Interview with Adelheid

This is my interview with Adelheid, I'm afraid the sentance structure of the last few questions might be a bit different to the rest because my email had a different format or something, so apologies for that.
So, enjoy getting to know Adelheid...

[I]So, I'm sure some of the other long term culties may know some of this about
you, but I for one do not, can you please tell me about who you are in terms
of how old you, are where you grew up, where you live now, your family,
and what you get up to?[/I]

I'm about sixteen years old. Give or take a few months. Actually, just
"give", and give exactly two months and nine days... at the current date.
This changes as time passes. I was born in Edmonton, grew a foot or so
there, grew another couple of feet in Maryland, but grew to the size I am
now somewhere in Southwestern Ontario. I'm wary of being more specific than
that, sorry, even though I'm sure I've given more than enough hints here and
there on the boards. Whatever. I still live there now, with my fab fam -
two parents (Foreigners! They come from the land of Catalonia.), still
together, my older brother and my younger sister. We get on nicely,
especially when they buy me things. As for what I get up to... that's kind
of a yawn. I go to school, spend time with friends often and family
occasionally, eat, sleep...post on the cult. Then there's theatre! Which
is a whole other story... I write, act, and "direct" (apparently...I get
offered scripts but they all suck, hence me being asked to direct and not
somebody who's like, qualified) in a bunch of local amateur stuff. So...
that's me in a(n excessively long?) paragraph.

[I]How did you come across the cult? What is the meaning behind your cult user
name, signature and avatar?[/I]

This is sort of embarassing. I had a crush on a fellow who listed "Chuck
Palahniuk" as one of his MSN-profile interests. So I um, read all his
books. That's awful, I know. But turns out I liked Chuck quite a bit,
looked up a bio, came across the site... First post, I didn't intend on
staying. Just wanted to find out if aforementioned fellow was a member (he
didn't) so my first thread was...well, if you read it...so okay, I'm the
worst. I've grown a bit since then (so I claim), my love of the boy and of
internet stalkery (as well as, sadly, my love of Chuck...) have dwindled
exponentially, but my love for all you cult folks has only increased - and
continues to do so. My username is my middle name, my signature has little
significance (just words I guess) and my avatar matches the site interface
quite nicely, which is all I want from it, really.

[I]So your love for Chuck has dwindled, has this been replaced by other
literature? If so what?[/I]

Of course! I read pretty much anything you sit in front of me, and I like
most of it, too. JD Salinger has become my absolute favourite after Mirka
introduced me to the stuff that isn't just Catcher in the Rye a year...two
years?!? (Almost! God!) ago (and since then actually, my love for Catcher
has skyrocketed). I also adore Michael Chabon right now, too. Generally I
like the sort of authors who press worlds of meaning into a single sentence
that, at first glance, could seem insignificant, but then still makes you
read back and go "what? no!" and realise that a brief description of the
sign outside a shop is actually the most brilliant thing you've ever read.
That's not quite the right way to put this but...I dunno. It's like, other,
lesser people (i.e. me) take a paragraph to say something that they can say
in one carefully picked and beautifully perfect word. You know? I also
like reading plays. Eugene Ionesco's my favourite right now in that
department. Which leads me to, oh boy oh boy...

[I]Tell me about the theatre (for some reason I get a poncy English ladies
voice in my head saying "Theatre!") How did you come to love it so? Have
you got any funny stories about working in theatre? Is this something you
want to seriously pursue, perhaps as a career?[/I]

Yes, I get the poncy English lady also. Generally she wears a shawl, even
when it's hot out. I came to love it so during our grade three production
of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I played Oberon (earghh). The funny stories
abound but more often than not, they're those boring-ass "you had to be
there" stories. Here's a recent one, though...

I was just in a show I wrote that was, well, complicated. It probably
sounds really weak when I describe it here, but basically, there was a
shitload of audience interaction and a lot of near-nonsensical shit going
on, overlapping scenes and dialogue, drawings and set reveals and general
chaos, which all relied completely on one very important thing - the
simplest plot ever. Boy flips out 'cause his girlfriend is cheating on him
with his brother, kills the brother, kills the girlfriend and her two
innocent-bystander friends, kills himself. But because of the way the story
was told, if you wanted to get all of that every line had to be heard
crystal clear, it required a lot of, you know, paying attention and shit, on
the part of both the audience and the actors.

