The ides of what...

The end of September... no wait a minute... it's still just the middle of the month. It's racing by so quickly that I already feel like I'm over in October somewhere. We're having an indian summer here... warm days sweeping over the city and beautiful early sunsets. But, as usual, I'm seeing only part of it, since I'm spending most of my time in my basement rehearsal/recording space fussing with tracks, improvising around ideas for a new show and doing various maintenance work on the computer: ie. figuring out budgets on how to cover costs and rehearsal schedules.

Above is an expressionist painting from the Bruck museum in Berlin: an extraordinary little museum far out of the centre of the city. I was dragged out to it under protest, since my plan had been to sit in the middle of town and drink beer and people watch, but it was not to be.... It's housed in a little modernist building by a huge park and documents the beginning and the progression of the expressionist art movement by a small group of Berliners in the early part of the century. I'd never really known what expressionism meant: but the museum opened my eyes to what they were trying to do. I won't get into the artspeak of it all... just visit the site: http://www.bruecke-museum.de/english.htm It was amazing to watch the development of a new vision, or way to look at the world.... The painting above is my screensaver right now...

So, we're packing up the house in preparation for several months away. All very confusing at the moment since we're not sure whether we'll be away for two months, or five - a writer's retreat has offered Lisa a three month residency, however we still don't have the official confirmation, so we're heading off prepared for both. Lisa heads to Calgary for Wordfest and then does a series of readings and we meet up in Toronto before going on to the Ontario Theatre Conference to present Whiskey Bars for the assembled theatre professionals. Ayieee... every booker and agent in eastern Canada watching me wander around in my underwear... and here's me still with my Burgundy stomach still hanging around... it's going to be a month of diets and sit-ups...