soul bits from the scribble book

first of all, happy saint-jean-baptiste!

i’ve spent the week dragging my ass around, smiling sloppily and washing the last vestiges of a month of delicious semi-mayhem from my pores. so no full, lushly rounded thoughts for you, my ducklings. instead, i offer a smorgasbord of soul bits from the infamous scribble book.

(ok, this one goes back a little over a month (which somehow seems so far away!) well whatever: relive spring!) the air smells of autumn, but it looks like spring – complete with the neon green peach fuzz that now canopies our sky with its retro meshness. all this frolicking – pre-pubescent trees rubbing up against each other, giggling their coy consent on the cool breeze.
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we are standing outside the party, smoking anything we can wrap our lips around. we gaze lazily at the sky. we do not know, but the northern lights are backstage, smoking cigarettes to soothe their jitterbug blood or standing in corners retracing sections of the choreography they're about to thrill the city folk with. one of us speaks staggeringly, “what time is it?” another ventures a guess: “12:30? 1?” another looks at his watch and laughs – it’s exactly 12:31.
ahhh, it’s the little things that delight me so…
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i am on the threshold of trouble, and i beg for more. yes, yes, make me dirty with your shy gaze and wanton laugh.

paper cut

i try to ignore you, my badministration badge, try to ignore your murder-mouthed grin. but the cool water streams down my fingers and finds you, my purple heart of 9-to-5, and tickles you into dark searing laughter.

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i fucking hate paper cuts! but hey, at least they're not as bad as folder cuts. those fuckers'll have you wincing in pain for weeks. i once had a folder jump and contort itself, seeking the smooth, soft flesh that lay hidden well underneath my giant ring (unfortunately not the protective armour it could or should have been), proving that folders are evil, malicious little fuckers.

sigh - the trials and tribulations of office work...
(grin)
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home for a rest

ah – here i am, back in front of a computer, feeling slightly dazed and smiling dopily: i have had the bestest couple of weeks ever.

i have savoured theatre in three cities. the highlights:

• the Children’s Festival in Toronto. i saw a charming and funny and beautiful piece from.. erm… somewhere in Europe, called Past Half Remembered, and a lovely, intriguing, strange little show from the Netherlands, called Museum of Memories.
• the Festival de théâtre des Amériques in Montreal. this is where i saw La Chambre d’Isabella (the magnificent delight of Belgian wonderfulness that i talked about a few posts back). another notable artistic experience was being allowed to sit in on the presentation of a work in progress choreographed by Sylvain Émard. it was so beautiful, and i hope they come to Toronto so i can see the final product – it’s sure to be stunning.
• and finally, the Magnetic North theatre festival in Ottawa. i got to see Daniel MacIvor’s Cul-de-sac again (had seen it here in Toronto), which was just as incredible the second time around. also loved Old Trout Puppet Workshop’s very beautiful and dark and magical Pinocchio, Pi Theatre's charming, slightly haunting and inspiring Élisa’s Skin, and i laughed my guts out with Andy Jones' King o’ Fun.

it’s been quite the few weeks, but the shows i saw don’t even scratch the surface of what makes the whole experience so gratifyingly incredible. if you’ve been reading a while, you may remember me gushing over this place i spent my thursday nights, called “the shop.” crammed with theatre types, beer, smoke and stories, i loved being there. well – every night at these festivals was like that.

whether in the cinemathèque in Montreal, or the mayflower in Ottawa, oh the hours i spent talking shit, sharing ideas and laughing richly. i met people that i know will be friends for years to come, and also with whom i hope to work. you know, make some theatre... like the glowing-grinned Virginia: writer, director, choreographer and shiny soul. and some of the half life folk – (in order of appearance) Randy, Richard and John. it was also great to spend some more time with the ever-charming and wonderful David and sweet-smiled, bright-eyed Jonathan from Calgary. and there were Vancouver kin too: Del and DK!!! always a delight to spend some time and ah DK, so glorious and delicious to kiss those sweet lips again…

so a big fucking YEA! to my month of june! it's been... unforgettable. well.. except the parts that are too hazy (ahem) to remember, of course... (grin)

kissed

today, my lips are tingling: i need to be kissed.

