Starball Storms Germany...Again
How to talk about Berlin?
It was super fast
(unlike the probable experience of reading this report, so the usual admonitions to scroll on by if you're not in the mood apply)
In the summer I had months and months to freak out and plan and make my neurotic little piles
Then we were there all together for nearly three weeks in three different cities in the middle of summer.
This time it was just me.
In the dead of winter
With only 7 days, including the travel days. So that meant 4.5 days while I was awake and not on a plane
The flight over ended up being fine, if not restful.
As we were taking off, I posted here about my seat mates being a kid on a loud iPad and what appeared to be a checked out mom. Oh and the kid was complaining of an upset stomach.
As it turned out the mom was not checked out and the kid turned down his iPad once we were in the air. They were both kind, chatty and friendly. I have a very high threshold for kids on planes as I’ve been the mom whose kid was either screaming, frisky or both. Both of my children had a habit of making a break for first class when they were crawling/toddlers.
And way back when G1 was a babe in arms and we were on a red eye to MN they had a stuffy nose. So, I gave them some Benadryl thinking it would help them breathe easier and maybe help them sleep.
Let me tell you, there may be worse times to find out your baby has a paradoxical reaction to diphenhydramine than at 2am at 30,000 feet, but I’m hard put to think of any.
That poor kid was out of their tiny mind, screaming nonstop. I couldn’t even get them to nurse. All I could do was walk up and down the aisle of the plane, singing, bouncing, shhhing, trying anything ANYTHING to get them to calm down.
It was futile. I think they may have started sleeping when we landed at 6am? I don’t know. I was pretty out of my own mind by then.
I’m sure there were folks who wanted me and the screaming baby tossed out a window, but they kept it to themselves. And when I was in the jetway, with G1 strapped to my chest while I tried to re-inflate the stroller, a kindly old woman came up to me, patted me on the back and said, “I saw you doing your best with that little one for the whole flight. You’re doing a great job”. I remember trying not to start blubbering while she was talking.
I’ll always be grateful to her and I vowed that day to pay it forward.
Compared that long night, this 10 year old in my row with his mom was a walk in the park. We talked about video games and I shared my rice cake and some of my snacks with him while talking about kids and family with his mom. The only problem was that I only got about 20 minutes of sleep.
Changed planes in Munich where the passport control lines were epic, the stationary stores in the concourse temping and the lunch was pretty good.
A short hop on a commuter plane and I was back in Berlin where, in a pleasant change from our luggage adventures this summer, my suitcase was the very first off the carousel!
Then it was into a cab and off to our hotel which had the advantage of being across the street from a nice grocery store.
Dan, his kid Rio, and John were already there. AJ arrived in the evening just as we were staggering towards dinner
Given the lack of sleep it’s not that insane that I asked for an “Adderall spritzer” instead of an Aperol Spritzer while I was waiting for the gang to join me at the adequate Vietnamese restaurant. Though the look on the waiter’s face as he translated my request into something actionable was memorable.
Side note: Germany has many fine qualities, but a robust culture of classic cocktails is not among them. You can get rum and coke, you can get some old chestnuts from the 80’s like Long Island Ice Tea and even Sex on the Beach (none of which have ever appealed to me) but if you ask for a martini, you are greeted with a perplexed look and handed a glass of vermouth. (Martini & Rossi is the primary vermouth brand found in German restaurants in my experience). The exception to this rule of undrinkable, or at least unadvisable cocktails is the Negroni.
And so it is that the ubiquitous Aperol Spritz and the occasionally obtainable Negroni are now, for me, the flavor of Germany. Go figure. End side note.
Day two, Sunday, was all about getting back up to speed. They gave us a room to work in off the main hall of the planetarium. So John and Dan ran the show, singing their hearts out while AJ, Rio and I tried frantically to recall dreams to put in the Constellabox so Conductor and Proxy would have some fuel for their rehearsal version of the night sky.
Anytime we left that little room and headed out into the hall for a break, it was great to see the place bustling with people, especially families with little kids. It brought me back to the many, MANY weekends spent with various combinations of our kids, our extra kids, Mj and Colin and various and sundry other kids wandering through the Museum of Flight, the Zoo and (birthplace of Starball) the Pacific Science Center.
Tim Florian Horn, the director of the planetarium runs a vibrant and busy place. He is one of the longer term fans of Starball, having seen it early in its inception. He loved it when he was at a planetarium in San Francisco and when he took over at the Zeiss, he promised AJ that we would come and do it there.
We performed in the dome this summer as part of a symposium on live performance in planetariums put together by one of the most active advocates for finding more ways to engage planetarium goers in the wonders to be found in that most singular of locations, Karrie Berglund. She is also one of the original Starball fans. She was working at the Pacific Science center when Starball was born all those years ago. It was exhilarating, but it was for attendees of that conference, not the public
So between them, AJ and Tim worked out this short gig for us in the first week of January.
