uptempodemonplumsauce: "The 'Guh' is silent"...

...says Glinda. I will love this show forever.

I have been changed for good

SUNDAY, JAN 30
Once upon a time this was going to be my departure date. But what is time? A manmade construct to measure the immeasurable and give value to the invaluable? Pffffffffffffffft, life is but a dream, the whole world is a stage, and we’re living in a simulation. I think I’ve covered all the religions in that last sentence; back to me and my adventures!

Flashback to Weds, Jan… I don’t know the number…
The thing with declaring this trip as an Artists’ Retreat is that I planned the structure I wanted my days to have. Mornings were for writing, afternoons were for exploring, absorbing, expanding, nourishing.

So far, I had ignored my plan and was only writing. Which is *AMAZING* but I wasn’t replenishing myself. So I pick the Victoria & Albert Museum, because it’s relatively close and I’ve never been. (All this replenishment stuff is what I realize in retrospect. In the moment, I was writing, yay!, writing, fun!, oh, jeez, the walls around me are suddenly closing in and I need to leave the house before I disappear.)

Not a real person.

Some words about Wifi. I have it at Stella’s so I can operate like a modern human who’s addicted to their phone, but once I leave the house, I have to use my brain. It’s totally fun! I always forget until I’m forced to remember, that I like using my brain. Having instant gratification, directions, distraction, and communication from my phone is a luxury I enjoy and take for granted, and it creates a nice comfy buzz. But when my brain goes into travel mode and I get to problem solve, design, adjust, fail, take leaps of faith, spin my wheels, mess up, and adjust more, I feel alive. Life takes longer and I’m forced to Not Know sometimes, which I hate (Hello, I’m a 3 on the enneagram! And a Scorpio, ‘sup?), but that makes my outings into adventures. I LIVE FOR ADVENTURE!
…What was I talking about? No Wifi… oh yeah, so I used a paper map for the first time in like a decade.
Anyway, the V&A museum is a Design museum. It brought to mind dresses and textiles, art and sculpture. I like these things so I figured I’d like the museum. Cut to: I LOVE THIS MUSEUM.
Design isn’t just the beauty of form, rather its the function of it, whether the intention of the piece is to invoke an experience or problem solve one. I think?? Thats what I got from the museum anyway. Design isn’t just art— or maybe design is what makes everything a piece of art? I’m getting in the weeds here with my words which means I SUPER DUPER LIKED IT. It touched me and inspired me. Highlights:

Build a Crystal Palace?! AWESOME!

SCULPTURE: After story and moving pictures, sculpture is the art I find most captivating. How stone can swirl and smile, how so much life and depth of emotion can come from a single pose frozen in time and earth. The juxtaposition of hard and soft, movement and stillness, momentary and eternal breaks me into pieces. I loved the different collections there.
DISCOVERY ROOMS: Throughout the museum, there were these interactive opportunities for people to experience the exhibits. Like when you go to a kids museum and kids can put their foot inside a dinosaur’s footprint. Here, you could do stuff like put on a hoop skirt and try to sit down in it or build a crystal palace or use a silver press. HOW FUN to put the design to work and experience it.
JEWELRY: Its the largest collection of jewelry in the world, but I only fell in love with one crown and butterfly ring of Beyonce's. It was overwhelming to have that many pieces of jewelry in one space so I went brain-numb. Then I realized the jewelry was organized on a time line and things started to come back into focus. I like order.
DESIGN 1900 - NOW: This is the first exhibit I’ve ever been to where I read all the info placards. Its collection of everyday items that demonstrate how people design things to meet the moment out of necessity and opportunity. It wasn’t the collection so much as how the exhibit contextualized them in terms of politics, manufacturing, technology, society and home. I was so fired up and inspired by human beings’ ingenuity and also fascinated by our drive to progress and succeed, no matter the cost. Another cool thing about the exhibit was its Rapid Response Collecting. To keep up with the frenetic pace of change in our world, the museum is able to gather objects in direct response to current events so as you can appreciate the past, you can also appreciate and integrate whats happening in the world right now. This extends not just to Covid, but to the racist terrorism and forced refugee displacement around the world. I can’t recommend this exhibit enough.

1993 Social justice poster designed by Lex Drewinski in Germany

Flashback to Thursday, Jan whatever
Show day! I spend the day writing, blogging and self soothing and this evening I FINALLY make it to my first show.

I grew up indifferent to musicals. Theater was something rich people did, and we were not rich. In college, I saw Cats and Phantom when they toured through Austin, but I didn't feel a connection. I couldn’t shake my impression that shows were things made for fussy old White people.

Then I saw Wicked in Chicago in 2005 and it blew my mind. But it really wasn’t until I saw the Hamilton performance at the Tonys in 2016 and listened to the soundtrack and nothing else for the next 6 months (Not a hyperbole. Those 6 months were some of the worst of my life and Hamilton was my refuge.) that I got the musical theater bug.
To say the last couple of years have been a challenge is an understatement. I miss theater. I miss shows. I miss the energy of being held captive with an audience where you can feel the longing or the loss or the celebration together. So I took this trip as an opportunity to geek all the way out and am seeing as many shows as I can.
Tonight: WICKED… WICKKKEEEEED….WICCKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEED!!!
BAHHHHHHHH! I LOVE WICKED. I saw it again last time I was here and it was at the top of my list to see again. To be honest, as I started exploring more shows, I was like, buhhhhhhggghh I love Wicked, buhhhhhhht did I just waste 25 pounds to see a show I’ve seen twice?
No. It’s so great to be back in that world. I’m enjoying the show start from my very high perch in basically France, but I’m still dealing the miser in the back of my head. Then Lucie Jones as Elphaba hits the crescendo of her first song and I burst into tears. Her voice is so powerful and clear, commanding and emotional that I am hers for the rest of the night. Glinda - and I’m not sure who played her bc I was so far away it’s hard to determine if it was Helen Woolf as listed in the cast online or an understudy - is superb. She’s hilarious and her voice is stunning. As per usual, the last 15 minutes of the play I am an emotional wreck, my body shaking as I sob. My mask is so big it that my eyes just peek out above it, so I’m free to silently wail underneath it which felt necessary.

The smize is real!

Truth & Falsehood, Alfred Stevens. Truth RIPS OUT Falsehoods double-TONGUE. YES!!

Isinova, a 3D printing company in Italy, created this snorkle mask converted into a CPAP mask to answer the shortage of respiratory equipment due to Covid. They made the design available for free online and its been downloaded over 2 million times to use in countries all over the world.