(no subject)
Summertime in Spain. It's high season and it's hot. Time for white linen shirts and sandals. I got a summer haircut and the cooler night breezes feel good against my bare neck. A show in Madrid on Friday, another the next day in my beloved Barcelona, and I'll spend my birthday playing in Benicassim.
After that, I'm camping out in Berlin to live and write. I love New York...it's been an ongoing love affair since I was young, but I'm glad to have the time away. The heat is different here. I can move in it easier than the thick humidity in New York. People move slower here. It's more relaxed and I've always loved how things shut down for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon so you can sleep through the rest of the heat after lunch, rising when the sun is starting to wane. Supper no earlier than 10pm and then the long, warm night, moon and stars, and people enjoying life in a way that just can't seem to be captured as well in North America. Or at least you have to pay a lot more for it.
Berlin is a vibrant, brilliant city and I've been infatuated with it for ages. The opera, the cabaret, the mixture of classical with the avant garde. I know it'll be a good fit.
It's funny...if you leave New York to go to LA, people think you're shallow. If you leave LA to go to New York, people think you're a masochist. And if you're Canadian, and you leave to make your fortunes in the States, people understand, but you're never totally forgiven. That never bothered me so much because I'm half-American and grew up knowing I had to right to live in either country as I pleased. But Europe...everyone in North America understands when you go to Europe to create. It must be some kind of leftover colonial attitude, but of course you can go to London, Paris, Berlin, or Rome. Everyone goes there to reinvent themselves. And if you fail, you're an eccentric ex-pat. If you succeed, you're brilliant and welcomed back with open arms. Claimed and adored. Well, I've done New York and I've done LA, and I've done Montreal. It's time to go further afield.
When I visited Jonne in Tampere last week, I described the situation as thus, some point after the leftover Kung Pao chicken foraged from his fridge, but slightly before the opening of the fortune cookies, how New York has been the site of many of my triumphs, but all of my tragedies. Whether reeling from heartbreak, suffering through the worst hangover of my life, or going blind after a season of drug and sex binges that threatened my sanity. It felt good to speak of it aloud and it made me think even more.
I purged and settled myself with the Want records. But now it's time to move beyond that. My creative rebirth started in New York, but I want to finish it somewhere new. I want a new and better adventure. I want to yield to new and better temptations...but only when the time is right. It will reveal itself and I'm looking forward to the journey.
After that, I'm camping out in Berlin to live and write. I love New York...it's been an ongoing love affair since I was young, but I'm glad to have the time away. The heat is different here. I can move in it easier than the thick humidity in New York. People move slower here. It's more relaxed and I've always loved how things shut down for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon so you can sleep through the rest of the heat after lunch, rising when the sun is starting to wane. Supper no earlier than 10pm and then the long, warm night, moon and stars, and people enjoying life in a way that just can't seem to be captured as well in North America. Or at least you have to pay a lot more for it.
Berlin is a vibrant, brilliant city and I've been infatuated with it for ages. The opera, the cabaret, the mixture of classical with the avant garde. I know it'll be a good fit.
It's funny...if you leave New York to go to LA, people think you're shallow. If you leave LA to go to New York, people think you're a masochist. And if you're Canadian, and you leave to make your fortunes in the States, people understand, but you're never totally forgiven. That never bothered me so much because I'm half-American and grew up knowing I had to right to live in either country as I pleased. But Europe...everyone in North America understands when you go to Europe to create. It must be some kind of leftover colonial attitude, but of course you can go to London, Paris, Berlin, or Rome. Everyone goes there to reinvent themselves. And if you fail, you're an eccentric ex-pat. If you succeed, you're brilliant and welcomed back with open arms. Claimed and adored. Well, I've done New York and I've done LA, and I've done Montreal. It's time to go further afield.
When I visited Jonne in Tampere last week, I described the situation as thus, some point after the leftover Kung Pao chicken foraged from his fridge, but slightly before the opening of the fortune cookies, how New York has been the site of many of my triumphs, but all of my tragedies. Whether reeling from heartbreak, suffering through the worst hangover of my life, or going blind after a season of drug and sex binges that threatened my sanity. It felt good to speak of it aloud and it made me think even more.
I purged and settled myself with the Want records. But now it's time to move beyond that. My creative rebirth started in New York, but I want to finish it somewhere new. I want a new and better adventure. I want to yield to new and better temptations...but only when the time is right. It will reveal itself and I'm looking forward to the journey.