The Land of Squee

I'm having a hard time convincing myself to tell the story of my (probably) final encounters with the MOR Troupe from last Wednesday and my amazing PDS adventure from Sunday, so instead I'll say I saw 1789 again and I enjoyed it MUCH more the second time. Almost all of my questions/confusions were cleared up once I was capable of concentrating on the stage and hearing the dialogue. There are still some ridiculously silly moments and the chase scene is still way too long and I *still* hate freaking projections (if I wanted to watch I movie I'd go see a movie!) but it got me to thinking. So I've invented a new ratings system for my opinion of musicals and I'm sure EVERYONE will be DELIGHTED by that.

On a scale of 1-10, the things that are important to me are:
-use of dance/dancers
-story
-acting talent
-singing talent
-songs
-sets
-use of projections
-costumes

So let me rethink my ratings of ALL the French shows I've seen live!

Mozart l'Opéra Rock
Story: 8 (it's a little disjointed/uneven and a lot of the dialogue is sloppy but it's still an interesting and almost entirely-true story)
Songs: 10 (I think that's pretty clear)
Acting talent: 9 (I would have said 10 but then there's Mikele in the lead role)
Singing talent: 10 (considered bumping this down slightly cause Mikele's less awesome live but decided to give it to him since he's so fun to watch)
Sets: 9 (taking off a point for the pink wedding cloud, but otherwise it's a great use of columns, backdrops, and props to show tons of different spaces, and also I love the giant backstage framework)
Use of projections: 9 (hate the floating wedding scene flowers, love J'accuse mon père)
Use of dance/dancers: 10 (they never distract, they advance the plot, they work as extras, the choreography is organic and natural doesn't make you feel like you're watching a dance recital)
Costumes: 10 (they certainly aren't period-appropriate but that's the point of the rock thing, and i think it's best illustrated in the costumes--plus the dancers and guys show up once or twice in great period-appropriate looks)
Overall Score: 9.4

Dracula
Story: 5 (VERY uneven, hate the use of voiceover letters to advance the plot, felt like I was going from song to song, can't tell where things are happening or how people are traveling so fast across Europe)
Acting talent: 6 (there are some heartbreakingly bad performances here, especially from Mina and Jonathan, our main characters)
Songs: 7 (took points off for terrible lyrics, but quite honestly I bloody love this soundtrack)
Singing talent: 8 (love the three stooges, don't love Jonathan/Marble Eyes/Julien AT ALL, cringed through most of his songs in fact, but man Lola is just a champion)
Sets: 8 (would have been t10 but I hate London as a white wall and I hated all the set pieces that looked like people-- also, minus one point for the "magic" wall alone)
Use of projections: 8 (projections as a backstory/setting change device? Totally down with that. Minus two points for the AWFUL 3D movie I had to sit through, though)
Use of dance/dancers: 2 (we know how I feel about acrobats in every scene and getting distracted by dancers instead of the plot, plus I HATE a tap-dancing man-beast as a scene change device so STOP IT OUALI! It's especially egregious since he used the EXACT SAME THING in Le Roi Soleil)
Costumes: 4 (I had to stop and think about this one cause some of the costumes are cool, but overall I just can't get behind slinky modern dresses in a Victorian piece, even if it is to make dancing easier. And Dracula's leggings were just NO. I don't even like Anais/Lucy's massive pink and red dress AT ALL. So no. I recognize the effort put into them, which is where the 5 comes from, but the only costumes I liked were Greggy D's and Lola's)
Overall Score: 6.0

Adam et Eve
Story: 2 (it was a good idea, but in the end the plot was worth fifteen minutes, not a 2+ hour musical)
Songs: 3 (I like Rien ne se finit, Le meilleur, Et dieu dans tout ça, and Ma bataille, but the whole rest of the show was just awful, and when the songs get stuck in your head they're there all day)
Acting talent: 8 (wooden, unlikeable lead)
Singing talent: 10 (yep, everyone was talented as can be)
Sets: 8 (that's right, I love one big stationary set that gets transformed into a million places, but I HATED the floating bubble prisons)
Use of projections: 1 (horrible. They get one point for the silly news broadcasts, but everything else was just abysmal, especially the screaming tattooed man during Game Over. Just bad)
Use of dance/dancers: 8 (this was a dance-heavy musical that I enjoyed, possibly because the plot was so thin, but I brought it down two points because a lot of the dance seemed same-y and silly, especially the Eden people having their elbows up over their faces and doing a Nazi walk)
Costumes: 4 (obviously the makeup WAS most of the costume in this show, so I'm mostly just giving them points for getting Nuno shirtless... the rest was basically a 70's yard sale)
Overall Score: 5.5

