von trapp rodeo productions!

today liz spear and i are announcing the name of our production company. that's right, its called von trapp rodeo productions! the name marries our alpin/germanic adventure, our love of film with our mutual history with horses and obsession with the american west. there's also a bit of the philosophical idea of strong emergence thrown in for good measure. we are off to a good start thanks to the help of friends and the kindness of strangers.

two weeks in two days

on wednesday i will have been back for two days. so far, i am surviving. lots of plans and lots of activities. my big summer thing is being car-less. every year i try to survive via bike and foot but this year i am truly committed! my friend ron sold my car and truck while i was away so i have been officially without a car since may 25th! i am planning to get the vanagon up and going very soon but still want to use my bike as my prima via until the cold of fall descends.
experiencing one's home by foot or bicycle is a magical thing. i highly reccomend it for everyone. not only do you save $$ on fuel and reduce your carbon footprint but you also see your home town on a much more intimate level. i see streets i never experience in a car. my relationships with the plants in your yard is different. i see them bud, i see them bloom.
i also feel the excitement of being a child again, on my bike alone for the first time, riding far and realizing i can...

last day in paris

i've been struggling through with my poor french. 6 years and this is all i have to show? pitiful. today has been mostly hanging out in my new hotel room which is slightly nicer than the last even though small. paris is opressively hot and humid so i have to keep the lights out. i did go for a very long walk tonight through the 12th &11th arrondisments and then along the seine, past notre dame and l'hotel de ville then back to the hotel. it was beautiful but i'm very tired. paris is a bit claustrophobic for me as i tend to need more quiet space and during the summer it is very very very busy. it was nice to walk through the neighborhoods where there aren't tourists. i met a man from africa and we talked for a while. him in broken english, me in broken french but we seemed to do ok. i need to be up early tomorrow. it will take me about 45 minutes to get from the hotel to the airport via subway and train and i need to go to a bakery to get jen her macaroons...

photo? non!

i left rotterdam and till and sadie behind yesterday and headed to paris. on saturday we went to voerde to visit tilll's family, it was his sister gundula and her husband dirk's 10th anniversary so there was a party. i got to visit with the whole clan minus elizabeth and juergen. it was great and like i had never left except now there are children! they have two daughters paula and greta both very cute. i also got to see susie who is an old friend of gundula's and that i used to spend time with when i lived in germany. it was so fun. eventually, i will post photos but i lost my camera bag with my card reader last night. till and i had a great visit and i was a little sad to leave but paris beckoned! i arrived in the afternoon and took an evening stroll to la place de concord and the jardins tuilleries. i was sitting admiring the view when a nice man sat down next to me and we started talking. his name is nicolas and he lives in paris in a beautiful apartment near the eiffel tower. he ended up taking me on an amazing tour of paris. we went up to the sacre coeur and looked at the city with hundreds of other people out enjoying the hot weather and the beautiful night. the sacre coeur is on a hill and is like its own seperate village. it is home to many artists. he was very courteous and brought me back to my hotel safely. it was a nice surprise. today i went to the flea market and the centre pompidou to see the alexander calder exhibit. chaundra's son is named after him so like a good auntie, i had to pay tribute. it was fabulous. there was also a kandinsky exhibit which was great too but as museums often do to me, i started to get vertigo so had to leave. now i'm back at my hotel and am planning on calling it an early evening. air france messed up my return flight so i'm stuck here for another day and am in a bit of a bind finding a place to stay for the last night as everything in the city seems to be full.

where were you when you heard michael jackson was dead?

sunset over amsterdam sub-burbs

my foot on the train

near dam square

ramsey and i with benny hill

after making a post on facebook asking if anyone was in amsterdam, i got a reply from carlos, one of my school friends from saudi arabia that another classmate ramsey was in amsterdam shooting commercials for saudi dairy products. we started messenging and decided to meet in a'dam that night for drinks. it was kind of like a blind date since we hadn't seen each other in 25 years! we met at madame tussaud's wax museum next to the dam and had a few drinks at his hotel and sharing saudi stories before heading over to a coffee shop. (when in rome.) michael franti was playing when we walked in so i took it as a good sign and since i've had bronchitis for the past week i decided to go for it. after hanging out for a while and laughing hysterically the girl behind the counter turned the music off to announce that michael jackson had died. we hung out for a bit longer but since it was a little bit of a walk back to centraal station and my train took an hour it was time for me to head back. ramsey walked me back to the station and we just listened to all the people walking in the streets talking about michael jackson, singing his songs and many seemed to be celebrating his death. we agreed we'd see each other in europe, lebanon (where his family now lives), or at an aramco brat reunion and parted ways, me to rotterdam him to jeddah where he lives now with his wife and kids. after a long train ride i got back to the flat at about 3 where sadie was waiting up for me and till had left the light on.

