Upon Viewing Fire Walk With Me

Dear president of New Line Cinema,

I am writing to inform you of some errors in one of your films.

Recently, I finished my DVD boxed set of the ABC television series Twin Peaks. Upon hearing of the existence of a sequel film, I immediately set out to purchase it, for the last episode of the show left me rather unsettled. (I’m sure you hear this all time. I shan’t go into it.) But after obtaining and viewing your 1992 film Fire Walk With Me, I must say that I believe the copy of the film to be defective. I would like reimbursement and/or a proper version of the film, please.

So as to facilitate understanding of my problems, I have numbered my complaints.

One: While the film itself seems overlong, I believe certain scenes to have been omitted from my copy — namely, all the ones with Sheriff Truman, Josie, Audrey, Lucy, Andy, Hank, Norma and, to a lesser extent, Nadine. Surely, the scenes addressing these characters exist on some “correct” printing of the film, yes?

Two: Given the cliffhanger ending of the series finale, I assume there must exist at least an hour of additional footage explaining the events happening after Agent Cooper’s escape from the Black Lodge. My neighbor — Mrs. De Guzman, with whom I watched the series and film — says that she thinks this is not the case, but I say Mrs. De Guzman is crazy and not to be trusted. (For example, she attends a church that has a lady priest!) I maintain that no follow-up film to a series that left so much explained could have been released in theaters without addressing any of those lingering questions.

Three: I am convinced that my copy of Fire Walk With Me may have been a “joke” version, perhaps which you made for your personal friends to enjoy over drinks. I say this because that talented, young Lara Flynn Boyle — who I so loved as little Donna Hayward — didn’t reprise her role. In her scenes, that awful girl who ruined the first season of The West Wing was there, with her bird’s nest of a hairstyle and her vain attempt at a face. You can bet this obvious prank had me rolling on the floor, but I’m curious to know how the “real” version of these scenes played. (To be fair, Moira Kelly was passable in The Cutting Edge, which I consider to be a surrealist farce much in line with the Twin Peaks canon.) Mrs. De Guzman tells me that Lara Flynn Boyle actually opted not to reprise her role in Fire Walk With Me, but I believe this about as much as I believe Mrs. De Guzman’s claims that she worked on the set of popular mid-90s TV shows and still retains various executive producing credits today. (She really is crazy, you see.) I can imagine how your “joke” printing might have made it to the general market, because the DVD package looks just like the real deal must have. Whatever artist you hired to design it for your friends certainly did a top-notch job!

In closing, I must say “congratulations” on the authenticity of your phony Twin Peaks movie that clearly was never meant to be screened by actual viewers. I really am impressed with lengths some people will go to put one over on their friends. And you even got me, and we hardly know each other! (Though I wish we could know each other better, as I grow tired of that awful, deceitful Mrs. De Guzman.) But please, can you forward this to whoever at your company can send me the real version?

Many thanks,
Hollis Birkhead

P.S. “LET’S ROCK!!!” (Ha!)

Funny Little Brazilian Frog

If you told me I was going to receive a frog-related email, I would have assumed it would be about the Scrotum Frog. Nope.

Hello,

I saw a post on your blog, “funny little frog,” and I was wondering if it means something, like an expression. I’m Brazilian, and I am asking this because of a Belle & Sebastian song called “Funny Little Frog.” I'm trying to figure what it means.

Thanks,

Sérgio from Brazil

I love that this blog allows people to send me these kinds of emails, scrotum-related or not. I told my new friend Sérgio that the Bell & Sebastian song mentioned in this post title doesn’t refer to any English idiom that I know if, aside from our cute tendency to refer to gurgly phlegm as “a frog in the throat.” It doesn’t mean anything else, does it?

Frogs, previously:

• The Toad That Was Not a Rock
• A Frog in the Salad Bag
• Displeased Frog
• The Frog I Met in Australia
• Long Live the Frog King

More Deadlier Than the Mail

I received a letter at work. This letter had undergone two experiences that most don’t: being partially destroyed, possibly through the intervention of an angry dog or toddler, and then being encased in a plastic sleeve.

The evidence:

The back of the evidence:

I don’t know what amuses me more: the decision to protect the letters that have already been partially torn open, the giant block letters reading “WE CARE” at the top of the standard issue apology message, or the fact that it leaves a space for a postmaster signature that, at least in this case, remained blank.

