Puppetry Performance!!

Here's the final product of my puppetry course! I am the one controlling the main character, on the right.

The Grey Man from Sarah O'Brien on Vimeo.

So, I have been told by a big shot in the Munich puppetry scene (how weird is this concept?) that I am not allowed to return to America, as they need me here, to be in more shows. I am glowing a little.

Required Items (Part II)

Of course I could not leave the last post regarding desired items so incomplete, so here are some objects or locales that I forgot to mention previously.

Cheap postage!

Real avocados that do not taste like paste! I also miss our oversized bananas, surely genetically modified or full of radioactive properties, but oh so delicious.

Tillamook cheese!! I consume so much cheese in life, and the modest deli slices (7 per pack or so) do not suffice.

My Netflix account and the habit of watching good movies once or twice a week. I keep receiving emails from the company begging and trying to entice me into coming back to them. "We were good to you," they moan, like a needy ex-lover.


The inexpensive and delicous House Wine brand, which cannot be found here, though lack of wine is not something I can earnestly complain about.

In terms of reading material, I bemoan the absence of the Portland Mercury, at least in a tangible form (a great deal is also published online) and the surge of joy that comes every Thursday, when a new (free) copy can be found downtown or in most close-in areas of the city.

Now for places in which I will sit myself and refuse to budge until I have absorbed their spirit and satisfied my malnourished diet consisting of Munich locales.

Naturally, the first appearance on this list is made by Stumptown. Hello, brick walls, aromatic and flavorful wonder and hipster baristas!

Mmm Laughing Planet! Oh burritos and dinosaur toy decorations.

Buffalo Exchange and thrift stores in general. I don't understand the need to always buy new when others have used something just a few times. I cheated with this image, as this store is in East Village and not PDX, but it is too pretty for me to care.

My library!! All of its little branches, too. Munich libraries are unecessarily complicated and some charge fees! I maintain that to be against the spirit of libraries. (Image credit: misterbisson, Flickr).


The list is complete for the moment, but there is always more. Later, I shall definitely write out things I will miss in Germany, which is just as long and in-depth in nature.

August 28th shall be spent flitting all over my city in pursuit of these articles or places. I can hardly wait. First, however, I must conquer my finals and then the Nordic lands.

In Excess

On a related note to the previous post, another perturbing line of thought I've been indulging in lately is the place of excess in our lives. When something interests me, I tend to feel compelled to dive deeply into it and stay there for a while, living and breathing the new art form, book, song, theory or person. I seem to believe that the best way to gain a comprehensive understanding of how it works and how I can apply it to other areas. In that way - seeing connections - it is not so much a developed obsession, but something that can overlap with the curiosites and interests of years past.

With puppetry, for example, I allowed this to happen. I had nothing more than a vague notion of the creative and performance process before this semester and yet somehow it has developed into a full-fledged aspect of importance in my life. The idea behind the performance was recycled from unused animation brainstorming that I produced one summer after taking a related course in high school. The sketches of puppets made in one of Munich's museums, an assisgnment for the puppetry course, made their way into my zine. See? Overlap.

Ah speaking of the zine, it was finished a week ago and at somepoint I will photograph all the pages and post them. Over twenty in all, though. Hmm... perhaps in segments so that it is not extremely image-heavy. For now, however, here is just the cover page:

Fitting that I ended up titling it idee fixe, non?

My friend S. and I were once eating at Saf here in Munich, and she said something that feels applicable to this current rambling. She had a smoothie and managed to drink the entirety in a matter of minutes. Afterwards she remarked, as she poured water into the glass to somehow get at the essence of whatever smoothie-like liquid remained, that her guzzling of the drink served as a perfect metaphor for how she enjoys her men as well: never taking the time to enjoy the initial stages, absorbing all the pleasure almost instantly and then being somewhat surprised by the abrupt end.

For a person to then serve as an idee fixe is problematic and mildly dangerous. But I shall continue assume that when leisurely pursuits are balanced and there is room for overlap, they can then be [almost] equally enjoyed.