looking lazily out the window, i tilt my head back and savour each succulent snapshot: soft trembling fingers curling in my hair, a rush of hot breath rubbing up against my neck, a soft hot tongue gliding gently along my lower lip.

today, i feel like i could spend a month kissing. my lips are hungry, longing for the taste of mouths frenzied and tangled in a lusty tango, gliding and panting in and through each other until we are overwhelmed. until breathless and ecstatic, we begin gently savouring, tenderly perusing.

today, i'm lost in those slow searching licks, the soft playful bites and sweet sucking. i'm consumed with a furious longing for the feathered brush strokes of impressionist lips, the hurricane of heated breath, the inferno of yes.

today, i really need to be kissed.

what is this intimacy thing?

i was riding into work this morning, breathing in the smells of summer: trees, earth, rotting garbage and smog. mmm, summer in the city (back of my neck getting dirt and gritty). and i spent the time musing on intimacy.

i was recently talking with someone who read my astrological chart, and i wondered if it was a sort of cheating, like "instant kaen." not that the chart was oh so revelatory, but when he read the qualities out to me, i either agreed or disagreed. and i wondered if we weren't maybe creating a false intimacy?

but no, i don't think so... let's say he was paying attention to what qualities i identified with: yes i'm passionate, no i'm not obsessed with success and so on. fact of it is, that would only tell him who i think i am.

i think friends or lovers only know each other - achieve intimacy- when the friend or lover truly discovers not only how i see myself, and not even how i want to be seen (though these are insights the lover and close friend alone are offered. well.. and blog readers.) the keen friend or lover will see also how i really am, the depth of my unknowable soul.

although... i guess people fake that knowledge all the time, by focusing on stuff like how we want to be seen rather than who we really are. they stroke the ego with platitudes that we've created for their abuse. so perhaps false intimacy is indeed possible after all. perhaps even rampant.
but anyway, that's not the case or point there so let's just... leave it at that. (shrug)
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flemish fantabulousness

beautiful.
beautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautiful
beautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautiful.
if i wrote it a hundred - a hundred thousand times - it would still be a word, a pathetic two-dimensional hiccup attempting to capture the most incredible and profoundly impacting theatre i've ever experienced.

so i went to montreal last week for the festival de théâtre des amériques, and saw La Chambre d'Isabella, written and directed by Jan Lauwers of Brussels' Needcompany. i'd never seen anything like it. i've sinced learned that it's part of what the kids are calling "the belgian aesthetic" which among other things incorporates a lot of movement - and a very particular kind of movement - into theatre: i.e. movement theatre. if you don't know what movement theatre is, it basically incorporates... well... movement into.. you know, theatre. it also happens to be the kind of theatre i've been writing.

as i jumped to my feet after the show, hands flapping furiously, the slow steady stream of tears started. blocks away from the theatre, they slid still, and my heart raced and my body vibrated. it wasn't sad - it was just so beautiful...

but it was also more than that. it was new and powerful and inspiring and overwhelming. days later, i'm still not entirely sure why i cried. oh sure, the story is sad and beautiful and that inevitably played its part on my heart. but the sensations that coursed through me ran deeper.

maybe i'd felt my brain grow and knowing i was changed, mourned for the child, an infant in the world of movement theatre, who was no more. or maybe i felt challenged, supercharged with a deep desire to create something so exquisite. or maybe i cried because a few nights earlier, i'd met the company. after a flirty, giggly stumble back to the hotel, Jan suavely tried to turn a chaste kiss on the cheek into a lusty smooch and after seeing his show, i really wished i had kissed him...

whatever it was, i was deeply moved and look forward to seeing more of their work.
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