Angler Fish Pumpkin!

Hello, Victoria!
A lot has happened to me since we last spoke.
But first thing's first: here's a video I took this morning.

The weather is certainly everything I was promised it would be...

A few exciting things have happened over the last few weeks.

It was halloween. Which, as we all know, means pumpkin carving.

My roommate and I only had one big pumpkin and a couple teeny tiny pumpkins, so we decided to figure out a combined project that we'd both like. I'd never actually carved a pumpkin before, so I was pretty proud of my work. 

And by the end we had ourselves a pumpkin angler fish. Because we're just cool like that. 

Angler Fish side view so you can see the mutilated hanger that holds up its light.

Angler Fish in the dark. Nemo doesn't stand a chance. 

The actual day of halloween was fun because our production of Souvenir opened so we got to go to the opening and reception in costume. So in addition to standing out for being the youngest people there, we also stood out for being dressed up like penguins and mobsters and Ursula from the Little Mermaid. It was a good night. 

Also, President Obama came to Portland and spoke a few blocks from my apartment which meant traffic was shut down and there were crowds of people lined up for blocks. I didn't get to see him speak, but I did get to see high quality protest signs like this one:

Yeah. There's a winner.

There was also someone there whose sign said "Impeach Cheney/Bush" which kind of seemed lazy to me. If you're going to criticize you might as well make new criticisms for each president. I mean, It's been six years. You didn't have time to make a new sign over the last six years? 

All in all it's been an action-packed couple of weeks. 

Talk to you later!

Emily

Deadly Prank

Dear Emily,

The other day an English teacher was asking me about Halloween traditions like trick or treating, bobbing for apples, etc.

I told her that candy corn and caramel apples were a huge thing.

And then I told her about a funny prank where a bunch of people are given caramel apples, and one of them is actually an onion.

Then I realized that if you were given a caramel onion, you would probably die.


Thinking of you.

Love,
Victoria.

PS: Better and bigger things to come, promise.

Why you Hate the Sound of your Own Voice

Greetings Victoria,

First, I want to tell you that I loved your apartment tour and, despite the multiple murders you seemed to have committed since you've been there, I'm glad you're having a good time back in Spain.

Now that Brighton Beach Memoirs has opened I'm back in the office. It's... not very eventful. Mostly I read some and then I write some and then I edit some and then I read some more. But every once in a while something I'm reading is actually pretty interesting. I decided to share one of those things with you today.

Our next show this season is Souvenir by Stephen Temperley. Basically it's about Florence Foster Jenkins who has gone down in history as the worst singer to ever be super famous and perform at Carnegie Hall.

This Chick.

She was so bad that it became a social event to go watch her perform and laugh hysterically into a handkerchief so she wouldn't find out how terrible she was. So one of the things I was researching was why our voices sound different inside of our heads than they do to those around us. 

For example, I might think my voice sounds like this:

When everyone else thinks it sounds like this:

And that can be a rude awakening when you hear a recording of your voice. As it turns out from my ample research, the difference is caused by the added vibration of your skull, which increases the depth and fullness because it is large and vibrates slowly. 

That's right, your skull has a sexy Morgan Freeman voice when your actual vocal chords talk like Truman Capote*. 

The moral of the story is: let your head do the talking, it'll work out better in the end. 

On another note, last wednesday, both of the girls who were supposed to play Laurie in Brighton Beach couldn't be there (one was sick and the other lived two hours away and couldn't get there in time to cover the show) so I got a terror-inducing call from the stage manager telling me that I had to go on twenty minutes before curtain. 

They managed to scare up a costume from storage and disguise a copy of the script and throw me out on stage. Supposedly the follow-spot op managed to get a picture, but I don't have it. I imagine it looked something like this, though. 

My eyes will haunt your dreams.

The horror-movie sequel to Brighton Beach is where the Jerome family discovers that Laurie isn't 12, she's actually a 23-year-old woman who intends to kill them in their sleep. It's call Biloxi Blues. Look it up. But don't watch it alone at night. 

And that's about all I got. 

Oh, except that I'm starting a new thing on this blog that everyone should be very excited about (but especially Karina and Hallie.) It should be arriving in the mail soonish, so keep an eye out and be sure to let us know when it gets there. Seriously it's going to be really cool. 

Onwards and upwards!

