Paris was great. Of course. The best part was my little sister’s dance piece (saw the dress rehearsal and a regular performance). The runner-up was everything else, in a 178-way tie.
I took a few pictures, such as this one at Sainte-Chapelle…
And this one at the Pere Lachaise cemetery…
I also made a little youtube video out of the flip cam footage I shot of my post-sunset cruise of the Seine, on the last night of my trip…
I would like to return to Paris as soon as possible. Preferably as a rich person, and/or with a lady friend. If you are a lonely rich lady who would like a Paris companion, shoot me an e-mail or something. Let’s make it happen.
I’m leaving for Paris on Wednesday, April 15th. I’ll be returning on Thursday, April 23rd. This is your last chance to say, “Hey Morgan, be sure to do X,” or, “Hey Morgan, watch out for Y.” (Where X and Y equal crazy French stuff.)
Here’s a list of what I’m most excited about:
Seeing my sister’s modern ballet performance (assuming I can get tickets - how’s it looking, Sis?).
Walking around, taking pictures of things (to later be posted on this blog with snarky and/or heartfelt comments).
Modern art. And Monet, Rodin and Picasso, as long as I’m there.
The ice cream place that everyone talks about, and the falafel place that everyone talks about.
Cemeteries.
People watching.
People watching in cemeteries.
Seeing things and thinking they’re wonderful and beautiful, while being fully aware of how many millions of people have already seen the same things and deemed them wonderful and beautiful, but not caring or feeling like a walking cliche, because the things will be so very wonderful and beautiful.
Bread.
A confession: I’m slightly frightened. This is the first time I’ll be truly on my own in a foreign country. My (semi-fluent) sister will be meeting up with me eventually, but for the first few days I will be entirely by myself, with no phone and limited internet access, and a vocabulary of approximately 100 random French words.
I’m generally super-brave (ask anybody), so it’s kind of fun to feel intimidated by something; to plunge into the somewhat-unknown.
You’ll have to excuse the sporadic nature of my recent blog updates. I’ve been going through some weird relationship stuff, and I’ve been distracted.
It all sprang from a conversation I had with Beverly, my girlfriend. At dinner one night she suddenly blurted out, “You know, I don’t actually exist. I’m something you made up for a blog post.” I was confused for a moment, but then it occurred to me what she probably meant.
“Are you saying that it seems like I’m more interested in experience for the sake of narrative subject matter, rather than experience for the sake of experience? That I should start living life, instead of just… taking notes on it?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m saying that I literally don’t exist. I’m not a real person. You’re alone, sitting in front of your computer, in a pit-stained tee shirt and ill-fitting underwear, eating a Dominos Chicken Bacon Ranch Oven Baked Sandwich and quietly weeping.”
Facebook has suggested that I “friend” the guy who used to push me around every day after school when I was in the 6th grade. I remember the bullying as going on for a few months, so by applying the principle of Misremembered Dramatic Time Distortion I can assume that it was actually closer to two weeks.
He was in the 7th or 8th grade, and significantly larger than me. The routine went like this: The school day would end, I’d go to the bike rack to retrieve my Schwinn Stingray, the bully would push me to the ground, I’d completely ignore him, and then I’d ride home.
I’m proud of my eleven year-old self for intuiting that a lack of reaction would frustrate the bully. I was too intimidated to fight back, and I didn’t want to go the “look at the little baby go running to the teachers” route.
Unfortunately, my strategy was flawed. All the bully wanted was to see me cry, and he was willing to continue the attacks for as long as it took. I can say this with confidence, because after several months (two weeks), I finally broke down and started sobbing. He never bothered me again.
If I could do it all over again, I’d politely ask him to stop. Then, when he refused, I’d hit him in the side of the head with my Kryptonite bike lock over and over again until he died.
Not that I’m still carrying around any negative feelings about it, or anything.
I hate, hate, hate publicizing gigs. It always feels like begging. “Come! Look at me! TELL ME I’M SPECIAL!” Gross.
That being said, I have an a$$-load of improv comedy shows coming up, and you should come to some of them. Starting this Friday, it’s 10 shows over the course of 26 days. That’s an average of one show every 2.6 days, people. Math!Edit: New show added this Sunday night! Making it 11 shows, for an average of one show every 2.36ish days! Harder math!
If anyone comes to all 10 11 shows, I will give them a prize. And a high-five. And I will be a little bit afraid of them, but in a good way. Kind of?
If you’re my friend, and you like improv comedy, and you haven’t seen me perform in a while, and you don’t come to any of these shows, I will totally understand. That you dislike me.
