Rear Window

Perhaps it's my recent viewing of Vertigo, but I've been feeling a bit Hitchcocky* of late, and now that I've got things up-to-date in terms of recent activity, it's time for a post that's been building slowly over the past two three weeks.

As you can see from the photo, my fifth floor room affords a lovely view of the Fitzrovia area of London. What you cannot see, at least not well, is what my various neighbors are up to.

Now, to be clear, I do not spend large amounts of time staring out my window, spying on the activities of those around me. But when I check the weather during the day, before heading out to class, I often catch glimpses of what's going on inside these places. And here's what's going on:

1. See the pair of windows with the lights on in the photo? Right, well, nothing happens there. Ever. There is a large, fancy desk in there, like one you would see in a legal office. It even has one of those fancy pen-holders that keeps the pen up at an angle. But I doubt that pen has seen paper since I arrived, since no one ever seems to be home. Someone is paying the electricity there, though, because the lights are always on. Even now, as I write this at 12:30 AM, they are on.

2. Diagonally below the constantly illuminated office is another office-looking pair of windows with a fairly consistent amount of activity. And by consistent, I do not mean generally that something is always happening, but that the same thing is always happening. One room has a pair of computers that face out the window. Every time I have seen them during the day, the same two guys are working on them. Next door to that, there is a room with a video-camera set up on a tripod. I have not seen it used, but I imagine it is for interviews of some kind.

3. Sticking out of the roof of the same building is a little door to the rooftop. I have never seen anyone go out the door to wander the roof, but I have on several occasions seen an older woman apparently sneaking cigarettes out the cracked door (in the entrebaillement, if you will). I say "sneaking," because on more than one of these several occasions, she has lit the cigarette, and, a few seconds later, turned to look behind her, perhaps having heard a noise in the house, and instantly put out the cigarette (just lit, remember), and close the door.

4. I cannot see this place without standing on my toes in the window, but I also have a bar on the corner across the street from me called "Potion." It is one of the few bars in the area open late (as late as 2 AM, I think). They have a sign outside their door, as do most bars in London, that reads "Out of respect for our neighbors, please leave quietly." However, it seems that most of their patrons have no respect for the neighbors, or they simply cannot read. It is constantly loud, even up here on the 5th floor with the windows closed.

So that is a sampling of the bizarre patterns of activity my neighbors keep.

Another exciting piece of window-related news. Today, when Jon and Ryan were here as we tried to book tickets to Amsterdam (sidenote: we got the tickets), I showed them the window, and the large door to a balcony along with it. The door, I told them, does not open. "See?" Now, as anyone who has tried to show someone something that they themselves have observed alone knows, when you go to show others, it will fail. So, in this case, the door failed to not open, and instead opened up onto the balcony. Now I have an awesome balcony to read on in the spring.

The only challenge is that it's pretty difficult to close the door afterward, but I think I've figured out how. And we've devised a clothes-hanger lock just in case I can't get it closed all the way some time (like... earlier today).

But sometimes you have to leave the door somewhat ajar, rig up a hanger, and trust your neighbor, so you can rush off to a train station and buy ferry tickets to Amsterdam. And that's exactly what we did. Next weekend will be my first out-of-London adventure. Stay tuned!

*Hitchcocky- Adj. (1) Regarding or related to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. (2) Having attempted, but failed, to achieve the level of plot-twisted thriller awesomeness of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. The Sixth Sense was good, but I find the rest of Shyamalan's films to be quite Hithcocky.

The Adventure of the Missing Weeks

Where have I been these past two weeks?

All my (3? Really, that's it?) devoted followers know is that I arrived in London safely and now reside in Ramsay Hall, Room 507. (Not shown at the right.)

My activity since then, is a mystery, and you have no doubt been inclined to imagine what wild goings on I have had, piecing together clues from things you may have heard. Perhaps you fancy yourselves amateur detectives.

Well, wonder no longer, dear reader, as Evan Mousseau Explains It All For You. (Oh dear, now I'm mixing my allusions.) It will be rather like Sherlock Holmes, at the end of a case, recounting the details of a case to Watson, illuminating all of Watson's various wonderings with his brilliance.

