against the wall

Did you know that half of Washington State - the "Evergreen State", mind you - is desert? Desert carved by heavy floods toward the end of the last ice age. Desert without cacti. Desert with columnar basalt sticking up out of it. I feel like I'm in California crossed with Scotland.

Fringe is finished, and we're on our way back by a roundabout route. Yesterday was the first time since the beginning of June that I have set Acky the Volvo on an eastward course - except perhaps for the ferry trip back from Vancouver Island. We've decided to swing into the Shoulder of America (my term) to visit my cousins in Othello WA, before swinging back up into Fernie BC and sliding the Frank Slide all the way to Calgary and the badlands before finally settling into a responsible south-eastward progress of eight hours of driving or 1 major city per day. The other two Torontonian companies of our acquaintance who are driving home - "Dickens of the Mounted" or "Tale of a T-Shirt" - are doing so in, like, four days. But not us! We are careful, or lazy, or non-eager to enter Real Life or The Fallow Period, depending on how you look at it.

Vancouver was both okay and amazing. Crowds were good enough for me to want to return, despite only getting one very late review in the Georgia Straight. What was amazing was the weather - 12 straight days of sun and 20 degrees (my favourite temperature) and how much fun it was to perform in an intimate space to small crowds who laughed and gave me their support for an hour. Five out of six times, at least.

Goodbyes are hard. Alison couldn't leave until she'd performed a specific (even ritualistic) one with Penny Ashton ("Hot Pink Bits") and once completed, she could not reenter the bar and risk a post-goodbye encounter. The performance poet Jem Rolls threw me playfully but forcefully against a corrugated iron wall (which is the only vertical surface to be found on Granville Island) and told me to stop being so smart! But to keep producing the crazy shows. This final night behaviour is apparently not atypical for the generally un-touchy-feely Jem, who picked Alison up and swung her around BOTH this year and last at the close of Vancouver Fringe. "Dishpig" star Greg Landucci reports being playfully, but firmly, slapped.

Oh, I have drummed up my CBC performer blog from Winnipeg Fringe this year, and I will post it on my site. Look here.

Wik. I'll tell you more about the trip home soon...

I don't wanna

I see it as no coincidence that we left Courtenay the day after Labour Day, the very morning that Alison's two teenaged cousins were heading out the door to their first days of grades 12 and 8. I felt the same way that I suspected that they did: how can you make me do this? After this amazing, relaxing break, after this time when I had no responsibilities, how can you make me go back there? Except that my break was shorter than theirs.

If we had taken the tour to Victoria, I'd still be running at full guns I think. I was tired after Edmonton, but not impossibly so. Victoria is a relaxing festival - I could have chilled out but I'd still be on my game. But after 5 nights in Courtenay, a rainy day trip to Tofino, and about a thousand photographs of trees, I'm just not in the mood to do another festival!

I've been in Vancouver since Tuesday. We decided to give the Labour Day ferry traffic a miss, which is why we arrived on the same day as our tech. What stressed me out more than that, though, was not being able to check in with my billet until AFTER tech rehearsal - about 11 pm. Turns out though that not only is she night-oriented, but she is greatly experienced in two areas relevant to my planned 2008 show, the Queen Charlotte Islands and mental illness. We talked until after 2:30, and she worked at 9:00. I struggled my way down to Granville Island on the transit and was (and continue to be) upset that there are no transit maps to be had! I think I've vowed to drive from now on. There is SOME free parking to be had near Fringe, if one doesn't mind a bit of a walk. I'm still debating which method of transport is less stressful to me, which is all that matters to me now.

This festival is kind of weird. We have to deconstruct our set between shows (usually we just wheel it backstage). I have to share a washroom with the public! They added a row of chairs since my tech rehearsal that makes the stage space unusably small for my purposes. I don't wanna.

It will be fine, I know. I just have to open the show, and I just have to deal with locomotion for a couple of weeks. I've planned my return itinerary, and it looks like I'll be home near about September 27th!