The Return of Hollis Birkhead

Princess Hat for Monkey

Last week, I found an old email that I believe I sent to Kristen as advice on what she should wear to a tennis date. The email reads as follows:

you may have heard us restraining laughter outside your window last night. this happened because spencer and i thought it would be funny to tell you that since you will be playing tennis at a resort, you should dress in formal tennis attire. you know: white sweater, white skirt and such. this quickly escalated into the following list:

• old fashioned hoop skirt
• bonnet
• hobnail boots
• bloomers
• thong outside of bloomers
• gloves
• jangly bracelets
• Puritan punishment stocks
• ski mask
• goggles
• funny mustache disguise glasses
• princess hat
• Carmen Miranda hat with fruit
• monkey to play inside hat
• princess hat for monkey
• kneepads
• buckles, buckles, buckles!
• pilgrim hat for formal occasions
• lady in waiting
• lots of tule

keep in mind, this was funny to us at 2 a.m.

hope the weekend goes at least this well.

It made me laugh then, it makes me laugh now.

Orange Smile

Hannah leaves good thank-you notes, it turns out.

And then the back:

The Return of the Smersh

A letter I recently receieved, in response to this post.

Hi Drew,

I was Googling "Tempus Fugit" and was astonished to see that David Martin had actually contacted you almost exactly a year ago about the song by the Notorious Head of Smersh, and your blog entry on it.

My name is James, I am the drummer he speaks of in his message to you. I had simply done a Google search on the Smersh a while back and found your blog entry, told David on myspace, and I guess he emailed you. I thought you might be interested to know a couple of fun facts about the Smersh, since David has always been a man of few words, and you seem to have a slight interest in the band.

Yes, you are correct that the name is taken from James Bond.

• Tempus Fugit was written around 1997 and recorded in David's living room on a 4-track. We recorded 9 tracks in total, and called our first CD "No Strings" because David was always breaking his.
• Until I Googled the song title, I had no idea what Tempus Fugit actually meant. I was the drummer, I didn't need to know. :)
• The singer (and bass player), David's brother Jonathan, hated singing, and we would have to leave the room when he recorded his vocals because he wouldn't sing if there was anyone else in the room.
• We played two shows in our time together in the Smersh, both battle of the bands competitions. We didn't win either, although one of the times (I think the second one) we played our 8 minute opus Loud Bit, Quiet Bit, and most people left the room. Our third "show" no one attended.
• I moved to the States from England in 2000 and that was the end of the Smersh. I haven't seen the rest of the band since then, although I have contacted David on myspace.

I'd also like to echo David's sentiments in saying that I'm quite honored that you put our song on your blog. The Smersh was a good time for me when I was a teenager, and holds some incredibly fond memories. The idea that our music is still, 10 years later, floating around the internet, and that people are enjoying it, is quite astonishing. David and I joked recently that we should do a reunion tour, or at least a greatest hits. I still have all the mp3s so it's possible. :)

You have made an old ex-drummer very happy. It all seemed worth while now :) Thanks again!

I think I'm working my way to a complete set.

Dangle

A letter I got today:

Hey Drew,

I was just doing a Google search to see if we had gotten any new press mentions and ran across your blog. So I just wanted to say thanks for downloading our song "Dangle" and for posting about it. Much appreciated. Unlike a lot of other bands that have appeared on the show, we're a totally DIY, self-promoted, indie-as-indie-can-be band, so it's gratifying to know that our stuff is reaching people whose arms we haven't personally twisted.

If you're on MySpace, shoot us a friend request: http://www.myspace.com/thedaylighttitans.

Peace,

Andy Smith

The Daylight Titans

Woo hoo!

Please Be There

Hey.

Upon being asked the very relevant question "What have you been doing, anyway?", I realize that I've been remiss in saying exactly how my time down under has been spent. Besides KrisDina, the Moleskine and some chatty waiters and waitresses, no one but me can say whether I've actually been spending this vacation well or merely sitting in the Auckland airport, thumbing through travel pamphlets of places I'd like to go but won't on account of this country being all crazy and backwards and funny shaped and who really needs two islands, anyway? In that light, I thought I'd share.

I guess I've been just a little reluctant to do so when the occasional internet kiosk affords me the opportunity because I feel guilty. You're there and I'm here and I didn't want to rub your nose in it. But I care and since I did leave, I thought you should know that I did so with good reason: to take advantage of the opportunity to see a new place and see it well.

(And, please, note that I'm doing this writing in none-too-cheap internet time. So while I will spare no detail, you must afford me the opportunity to lapse into stream of consciousness ramblings, commas and homonyms be damned. Also, the constraints of this computer have forced me to change my writing style slightly. For example, I cannot figure out how to type an em dash, and only you could fully understand how much that it presently killing me.)