Note: Photographic evidence of the following adventures is forthcoming, once I have settled upon a website to upload them to.

Week One (January 7th-January 13th)

The first few days were spent, for the most part, acclimating to my surroundings. UCL had pieced together a few days of orientation activities, wherein we were welcomed to campus, met with other students, registered for classes, etc. It was also at this time, that I, wandering the Student Union bar at one of the events, stumbled upon a group of Georgetown students, who I have been adventuring with ever since.

These adventures included, but were not limited to:

• Encountering an over-zealous waitstaff at an Italian restaurant for one of our first meals in London.
• Reaffirming the notion that Hoyas have a way of finding each other, when a large group in the National Gallery stumbled upon your humble narrator, who had ducked in to get out of the cold and kill time before a planned meeting at the Sports Cafe to watch some Georgetown Basketball. (Favorite paintings on this visit: John Constable's "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadow," Henri Rousseau's "Surprised!" and Hammershoi's "Interior")
  
• Seeing mummies, clocks, chess pieces, swords, blue dots, and Hamm from Toy Story at the British Museum. I forgot my camera on that trip, so pictures will have to come from a future visit.
• Starting classes. I'm taking American Literature, Modern Literature, Memory & Decision, and Language & Cognition. But I won't bore you with the details. At least not in this entry.
  

Week Two (January 14th-January 20th)

With classes even more underway, the members of GUCL (the elite group of Georgetown students at UCL) were seldom as all together as we were initially. But we've still managed to keep our adventures going, albeit in smaller groups, usually. Here are some of mine:

• A visit to "The Green Man," an excellent pub nearby with an extremely wide variety of ciders. My goal: "I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To try them all is my real test, to drink them is my cause."
• A rainy day stop at St. Paul's Cathedral, where there was a hefty entrance fee to stop us from going beyond the entryway, and the Somerset House, where there were ice skaters.
• Shepherd's pie and a pint at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, one of the oldest pubs in London, rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire in 1666. A wonderful spot, which I'm sure I'll be visiting again.
• A trip back to Trafalgar Square and then up through Chinatown.
  
• A sunny day wandering through Regents Park. Sure, it was still cold, and none of the flowers are in bloom right now, but it was nice to enjoy the sunshine. And we got to see all sorts of birds. (When photos are uploaded, you will see that I was a bit overzealous in my photography of said birds.)
• A trek down Baker Street to 221B. For those who are unaware, this is the factual location of the fictional lodgings of one Sherlock Holmes.
• Attended a performance of "Avenue Q" in the West End for only 10 pounds! And got our seats upgraded when we got there!
  

Did those adventures meet your expectations? I should hope so. Indeed, I should hope that whatever imaginings you had put in their place were exceeded. For as Holmes says in "A Case of Identity," "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

"Super!" News

The New Hampshire premiere of "Super!" is coming up this week. The public show is going to be on Sunday, January 24th, at 2:00 at Exeter High School. If you are in town, you should definitely check it out.

To publicize the production, an article is going to show up in the Portsmouth Herald sometime this week. I was e-mailed to answer some questions about my work on the play, and it provided me with a chance to reflect on the process we went through with "Super!" from its first inkling of an idea, to the full production that was seen at Georgetown and the one that will be seen this week in Exeter.

I figured I'd post the questions and answers from the article here. A sort-of extended edition of my piece of the story, for those who care. And also a way of defending what I actually said in the event that I am misquoted. Though when my words were typed and sent directly to the reporter, I can't imagine a misquote to be very likely...

The Play:

What inspired your story?/Why did you want to write it?

I've been a part of a Children's Theatre group at Georgetown since my freshman year, and, while I've always enjoyed the shows we did, I've also always lamented what I see has a sort-of lack of quality in a lot of plays written for kids. Especially ones that worked for our company, as we travel from school to school with a relatively small cast. So I got an idea in my head to write a show that would address that... something that wouldn't talk down to the kids watching, but would respect them as an audience. Also, something that the adults, who would inevitably be in the audience, could also enjoy.

