The Long Curve that is the Route

On our journeys north into Germany, we tend to choose a departure time that is, as I would term it in a former life, too early to be alive. My former self who lived in this so-called former life would be shocked to know that in reality, my present self tends to get up quite early, or at least much earlier than the so-called former self did. Many hours earlier. Days, even. Epochs, even. As they say, the early pteranadon snatches the busily scurrying rodent from its so-called orderly life and into the shabbily assembled nest of doom.

As I was writing, on our journeys north into Germany, we tend to choose a departure time that is slightly earlier than my usual time of suctioning myself from the limbo of sleep and into a waking world of wonder. Yesterday, or, as my mind perceives, several weeks ago, on my birthday, this awakening happened v půl páté. I scrubbed the filth accrued during my time in limbo from my body after lumbering to our capacious kitchen to create and quickly gulp down my ranní napoj. Ivanečka concocted lemon water. Peiločja watched from either my studio, the předsín, the obyvák or from all three possibly wondering about our intentions. She always seems to sense when we are “going away” for a while. Indeed, even if a while is only between twenty four and thirty six hours.

I misinterpreted the schedule of the bus that takes us from (near our) home to Švandovo Divadlo, so we walked through the silent, tenebrous morning to U Palaty where we discovered that the bus actually comes thirteen or fifteen or choose-another-teen minutes later. We trudged on along the long curve that is the route of bus 176 to the next stop. There we waited a mere four minutes before boarding said autobus and riding another four minutes to said Divadlo. Tram 9 then whisked us to Hlavní Nádraží.

I had stuffed a few Tesco pitas, avocados and a hunk of lactose-free hermelín into my batoh. At the present time, as I write this, one of the avocados still remains uneaten. It sits in the dark, constrained space of my batoh, waiting. Waiting to be consumed. Most of the listed victuals, however, were transferred from the shaky folding table in front of my during the train ride into my digestive system.

Ivanečka had also prepared a fantastic salad before our departure from home, also rife with chunks of avocado, that we consumed together mostly whilst waiting at Südkreutz in mid-south Berlin. One must always remember that no matter how punctual České drahy might be, once one enters the territory of the German Empire, any train, no matter how efficiently scheduled in its home empire, will be plagued by arbitrary delays. One must also remember that no matter how much one is enjoying the delightful salad that Ivanečka prepared, Südkreutz is much closer to one’s destination at Hotel Schöneberg than one is when one continues travelling along the rail to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

Hotel Schöneberg is in an ancient building from the time before. Though the bulk has been renovated, the sensation is of still being in the time before. The balcony overlooked the street and had a view towards the center of Berlin to the right and towards the southern wastelands to the left. When sealed, no sound could be heard from the outside. We didn’t stay long. After I communicated our day’s intentions to Janek (and he his day’s intentions to us), we set off for the center, or at lest for Potsdammerplatz, which isn’t exactly the center, but close enough for our purposes. What were our purposes? Our purposes were to find a few design oriented shops where we could buy drobnosti for our new home. After an abortive start in the shopping arena near Potsdammerplatz, I found that there is a design oriented area in Charlottenburg. Charlottenburg! Isn’t that where the plumpest humorist of our time used to live? Indeed it is where he used to live, but I didn’t spend much time trying to figure out exactly where the plumpest humorist of our time used to live. I simply felt his residual energy (some would say stench) dwindling, but still present.

After perusing many establishments, we returned to the first in the area that we had entered to emerge with two vacuum-sealed pillows that will soon grace the lenoška in Ivanečka’s activity-room. Not much else suited our fancy besides a župan she wanted to purchase for me for my birthday. However, it wasn’t quite perfect, so it did not end up among our possessions upon exiting its shop.

As we walked, vacuum-sealed pillows in hand, we grew hungry. Our need was satiated at an asian place, vaguely vietnamese. Ivanečka had a Buddha bowl and an immensely strong ginger tea whilst I settled for a udon chicken stir fry and a mango lassi. The latter was enjoyable to slurp down, but I shall not have anything of its ilk for a quite a while, as the sugar content was high. Janek soon afterwards informed me that he would not be coming to the gig, as he was not guaranteed a seat. It was unfortunate, but at least he came by the hotel and its neighborhood this morning so we could spend a bit of time together.

We walked the entire way from Hotel Schöneberg to Zig Zag Jazz Club, past a yawning U-Bahn station that threatened to swallow us up were we to drift to close to its event horizon. We successfully skirted it. The line of people at Zig Zag was short, though the man checking entrance passes, otherwise known as tickets, was extremely chatty with each of the club’s clientele, making for a slow moving queue. When finally it was our turn, he also began a conversation with us. Ich spreche kein Deutsch, I mumbled, and he cut short whatever he was going on about and let us pass rather more quickly. Once just across the threshold of Zig Zag, we once again had to wait to be seated, and we more or less quickly were on a more or less comfy sofa with a lateral view of the stage to our left.

A waitress moved among the crowd asking for orders. I requsted a Carlsberg Pilsner, which I liked more than the “original” Pilsner Urquell - it reminded me more of a slightly sweeter Radegast (desítka). Sometime later, Ivanečka requested a non-sparkling (her preference) water. We paid nothing at the time. This surprised both of us.

The Pete Roth Trio began playing at 20.31 - one minute after their allotted time. Being that Bill Bruford is in the band, the punctuality wasn’t that surprising. I muse to myself that this is the last of a trilogy of performances I’ve seen of Bill Bruford in my life. I may be wrong, but his age and logistics of travel (mine and his) may not allow me to see him perform again.

The first time was in Austin. That was the Thrak tour with King Crimson. I saw the concert with Loyal, Craig and a few other people. Loyal and I actually met Bill Bruford after the show in the alleyway behind the theatre. Tony Levin and Adrian Belew, as well. They all signed the cover of my Thrak cd. I’m not sure I still have it.

The second time was ProjeKct One’s improvisational madness at the Jazz Café (I think that is or was the name of the place) in London. That was 1999.

The third time was on my 56th birthday.

I enjoyed the show immensely, as I figured I would. The highlight for me was a highly Crimsonoid piece they did about midway through the set that turned out to be from BLUE (Bruford Levin Upper Extremeties). The three players seemed to be enjoying themselves and had lots of visual communication throughout. Their playing itself was immaculate, crimsonoid or not. Pete Roth chatted with the audience many times in both English and German, giving me the impression that he’s a pleasant fellow. Ivanečka also enjoyed the show but made the comment that she enjoys Jazz with saxophone more. Or, rather, that she missed the saxophone. It certainly would be interesting to hear a saxophone in the context of the music we heard last night. There was room for it. Though parts of the compositions were dense with both energy and counterpoint, there were many moments of peace, ambience and space.

We walked home, holding hands, pausing occasionally to hold each other. We were exhausted from another day that was several weeks long. Several very pleasant weeks long.