usch to seattle

sadie missing her mama

family portrait at schiphol

morning in pajamas

usch left yesterday morning for seattle. she will be there for 10 days. i went with to the airport and then took the train to amsterdam where i spent the day. i saw a nice photo exhibition of 4 new york photographers who each came to amsterdam and photographed the "unseen" parts of the city. it was very good. then i went to the van gogh museum. it was the first time i made it inside since the other two times i've tried its been closed. i enjoyed it but couldn't stay very long because of the lighting scenario. one of my eyes is nearsighted and the other farsighted and the low lighting they employ to protect the paintings causes me to have slight vertigo since my eyes are constantly adjusting. today i am staying at the apartment with sadie who misses usch very much. till has gone to work and i am working on a paper for school and a screenplay. i'm finding lots of things to distract me though...like this blog for instance.

hello rotterdam

charmer

sadie

hanging with dad

little monkey

its so nice to be in rotterdam with usch, till, sadie, and jakob! he's a little lady killer and has me completely won over. we went for a nice walk on the beach yesterday and then walked downtown today. they have a very sweet apartment in a nice neighborhood. i'm about to take him for a walk and he's very insistent so i'd best be off!

torino, ciao

two great days in torino. chuck was getting on my nerves with his neediness but he also is fun to travel with as we end up meeting tons of people like a former vice president of fiat and a bunch of artists and filmmakers at a party we ended up at. i could live in this city where everyone loves their dogs and rides bikes. the food is great too! the weather was sweltering hot but one of the artists we met told us that this is the hottest time of the year in torino, that it actually gets cooler as the summer progresses. go figure.

ciao saas fee!

cecelia in milano

chuck leaving brig wearing his insane clown posse shirt

anne laure in post bus terminal, saas fee

kevin and chuck in saas fee

we left saas fee yesterday morning at 10am. kevin and anne laure were on the bus with us and we left them in visp while we continued on to brig. eventually we met up with cecelia and took the train to milan together. she was staying in milan and we continued on to torino. it was a long day and i felt especially sad to leave saas fee but torino rocks!

hookey

sweet long horn cows that frightened michael intensely

liz & michael

liz, matt, & michael on the trail

our last day of classes was incredibly boring and i decided to skip the afternoon session in favor of hiking. liz, matt, michael and myself went for lunch in the village then we went for a hike. liz went back to class since she was the class t.a. and couldn't get out of it so michael, matt, and i continued on. after we got back i finished cleaning up the mess from the fondue party then went for a sauna with matt and another classmate who skipped-gabrielle. it was a nice way to spend my last day in saas fee. we are trying to decide whether or not to go to the evening lecture as it is the same professor. the next thing we need to decide is where to go for drinks tonite...

fondue party

brian

my beautiful liz

michael and rodriguo during the accent-off

aaron and matt

the spread-we fashioned our fondue stand out of rocks

today is our last day of classes and i am barely going to make it. we've been partying like rock stars since we won't see each other for a year. these three weeks have been the most intense and amazing weeks of my life but now i'm ready to rest and digest. last night we had a fondue party at michael and brian's house. it just seemed like the right thing to do, especially since they have the quintessential swiss chalet. it was incredible! then we read a really pretentious philosophy dissertation to each other in texas accents. i laughed so hard that i popped my rib back out of place. i'm sure there will be another party tonight so i hope i can survive until i get on the bus tomorrow at 10 am to head to brig and then from there take the train to turin with my friend chuck.

in a dark and smoky bar

rodriguo, tom, chuck, and moi.

here's a photo with tom kalin on his last night in saas fee. we tore it up at the metro bar where i am becoming a part time waitress. tom is the most amazing film professor (his full time gig is at columbia) and is the director of "Swoon" and "Savage Grace" and producer of "I Shot Andy Warhol" among other things. we love our tom kalin and hopefully will get to see him during the year between now and next summer.
not in the photo but sitting next to me is liz spear, my new film making partner. she has made several films and has been helping me with some of my screenplay ideas. in april, we plan to shoot a documentary with fred ulfers in the southwest. i'm pretty freakin' excited about our projects.
i'm still feeling sick but am coming to the conclusion that i'm having a histimine reaction to something because in addition to swollen sinuses, my entire body is covered in a sunburn like rash with hives. several of us have been hitting the sauna at lunch and it seems to help.
i've skipped the evening lecture right now to write this, and now i'm heading back to the sauna.