So anyway, this one show we had a good-sized crowd, it was the night after a
(dare I say) brilliant opening, we were all psyched and whatnot - but! We
had this fellow in the audience that's, well, pretty known in these parts
for seeing every play this town has put on and attempting to be a "good
audience member" by laughing at ever joke. But not just laughing! The
man...chortles. Loudly and deeply. He sounds a bit like Santa Clause but
eviller. At one point in the show, his laugh came a few seconds too late
for the line, accompanied by him repeating the line in a low and very
pleasured-sounding growl. After he did it, I noticed a tinge of smiley-ness
on the corner of the lips of the guy I was acting with. He didn't break
necissarily but you could tell he thought it was funny - and it was! So I
slipped, lost my bearings, had to say something quickly lest I completely
lost it, and I skipped about two pages of script. Two damned important
pages, too!

We ran the risk of rendering the show completely indecipherable and we had
to fix things within the time limit we were allowed without giving the
audience cause to demand refunds. This was a show with no backstage time so
we couldn't save ourselves by discussing rearrangements of script while not
on. But we all noticed my immense fuck-up and so there we were, trying to
fix everything, adlibbing extra lines, cutting unecessary ones, basically
rewriting the script onstage. Somehow, without every having to discuss it,
we worked as this tight-screwed well-oiled machine of a cast, meshing
together in such a way as to pull through in this weird electrical
telepathic co-operation. It might not sound like it, but the stakes were so
high, we were so hopped up on adrenaline, it was...magic is the only word I
can think of here. Synergy, I dunno. And we pulled through, too, without
flailing the thing out of recognition. Funny, too, because whenever I tell
this story, there's always at least one other person who can totally relate
to that, standing onstage whith the head spinning and the hands shaking,
that special kind of teamwork that only blossoms from the impromptu, where
you're all in or you're all out.

That wasn't a funny story at all.

As far as a career, I don't know. It'd be nice but I'd rather paint walls,
or be a cucumber. In other words, of freakin' course I want to make a
living out of this gratuitous bullshit, because it's the only gratuitous
bullshit I'm into.

[I]Ok, so you are hosting a theme party, what is the theme? What music is
playing? Who is there? What are you dressed as and what are you most
likely doing?[/I]

The theme? The '60's or the '30s. Just because I love what they wore.
Music would have to fit the era, I guess. Live music would be the best. As
for who's there... I dunno, everyone in the world! I guess everyone I've
ever been friend with would be nice, even if I've lost touch with them.
It'd be nice to have some culties there, too, but only if they were into
that sort of thing (you know, tacky parties with underagers...). Like, Levi
I'd like there, but corellion would probably do a fair bit of grumbling
(unless I'm wrong about that), jane s. would be awesome but ironman, not so
much, etc. If it's the thirties, I'm dressed like Daisy from the Great
Gatsby (but unlike her, I pick Gatsby). If the sixties, like Amber in
Hairspray (and unlike her, I pick Seaweed!). I know, I know, I'm really
showing me age here. Please don't judge?

[I]When was the last time you felt really bad, sad or fucking pissed off? What
are the things in life that make you mad?[/I]

Today, because I was at school and school's a prison, but a better answer is
something that happened a few weeks ago, in this little port town near where
I live. My sister and I were sitting eating ice cream on the rocks by the
lake and this couple on the picnic table behind us was talking about
something funny their child had done the other day - not in an affectionate
tone but in a mocking one. And their kid was right there with them! Later
on, the kid wanted to stick his spoon into the bottom of his ice cream cup
so that it would look like a mast and he could float his little cup-boat out
on the lake. The parents wouldn't let him; they were all "no. You'll just
be disappointed." I guess the kid would technically be litering, but still.
Then the kid told a knock-knock joke and the parents were completely
unco-operative - "I've heard this one." Sure you have, but you're not seven
years old, are you?

So what angers me is that: when parents aren't as awesome as they totally
have the opportunity to be. Imagine how happy the kid would've been if he'd
got to sail his boat and tell his joke! Bad parenting makes me want to bust
a cap in bad parents... Kids are about a million times more interesting
than grown-ups in every way. But bad parents will just sit there and ignore
all that shit, except when, occasionally, they look down to tell the kid
that something they've said is silly or impossible. They're so bent on
teaching the kid stuff that they don't stop to let the kid teach THEM.
It's so frustrating!

[I]When was the last time something really wondeful happend that made you
happy? What makes you smile and enjoy being alive?[/I]

Everything's wonderful! (except school and bad parents, and all those other
bad things in the world, like uneven amounts of chips and salsa, or Richard
Simmons, or unfair billing or ---) Well, at least some things are! For
example: smiles, music (of course!), long summer days, insensible romantic
notions, memories, small acts of kindness, starlight, Sunday morning mass,
canvas shoes, Christmas, butterflies in my stomach, Doctor Who...

