Tuesday, August 16, 2005

heightening of consciousness

Many a strange and noteworthy event has transpired in the last few days, dear readers, I am hardly adequate to the task of recounting them all.

But let us begin with the most recent. I’ve never had terribly keen hearing. I generally get by, but I often ask people to repeat things and always have the volume on my TV/CD player turned up pretty loud and whatnot. I suspected, correctly, that it was earwax, since I had some removed by a doctor a few years ago and I understand quite a few people have the problem without being aware of it since it’s you know, inside their ears. Anyway, I had a doctor remove it yesterday, and I now have one question for the entire world:

OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALWAYS THIS LOUD? BECAUSE YOU’RE REALLY GODDAMN LOUD!

It’s possible that I now have super hearing. Cars going by are really loud, every door closing sounds like it’s slamming, I’m picking up conversations on the other side of loud and crowded rooms, my roommate is now asking me to turn up the volume on the Daily Show, a reversal of the status quo…Many people put super hearing to good use, such as Superman and Daredevil, except they can both do lots of other things. I’m not sure how useful it is on its own. Anyway, at my job, where there are lots and lots of very annoying people, I can foresee this becoming a liability.

This of course, followed my crazy road trip to Minneapolis, MN. I’m not a terribly well traveled man, (I’m no jet setting Theresa Winters) and that’s probably a good thing, because I tend to fall in love with places hard. Places I’ve fallen in love with very quickly that I’ve only visited a handful of times include Atlanta and Philadelphia, Minneapolis only took a few minutes. It’s hard to explain, it’s an intangible thing, but the place has a spirit in the air. Though it is a rigorous journey through western Wisconsin (which doesn’t try to play down it’s “cheese” reputation at all, but hey Neil Gaiman lives there) I totally want to go back. It certainly helped that the Minnesota Fringe Festival, a giant theatre event was going on. This was the ostensible purpose of the trip, to see Rik Reppe’s one man show at the festival, Glorious Noise, which I’m begging him to bring to Chicago so I can pester everyone I know to see it. Rik Reppe is a magical being. I’m re-reading the Narnia books right now and realizing that Rik reminds me of Aslan the lion. Sure, Aslan, being based on Jesus, probably doesn’t have Rik’s appetite for women and nicotine, but Rik has the same sonorous roar and beautiful mane. I tried to explain to Rik that I don’t drive eight hours to see performance art pieces as a matter of routine by any means. But being a theatre person in Chicago I see a lot of theatre, I see the really horrible stuff and the really wonderful stuff, and Rik’s shows are the really wonderful stuff. He’s the best there is at what he does.

Webmasta KT was my companion on the journey, and the guy who decided we were staying at the downtown Minneapolis Marriott, so all honors upon him, as always.

So Minneapolis. Awesome town. I’m fairly determined to return there in the near future. On the other hand, there’s no place like home, and driving into the Chicago skyline on Sunday night…doesn’t matter how many times I do it, and I’ve been doing it since toddlerhood, it never gets better than that…

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Posted by Rik @ 08/25/2005 10:02 PM CST