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i came back to lyon just in time to partake in this crazy electro music festival called les nuits sonores. it basically takes over the whole city and turns everything into a techno party. above is a picture of the street in front of alexandre’s apartment.
here’s a shot from his window.
the above combo of three pictures is of a cloudy day in (ironically named) puerta del sol - or the door of the sun - which is the times square / tourist trap / pickpocket heaven of madrid.
i came to madrid almost ten years ago with my high school spanish class and experienced the city through 17 year-old on-a-tour-bus eyes. this time, although my level of spanish comprehension is comparable, i feel like i am getting a much richer experience.
last time we stayed at sol, in a ritzy hotel that had bidets - something me and my roomate mike were fascinated with. however, we didn’t, in any way understand the extent of the diversity of the city or it’s many neighborhoods. this time, jess and i have made particular effort to explore the neighborhoods of malesaña, la latina and chueca on the suggestion of my friend natalie. this weekend is supposedly the largest party weekend in all of spain, and i happen to be spending this night in the internet room of our hostel with several other euro-destitutes glued to g-chat and facebook instead of participating in monstrous fiestas.
that didn’t stop jess and i from visiting about 6 different bars eating tapas and drinking for the last several horus.
that’s just how we do in spain.
i always heard that the spanish were severe party-ers, but i had conveniently chosen to deny it. alas, after last night’s debauchery (which i will not go into on this blog), i have learned otherwise.
so tonight i take a break and save up for tomorrow’s festivities.
el dos de mayo (the second of may) is like american independence day or french bastille day - except with more alcohol, public intoxication and many more cigarettes. boundaries between public space and pub space seem to be non existent here, but somehow everyone seems to get along and stay happy and safe.
i have many more pictures to post of various architecture and fascinating things here in madrid (as well as some photos from my escapades in la parc de la tet d’or in lyon), but i will endeavor to post those when the sun is on my side.
until then… aurevoir - adios.
*yes the above nasty images are a result of me being drunk on champagne and falling into a pebble wall in lyon, but i want to say that this was no fault of my own. french people, particularly artistic ones, seem to like to celebrate as much as possible when appropriate, and if it wasn’t for their generous hospitality, i would not have downed glass after glass of champagne and dance like i’ve never danced before.
like my friend cécile (who lives in paris) said : “of course they had free champagne. we make it here.”
viva la france!
miraculously i still haven’t had a cigarette for over a month - despite being inebriated to the point of face-planting it into an inanimate wall and being surrounding by nicotine fiends.
i heart you lungs.
liver? maybe next time.
[p.s. the above photos were taken by my friend jess in the bathroom of our super cool hostel room in madrid]
so right now i’m sitting in a bunk bed in a hostel in madrid, catching up on various internet correspondences and design work, and i figured i’d let you all in on the kind of cri-zazy party we had the other night at the closing of les subsistances’ ça tchatche #2 festival.
for more ridiculous pics like the above of the fabulous miss heather christian, checkout the galleries i just uploaded on facebook :
Ça Tchatche #2 PARTY - 1 of 3!
Ça Tchatche #2 PARTY - 2 of 3!
Ça Tchatche #2 PARTY - 3 of 3!
some other updates :
big dance theater got a smashing review in Le Monde, which is the biggest newspaper in france. it basically said that we were the cream of the crop so to speak at last week’s festival in Lyon. we also got the above huge color photo in the printed version of the story - apparently a huge deal for theater/dance in france!
read the full article (in french).
and here we have it. two days later. you should see the other guy.
this black eye is the result of me drinking a shit load of free champagne and then face-planting it into a really old french pebble wall. awesome.
it doesn’t hurt as much as it looks and in a few days it’ll just be super sexy.
last night, jess and i saw david byrne play in madrid and hung out afterwards. everyone said my eye made me look sexy. DB says hi, by the way.
soon i will finally leave the mod confines of my hostel and explore esta ciudad.
more to come, folks.
xoc
tina, julia, jess, wayne and i go sing karaoke at sing sing st. marks. we’re all redheads :
no that’s not a photobooth background. i took that shot with the isight on the company macbook pro that i’m borrowing this weekend to do some script work for an event. i snapped that shot right before it started to drizzle.
yesterday, out here in the pines, i overheard some guy say that a 20 foot long fish washed up on the beach near fisherman walk. that walk is only a few down from the house we’re staying in so i thought it would be worth it to check it out. bobby and i went down there after having a cocktail and lo and behold : no fish. bollocks.
last night we all went to ‘tea’ - which is another way of saying ‘get drunk during the day.’ our friend - and favorite broadway gypsy - jose lana bought us some drinks. rock on.
i don’t think i really ate dinner last night except for some nuts and snickers bar. i think i’ll go eat something. i promised everyone that i would make breakfast this morning but there are only six eggs and six of us so .. oatmeal anyone?
ah, life. (what a fag..)
so the red terror squad (my little theater family) and i showed a piece we’ve been working on at avant-garde-arama at PS122 on friday. above is a shot from the dressing room, pre-show. it was before i ripped my shirt.
i don’t really know how i ripped my shirt, but somehow i did at some point in the night. that’s another story.
the piece actually went pretty well. we performed last, at around 10:45pm. we were all kind of beat, but it was received warmly. preceding us in the evening were artists like “mr. fashion,” a contemporary of the great ethel eichelberger, and a film by genius artist, ryan trecartin. it was interesting to share a stage with people who’ve been doing this avant-garde shit since the 70s. my parents hated it. (yes they were there). it was hosted by yehuda duenyas and normandy raven sherwood from NTUSA.
after that, laryssa and her girlfriend went to ‘night of a thousand stevies,’ which i intended to go to, but felt too pooped to prance around in a shawl. instead, the remaining girls and i went to paquitos for marg’s and then to some dive bar - where i ran into wade, that hot bartender from metro, showing around his friend from england.
i had my camera (prepped for snapping lots of photos of stevie nicks impersonators) and got drunk so i ended up taking a lot of 8-10 second exposure shots. the bar was really dark, but in these shots it looks like it’s morning. don’t be fooled.
when it’s been one of those long days - little sleep, too much sugar - and you’ve just come from a gender pac cookoff featuring two top chef celebs that you’ve never heard of before because you don’t own a television.
when your subway ride home brewed thoughts of stagnation - life not moving quite fast enough for you, eh? - thoughts of where you wish you could go other than home. thoughts of what kind of old gay man you will be. whether or not it’s okay to skip dinner.
when any brush with gender theory makes you reevaluate the world - all you see, people around you, things you tolerate, things you stand up for, when it’s right to say something, refuting a discriminatory situation, swallowing your belief in what is right for money or something or sex.
when you’re already feeling hungover, or wait, is that just ’cause you haven’t slept for a few days. maybe. thinking about aspirin. used to go out and party time people. should you get on the l-train and wait for the night to begin?
… when these things occur, a clean (at least superficially) apartment with some stella and a little joan armatrading sounds pretty nice. even though you didn’t get high for free or get that cute intern’s phone number.
pretty nice indeed.