Days zero through three: The Land of Auck

Despite a little research, I actually have no idea what the "auck" in "Auckland" means. It's an odd little syllable, and, in a way, Auckland is an odd little town. It's not the capital of New Zealand, though I think most people would bet that it is. And though it's a fairly large sprawl, complete with the skyscrapers and ethnicity-centered suburbs you'd expect from a large town, you can drive too far in the wrong direction a bit and suddenly find yourself in rural territory with sheep and cows and rhubarb and the like. In any case, the day after day zero -- the one I spent on One Tree Hill getting the full Auckland panorama, KrisDina and I went searching for this little breakfast spot her boss recommended. Trouble: the Atomic Cafe no longer exists. In its place was a still fully good restaurant called One 2 One, which served fejoia smoothies the likes of which I've never encountered. We walked up K Street, a central thoroughfare, past this weird shopping arcade that seemed entirely devoted to hipsterware. Had Brenna seen it, she would have had a happy little seizure, for sure.

We caught a ferry to Devonport, the part of Auckland that lies on the other side of the bay, and walked around in its suffocating quaintness and then hiked up Mount Victoria, which boasts a cannon that the Kiwi government installed to fight off the oncoming Communist Russian army, which never came. Odd place. A little man like a hobbit came by and showed us into an old bunker, which the Aucklanders have turned into the meeting place for the local bluegrass music players association. Like I said, odd. It rained like it hasn't done again until today, actually, and we decided that the safe, dry option for the night was to catch a movie.

The next morning, our Larry took us to Cousin Francie's strawberry farm, which sounds like the hokiest thing since taking your scoliosis-suffering cousin to a barn dance, I know, but was actually quite nice. I met a cousin of whom I had previously only seen photographs. Francie also let us pick as many strawberries as we felt like, which was enjoyable in that city kids-doing-farm-work-as-a-novelty, Marie Antoinette-playing-peasant kind of way. The we caught a bus to this tourist trap called Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater Experience, where we gawked at penguins and sting rays the size of a Mormon family dinner table. Then we saw Auckland's harbor district, which is called the Viaduct Basin for reasons I do not understand. We wanted to go be all looky, but we ended up having one of those monumental ice breaker dinners, where everyone tells personal stories and becomes best friends. We ate mussels, but the things had little crabs buried inside their shells. Later, someone explained that the crabs were being digested by the mussels, which would account for the little guys' soft shells and blanched coloring. (We did not eat the crabs.) Funny thing about dining out in a country where tipping is not customary: the waitresses think nothing of letting you wait forty-five minutes for your bill.

It being dark enough at that point, we hiked over to the Sky Tower, Auckland's fairly new iconic structure, which lights up in neon green and purple at night. Picture the Space Needle as designed by a ten-year-old with a Buzz Lightyear complex and you get the idea. The deck has glass floors, which allow you to see the city your hovering over. We took lots of pictures. The snooty French hostess rejected us from the revolving restaurant at the top, so we had to settle for drinks at the cafe just below. There, we discovered L&P, a New Zealand-only soda that tastes like a deeper, more mellow lemonade.

Days four through six: Rotorua, the geothermal city

After Avis rejected us, we turned to the only car that Budget could offer us: a lemon yellow Volkswagen Polo. An ominous color, I know. The car's lameness was compounded by the fact that it essentially looked like a rolling Easter egg. The drive to Rotorua included a stop in Tirau, which bills itself as the corrugated metal capital of New Zealand. This lofty title is evidenced by several corrugated metal statues -- a sheep dog, a sheep, a shepherd and then a praying mantis, I presume to break up the monotony -- though I couldn't help but look at them and think of Ruffles potato chips.

The first morning in Rotorua, we went to a hillside reputed as a prime site for zorbing, that ridiculous extreme sport where you roll around in a big plastic ball. It was actually quite fun and well worth the $45 it cost -- kind of like falling, but roughly twice as pleasant. After that, we went down the street to the Agro-Dome. I remembered liking this place from when I saw it as a kid, but KrisDIna didn't seem all that stoked on seeing what essentially amounted to a sheep show. They quickly realized the error of their ways. I don't know how they do it, but they make sheep-rearing seem flashy and fun. A negative: the sheep do not stack up into a pyramid cheerleader-style like I remembered. Turns out they merely line up on a pyramidal stage. A positive: the sheepdogs they have do run up and down the sheeps' backs in an entertaining fashion.