1789: Les Amants de la Bastille
Story: 6 (they tried to cover TOO much ground like with MOR, but here they took way too many liberties with history and then spent too much time on the lovers who, though in the title, are pretty boring)
Songs: 10 (love it)
Acting talent: 8 (it would be 9 but my issue is with Louis Delort from the Voice who is extremely forgettable onstage so I'm punishing them for taking that role away from Mathieu who is instantly fascinating and incredibly talented. -1 for Louis, -1 again for choosing Louis over Mathieu)
Singing talent: 8 (both Nathalia and my beloved Roxane have trouble not sounding flat/rough onstage, which could be attributed to the difficulty of their songs, but also Roddy J messed up his lyrics TWICE Sunday and he's one of the writers)
Sets: 4 (there basically ARE NONE, though there are a few good set pieces here and there like the printing press, but most of the illusion of a set is given by platforms, columns, and pieces of walls, which I dislike)
Use of projections: 4 (it works a few times, like in the dream sequences and when characters are walking somewhere, but it's especially egregious because the projections are visible ON THE ACTORS' COSTUMES)
Use of dance/dancers: 6 (they're a little too distracting part of the time. I don't need them to show off their backflips to me, just shut up and be onstage)
Costumes: 8 (there's no reason for the hot actress playing the hot Polignac to be so ugly in her wig and costume. Also, there are just TOO MANY costumes in too many scenes and I can't understand why a lot of choices were made. How come the men change costume every three minutes and the women have to wear the same Je veux le monde dresses all through act two?)
Overall Score: 6.8

There we have it! So I guess it's only fair for me to say that Adam et Eve is my LEAST favorite of the PDS shows I've seen. I support that strongly. Time is making me kinder and kinder to Dracula... haha.

Here's an update while I continue to procrastinate from sleeping for no reason!

My mom told me if I can condense my stuff down to three suitcases to avoid baggage fees, she'll buy me a whole new wardrobe when I get home! So I'm doing crazy stuff like giving away clothes I don't wear enough, giving all my shoes to the American student living here, throwing away the cases to my Sims games and keeping them in a zippy CD case thing, and knitting for the first time since Bercy in an effort to use up my yarn! Also, I've seen nine and a half seasons of Friends in a little less than three weeks.

Started stagedooring 1789 yesterday. I saw Yamin, who teased me and said wow nice tan and I was like b-b-but I dont get tans and he was like yeah I was kidding and i was like ohhhh. Also saw a very beardy Solal on a red scooter who was looking for Yamin. Also met Danton, or David Ban, and he was super nice!!! Also, it seems like Roddy J is ALREADY sick of fans, which makes me sad because when I saw him a year ago at the MOR reunion concert he was SO PRECIOUS AND CHARMING but now he always has a look on his face like he's anxiously waiting for you to shut up and stop bothering him. Boo Roddy J, I mean really what did you expect. Also, the little Dracula understudy named Sebastien who I didn't want to love, IS SO SWEET. And the new guy who replaced Mathieu has a lot of tattoos, including all over his neck... huh. OH and Tamara smiled and waved at me! She's so pretty and nice gah.

ALSO I WILL VERY LIKELY BE ABLE TO FIND AND SAY GOODBYE TO MY MIKELE ON SEPTEMBER 15TH. As for Flo... I just hope I'll catch him when 1789 starts up.

Alright, and about masters stuff, I started looking at the courses required for the translation masters at NYU that I was initially interested in, and after the first TWO it all becomes accounting and contracts and patents and my soul died just thinking about it. I don't have a good head for reality. THEN I discovered a literary translation master ALSO at NYU, but it was two semesters in NYC and then a summer program in... PARIS. And I was like GAH I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO GO BACK TO PARIS (though secretly it sounded amazing) and I was telling the family that's hosting my right now and they were like "Oh that's easy, just come live with us again!" I LOVE THESE PEOPLE.

But now I'm worrying again, because I never intended to do higher education and now I realize how badly I need to. But my GPA was 2.76, and apparently 3.0 is low for NYU standards. I could probably kick ass on the GRE (I'm not stupid, I just made a lot of dumb decisions in college including playing the Sims during class... often) and I have a lot of experience and could probably write a good letter of motivation or whatever in order to prove that I've changed in the what-will-have-been two years since getting my French degree... geez.

Anyway, so I don't know how coherent that was, but it was an update! I've been really hungry ever since I closed my bank account. I went from constantly eating everything in the pantry of the family I worked for to eating less than two meals a day because I don't want to spend all my money and I don't want to take advantage of the amazing family that's hosting me right now. My mom is sending my resume to places that'll hire me for "seasonal work" while I'm in North Carolina.

Oh I'm still typing? Okay sorry. I'll sleep now. Going stagedooring again tomorrow!

I got my OFII appointment!

After March 15th I will no longer be illegally in France! I will be able to get my health insurance! Maybe I'll even go see a doctor about how I've been coughing since the beginning of January!

You know what's kind of weird? I think I've finally turned back into a normal citizen of the earth. During my groupie days I felt like it was my responsibility to blog about and share everything that happened in my life. I needed you guys' feedback in order to know how to continue because as a groupie I wasn't really doing stuff for my own life, but kind of living just to serve as an avatar for internet people. I was even totally okay with detailing losing my virginity to a famous man because it just seemed normal to share everything with everyone.

But lately I've been able to make decisions concerning my life without waiting for the internet's approval. I would be really uncomfortable sharing some of the details of my private life now because I don't feel like it's someone else's business.

