge amounts of meat should be the cornerstone of the German Experience.

Week Four in Opera Land

We are now in the performance phase of my beloved Orlando! Our second performance is this afternoon, and then we perform every other day until May 12. It's a pretty easy show for the dancers, but that doesn't mean that I can't mess it up... At any rate, I wear a mask on stage almost the entire time (for my Persephone bit, I am unmasked, but behind the scrim with smoke swirling around me), so I don't even get made up for the show!! My skin is grateful.

Jeremy did come earlier this week, just in time to baby me when I was really, truly, and disgustingly sick. I had gone to the doctor the day he arrived (The festival has a doctor on call. You can't mess around with singers getting sick), and found out I had a bacterial infection. She gave me some crazy antibiotics to take which made my mouth taste bitter the whole five days I had to take them. Anyway, Jeremy is a saint, as you all know, and it really made me feel better to have him taking care of me. I was just sorry that the first time I saw him in 3 weeks I was coughing and blowing my nose every 3 seconds.

Here I am, scarily ill. Jeremy wants you to know that it says "Retardtabaletten" on my medicine.





And I think Jeremy even enjoyed the opera! I bet he could write a brilliant blog about his impressions (hint. hint.). Most of the audience for the public dress were college and high school stundents-- they laughed and gasped and cheered. That's how it should be! Bring opera to the people!

The rest of the Handel Festival is in full swing now. Last night Caroline and I went to hear a concert of 18th c. fiddle music from Morovia, Slovakia, England, Scotland, Italy, and the Gypsies. Completely fabulous. There is nothing like hearing live music.