We also went to a place called Kiwi Encounter. I finally got an up-close look at a real-life kiwi bird. They're bigger than I remember, but still essentially a potato with feet and a long beak. The people there help breed the kiwi bird and then release them into the wild, so we even got to see a one-day-old kiwi hatchling. Fun fact: the egg grows inside a female kiwi bird until it's roughly half her size, rendering her immobile, vulnerable and in a great deal of discomfort. I also found out that my beloved cassowary, relative of the kiwi bird, is native to Australia and now I want to see one, ride it, steal it, take it back to California and name it Charlie.

That night we went to a hangi, the Maori version of what is called a luau in Hawaii. The whole deal had this air of inauthenticity, however, since it was held in a hotel. The food was good, especially the kumara, which are tubers that taste like sweet potatoes should. However, I felt oddly guilty during the cultural performance afterward. Like the Native Americans, the Maori kind of got a raw deal. And they totally have the right to pedal their culture to tourists as much as anybody else, but I felt like they kind of sold our to these busloads of Canadian and Korean senior tour groups kind of in the same way that I feel like Chumash sold out every time I see their name affixed before the word "casino." The performance included a love ballad duet that told the story of a Maori youth and maiden you fell in love despite being from opposing tribes and thusly sang to each other from the opposite shores of a lake that separated them. But although the male lead was played by a suitable Maori man, the female part was played by a menopausal-looking woman who could have easily been his mother. I got kind of sad when I characteristically overthought the situation and guessed that this particular troop couldn't find a young Maori lass talented or interested enough to play the part.

We woke up the next morning and set out for Hell's Gate, a geothermal spa that had a good, proper Maori name until George Bernard Shaw visited and noted that the place looked too much like the afterlife his atheist soul was doomed for to be called anything else. The sparse foliage and bubbling gray mud has this allure that I guess I have to attribute to its otherwordliness, for lack of anything else. The best part was the mud bath and sulphur spa we took after. Supposedly the stuff has medicinal properties. I think it gave me blackheads. Fun and dirty, all the same.

Too late in the day, we found, we set off for Lake Taupo and then Napier, the city known for its art deco architecture. So well known, in fact, that they nearly didn't have any room for us. We chanced upon a hostel with a vacancy just before we would have had to push south to Waipukurau, luckily. Our first tase of down under nightlife. Bar music doesn't suck here, it turns out.

Days six through nine: Waipuk, where everyone's a Mackie

Funny how everyone in my dad's hometown looks like him: my dad fatter, my dad taller, my dad wrinklier, my dad balder, my dad as a lady. This whole stay was exactly what you'd expect from any occasion in which a relative from out of the country comes to visit. We pinballed from one relative to the next, for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, tea. All very nice. I got to see my grandmother, whom I hadn't seen in eight years. Everyone prepared me for her not remembering me -- she's in a home now -- but she did and I was very happy. Oh, also we got to ride four-wheelers around a sheep farm and eat lots of red meat.

Days ten through twelve: The aptly named Christchurch

We flew from Napier to Christchurch on the south island. This city has more houses of worship than I could count, and all of them looked a few centuries older than they possibly could have been. We stayed right near the central Anglican cathedral, however. We also overslept and only had time the next day to go see the city's art museum, which had lots of contemporary stuff I really liked, though the names of the featured artists all escape me now. That night, we ate at my cousin Hamish's. I don't remember meeting him, though we apparently did the last time my family came through Christchurch. It's so odd to see cousins not too much older than me living in the suburbs with a wife and kids old enough to have some concept of what "the cousin from America" means. They named their daughter Skyla, after the Minnie Driver character in "Good Will Hunting," so there's still a flair for pop culture-addled youth in them. He took us up to an overlooked called "Sign of the Kiwi" -- and yes, there actually is a wooden sign with a kiwi bird on it -- and the city looked nice from all the way up there.

Day fourteen through two days ago:

We picked up our second rental car, a tan Nissan Pulsar. There is not sadder phrase in English than "tan Nissan Pulsar." It was cheap, though, which was good since a rock cracked the windshield of the Polo and we had to pay through the nose. Kristen claimed to have actually compiled a list of the Pulsar's pros and cons, and the cons truly win. Worst of the worst: no functional tape deck or CD player.

In our shit-colored car of shittiness, we drove all the way down to Queenstown, which took nearly all day. Pretty country though, and finally stuff that doesn't look anything like countryside in California. Queenstown is this awesomely quaint little ski town and adventure sport mecca. We stayed at a hotel named for the owner's cat, which blew, then spent the next day testing our propensity for extreme intensity by taking a gondola to the city's overlook. It's quite beautiful. As with the rest of the glacier-scarred south island, sediment in the lakes makes the water a pretty teal color. Also, Queenstown is framed on nearly all sides by mountains, the most craggy of which are one of the only ranges in the southern hemisphere to run from magnetic north to magnetic south. Their name: the Remarkables, which sounds like a Motown group, I think.