3 days to go

san giorgio

ronan, ryan, and jaime outside of russia

scandinavia

liz

today we finished our last class with tom kalin but will meet one more time at the bar tonite. i've been sick since we got back but with so few days to go, don't want to miss out on the action. on thursday we leave and i've decided to change my travel plans up a bit. from here i'm going to turin with a class mate for a few days before heading to see usch, till, and jakob in rotterdam. i might end up going to paris instead of portugal since my friend will be there and i will have someone to hang out with. i'm completely exhausted but sad to leave. i've met some of the best people here and lots of new ideas. here's some more venice pics.

biennalle II

inside the arsenale

main pavilion at giardina

scenes on a canal

james, ryan, and liz leaving the US and going to scandinavia. just like that.

here's part deux....i have a million photos from venice so i'll keep posting them as time allows. we just ate lunch in the garden and i'm finishing up some computer stuff, then i will head up to take a nap before class begins at 3. we will be in class until 7 then break for dinner then go back to class from 830 to 1000. our newest instructor is tom kalin, an american filmmaker and film studies professor at nyu. here's his imbd link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0435788/

venice biennale

sunrise on an italian highway

ryan enjoying the restfull benefits of schnapps and xanax

inside the arsenale

an installation from chile

a crazy gypsy raft that floated by during dinner

after a great time with fred and plans for a road trip documentary with him in april (more about that later) we packed up and took an overnight bus ride to venice for an art packed adventure. we got on the bus at midnite and by morning we had arrived in venice. we took the water bus to the giardina where most of the art was concentrated into pavillions by country. the highlights were scandinavia and russia. then it was another vaporela ride to san giorgio where we saw peter greenaway's "Le Nozze di Cana" and a show of john wesley paintings. i spent the rest of the afternoon at the arsenale-another section of the bienalle in a converted military building. then it was dinner on the grand canal before we headed back to the but at 11pm for the long ride home. we pulled into saas fee at 5:30am and made the bleary eyed walk back to our rooms for a few hours rest before classes start. who would have thought going up a mountain could feel like you just came down from one?

the bus leaves at midnight

today is our last day with fred, possibly the nicest man in the world. he has been teaching philosophy at NYU for 5o years! last night we took him to a bar so he could dance, which he loves to do because to nietzsche, it was an aimless activity and that's a good thing. i had bruised a rib the other day when i drunkenly fell against a wall in a sheep pasture...don't ask...and when we were dancing he twirled me around and i re-injured it. yes, i was injured while dancing with an 80 some year old nietzsche philosopher in switzerland. needless to say, i left the bar a little after midnite and fred was still there cutting a rug. i'm in a bit of pain today and am nervous about the 12 hour bus ride we will be starting tonite at midnite. the bus will drive all night and in the morning we will be in venice for the biennalle! whoo hoo! the weather will be hot and i feel like i don't have the right clothes but what the hell. i'm off to the pharmacy now to try to get some arnica pills.

strange powers

things are heating up here as the weather gets cooler. we've had intermittent rain for the last few days. everyone is changing at a rapid rate. there are forces here that work mysteriously on us all, changing us beyond repair. it is exciting and painful. the full moon came and went with an eclipse, shaking things up even further as we get closer and closer to our departure. we leave for venice tomorrow and i can't imagine what that has in store for us. we will be meeting peter greenaway for a screening at the bienalle. our nights will be spent on the bus, traversing the alps to temporarily leave this high altitude where everyday we spend closer to the sun. we just finished with volker schlondorff and watched his last film "Ulzhan" a sort of road movie that takes place in kazakstan. it was incredibly beautiful and haunting. unfortunately, its not available in the states. right now, we are studying nietzche with fred ulfers-its an entirely new reading for me, deepened by his nuanced reading of the metaphors.

back at it

after another night of partying with delanda, we have started a new class with volker schlondorff on literary cinema. he speaks often of margarethe and his own personal struggles and how they affect his choices as a filmmaker. i find him very sympathetic and introspective, with no separation between life and art. right now we are in the middle of the film "Homo Faber" starring sam shepherd. it is the film he made after his marraige ended and he felt for a while that he could not work until he remembered this story. we watch for 15 to 20 minutes at a time and then he stops and explains his choices. its very exciting. all of us here are feeling deeply affected by our experiences here, for us time is moving at a strange pace and there seems to be a magical quality to our time together. somedays, this is overwhelming and emotions run high for somepeople. relationships are intensifying as if we have known each other for years instead of only a week. this photo is of a typical wood carving on a cow barn up high in the alps. these carvings are everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_de_Landa

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772522/

hiking

my roommate megan and i took the gondola up the mountain and hiked from there.  here i am at 2350m.  

a day off

finally, a day off!  we have classes from 10am to 11pm 6 days a week and today we actually have a day to ourselves.  last night my roommates and i hosted a party at our sweet chalet apartment for a bunch of students and faculty.  a great time was had by all and it was fun to look around the room and see people from all over the world congregating, debating, and laughing.  we watched the moon set over the alps and i was lucky to be to bed by 3am.  the last three days have been with manuel delanda, a philosopher who interprets the works of gilles deleuze and is a dynamic lecturer.  he also attended the party last night and was a fun guest.  he looked a little worse for the wear at breakfast this morning.  tomorrow we will start our studies with volker schlondorff-also a german new wave director and former husband of margarethe.  his class is on literary cinema-translating the novel into film.  later today, i will go for a hike with a classmate and then we will be back for the evening lecture with manuel.  hopefully, i will get some great photos!