Swiss-Germans, DALI, Dada and Facebook

My Gradually Emptying Room
Ain't No Bad Seat Up in My Cadillac
Waiting, waiting, awaiting

Swiss-Germans, DALI, Dada and Facebook

So, this Swiss-German dude is coming to visit me today. . . See this post? This is my best effort at not freaking out. Excuse me if it's therefore rather random. If you could only hear the inside of my head -- it's screaming something along the lines of "OOOMMMGGGGGOMMAHHH FUCK!"

Why is that the only person who sent me any mail the entire time I've been in Paris has been my head doctor?

The emptier my room becomes, the fuller my heart. I'm ready to go home -- either one of 'em, damnnit.

I've been rather ill for about the last week now. Nothing special: hacking cough, blinding headache, full body aches/chills, fever, light headedness, fearing I may chock to death on my own mucus while I sleep. Same ole, same ole. This happens about this time every year my Dad points out. Yes, that's true, but you know what's really lame? Being ill and on a completely different continent from anyone who would care for me either out of love or responsibility. As if being sick wasn't enough, there was the added torture of being sick in Paris. Oh, no I'm not going to go to the Louvre/Musee d'Orsay/Picasso/Pompidou Centre today. No, I'd rather sit in bed and cough by lungs out. Thanks though. Luckily, before I became incapacitated, I made it to an English bookstore. Had I not been so well supplied with mindless epic Fantasy -- I might not have made it. 1,200 pages in three days. Oh the U of C -- you have trained me well.

I found the fabled DALI exhibit on Monday. AMAZING. It was a lot of his smaller, less known works. Many lithographs and a few originals. But still mind-blowing. The pencil drawings, filled in with splotches of bright color, incoherent, disembodied -- surreal. Next time I have an extra 300 euro, I might try to buy some Dali. I found myself staring at pieces for rather extended points of time. This may have had something to do with the adequate amount of medication I was on and the ensuing lack of concentration, but there was something else as well. It was if, could I stare at a piece long enough, thinking about it hard enough -- taking in all the details of perspective, shading, detail, abstract form, light -- it would all convalesce and I would understand. Not just that specific work, or all of DALI but somehow, I would grasp something bigger. More important. It hasn't happen, yet. So,I plan to drool over more DALI at the Art Institute once I'm back in the homeland.

I also went to a Dada (dadadadada) exhibit at the Centre Pompidou. I heart Dada. Dadadadadada. I want to re-read "Travesties" by Stoppard again, now that I think about it. Oh Tzara, Ray Man, Picabia -- were ya'll artistic geniuses, or random crackpots? Either way -- I like it. Hungry for human contact, I emailed Stefan and begged him to talk to me about art. (Facebook told me he's an art history major. Honestly, what did we do before facebook?) And he did, responding that he's not sure he understands Dada being as can't quite grasp their revolutionary struggle. I, on the other hand, am always right smack in the middle of a revolution of some sort. Once I understood that there is no real way to "understand" Dada in a purely rational sense -- if you were able Dada would cease to exist I suppose. Or the mixing the additive and subtractive magic would make the whole thing blow up. Oh fantasy fiction -- the entire exhibit was a little easier to understand. I decided to instead experienced Dada and feel much the better for it.

Strangely, this whole Paris thing has lead me to a new appreciation for Facebook. Long has it stood in my mind as the shiny pentacle of joy for secret stalkers, the haven for the too-shy-to-date. But since I've been here it seems as if it's become the forum for old friends to find me. Not that that doesn't happen frequently -- but given the physical space between me and them, it's lead many people to actually reach out, message me, sneak back into my life. And I'm glad. People from Brookhill whom I haven't spoken to since that fateful day. Middle school best friends. An ex-boyfriend -- with the phrase "My number's still the same, but in case you forgot . . . Feel free to hit me up when you get back." Yea buddy. You're number's still on speed dial.

In all honesty, it'll be blessedly lovely to have coffee and chit chat IN ENGLISH with all those people. I know I'm drastically different from who I used to be, at least at first glance. I've lost a bit of my Southern Bell/Cheerleader vibe, to be replaced with something that resembles Urban Hippie Chic. (Was that it? Someone summed it up for me on AIM the other day. Hmmm.) My fundamentals are the same though, only stronger, better voiced, more fully realized. I'm living the life I love now instead of a rather tortured Tyler existence. In that, I wholly different. I've freed myself from the judgment of that town, and my own misguided strivings to avoid it's wrath. It's only with perspective that I've been able to understand that at times it is Tyler that's misguided -- well intentioned as those bible-beating Christians may be -- while I stand completely in the right.