So I knew I wanted to write, but I didn't know what to write. After one of our (the Georgetown Players') shows at a DC elementary school, I started asking the kids what they would like to see if we were to come back. The overwhelming response was superheroes. I immediately agreed. I, too, had grown sick of fairy tales.

I set to work on research right away. I was never big on comic books as a kid - I much preferred comic strips (Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, & The Far Side in particular). So I spent a lot of time reading variations on origin stories, superpowers, etc.

I looked back at "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, hoping to bring some of that into the play, letting the audience decide how things work out in certain situations. That's where I came up with including a reference to reality TV shows -- the play opens with the final episode of "American Hero," where the audience is voting to decide the new sidekick for a superhero. Early on I had decided I wanted to examine the relationship between superhero and side-kick, as well as look at how a super-villain becomes a super-villain, and decided to have both situations rise out of the game show.

I also met with Steve Gagnon's 3rd grade class at Stratham Memorial School. They had been working on their own super-hero stories, so I went and pitched them some of my own ideas to get some responses. A lot of their ideas, including the name of the main hero, the Red Ruby, found their way into the final version of the script. It was important to me that the script be created in dialogue with its target audience.

Why did you initially contact Dawson regarding it?

Beyond a story, I had very little idea of what I was doing. I needed some sort of guidance. Most of the theater experience I had throughout high school was under Mrs. Dawson's direction, so she was the natural contact. Also, I knew she shared my thoughts on how difficult it is to come across a really great script for children.

How is it she came to be a part of writing it?

I went to meet with her, initially just to ask for advice. I had my story outline, and shared my ideas, and she suggested that we co-write it. I agreed right away.

How did that change the STORY line for you?

When we began working on a scene-by-scene outline for the script, pieces that I had initially seen as just small bits, a sort-of crime-fighting on-stage montage, rose to become a major part of the body of the story. We created these three extremely fun villains, whose scenes now make up a majority of the play. At first, I was hesitant to have such a shift in the story, but as we got to elaborating on how these scenes could be staged, I saw so much great potential for them, I became more than willing to step away from my initial outline.

How did the process of co-writing work?

We started with outlining the story scene-by-scene, creating a rough structure for how the story would run. We spent a long time talking about our characters. What were their superpowers, their villainous plans... This was tricky, we kept having to remind ourselves to keep these restricted to things that we could recreate on stage. Once the outline and the characters were in place, we divided up the show by scene, each writing different scenes. We came back together a few weeks later to compile what we each had, give feedback, help each other with trouble spots as far as dialogue was concerned, and generally make sure everything was consistent throughout the show, especially the ways the characters spoke and interacted.

What was the best and most difficult thing about that process?

The most difficult part was stepping away from my original outline. I had become quite attached to a few ideas that ultimately had to be scrapped, and that was hard for me. The best part was working together on creating the characters. Especially the villains. I've always enjoyed how absurdly complicated villainous plans for world domination are, so it was fun to create one myself.

Did you workshop it?
Yes. A handfull of students who participate in theater at Exeter High School took a few hours one summer afternoon to read through a few of the scenes we had written. It was extremely helpful. They pointed out a few places where we hadn't established things clearly enough, where characters didn't seem to be acting in-character, lines that just didn't sound right, stuff like that. They also improvised at points where we had some 'holes' in the script, and some of those ideas, even a few that were just presented as jokes, have made it into the show.

Will you be able to see the play completed/performed?

I won't be able to see the show performed at EHS, no, since I'm in London. However, I was able to direct a production of "Super!" at Georgetown. It was very well received down there, by the kids we performed for, their parents, and even the college students who saw it. We had a lot of fun working on it, and Mrs. Dawson did get to fly down to DC and see it for the world premiere!

