Saturday, May 20, 2006

dipping into the pool

May 5, 2006
The show has opened and it goes nicely in the theatre. The good folk of Liverpool are an attentive audience, quiet and then very appreciative at the end. I forgot to mention that we welcome our man David Pence back to the show, after his short leave of absence during the Southern Pacific leg of the tour. He is a "“family man", as the traveler character in the show says and has "sufficient binding ties" to keep him from joining us on all legs of the tour. I think I explained all this before in Perth but Perth was such a culture shock in so many ways that the fact of Harry stepping in for David may not have been entirely clear.

Plus, I am bad at posting the blogs on these days. But I'’m trying to get better.

In addition to doing the show here, Marianne and a bunch of the Builders like Kyle and James and Dan came a week early to do a workshop involving local artists and introducing them to the world of our work. This TBA team of artistic first responders have been on the scene here, figuring out what's what and that has made it a lot more interesting for us. We got here, and there was already a built-in bunch of folks to talk to and tell us where to go out and get the good fish and chips. They've been coming around to rehearsals for the last couple of days and that has been nice. I did not yet have fish and chips but it is reported to be really good. I have not had scouse either, which is the local food specialty, a beef stew sort of deal that has a wide reputation. It is such a memorable stew in fact that locals, people that hail from Liverpool are referred to as "“Scousers" and they have Scouse accents. I love that the nickname for somebody who lives here is a food! Imagine what the world would be like if everyone could be identified by the food specialty for their region. I guess for people from Hamburg and Frankfurt, this holds (though I have had neither a hamburger or a frankfurter in either place) but what if New Yorkers were called "Slicers"” for our devotion to pizza by the slice? Boston is Beantown, but I think that is somewhat archaic, as I have never even encountered Boston baked beans there. Besides, "“Beaners" is not so appealing somehow. Not that Scouser is so lyrical. It sort of sounds like a method for cleaning the inside of an oil tanker or something.

Please send in your suggestions for what locals should be called according to the food specialty of that place. I think it is an excellent way to name where we all come from.

Besides the scouse, the Liverpoolers like the sauce too. It is a drinker's paradise here and bingeing seems highly encouraged and a source of local pride. The boozing combined with the local love of football, make lively weeknd nights in town. Our hotel is located right near the theatre in the city center which by night, is populated by roving groups of drunk people, cheerfully singing at the tops of their lungs. Kyle encountered two groups of young men the other night, both wailing songs about girls with their trousers down at the tops of their lungs, walking towards each other in a military tattoo style. She said they sounded like "“Welsh miners"” as their basso profundo man-voices bounced off the shuttered shopfronts of the retail district. She emerged from this encounter in awe of the powerful combination of ale and a lower register.

More later,
Moe.

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