We broke for lunch at a place I would practically live in if it existed in my neighborhood. Their whole deal is serving elaborate and succulent breakfasts ALL DAY. Rio had etherial, soufflé like pistachio pancakes with lots of fruit. I had a “Ceasar Salad Benedict” which consisted of perfectly poached eggs in a fluffy, flaky croissant over greens with a Caesar salad inspired hollandaise sauce. It was incredible.
Then back to the planetarium for more rehearsal. When we called it a night, there was a dusting of snow on the ground. Pretty magical.
Great sushi across the street from our hotel was dinner. We discovered that the restaurant was right next door to a magical looking “bookshop” that is in reality the location of an escape room that John and a bunch of the gang from this summer attended right before we left Berlin for Hamburg.
Monday was rehearsing in the morning, technical rehearsal in the dome in the afternoon and our first show in the evening.
The first week in January is a tough time to get folks to come out when they’re just back from their holiday vacation. But a few hardy souls turned up. I don’t know if it was the fact that we were performing in English or a natural reticence in the German population, but they were a little slow to warm up to the Conductor and Proxy. Or perhaps I should say they were not as vocal and exuberant as we’re accustomed to. But C and P worked their wiles and everyone ended up having a great time.
There seemed to be a lot more dread and anxiety in the dreams that got pulled from the box than I’ve seen in the US. But while our night sky contained fire, AI Robots, entrapment and talking animals in peril; it also contained a happy cookie that came to our rescue and an elevator that could move in all directions that helped save the day.
It turns out there was a guy from the equivalent of public radio there. He taped the show on his phone and used the audio in a terrific review. He said we were “galactically good!"
Here is a link to the review. It should pop up in English.
Simon Brauer
That helped bump up our numbers for the second night. The show went well.
This night sky included a heart rising in the East, an awkward swimmer missing their pants who was swimming all the way to San Francisco and a labyrinth full of ravens!
At the end of every show, as Conductor and Proxy thank the village for coming to the clearing and exhort us to continue sending our dreams up into the sky. They also assure us that “any dreams remaining in the Constellabox will be read aloud, keeping us alive as we journey to the next clearing”
And it’s true.
One of my favorite parts of working on this show with these people is that we keep this promise.
After every show.
On that night in Berlin, Tim took us out to dinner and we closed the place down, filling up on Mexican food, raising a glass to the Clearing and to Tim as we read dream after dream.
Not a bad way to end a night.
And then it was Wednesday.
AJ was off to London
John headed home to California.
Dan, Rio and I had the day off to wander and pack.
And wander I did. I think I walked about 5 miles all told. Enjoying the neighborhood and buying souvenirs for folks back home.
Dinner with Rio and Dan at the Japanese place and more packing.
Getting up stupidly early to get to he airport.
All three of us were on the same 9.5 hour flight from Berlin to Newark.
I had a 5 hour layover, Dan and Rio had an EIGHT hour layover.
We basically did a pub crawl, paying $17 for a plate of fries. And more than that for a salad and one last Aperol Spritz, while I watched Dan and Rio play a baroquely complicated card game that has been a part of their family for years.
They waved goodbye to me as I tumbled onto my 6 hour flight from Newark to Seattle.
Amazingly I got to nap a bit on that flight, which is why I didn’t need to be carried off on a stretcher.
Nick and the Gs were there to meet me and bring me home, so I could start the next day by getting stranded in the Target parking lot with a broken car and end that same day with our other car dying.
I almost forgot one of my favorite things that happened. Jürgen Reinow is the head of production at the Zeiss. He is a gentle giant and the person you want in your corner when there are a lot of cues to write in a short time. He was our tech this summer so he was familiar with the show and requested specially to be our tech for this run. He is wry, warm, funny, sweet and a little shy. If I had my way, he would travel with the show and run it every time.
Over Christmas, Nick bought me one of those festive necklaces that light up. Usually the charms are shaped like Christmas light bulbs or holly or something. But Nick found one where the charms were stars. I asked the Starboys if I should wear it in Germany and the answer was a resounding YES. So I brought it along and on the night of our first show, Jürgen admired it.
At this point I realized that I had merely been its currier to its true home and put it around Jügen’s neck. He was gobsmacked and kept asking if I was sure.
Oh, I’m sure alright.
He was delighted. He let me take these photos and gave me permission to post them. He wore it proudly the next night and I hope he gets lots of good use out of it.
#NeverPassUpTheChanceToMakeSomeonesDay
#StarballStormsGermanyAgain
#NeverPassUpAClearingWhenItPresentsItself
#FunToTravel
#NiceToBeHome