TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

4:50 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Life in slow motion today.
The boat is tilting a little less, now eve and vince discovered a flood in the water tanks, excess pumped out and so far we're hoping for it to be a burst pipe and not a hole in the hull. Came back from a brief wander round Linz, to find the cosy family dealing with potential disaster - I love this tiny floating world so much, it's getting harder to deal with 'real life' out there, am being treated so well and have this great artist cocoon to inhabit. Checked out a few films in the animation festival - great spanish one with two bad granddaddies having a wheelchair race, almost to the death - randomly saw one of my favourite performances so far; the perfect human outside lentos, a tall lanky redhead in white scifi suit, dancing strangely while surrounded by old radios; dropped by the brucknerhaus where everyone lingering at the festival has the same glazed look in their eyes. Saw an excerpt of fabulous stop-motion animation, madame tutli putli, winner of the golden nica for film, gorgeous journey on a train to warsaw, chess game going on in the luggage rack above her, great atmosphere and characters, and the most beautiful eyes, real human instead of glass.

My very very favourite thing so far was the performance in the slovene night at lentos kunstmuseum, which I only found out later was by miha ciglar and his collaborating partner; with a fishbowl of soapy water, metal cable in his mout, creating a lovely glitchy and bleepy electronic music, with the most intriguing part being the body chemistry between the performers.; will have to upload video, it's a little hard to describe. Gorgeous, poetic, romantic, human... I love having the slovene crew to hang out with, they're totally divine. Have plans to join the slovene space program, which is apparently run by artists; according to another miha who is working with dragan on anti-gravity theatre and other cosmonaut projects. Of course the french are totally fabulous too, doing their usual mix of work and play with dedicated intensity, there is something admirable about being able to dive into life so hard and deep. I aspire to that level of immersion. Now it's all I can do to keep up with making the bridge recordings, being in the endless socialising and only just finding the energy for art administration. Letting quite a few things slide.... sorry anyone who's been inconvenienced by my sudden drop in signal. Had a cute conversation with Dragan, theatre director for the antigravity show - must find out the name - he said something about the bridge sounds and signals; and as I'm working with Aljosa (who collects all kinds of signal territories as his speciality), I got to say, "he's the signal, I'm the noise". which I was, another noisy bridge performance last night, on the boat, with fabulous luka and luka doing their magic; and signals from aljosa's collection along the danube; plus a special secret guest piece from fred, whose demented accordion composition worked beautifully along with the boat travelling into linz, which I recorded in the last ten minutes of our trip.

so, life isn't making any more sense; if anything it has become even more totally incoherent, the situation may be critical; then again it could be the light at the end of the tunnel making all those crazy patterns. We can only keep going and find out later where it was all leading. Am totally aware of just how lucky I am, to have this interlude from the world, moving in another element, at a different pace; everything changes. Even had my own personal particle accelerator at the beginning, left me stripped raw and transparent, after the fusion took place, it's a gift to have that kind of intensity, whatever form it takes or doesn't. I think that I'm becoming more the person I dreamed of being, although leaving fragments of myself everywhere along the way.

As Einstein said; I'd rather be an optimist and happy, than a pessimist and right. Or in the words of jane wagner:

"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."