Susan Hwang

Am I over my October performance art tour of Canada?  No.  No I am not.

Here are some more pictures.  Look, Leslie is green.  It’s the magic of theater.  We are in our world created by the loving and genius hands of Julie Lamendola as we sing Leslie’s song “Sleep.”

And Genevieve with her monologue in the song “V-JJ” that I wrote initially for Bushwick Book Club presents Philip Roth.  It was her improvised vagina monologue.  She initially wasn’t going to talk about her vagina but vaginas in general since her mom was in the audience that night, but in the end, she decided to talk about her vagina after-all.  Her mom was okay.  She knows her daughter has a vagina.

AND… here we are at the finale.  Julie Lamendola’s interpretive vaginal dance.

It was the closer.  I mean, where do you go from that.  You go and have a drink and call it a night…  You might want to sigh and digest your feelings, maybe mull it over with fellow spectators, maybe dance, shake it out, let it move through your body, your glorious body that is yours alone to experience the world with.  But that’s about it.

Way to be, Rouyn-Noranda.  Thanks for having us.  You know how to make a vagina feel received.

Photos by Christian Luduc.

This is a rare bird of a month.  I’m not usually in Canada.  The last time I was here was for Ching Chong Song shows in Montreal.  Halloween 2008 or something like that.  Goodness.  One time before that, Murderizer played a bike messenger show also in Montreal.  The boys behaved so badly, I drove us straight home.  My bands have gotten more fun since then.

I will work backwards.  I just said goodbye to this lovely man:

He is a sweetheart whose name I feel insecure pronouncing.  It’s Alain, but you don’t pronounce the “n.”  The “n” is a felt, understood but unspoken thing.  What a subtle thing to think a letter but not have it come out your mouth.  If Chinese is a tonal language, then French is a subliminal one — filled with intentions that aren’t necessarily acted upon.  I suck at French.  My intentions are flung willy nilly.

But I’m loving hearing the language and the mix of French and English that is everywhere in this city.  Alain is studying landscape architecture.  His home is full of growing things–little plant cuttings in water.  A small tree.  Happy little beaded succulents.  Alain is also a performance artist and dancer.  Well of course he is, he comes from Rouyn-Noranda.  He grew up with Genevieve there.  This small mining town 8 hours north of Montreal is an unlikely artist haven.  I’m not sure what’s in the water there.  Alain says it’s pretty toxic actually.  But whatever it is, it must breed artists.  Genevieve and Matthieu, a couple who is also a rock duo as well as visual artists, have created a community there and a bi-annual performance art festival that attracts international theater and performance artists to L’Ecart, their performance art and studio space for a week-long celebration and communion of the out-there, the creative, the brave, the true(ish) expression.  Good lord.

Here are some revelers after our performance on Friday night.  They were inspired by the toning we did at the top of our set.  We ended up toning all night with the help of some apple brandy/whiskey thing that was delicious.

Julie made this world out of cardboard and paints for our performance.

Julie spent a couple days in the basement in her sweatshirt and underwear listening to hip hop, happily creating the pieces of this world.  She was so content there making these things.  I’m more visually challenged, so I marveled at the pleasure she got from letting her imagination have at it with cardboard and paint and old clothes.

Leslie, Julie and I had words on cardboard that we tied to our waists and dragged around for part of the show.  It reminded me of the handicaps that people dragged around in Kurt Vonnegut stories.  Mine was “baby.”  Just dragging around that inner child.

THis is the vaginal nest we made for our last number.  They actually supplied the kiddie pool we requested in our rider, so we made a nest for Julie’s vagina, which of course symbolized Every Vagina.

Alain made the food for the festival.  Oh my goodness.  A feat of deliciousness.

He also said we could use his apartment in Montreal while he was gone.  He said we could have sex in his room.  Now that is hospitality.  I smell like Alain now from the blanket he let us use on his futon.   It’s not a bad smell at all.  I smell like an adorable man whose name I can barely pronounce.

I bought jeans yesterday, probably because I don’t know how to give myself a break, and I’m wearing these jeans with the same hesitancy that I say Alain’s name.  Is this how you do it?  Is this okay?  Surely, this can’t be right.

This is my third week away from Brooklyn.  So so strange.  Most things feel strange, and I make myself nauseous over doing it (chocolate, apple cider vinegar, alcohol, you name it).  A few things remain consistently right– singing (it’s always better to sing than not to sing) and Alain’s laugh.  He has this cackle, high-pitched glee and pure joyful bubbling noise that flies out easily and sincerely.  It’s not a tortured, long-awaited thing that is coaxed out.  It’s this easy sound that sails and catches the air with the slightest movement.  It’s really something.  I’ll try and get a recording.

Alain and Carolina.  They are jokes and good times.  Alain says French is an unserious language compared to English.  I think he may be right.  But British people are culturally hilarious too.  There’s that.  I’ll continue this argument myself, don’t you think on it too much.

The subway train conductor breaked like my dad.  Herky jerky from a paranoia that somehow never makes you feel safe as much as irritated.  At the mercy of paranoid breaking and the congestion patterns of the morning rush hour commute, I was getting fur in my mouth.  Fur from the hood of a girl’s brand new, serious winter coat.  I looked at the label on the shoulder of the coat–“Canada Goose.”  That’s a serious coat.  In Canada, they know about serious winter and therefore, serious winter coats, but they have more personal space there, so they don’t know about eating a stranger’s fur in a crowded subway car first thing in the morning.

Koreans, on the other hand, know something about completely surrendering personal space.  They know how to pack a subway.  It’s not just that we’re smaller physically.  It’s that we’re efficient.  And we surrender individuality for the good of the whole.  The whole commute that is.  I remember morning rush hours where the car was packed so tightly you could lift your feet off the floor and still be upright.  Nobody really complained.  I don’t even remember anyone complaining that much when the businessman who was still drunk from the night before vomited on himself–kimchi vomit no less.

Well, as much as I complain about crowded trains, it does make me feel closer to people.  I guess because I’m closer to people.  And we’re all there together–gross human beings, all breathing and sweating and enduring together; we’re berated together by the other human being who lashes out at us over the loudspeaker.  He’s really had enough, and he lets us have it.  For Christ’s sake why can’t we use all available doors and move to the center of the train?  People….

I will not be taking the train tonight to play at Chris Rael’s Birthday Bash at The Bell House.  I will bring myself and my accordion via my ’94 Corolla, gifted to me by my parents in 1994.  They believed in providing their kids with an American education and a means of transportation.  They didn’t realize they were facilitating my accordion playing and singing in public.  They regretted it later, but they still let me keep the car.  And yes, it’s the one that now has a big dent on the passenger side back bumper with the tail light now hanging out at a… jaunty angle.  Look, I’m trying to be positive; it’s not natural for me.   My tail light is now… a tongue sticking out, uh playfully.  Whimsically.  Something like that.

I’m excited for the show!  I get to play and sing a little on Chris Rael’s great songs and beautiful arrangements.  I’m telling you, no one writes a good run like Chris Rael.  I get to play all kinds of fast and intricate sections in fun time signatures.  I try not to gush too much, because it might make him feel weird, but I listened and listened to that CD of “The Hand” that Bruce burned and gave to me in 1999.  I listened to it so much that by 2001, it wouldn’t play anymore.  And I don’t even like rock music.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to be playing tonight.  Happy Birthday, Chris!

The Frontier Room
Chris Rael’s Birthday Bash
Church Of Betty, Johnny Society, Low Cut Connie, Blueberry
Thu, January 16, 2014
Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
The Bell House
149 7th St,
Brooklyn, New York
ph: (718) 643-6510
$10.00
Tickets