In closing: Come! Look at me! TELL ME I’M SPECIAL!
Oh, and here’s an odd publicity photo for Chairman Golem, the one improv group I’m in that doesn’t have any shows scheduled during those 26 days (so far):
After carefully researching the Oscar race last year, I only managed to guess 15 of 24 categories correctly. This year I’m relying on gut instincts and crazy theories. I’ll update with my results later. (Update: 14 of 24. Oof.)
In the meantime, I’d like to announce the winner of the Morgan Phillips Prize for Best Film of the Year That Didn’t Get Nominated For Anything, and I Guess I Can Kind of Understand That Because It Was Probably Not Enjoyable for a Lot of People, But It Was Enjoyable For Me, Not Necessarily Because I Am Somehow Better or More Sophisticated, But Probably Just Because I’m Wired That Way:
In April my little sister will be in Paris, France, performing in this:
I’ll be in the audience. After much hemming and hawing over the expense, I managed to find a $404 (including taxes and fees!) round trip ticket on Continental that broke the back of the Camel of Indecision. As they say.
I haven’t been to Paris since high school, when I visited with the Paris ‘92 club. We did fundraisers for two or three years, then jetted off to the City O’ Lights to lose our collective innocence.
My memories of that trip are foggy, but lovely. Here are three:
-Resisting the advances of an “artist” who followed me around in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. He wanted me to accompany him back to his apartment, where he would “sketch” me. Bizarre and funny enough to not be scary, even as an 18 year-old on his first trip to a foreign land.
-Walking from one end of the city to another with a torn and incomplete map, alone, late at night, boldly breaking my school group’s curfew and buddy rule, because of a situation involving a transit strike and a young lady who’d needed to be walked home.
-Being asked for directions by American tourists on the Metro, and answering with a cartoonish French accent.
I’ve braced myself for things being less romantic and exciting now, since I’m no longer a wide-eyed teenager. However: it’s Paris. I’ll be able to rustle up a little excitement, I should think.
Any hot (cheap) tips for my Paris to-do list would be greatly appreciated. Along with (double cheap) hotel recommendations.
1. A huge percentage of my leisure time over the last month has been spent at hulu.com watching the first 135(!) episodes of a Japanese ninja cartoon called Naruto.
Naruto was (accurately) described to me as Harry Potter, but with ninjas. If that sounds like the sort of thing you’d like, I highly recommend giving it a look-see.
It takes a while to get going — an incredible amount of time is spent hammering home each character’s back story and personality quirks, to the point of it being annoying. (Yes, we get it, Sasuke is moody and unfriendly because his life is dedicated to revenge, Naruto just wants people to acknowledge his worth, and Sakura is in love with Sasuke and lacks self-confidence. WE GET IT. CUT TO THE NINJA BATTLES.)
Eventually the action kicks in, and awesome new details are revealed about the back stories, and everybody fights everybody, and there are ninja dogs, and creepy puppets, and a giant frog with a sword, and reanimated corpses, and so on and so forth. Well worth the wait.
And that’s a nice-guy promise. Believe it! (Inside joke for Naruto nerds.)
2. I’ve crammed so much ninja into my skull recently that I was rewarded this morning with an unburied memory from my childhood: At some point there was a ninja supply store in my neighborhood.
Not a martial arts supply store. Not a Japanese weapons store that had some ninja-related items. A god-damned NINJA SUPPLY STORE. My memory is that children weren’t allowed to go inside without adults, but that I got to go in at least once. I also have a vague impression that my parents disapproved of grown men who called themselves ninjas. Probably because ninjas are semi-magical assassins who run around in masks, heavily armed. In retrospect, my parents were wise.
If you ever find yourself in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, make sure to visit the Becker County Historical Society’s museum. Along with locally relevant artifacts from the 19th and early 20th century, you’ll find a bunch of cool mannequins, and some odd stuffed creatures — including a two-headed calf, an albino beaver, and the preserved body of Old Three Legs the wolf, who should really be called Old Three Feet. Here are some photos:
It would be wrong to kill baby brother. I mustn't.
All the comedy kids are making funny animated videos using the tools at xtranormal. I decided to try to make a scary one. I’m not sure if it made it all the way to scary; but I definitely reached the point of creepily dumb.
Oh, also: I have an improv show this Sunday, and there’s an audience vote to see which of the two competing teams comes back the following week. So if you’ve been meaning to come see me improvise, now would be an excellent time.