[I]Your known on the cult as one of the "brat pack" (according to Derek ) what
do you think about this? What do you feel you have to bring to the cult,
and the cult has for you in return?[/I]

Yyyyyeah...yeah, I'm a bit of a brat. I have to admit to liking the "brat
pack" term; the way Derek uses it is endearing, not infuriating. It's
difficult to say I've got much to bring to the cult... other than, you know,
myself... just another person, you know? Which is a good thing, I guess,
because if the more people posting, the more interesting things are around
here. Even if the posts suck. In return, it gives me a lot more than I
give it! Entertainment.. insight... recommendations... and the writer's
workshop! I'm not overly active there, but I'm getting more and more into
it, have some more reviews I'm ready to start writing... there's a lot to
learn over there, lots of good stuff to read, and a bunch of helpful,
reasonably intelligent people. It's...nice. : )

[I]ROAD TRIP! Where are you going? Who are you with? What's on your road
trip mixed cd/tape? What shenanigans are you going to get up to young lady?[/I]

Oiiieeee! This road trip's gonna be fucken LONG. So okay, I'm with four
friends - Alexa, Angela, Rachel and Arielle, because they're, you know
"besties" and what, and they're just good people to travel with I guess, and
like a lot of the same things so we wouldn't argue over where to go (well,
actually, perhaps we would...) They won't rob me, at least, we'll leave
that to the gypsies.

We start in (let me check the map) Marbella, in the South of Spain, because
it has a pretty name. I don't know how we got there or where we got the
car, but that's irrelevant, really. Anyway we drive North through to
Madrid, then to Tarragona, then to Barcelona, then into France. There
through Clermont-Ferrand, Bourges, Orleans, Paris (where we'd stay for a
bit). Skip Belgium, go to Amsterdam. From there start heading South
again...visit a distant cousin in Saarbrucken, then keep going South...
Strasbourg, Milano, Verona, Venice, Bologna, Pisa, Rome, then back home.
This is with unlimited time and money, of course.

The mix CD would cause a lot of arguments... regardless of what my friends
would request I'd be all over the radio of wherever we're driving through.
If there was no reception, or if it was deathly boring, I'd probably mix up
some Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, The Divine Comedy, Peter and the Wolf,
Vincent Delerm, Midlake, Duke Special and John Cale. All good cycling music
and I can't imagine how driving would be that different.

And what we'd get up to? Basically just... you know, "experiencing" the
whole thing. Getting lost a lot, staying in youth hostels, shopping,
spending too much money, losing things, getting robbed, being ignorant,
eating in cafes, getting mocked by our servers for being tourists, taking
lots of pictures, drinking (!!! because we could!), and, most
importantly....European boys!!!!!!!

[I]Do you have any regrets? What are they?[/I]

No regrets, really, not yet. Little ones like, "damn, I should've picked
the cheesecake" but otherwise I think I'm too young for that. Besides, "if
it's meant to be, it happens" or whatever, so it's probably bad to regret at
all anyways.

[I]What are your hopes for the future, for yourself and for the universe in
gereral?[/I]

Wow! For me, just to be happy doing whatever I'm doing...preferably
something theatre-realated...but it doesn't really matter what. It'd be
nice to continue to be in a position where I can express myself the way I
want to, and no matter where I get to, still have somewhere that I'm going.
I also hope that as I get older I don't lose touch with anything: the world,
myself, my friends.

For the universe?! The "implosion" thing seems like it could be of the
utmost convenience. Or, I dunno, impeach GWB? There's a lot of things
wrong and it'd be nice if they were fixed. We could probably use some of
that "deus ex machina" stuff down here. Till then I think it'd be nice if
all of us everywhere just cared for each other a mite more than we do right
now. Like I said before, though, "if it's meant to be, it happens". I
don't know how much I really truly believe that, but it's a nice thought.

[I]You mentioned becoming more active in the writer's workshop, can you tell me a bit about your writing?
What do you write, who are your influences, what is the best thing you have learnt from being part of the writer's workshop?[/I]

Well, I write plays. That's more or less it. Stories get away from me because there's just no seconds step...
it's written and then people read it, it doesn't, you know, "come to life" and all that horseshit.
So I've written about a gazillion of these things for school drama festivals, two for local drama festivals and a bunch not fit to see the world.
I also love love love narrative essays, I've only written one for school just about an hour ago, it was... strangely fun.
Sadly at their roots every play I've written is about the same thing: perception. Yawn.
Like the lame-ass boring debate about whether or not we're really sensing what we're sensing, every character sees some sort of different world around them, yadda yadda yadda.
Two recurring characters are usually God and the audience.
God because that's interesting to me, the audience because it's vain to have them sitting there with me telling them who God is...
usually they get to decide for themselves. Interactive plays are awesome to write because they're about a million times more fun to perform,
and don't happen as much as they should. P.S. If I'm talking like I know what the shit I'm doing, truly, I don't. But it's nice to put on a show of it.

