Venison or my industrial fridge?

About a week ago, I needed help moving an industrial fridge my father had bought me on ebay into my new studio space. I called my childhood friend Frederic, who happens to live right next to my superb ‘atelier’. Since he failed to answer his phone, I asked a couple of musician friends of mine to give me a hand. We were drinking beers at a screening and eventually got the job done a couple hours later. I suppose me being under the influence was what left Frederic’s insistent text messages unnoticed that evening. It can be hard to focus on a slight twinkle sound in the bottom of one’s handbag while discussing bad 70s French movies (starring the epic Louis de Funes) with a drunk casting agent. What I discovered the next day is that Frederic had invited me to join an impromptu dinner party involving venison from his hunting lease. Needless to say that reading such a text the next morning was highly frustrating, I texted him back immediately to express my deep sorrow. Yesterday, around 2am, I got a new text from Fred: “The venison’s brother is waiting for you in my fridge.”

Barbie Bargain

Some of my work consists in shopping for absurd objects at bottom line prices, that means walking around thrift stores and flea markets and shuffling through dusty boxes belonging to freshly dead people. The other day I was scouting for a large amount of barbies who are to be tortured over the course of a semi-read, semi-staged play written by an Argentinian transvestite playwright living in Paris in the 80s. I found some at ‘le jeu de balle’, a daily morning flea market in downtown Brussels. When inquiring about the price, a Maroccan dealer, told me: “4 euros” to which I argued: “Mais elle a meme pas d’habits!” (She doesn’t even have clothes!). After all, a naked Barbie is close to pointless, think about it, there really is nothing to play with. Sticking to his original price, the chap said: “Mais c’est l’ete non?” (Well it’s summer isn’t it?).

May the force be with you...

Waking up at 5am on a Sunday to go to work is quite painful. That is probably why Michel, our manager, suggested we take the time to share breakfast at 7:30 with Lio, the cook and Anne-Sophie, the new weekend student-slave. As we were sipping on hot coffee and nibbling on our respective croissants, pain au chocolat and/or brioche, Michel started telling the story of an ex co-worker (Tim) whom he had to fire for unusual reasons. Apparently, while leaving work one day, Tim handed a letter to Michel. The text said: ‘Retrouves-moi derriere la friterie de la place Dumont demain a 14h pour un combat avec la force du dragon’ ( Meet me behind the French fried stall - to be found on any local market place in Belgium - tomorrow at 2pm to combat the force of the dragon). What might’ve been a joke for most non-retarded people was Tim’s dead serious challenge to a duel with Michel, our unfortunate looking, adorable, anal-retentive manager. Lio added that in the letter, Tim had actually crossed out 1pm and replaced it by 2pm. Maybe he had a haircut appointment or something.

At the dinner table

The last dinner I hosted at my place was a blast and involved an eclectic group composed of a historian, a financial consultant, two international law students, two set designers, a circus performer and myself. We had a wonderful meal involving many Belgian treats from ‘carbonnades flamandes’ (beef marinated in dark lager) to ‘crème de mascarpone au speculoos’ (speculoos is a ginger biscuit usually served with tea or coffee in any given Belgian brasserie) and close to a bottle of wine each. After the meal, we all decided to retreat to the drawing room and make use of the fireplace. Since we had no logs left, I threw a coat on and went out to get us more wood. Quintijn (the circus dude) offered to help. So there we were, walking through a dark and muddy terrain with a rather dim flashlight. We eventually got to the creepy little shack at the bottom of the garden and started gathering a couple logs. When back in the house, I realized that while I had taken two, Quintijn was carrying about ten of them as naturally as one may carry a passive kitten. I suppose I wasn’t that surprised to see him a couple of days later performing in a show during which a full-grown man and a petite acrobat towered up on his shoulders.