Andrea Blumberg

30. Life in the Big City (July '08)

It has been weeks, nay months, since I've last written. I apologize. (and also apologise, to those of you who write your zeds backwards and with woogly lines instead of straight ones). I find that sometimes life is a bit like a dash through a swamp filled with thorn bushes (don't you find that?). When I've got my momentum up and am whizzing around (or 'whissing,' for the anti-zeddists among us) I manage to go places and get things done. But as soon as I settle down somewhere and offload some of that energy, I find that the mud sucks my wellie boots into place, and the thorns grab at my clothing, and suddenly all of the air hisses out of me (or "hizzes" for you fanatical zee-ists) and I go nowhere and do nothing. And, alas, part of doing nothing includes "not writing about the nothing that I'm not doing." So again, apologies.

I haven't been all deflated-balloon and clumpy-boots, though, and, since most of my "lying on sofas reading good books" looks the same from the outside, I'll just describe that scenario once (see above) and then move on to the more diverse experiences I've been having. So first, to set the scene:

Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a city made of up dozens of neighborhoods. They all have their quaint names (Morningside, Stockbridge, Newington, etc.) and stereotyped descriptions (Morningside is where the posh people live; Stockbridge is...er...where the posh people live; Newington is...hmmm...where the posh people live), and they're all pretty much squished together cheek by jowl, since the entire downtown area of the city is quite concentrated. There's also a student neighborhood near the University of Edinburgh, and some urban-y bits, and lots of old, historical, carved-out-of-stone-into-shapes-of-gargoyles-and-spires bits.

I live in the area called Leith. Located about 2 miles north of the city centre (though still inside city limits, much to the distress of the once-independent inhabitants), Leith lies on the Firth of Forth, and was at one time home to sailors, dockworkers, prostitutes, and all sorts of colourful characters. It's stereotype is now "up and coming" (ie. not where the posh people live). Populated by artists, musicians, and the salt of the earth, Leith brims with multicultural shops, festivals and restaurants (and Everything's A Pound stores, pawn shops, a clothing store called Lookin' Trendy), a strong streak of local pride, and an understated historical charm. Think of South Philly, those of you to whom that means something more than just "a part of Philadelphia whose chief characteristic is that it lies neither north, nor east nor west of the city center."

The flat in which I'm living is a jewel in the rough. Originally the meeting hall and office space of a Methodist Church, it was converted into a beautiful flat (on the upper floor) and a studio space (on the middle floor) by the people with whom I'm living: Kim Bergsagel and Symon Macintyre, the puppeteers who founded The Puppet Lab (http://www.puppet-lab.com/ if you're interested), and their kids, Ewan and Rachel. Ewan was in the Perth College music program with me, which is how I got to know them all.

Kim and Symon

Ewan and Rachel

Here's a picture of the beautiful kitchen/dining/living room. The whole flat is equally airy and elegant.

There are no windows on the south side of the flat, so the bright sunshine you see is flooding in through one of a number of skylights. On one of my first nights in the place, I saw a light on in the blue room, and went in to turn it off. But I couldn't find the right switch, because it turned out to be the full moon, shining in through the skylight! So I lay down on the couch and watched the moon and the stars. There were even a couple of satellites, zooming across the sky like tiny little stars who'd freed themselves from the firmament and were making a silent, stealthy break for it.

The harp playing has mostly been of a background-to-people-eating-and-drinking sort. A friend of mine hooked me up with the guy whose job it is to play the harp for afternoon tea at a fancy hotel in town (the kind where the finger sandwiches have no crusts, and the tea cup handles have no pinkies). He's called me to substitute for him several times, which involves sitting up on a little balcony overlooking the tea room, and playing whatever tunes I know while people nibble on scones and clink their cups in their saucers. It's a 2 1/2 hour long gig, with only one short break, so anyone who is a slow sipper may recognize that the tunes I play at the end of my set sound suspiciously like the tunes I played at the beginning. (That is, if they don't already think that every celtic tune sounds like every other celtic tune).

In addition to that semi-regular gig, I also had a gig playing at Stirling Castle for a Scottish Tourism dinner. It was a no-expense-spared banquet, showcasing many quintessentially Scottish traditions (like an American woman playing a harp designed and built in Germany) to key travel agents from other countries, so that they'll send their countryfolk here to be rained on. Artificially-amped-up atmosphere aside, the castle was a fantastic place to play. It's actually a collection of ten or so buildings, set high atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by defensive walls, paved with cobblestones, and riddled with romantic passageways, towers, nooks and dungeons. It is -- dare I say it -- a quintessentially castle-like castle. What we think of when we read all those bodice-rippers. I mean....you know....those of us who read bodice rippers............or don't.