And on that note, I go to re-read the few remaining book in English that I haven't sold to Gilbert-Jeune for a few measly euros for food. And waiting. Awaiting. I threw away all my empty wine bottles except for one per day that I have left here.

Three bottles remain.

wishful thinking

(written... sometime last week, i suppose)

so, computer. it's been a long time since i've talked at you. i would say it's because i've been out and about, doing and seeing all paris has to offer. but that would be a lie; it's mostly been because my work is too time-consuming and my stories are too uninteresting. but now, two pages into my 43 for this afternoon (erm, not to mention a few chapters from some book that i'm not even going to touch), i've gotten the urge to ramble a bit. and mia's around, sure, but she knows all my stories already.

where to begin? it seems i last wrote about... berlin? man, i've visited three more countries since then; i'm sorry for being so delinquent!

but before i get ahead of myself, cannes. i'm sure you've heard of it from the film festival. cannes is a lovely resort town in the south of france, though we didn't go in the peak season, thankfully. mia and i declared the weekend our "honeymoon" trip, and what a honeymoon it was! our hotel was a-fuckin-dorable, overlooking a quaint courtyard and complete with a cat. it was also within walking distance of the train station, which was a special bonus since we couldn't figure out how to work the buses.

throughout the weekend, we wandered and browsed and shopped in narrow streets (which thankfully weren't too crowded). we waded in the mediterranean, ate lots of seafood (i had mussels everyday, no lie), and accidentally wandered up to a monastery-turned-museum. we also found an open-air market within spitting distance of our hotel, full of the most tasty-looking fruit i have ever seen, bread and pastries, vegetables, meats, cheeses, flowers... everything that causes joy, really. and from what we could both tell, many people in the market were locals. imagine, for a second, what it must be like to wake up everyday, breathe in fresh mediterranean air, then go to the market everyday for your produce. cannes is not a place i would ever live—i don't particularly like resort towns—but holy shit, do the cannes-ians know how to live! and, for yet another bonus, we didn't have papers to write! it felt like a real vacation. aaaah, give me a moment to bask in the memory.
...

ok, i've gotten ahold of myself. so, amsterdam. the first part of the trip was negatively affected by the papers we had to write... but don't worry, we took plenty of study breaks. the center of the city is tiny; wherever you want to go is probably a 5- to 15-minute wander from where you are, though your journey might be delayed because you stop by every neon-blazing coffee shop you see.

i can't fully judge amsterdam as a city, since i wasn't there long and didn't ride any public transit, but i must mention two things i was bothered by. for one, bike and car and pedestrian paths are all clearly marked, and often in ways that felt restrictive and counterintuitive to me. i rather disliked the whole "walk on the big white path!" deal; i'm much more of a jaywalker. and two, there was a coldness that couldn't be explained by the weather. it was german-esque in that everyone was minding their own business and not messing in yours, but it was isolating because there was no community, no sense that people cared about each other and their city.

granted, everyone was out on the streets, partying and having a great time! (and our hostel room, located on the fourth floor of a building that was one block west of capital-t The red light district, definitely gave us a great view of people partying at any hour of the night or day). but the great time that everyone was having was definitely their own; everyone was in their own head, at their own party, with their own friends. it was frustrating to finally be in a city with plenty of english-speakers and not have any spontaneous human interaction. (it's not that nobody talked to us, but when they did they usually began with a list of languages to see which one we'd perk up at the mention of, then proposition us for sex. uh.). so yes, full of tourists and lacking community, but banging nevertheless. so banging, in fact, that i'll be going back this friday!

barcelona and thanksgiving and dublin are forthcoming. but before i leave, music!

let me preface this by saying that the latest version of itunes looks like hell, but i'm not too upset. and why, you ask? because i used ipod rip with jean baptiste's sweet music connection the other day, and i now have lots of new (to me!) music.

right now, wilco is rocking my face off (yes, jessemr, i know you gave me some wilco over the summer. but it's somehow better coming from a frenchman). i really want to hear rainer maria's "rise," though, but i suppose that can wait a few more weeks.

and in conclusion, every morning i walk through a door that says "douches."