I did see a rehearsal for the show at EHS, which was fantastic. It was great to see the changes that have been made to the show here. Characters have been added, along with some music. And the set was incredible. At Georgetown, we had to travel with our props, but at Exeter they have to fill the whole (huge!) stage. They (I'm pretty sure these were students in Mrs. Dawson's Stagecraft class, though you'd have to check with her about that) designed these brilliantly creative contraptions for the villains, and everything is so bright... It really will look like a comic book on stage, I think.

What's next for you?

Right now I'm just enjoying London. Then next year, I'm back at Georgetown for my senior year.

Writing wise?
I have an essay due in a couple of weeks. Hahaha. Yeah, I have some ideas for a few more children's plays. I'd like to do one about pirates, though lately I've been wondering if the story I have in mind might work better as a young adult novel. That'd be something fun to try. And a few other plays for 'big people' that I've been thinking about.

It's never a problem of ideas for me... I've always got those. There are always stories to tell. Right now, it's just about finding the time. All I have time for at the moment is a travel blog to keep people at home up to date on my adventures abroad... and I barely even have time to update that!

But I do promise more updates to the blog will come soon. Expect some bullet points on my early adventures in London to show up later this week!

There...

I have been in London now for a week. It seems more than an acceptable time of adjustment, and now all excuses of "I'm too jet-lagged," "I sleep at odd hours adjusting to the time change," and "I'm still trying to figure out my way around," hardly seem valid reasons for not maintaining the blog I promised so many I would.

Now, a few points of order before we begin...

I did not intend to be that kid who goes abroad and starts a blog. Nothing against all the people who do that. And that's not to say I wasn't going to blog when I was here. What I mean is: My intentions were to start the blog earlier on, filling it with ideas, clever thoughts, reviews of whatever I was reading/watching/eating at any particular moment. A sort of archive for thoughts I have throughout the day that all too often go unwritten and melt away before they can accumulate.

The title of the blog, I hope, indicates that this will not only be a travel blog, but also a place for me to deposit these random and rambling thoughts for future reflection. For example, expect future thoughts on movie previews, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and some thoughts on book cover design. Certainly, the "Wandering" suggests a lot of traveling will happen, and I hope that it does. But the things I stumble upon when thinking will also crop up now and again.

How I'm Not Where You Are*:

From Point A to Point B, how I got to London. A lot of flying. I have to imagine that reading about my flying to London will be about as boring as my flying to London, so here are some bullet-point highlights:

• Flight from Boston to Chicago (because I had to go West to go East) next to a very mysterious Russian couple. Likely on their way to Wossamotta U in search of moose and squirrel.
• Turned a blind eye to the woman watching a pirated DVD of The Blind Side on the flight to London.
• Struggled to sleep on the flight. I was initially jealous of the many little kids around me, who were able to curl up their short little legs and sleep comfortably. Jealousy faded during our descent, when they all began to whine about how much their ears hurt, and I just cleared mine with my finely-honed airplane inner-ear muscles.
• Cleared immigration with flying colors. Did not need the myriad of bank documents, proof of birth, or letter from my parents (Yes, my immigration guide said I would need to bring one). And was welcomed by...
• Tiger Woods! On a full-wall ad for Accenture, which read: "It's what you do next that counts. We know what it takes to be Tiger." So much for being the 2nd sponsor to dump him... Someone needs to keep track of where they put their ads.
• Spent the majority of the drive to my dorm talking with my driver (whose name was, disappointingly, neither Winston nor Charles) about the snowfall in London. If you hadn't heard, it has been snowing a lot lately in London, and the city has basically no clue what to do.

And that's that. Got out of neither-Winston-nor-Charles' van, hauled my stuff up to Ramsay Hall Room 507, unpacked, realized exactly how little sleep I got on the plane, and decided to go to bed early. Don't want to explore an unfamiliar city at night on 2-hours of airplane sleep. That's a surefire way to get lost.

The next day, I was off and exploring London, which I've been doing for the past week. But more on that later. Since this post was just supposed to be about how I got to where I am now.

A final note regarding the title of this post. Until it is book-ended with the intended closing chapter of "... And Back Again," all posts are coming from somewhere in/around Europe.

*Unless you are in London.