March 29 @ The Outpost 186, Boston, MA

First off, I get lost in Boston. Luckily I end up on Mass Ave., through arbitrary driving decisions, which is, I realize, helpful when I am calling for directions. Anyways, I spent a good forty-five minutes clueless in the city, so I'm a bit late for set-up. Luckily, my set-up time is normally pretty short. I mean, providing that there are grounded electrical outlets available.

Well, I get there, and its a nice little space. We get to perform right in front a Bay window which is nice. I have a fondness for bay windows. Also, I find from Carmen than we got press. Press from The Boston Globe. Whoohoo!!! We're one of the top 5 picks! Unfortunately, The Boredoms AND Laurie Anderson are playing the same night. So, our audience is still pretty small.

I get changed and everything. Then, I take the wires out of the battery re-charger and attempt to connect them back to the witilt accelerometer. Notice the word choice: "attempt". One of the wires twisted off in this endeavor. Oh noes! Carmen goes on just as this happens. I try not to mess with shit too much while she's performing. She does well... her voice is awesome, as always. She seems to have some problems with the Carmenizer, but interesting sounds do come out. I look forward to seeing/hearing the full version.

So, I ask for a paper clip so I can keep pressure on the wire and perform the pieces despite the disaster. Rob gets me one and it works. I am so MacGuyver. Error of my Ways goes off without a hitch! I explain that I will lose control of the synth, etc. Later, someone asks me how I am losing control, so maybe she didn't notice my frustrated shaking trying to set off the synth. It could be that it is hard to read as frustration? Well, everything goes well. Well, at one point, the server freaks out before I can do "things that breathe", but I just move on to a pre-recorded piece (accordion improv) and set things up fast. I perform it later.

At this point, my set just goes. I'm so sad. I'm a sad sad girl. I am going insane with the sadness and losing control. By the end of the my set, though, the paperclip has slipped and I can't do balancing act. I could have fiddled with it, but I decide to spare both myself and the audience the time of silence whilst fixing shit, and do "better in the dark", which I wasn't going to do.

Again, I try and make use of the space and levels. I do a bit of crawling and try to incorporate chairs, mic stands as props. I feel I might be moving a bit too much. I tend to be in constant motion, so I force myself to hold particular poses so things don't get too... "busy". I think I need to work on staying still in moments and using it more as a dramatic device.

The very act of performing seems to bring about what I call the "fragile body" sometimes, the disassociation of the self from the body. I find myself often thinking in body parts and where to put them, rather than putting my "self" places. My hands sometimes feel like props in black lace, disconnected from the rest of me. Even though my thesis pieces are exploring these concepts, it is the pieces where I have the most freedom to move that brings about this state most often. In balancing act and Error of my Ways there are moments when I am not aware of things like that, but then it does appear. Actually, until I fixed it, balancing act did produce those sensations the most, perhaps because I was faking it the vast majority of the time and I felt useless... because I was so bad at it. There is a strange continuum in Error of my Ways where I am really using the controller effectively, and then I am wondering what the hell is happening. In the beginning of the piece, I do feel like an embodied performer. Everything contrasts to my accordion pieces where I sometimes even feel like I lose the sense of myself as a self but I am just lost in the activity of it. Reminds of Rivka telling me what an embodied instrument it has become for me.

Afterwards, I get told that I am indeed like an Edward Gorey heroine. Nice. And Rob tells me he's never seen anything like it before. He wants me to send him a DVD of one of my shows. Yay!

As I enter the exit from the interstate back to Hanover, NH, I notice a sign with an arrow pointing in the vague direction of my neighborhood: "KARATE" it says. Indeed.