Emily

*Disclaimer: I have nothing against Truman Capote. In Cold Blood changed my life in high school. Without that book I would have totally discounted professional murderer from my career possibilities, and look where I am today.

My Spanish Apartment

Dear Emily,

I have successfully conquered the jet lag and settled nicely into my Spanish apartment! I've been going pretty non-stop since my arrival, but I finally had time to film a tour of my apartment for you!

I have new roommates, and I don't know that they can ever live up to your legacy, especially since we don't have an oven, but they don't leave tuna pizza out overnight and then eat it the next evening. So basically, so far so good.

Warning: This footage was taken on a 2012 Sony Cybershot with very little effort, so if you get seasick easily, proceed with caution. I'm looking at you, Emily's dad.

(I hope you appreciate that this video took about three hours to upload on my pathetic Spanish internet...)

Every new apartment deserves a good housewarming, so I threw one at our new place on Friday night! I invited some of my friends from last year and all the new auxiliars I've met so far, and my roommates invited some of the other Erasmus (study abroad) students from the university.

It doubled as a birthday party for Noémie, the new French auxiliar at my school this year, so we also had cake and sang happy birthday many times throughout the night.

We ended up having about 25 people in one tiny living room and pretty early on there was standing room only. I live on the third floor and a couple of guys who came late said that from the street, it sounded like hundreds of people... Oops...
But we all left the apartment by midnight, so it was no problem.

My street is called Gran Capitán, which I was pretty excited about because it sounds legit.

...And then one of my co-workers told me that a few decades ago, it was the street "dedicated to the oldest profession in the world."

Then another co-worker said, "Not decades, darling. Maybe ten years or so."

So in honor of historical accuracy, we are naming the new apt 'The Bordello'.

Here is our family photo:

Wednesday (when I filmed the video) was my first "official" day of work, but I didn't really do much and there was a meeting for all the auxiliars in a pueblo called Almonte on Thurs, so I really start classes this week! Wish me luck!

Besos,
Victoria

Apartment Tour: Transcontinental Style

Dear Victoria,

As you journey back to your exotic adopted home and navigate your internet issues, I've decided to occupy our time by posting a virtual tour of my apartment. Since I haven't been able to get my computer to move into the 21st century I thought it might be nice for some of you to get to see where I live. 

Warning: This footage was taken on a 2006 Nikon Coolpix with very little effort, so if you get seasick easily proceed with caution. I'm looking at you, dad. 

Onwards and upwards!
Emily
p.s. As soon as you're settled give me your address. I have a challenge in mind that requires something to be sent through the mail.

Almost to Tech Week and Other Silly Accomplishments

Dear Victoria,

I have made it to tech week.
Almost.
Technically (see what I did there? Technically?) tech week starts on Friday and it is currently Tuesday. But, since I have just begun the calendar week that is part of tech week, I'm going to go ahead and count it.

Come to think of it, I've only been here about three weeks, and already I've done a lot of things that, while I would never have celebrated doing them at home, are actually huge accomplishments when coming to a new place. Here's a list of some of the non-accomplishments that I am proud of:

1. I moved in.
I don't mean that I brought my suitcases in and sort of managed to function by living on top of the apartment, I mean I moved in. My clothes are in drawers. My desk is arranged, not how I want it to look if I'm having a skype interview with that magazine Martha Stewart runs, but in a way that is useful and practical and I'm not afraid of messing up.

2. I've cleaned.
I don't know whether you remember, but when you and I left our last apartment, we scoured the place. Granted, that was mostly out of fear of our crazy landlady, but I also thought it was just nice for whoever was going to live there next not to be walking on a carpet that is covered with our hair. Whoever lived in this apartment before me did not have that same sense of courtesy. The first time I walked through the kitchen barefoot, the bottoms of my feet turned black. But Julianne and I scrubbed it, and now I feel comfortable observing the five second rule like a normal person.

3. I did laundry.
Speaking as a recent college grad, I know that laundry can be a trial for many people. It's easy to keep going until you run out of underwear. By the time that happens (depending on the amount of underwear you have) you can have a mountain of dirty clothes that will take all day and a small fortune to cycle through. This unwillingness to launder clothes before it is absolutely necessary is exacerbated by moving to a new place. Especially here, instead of quarters, there's a confusing card system where you have to recharge it with cash. I mean, if you're going to accept cards, why not just accept regular credit or debit cards? Why does it have to be a laundry-specific credit card? How much sense does that make?