My influences, play-wise... Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Woody Allen, Peter Shaffer, Edward Albee and most of all Tony Kushner who is a fucken genius thank you very much.
I like Roddy Doyle's dialogue and it influences me in that I always want to set stuff in Ireland (though I've never done it...
I'm worried if I do, I'll just be stealing from Doyle...).
I like Shakespeare because a good get-over-writer's-block thing I do every now and then is try and psych out a really common Shakey-show,
think of how I would direct, say, Twelfth Night if I had a) unlimited assets of all sorts (money, space, brilliant actors, blah blah) and
b) every intention of giving them all a Twelfth Night they'd never seen before, ever, and I'm not just talking "oh, let's switch-gender it",
I'm talking, twisting everything backwards/sideways/upside down without ever having to deviate unfaithfully from the text itself. Try it, it's a blastie!!

Writer's workshop I'm not very active at the moment...I use it a lot, just not...actively.
It has taught me... that... people are... good, usually, but sometimes very very very very very very bad.
It's taught me a lot of learning-through observation stuff that can't quite be put into words.
There are a lot of really talented people on there, some of whom I more or less workshop-stalk and they don't know it... I won't name names.

[I]If you could meet one person, dead or alive who would it be? Why? What would you talk about? Would you have a polite cup of tea with them, or other?[/I]

Well, Jesus. Because he's a rad dude who has caused a bit of a fuss just about everywhere.
I'd probably want to walk with him through the streets of Nigeria or something and watch him do his thing,
let him tell me what he thinks about stuff, try to learn from him.
I'd probably just end up feeling all down and unworthy and immoral about everything, but it could be worth it.

[I]What are your favourite bands/musicians? Have you been to any great concerts? Who would you most like to see live?[/I]

Belle and Sebastian, The Divine Comedy and The Decemberists are my Big Three,
for reasons unknown to anyone around me I've got their entire discographies and never, ever tire of them.
Ahhh just thinking of them makes me well up with love! Any of those I'd like to see live.
Also the Flaming Lips just because of all the things you hear about them.
And Final Fantasy (i.e. Owen Pallett) is coming to town - IT'S FREE! - so I can't wait for that.

I've actually only been to about eight I think, unless I'm forgetting any: three by my brother's band
(suck suck suckie, that's not what they're called but it's what they do, I was about 10 and I saw them every Saturday for three weeks),
Copeland (I'd never been so excited in my life! Then my friend's eardrum started bleeding and I had to leave to help get her driven to the hospital.),
Great Lake Swimmers/Two Minute Miracles/OHBIJOU (in an old concert hall, it was beautiful...
and OHBIJOU was just the first opener, but the best of the three I'd say. Check them out if you feel so inclined!),
Billy Joel (he was OK, I suspected some major cheatery going on there, he threw his mic around and it CLEARLY wasn't on,
while he was still singing and didn't appear to have a mic on him. Either they hid it well or the fraud was, I dunno, lip-synching. Pshhh.
The tickets were free though, no one wanted to see him so they gave stuff away so the venue would look full...can't complain),
Sarah Slean (lovely lovely lovely lovely!), Rufus Wainwright (he was great! Till he came out to do autographs and elbowed this one girl in the face sans apologie. He was still great but...I lost something there).

[I]If you could have one talent or dispostion you don't already naturally have what would it be?
What talent/disposition that you have do you most love about yourself?[/I]

I want to be able to dance. It's something I love doing but just can't do with any sort of grace whatsoever. It's pitiful.
I also wish my emotions ran deeper because they feel a bit flat sometimes. Guess everyone feels that way sometimes.
I most love my whistling abilities! Truly, I have an astounding whistle. Not to brag or anything, but seriously!
It's clear and lovely and tuneful and on-key and, I can do vibrato! I just like it because I've never had to work on it or think about it, just one day,
I was whistling and someone was like "that's GORGEOUS... you could make a living out of it" and I'd not noticed before and thought, yeah, I guess it is.
I think I'm allowed to brag about this as much as I want considering how lame it is of a thing to brag about.
I also have a strange ability to make cool figures out of string, like, solitary cat's cradle but without steps.
Anyone can do that most likely, but nobody cares to try. This is great because it makes me look better.