Anyway, I got to play for the drinks reception in the Chapel Royal (in which is hanging a collection of recently hand-woven replicas of the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries [of interest to those of us who....you know....studied Renaissance Art.........or didn't]), and then, after the live falconry demonstration and the highland dancers, I got to play a bit during the banquet itself, in between sets of the ceilidh band and the ceilidh dancing, and before the bagpiper piped in the haggis (I swear, all of this is true!!). You can see some beautiful pictures of the outsides and insides of the castle buildings (and more!) at http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/stirling/stirlingcastle/. Good stuff.

The second item in my potent potion is the Treasure Hunting. There have been fewer Wild Goose chases than I'd hoped (you may remember that Wild Goose is the company which is training me to run its treasure hunts for corporate clients). But there have been a few. Two that I assisted as a hunt-runner (well, hunt-at-a-comfortable-amble), and one in which my friends and I served as guinea pigs for their "take-away" version (they send you the clues and the map and you go around solving it on your own [which I'm pleased to say that we did! In just under the recommended 3 hours]). I also created a small treasure hunt for Ewan (the son of the folks I'm living with) for his birthday. My favorite clue involved going up on the roof and looking in through the skylight to get the right angle to find the location of the next clue (ala Indiana Jones and that little city relief map thingee that he used [remembered by those of us who......you know.....watched those corny-but-charming B-movie rip-offs in the 1980s..........or-- well, no, I'm pretty sure that's everyone]).

And the third ingredient of my brew is Storytelling. The Scottish Storytelling Centre is on the Royal Mile (so named because it is a mile-long stretch of road that leads from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse [the Queen's official residence when she's in Scotland]). This is also the stretch of road in which tourists outnumber locals, and are in turn outnumbered by bagpipe-playing street performers (one per square foot of the Mile, which makes, well, you work out the math; my ears are still ringing). The Storytelling Centre does lots of stuff for kids, obviously, but they also have some events for adults, including a regular Storytelling Cafe, where people gather to listen to well-known storytellers and also to get up and tell ones of their own, if they so choose. I have so chosen, several times; even writing a story especially for one of the events (my story answers the age-old question of why buses take ages to come and then arrive three in a row. If you're interested to hear the reason, let me know and I'll email you a copy). I haven't found (or written) any stories that incorporate harp playing, but it's on my mind.

So, those are the fluid pursuits that pervade my days. Watered down, as I said, by a large amount of sitting on my bum, recovering from my more active activities. Like going dancing when I just can't keep away any longer. I've done some swing and blues with those Edinburghers who wish they were living in early 20th century America, and some Argentine tango, with those who wish they were living in Kathmandu. Er, rather, Argentina.

And finally, like an olive to garnish it all, I had a couple days of puppet-making recently. Kim was hired to build some puppets for a Scottish children's book author (most famously, this woman wrote The Gruffalo, if that means anything to you [probably a different cross-section than those who recognized "South Philly"]). It's a book about Stick Man and his Stick Family, and while Kim was making the Man (and the Dog that grabs him to play fetch with, and the Swan that plucks him up to intwine him into her nest) I made the three stick children; finger puppets that are attached to a glove so you can pop them on as a group.

We made everything out of centimetre-thick foam, cut and glued together to make the shapes (eg. three small cylinders for my stick kids) and then covered with fabric. It was a blast! It brought me back to one of my favorite activities at day camp, Arts & Crafts. There's something fundamentally fun about cutting and gluing things (though I'm certain we used less intoxicating adhesives back then. You could eat the paste without hallucinating pink elephants. Not that I ate any paste this time, but I'm pretty sure that just by sniffing it I saw a purple monkey, a mouse with no feet and some grinning skeletons. Though those may just have been the puppets sitting on the shelves).

Future events to look forward to: several people who have said they'll come visit me are actually going to!!! A few in July and one probably in August. So if you've promised to come visit Scotland and get rained on, but you haven't booked your tickets yet, do it now! Bagpipers are standing by.

Love,
Andrea

Copyright © Andrea Blumberg 2016