4. I know where stuff is.
I've been grocery shopping. I found the mall. I know where the bank is. I've walked through downtown enough to have a pretty good idea how to find what I need, even if it requires a bit of wandering to get there. I am, if not confident, at least capable of getting around Portland.

5. I turned on my oven. And toaster. And microwave. And the shower. And pretty much everything. But not at the same time. That would be stupid. It's always an adventure using that stuff for the first time since you never know what's going to happen. The toaster oven was smelly, and we still haven't figured out how to set the clock on the microwave, but otherwise it all went down without incident.

So those are my silly accomplishments over the last few weeks. For all of those reading this (That's realistically Victoria, my mom, and maybe Erika) I would invite you to take a moment and celebrate your silly accomplishments this week. Did you plan ahead and buy something you weren't quite out of? Get something out of the way that you were dreading? Take a shower before your 8am class? Go ahead, feel good about yourself. You earned it.

And then get back to work because your clothes are just going to get dirty again.

Onward and upward!
Emily

THE FOLLOWING BLOG IS A LIE!

Dear Victoria,

Okay, so it isn't a lie per se. It all happened to me, it just isn't the sort of thing that I would have written down with the express purpose of sending to you. Since this blog is supposed to be us writing letters back and forth, it seems dishonest to publish it here. But, I have been forced under penalty of being slightly-less-apreciated to write the following to be posted on the Portland Stage intern blog and I'm certainly not writing two separate blog entries tonight. Nothing could be worth that. (Incidentally, I just misspelled "worth" as "wroth" and there wasn't a squiggly red line underneath. I just looked it up and it's totally a word. It means angry. The example sentence on google is "Sir Leicester is majestically wroth." Using it.)

Now onto the actual blog post:

Hello and welcome to Portland Stage’s 41^st season! With so much happening as we prepare for our first production, Brighton Beach Memoirs, it’s easy to forget that the intern company has only been in town for two weeks. Already I’ve come to regard the theater as a sort of second home, as I spend nearly as much time there as I do in my apartment.

As the Directing and Dramaturgy intern assigned to the first production, I’ve jumped headfirst into the rehearsal process, both aiding the cast and director in the rehearsal room, and contributing to the written Playnotes guide that can help the audience get to know a little more about the play. As you can imagine, these dual roles have kept me plenty busy. As a dramaturg I’ve had the chance to learn all I can about the world of 1937 Brooklyn so that I am well equipped to answer any questions the actors might have about the time and culture. Some of what I’ve found out has been fun and unexpected, and I thought I’d share the three most interesting pieces of information I’ve learned while working on the show.

• ·      The inflation from the Great Depression to the present was more than you think it was. Whatever your guess is, double it. You could rent a three bedroom apartment for only $30 a month and gas was twenty cents a gallon. Of course, a full-time salary could be as little as $15 a week, so it’s all relative. 
• ·      Families who couldn’t afford to pay rent often snuck out of their apartments on the last day of the month carrying everything they owned. They would then find a new apartment, and repeat the cycle 30 days later.
• ·      Many families had recently purchased cars shortly before the depression started. Once they could no longer afford gas, they stripped the car of its heavy engine and strapped it to the family horse or mule.

Part of why I enjoy the role of dramaturg so much is because I get to learn facts like that about so many completely different settings. In a few months, when I go into production for The Whipping Man, I’ll get to do it all over again, except about the culture and history of Jewish, Southern slaveholders immediately following the Civil War.

I’ve been having a rollicking time as the Assistant Director as well. Probably the most unexpected turn so far was when I was asked to stand in for the two young ladies sharing the role of Laurie in the mornings while they’re at school. It just goes to show that an Assistant Director does whatever the show demands of her, even if that means embarrassing herself trying to act alongside the phenomenal talent that makes up the Brighton Beach cast.

Well, orientation is over, and the season has begun. As Brighton Beach’s hero, Eugene would say, “Onwards and upwards!”

...Did I sound professional? I was going for smart but not so smart that you don't want to be friends with me, which was also my goal through all of college. And if you're wondering why I used the "er" spelling of theatre when you know I prefer the "re" it's because that's how Portland Stage makes you do it. How disgustingly American of them. I should rebel. Although, in the context of the above blog, it's referencing the building rather than the collective art form, so it's technically supposed to be "er" anyway. That's the rule, right? 

Two weeks to Spain!

Emily