Firstly, a picture of my office. Apparently the LEDs are new. They change to blue and red (pictured), green and purple. Currently blue is showing through my windows. Wait, now green. Regardless, that's the East side of the building. It is my intention to take some footage of the crazy path I have to take to get to my room. I think I counted 40 small flights of stairs. It's pretty crazy. I keep discovering new rooms. And at night, I swear someone is moving walls and doors just to screw with me.
That said, I've been quite busy. Though the latter part of last week and the weekend was a bit lax. I finished the portals and had them to the printer friday morning at 8:30am and was back in my room by 9-something. Sunday was my first full day off and I spent the day drawing. Somewhere in there I finished Harlan Ellison's "Angry Candy," which I'd been reading--an amazing book of short stories. I have no problem admitting that the introduction brought tears to my eyes. The entire book was kind of written in honor of his dead friends and all the stories dealt with a different element of death. He introduction however dealt with how we have a right to be angry, after all "if we aren't angry, how much did we care to begin with?" I'd love to write a detailed summary of the book and my feelings about it, but instead I'm just going to invite you to read it yourself. It's amazing. You'll love it. Trust me.
At some point last week, Alma and Glowa took me to a "domestic" restaurant. That is, a pace only the locals go. Glowa ordered duck for me. It was quite good, though not as amazing as the veal "a pecka" I had in Zagreb or the Templar Knight's steak. Friday, the Prime Minister was at the theatre holding a banquet. This was quite strange. Rounding corners and finding government agents scowering at you is a unique experience. We did however get to enjoy lunch, or what was left from his banquet. It wasn't my favorite meal by far.
Sunday I rushed to finish the "Crombie's Zombies" pilot for the Vesperine crew at home. I had worked the night before, but grew too tired. I used my 9 hours ahead to my advantage and finished in the afternoon (the wee small hours of the morning for you California folk). Then I had my first lunch alone. I went to Dominicos, a pizza joint around the corner. I sat for three hours, I think, enjoying pizza picante and then coffee. The wait-staff kept noticing me drawing and eventually said the cook wanted me to draw the restaurant for him in exchange for free food. I happily obliged and spent the latter half of those three hours doing a graphite and ink drawing. I spent the evening drawing more.
Monday David was too tired to come to Varazdin from Zagreb and rested up. This left me free again. I spent the day drawing. It was quite nice. Monday night I went to see a show at this theatre with Ksenija and several of the cast members. Steve had been warned off of it, but I was curious. I have no idea what it was called, but it was a Bosnian play about war. Ksenija kept whisper to me, giving me enough bits of information to figure out what was going on. Afterwards, I started to excuse myself, when they insisted that I came to the reception in the upstairs bar. I drank vodka/coke and proved my tolerance. I out drank the Croatians, much to their surprise. Steve had warned me that Croatians drink like fish. I have my doubts now. I wasnt even buzzed when I returned to me room and Ksenija was slurring her words. Her English make a bastardized mix of Croatian, German and English. It was delightful entertaining, but made conversation difficult. I must most surprised by her openness about her divorce from Prga and her frankness about not wanting to visit the US. It's very strange; for some reason we have this idea that everyone shoud or does want to come to America. And yet here's a succeful director who's lived in Prague for 8 years and Croatia the rest of her life. And Glowa too. And Hana. All these people have vague or wavering or no interest at all in "the most powerful nation on Earth." It's was very interesting to hear their thoughts about us and our pushy culture. I cant say I agree with everything, but I can understand how they got the impressions that they did.
Tuesday David arrived and I started to get busy. But first! We took him over to Angelos and made him try the horseraddish soup. He loved it. See? I told you it was good. He immediately picked up that Alma was running on empty and asked her permission to work on her. David's healing abilities are fascinating. If I didn't know that he designed disco for so long, I'd believe he was out of some Western fairytale; some real life incarnation of an ancient shaman. And to hear him talking about is even more fascinating.
I spent the first part of today filming and taking pictures of all the transitions and the basic staging of the show for David. I sat in one of the theatre boxes on stage left and juggle between my camera and David's video camcorder. During out break, Steve and I visited the bank and the Konzum (market), before parting to go our seprate ways. The latter half of my night has been spent making master sheets of all the transitions and staging from the photos, as well as doing a mock up in photoshop of what the stage will look like with the tapestries hung.
It sounds like my next few days are going to be rivalled in content of work only by my first weekend when I had only 2 days to create all those tapestries. Between the scene painting, technical problems, hang and focus and everything else--I'm going to be quite busy it sounds like.
David and Steve both keep trying to get me back into Zagreb, or Vienna or up to Buhdapest. But I'm afraid it won't happen. Not that I really mind. I wanted to come for the experience of doing this show and it is my sincere hope that I get back to Europe for tourism at another time.
Before I wrap this up, I wanted to leave you with some translated phrases that are common here that are quite strange to my California idealogy and jargon.
1) "I want to eat something with a sppon." = "I want soup."
2) "I'm going to go kill my eye." = "I'm going to go take a nap
3) "I slept like I was slaughtered." = "I slept very well."
4) "I slept like a slaughtered baby." = "I selpt amazing well."
A few sketchbook drawings:
JAMES BOND:
FRANJO:
Well, I think that's it for me for now. Cheers to all!
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