And on a higher level, Vincent over here has given me the urge to start reading again, to remember some of my abandoned fandoms and the things I used to do with my free time before I totally lost myself to MOR. Obviously MOR is still my favorite thing ever, but it's not my whole world anymore. I've been able to develop aspirations and hobbies of my own. As I told my mom, he's making me remember who I was before I became The Accidental Groupie. It's nice. I'm normal again.

Of course, this also means that I'm doing a shit job of being a groupie. I still haven't gotten that floto with Nuno, for instance... but one of these days I'll drag my sorry ass over to the PDS and hunt that man down. Probably. I do still want to see the dernière of Adam et Eve, so there's that! And in May I'm going to Lille to see a concert where Flo will be! Once a groupie, always a groupie. But I'm not JUST a lost little groupie anymore. I'm also a real live human being.

The last few days have been really tough.

I kind of wounded my back somehow about a week ago--my lower back, just at the base of my spine.  And ever since I've had varying degrees of shoulder and neck pain/stiffness.  This weekend I couldn't turn my head at all.  It's torture.  My host family is sympathetic and has put me on Doliprane, a French painkiller, but it only works like 70% and it also makes me really nauseous or... something I can't describe.

The worst thing is, every time I'm left alone with my thoughts they get really dark.  I think I am finally starting to look around me and see that my groupie days are over, my obsession with Patrice is over, and I don't know what to do anymore.  I don't know what I want.  I am looking forward to three things: Christmas at German Lara's house (next weekend), seeing Adam & Eve (in a little over a month), and 1789 (in less than a year).  After that... nothing.  It's like my life is a ten minute youtube video and it's only managed to buffer the first minute.  I don't know what to look forward to after that.  I don't have any career aspirations or anything.  Whenever I see how happy my host family is surrounded by family and life-long friends I ask what the hell I think I'm doing out here alone in a foreign country prowling around dating sites for company and texting people who don't feel the need to answer.  I love Europe and I love France and I love Paris, but I'm just getting so scared and so overwhelmed.  I don't miss the United States at all, but wouldn't it be easier?

I can't give up and go back, though, because here I at least have a plan for another year.  I submitted my TAPIF application and will find out what they say at the beginning of April.  Everyone who knows about the program assures me that I'll get Paris (or a suburb) since I have so much experience living here and speaking French and blah blah.  Plus I've found a program that hooks students up with a lonely old person with a huge house in Paris: you live in a spare room and pay something like €21 a month and all the old person asks is that you eat dinner with them and tell them about your day.  I LOVE old people.  That would be ideal for me as long as they found me a suitable geezer and as long as my person didn't DIE before our year was up.  I would even make an awesome PROFIT from TAPIF if I could do that!

If I went home... I have no idea.  I wouldn't be growing or moving forward.  I wouldn't know where to start looking for a job or future.  Literally, I wouldn't know WHERE to look.  My hometown?  My college town?  New York City?  Some random city I find by throwing a dart at a map?  No, at least here I have a path for next year.  At least here I CAN do stuff if I want.  At least here I have a place in society, even if that place has become slightly obsolete without MOR.

Anyway.  Scared, depressed, sore, unsure.  And sore.  REALLY sore.  I'm at a point in my life where for the first time mortality is really starting to scare me.

Also, I have found that I can no longer make ANY life decisions without running it by other people first.  Even my Sims game I screencap new developments so I can tell everyone (no one cares) about it.  I haven't started applying for the living-with-an-old-person thing because I haven't had enough friends encourage me to do so yet.  In any case I should probably wait till April, because if I don't get TAPIF then I'm going to have to stay with this host family for another year.

My sore back kept me indoors last Monday, and I skipped stagedooring La Chanson de l'Année.  I went for a few hours during the afternoon and saw Christophe Maé, Shy'm, Seal, and Bénabar going in to rehearsals.  If I had come back and waited to catch people as they left I could have seen the troupes of Adam & Eve and 1789.  I could have gotten flotos.  But I stayed here and laid across my bed and thought about how scared I was until I cried.

Well obviously I have a lot I need to post about after yesterday, but I don't know if I'll have time to give it the detail it deserves. It was a heck of a ridiculous day.

First, I went to meet some friends at the PDS, where one of them was holding a sign saying we needed tickets. There were four of us, and the tickets were GIVEN to us. We went in for free.

( Tu voudrais pas qu'on s'salisse, qu'on s'fasse les vendanges... DA NA, NANA NA NA, DA NA, NANA NA NA! )

Unfortunately, I saw every single fan I'd been trying to avoid there (except my old pal A-Crazy). I was so unaffected by the show and uncomfortable being around those fans that I decided to skip the stage door and head on over to Le Manoir de Paris, a haunted house where my beloved Patrice Maktav was rumoured to be playing Sweeney Todd.

( In the meantime I'll practice on less honorable throats )

So that was my ridiculous day. Every time I leave the house something ridiculous happens to me. That's why I love living in Paris.

(Before you leave your comment, remember that this is an unlocked post. This isn't.)