stories

le premier nuit

January 20, 2009 by krisis

Google informs me that the titular phrase with “soir,” as I originally phrased it, frequently refers to the question of having sex on the first date.

Funny how they don’t teach you these things in high school.

Here’s gare du nord, where we disembarked.

I took special delight in the fact that Dexter is being advertised as heavily here as it was in the states last fall, but I’m not sure what season they’re on.

I insisted we snap a photo to commemorate the end of our 18 hours of traveling before we went out for dinner.

We turned the wrong way up our street at first and discovered that it terminates in an absolutely breathtaking overview of the entire city, with the Eiffel directly in the center. We were at a loss for words.

(That is, until I remarked that the roving light from the top of the tower is not unlike the eye of Sauron. Because we are huge, married nerds.)

Photo forthcoming; at the time dinner was a higher priority.

Elise made me speak French to our waiter three times. He was extremely patient, and seemed to take delight in the fact that we were struggling not to use English or ask him how to say things.

When we left he said “Thank you, byebye!”

Nous Arrivons

January 20, 2009 by krisis

At the end of explaining the flat, Céline turned on our petite television set.

“CNN,” she said, “for you.”

Her English is flawless; we had to tell her how to say “circuit breaker.” Meanwhile, outside in the cab I barely cobbled together a sentence while Elise rang to have us let into the flat. “Is it okay that you wait for a minute? She finds the number now.”

Elise jumped in with her actual accent to save me, and I went poking about at the door to see about getting us let in. Here I was thwarted by laziness in packing – my bag was supposed to have my tiny maglite in it, but I decided at the last minute it wasn’t worth the bother. Well, standing in the pitch black lobby trying to dial up Céline on the intercom by the backlight of my iPod I decided that, clearly, it would have been worth it.

As Céline prepared to step out CNN broke from commercial back to their Obama coverage. She fixed us with a bemused look and indicated the television.

“So funny, that you have come all this way at this time.”

“But, I want to see it from here! I want to hear what you think.”

“Well,” she said with a grin, “it is great for us as well.”

She promised me an interview tomorrow if I did my French homework tonight.

First, dinner.

Newt

January 17, 2009 by krisis

Our photographer is a gentleman named “Newt.”

“Like the little girl in Aliens!” I said.

“Um, sure. Or like a little gecko. And a boy.”

Arcati Crisis takes Trevose

January 16, 2009 by krisis

“In 800 yards. Make. A U-turn.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Gina, it told you to make a U-turn.”

“What if that’s not legal here?”

“Then we just tell the police officer that the nice British lady in your GPS told us it was legal, so it’s totally cool.”

“Okay”

Gina commences epic U-turn across Street Road.

“Whaoooooo!”

Sometimes as Gina and I wander around being – well, us – I catch myself wondering: why are we allowed to do this?

At no time has this question been more present in my mind than today, as Gina chauffeured me around the city to cross last-minute to-dos off of my wedding prep list. Right now we are sitting in a hotel room on a key-protected floor looking at the ridiculously awesome costume jewelry Gina will be wearing tomorrow in my wedding.

This is after nearly crashing our luggage cart in the hotel parking lot, surviving our epic U-turn, me almost pitching my electric guitar through a display case at Bluebond, buying seemingly a hundred travel-sized personal condiments, earlier wandering around a masquerade store discussing the logistics of whether Moses’ crook is effectively the same thing as Little Bo Peep’s crook, and general driving all around the city wailing along to my official last-day-of-bachelordom CD, Pinkerton.

We are two fairly ridiculous human beings on our own, but we don’t typically verbalize or act upon any of our ridiculousness. As a pair both of those impulses are actively engaged. Which makes it clearly insane that I am getting married tomorrow, and Gina is captain in charge of making sure I get married.

We have not trashed the hotel room yet, but I believe that option to still be in the cards.

We are, after all, rock stars.

(As to where I’ve been: I was really sick. A week before my wedding. It wasn’t fun. And I got a chest x-ray. That’s about all that needs to be said.)

Amanda FUCKING Palmer

November 25, 2008 by krisis

As to the rest of my awesome weekend, there was the bit where we moved an entire house of belongings from one place to another in less than 90 minutes of manual lablor, and then there was the bit where I slept for a really long time because I was not feeling super, and then there was Amanda FUCKING Palmer.

(Actually, I skipped the bit where I walked up and down South Street belting out Dresden Dolls harmony vocals to see if I could attract the attention of anyone on the tour who would introduce me to Amanda, which in my opinion is a way more effective version of stalking than most of her fans might undertake. But, I digress).

Elise and I (and many of our other friends) are tremendous Dresden Dolls fans, so we all took the news of Amanda’s impending solo record with several grains of salt. Would it be an indulgent glamour project where she indulged all the inane songs Brian refused to drum on?

In a word: no.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer? is a fantastically layered, nuanced album that runs the gamut from heart-rending ballads to two massive pop blitzes catchier than anything the Dolls have undertaken (and this is coming from someone who has “Backstabber” tattooed on my brain – it’s my #1 most-listened to song in iTunes).

I’d tell you more about the album, but I’m already entrenched about 2500 words deep into my review of it, so it’ll have to wait. Instead, a word on the concert.

It wasn’t a concert.

At least, not in the sense you would typically expect. It was truly a cabaret – songs mixed with spoken word, mime, question and answer sessions with the audience, and unplugged performances on ukelele. It was an interactive, unconcertlike experience. At one point Amanda and The Danger Ensemble did a choreographed dance to the entirety of Rhianna’s “Umbrella” (which I had mercifully escaped hearing up until that point).

If that sounds like a damnation by faint praise … well, only a little. There were definitely points where the act of Amanda got slightly tiresome, and the show visibly bled audience at those points. In the past that blood has been me. But, on Saturday it finally felt like cabaret and not a concert, maybe due to the absence of Brian, and maybe because of how much Amanda chatted directly with the audience – explaining the funding behind her tour, or asking us to send her a text message.

It was much about atmosphere and attitude, texture and taste, as it was about playing all the hits. Case and point, perhaps my favorite song of the night wasn’t any of the ones I was hotly anticipating, but a take on her hilarious collaboration with Neil Gaiman, “I Google You” (explained hilariously via a blog comment chain by Neil), the best bit of which is definitely,

And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

At the end of the night she came out for an encore of her current single, the hot horny mess of “Leeds United,” slapped onto the record complete with an “Oh! Darling” losing-my-voice single-take vocal. Introducing it (or maybe earlier), she mentioned that her record company didn’t like the video as-is because she looked “fat.”

We’re talking about someone on my list of five famous people I’d sleep with. Fat doesn’t really enter into the equation. Behold:

Right. Fat. Sure.

In any event, I loved the concert, and I’m happy that Amanda is getting the chance to make her own music away from the Dolls. If any of this sounded interesting (even if you don’t love Amanda’s music) I would suggest you check out her mammoth story of recording the record, which is more detailed and frank than any episode of Behind the Music.

(wow, that was supposed to be a short post)