Easily the best day we've had in the whole trip was the second one spent in Queenstown. We went over to Shotover Canyon, where we rode a jet boat through this seemingly dangerous rocky stretch. The drivers get off on making the boats veer as close as possible to jutty rocks and then pulling 360-degree spins. Quite fun and not as soaking as you'd expect. We did this when my family came through eight years ago.

Then we bungy jumped. At the place where the sport was invented, no less, a bridge with a long Maori name that commonly gets abbreviated to "K Bridge."

I'm not sure, but I think the drop is 43 meters, though that measure doesn't really capture how steep it feels when you're standing on the ledge. The girls went first, since they weigh less, and I had to stand up there alone, save for the bungy nuts who work there. The think about bungy jumping that's really scary, however, is that the harness isn't as comprehensive as you'd think. It's really just a few scraps of fabric cobbled together. Part of it is just an ordinary bath towel. And yet somehow this thing is supposed to prevent you from falling to your death.

So I'm standing there, listening to "Dyer Maker" play with its "Oh oh oh oh oh oh / You don't have to go-o" and when the guy finally counts down from five, I just stand there dumbly. So he tells me to look straight forward and then he counts again. And I step forward and as I start to fall, I see that there's this random sheep on the hillside opposite the bridge where I'm jumping. And it's nowhere near a grazing area and I my mind fixates on this sheep and the last thing I can remember thinking is "Oh look! a sheep!" And I've been in New Zealand for more than two weeks and I've seen more sheep than I've seen people and I'm bungy jumping for the first time and all I can think to say is "Oh look! a sheep!" And then I'm hanging upside-down at the bottom. I couldn't tell you what the fall was like. I think I blacked out.

That night, sore and dazed, we went to the Minus 5 bar, where everything is made of ice and you can only stay for a half-hour. They give you gloves, since the glasses are also made of ice. Things get blurry.

Whatever day I'm on now:

So here I am in Hokitika. I guess I won't see the glowworm dell, though writing this letter to you has been more fulfilling than that would have been, I think. The past two days have consisted of a lot of being in the car, driving though this lush scenery that looks like the backgrounds from Donkey Kong Country, though I don't think that will mean much. It's nice. Rain forest imposed on glacier country, with quaintness abounding. Franz Joseph Village was cold and the view of the glacier was obscured by this kind of low-lying cloud that hugs around mountain midsections and looks like moustaches. We're flying from Christchurch to Sydney on Wednesday, and it's hard to believe I'll be seeing a whole other country before I'll see you again. I hope, if nothing else, this letter proves that I've seen a lot and been making good use of my time.

Write back. Tell me what you've been up to. Go into great detail. I care more than you know.

And, now that I think about it, don't be surprised if I take up your post-as-open letter trend and put this on the Cereal Box. I don't think I can bare to trudge through all this again, at least not on a keyboard.

All my love,
Drew

Saint Couchette

sooner than scheduled and then we didn't go see the sistine chapel because we decided they wouldn't have us and besides i felt too dirty and tired and sore (and not in the good way) and charlie and i went straight for the train station to meet up with kristen and agnes in barcelona which meant a long train ride only i didn't mind and i wrote (transcribed directly from the blank back page of Charlie's copy of William Lycon's The Philosophy of Language) 

I decided Rome is a lot like a bunch of hyperactive children with no concept of foresight or planning who nonetheless build their own city... on the sun. As beautiful and grand as I found Rome, I've got no idea how these lunatics got more than two thousand years of history under their belts. Aeneas would not be proud. During the ride from Rome to Genoa we passed a waterslide park. I contemplated saying "Fuck Agnes and Kristen and the good nation of Spain" and spending the remainder of my vacation as a slide guinea pig. Neither Charlie nor I have a clock and we are not far enough on this trip to worry about time yet — Pisa stands between us and Genoa yet. It's like timeless like a rolling casino... on the sun. By the heat I know it’s day but no real time... The woman sitting next to me appeared to be reading some script for an Italian TV show. She was making marks here and there, so I suppose she might be somebody important. Evidence that, rather, she was crazy, like many people I have ridden public transportation beside: she had stuffed the script, a low-quality photocopy, in a Popo Gigio notebook with dozens of other papers. She did not speak a lick of English and neither did the script (I peeked). I'd like to think it was a family-oriented one-hour police drama about a recovering alcoholic cop divorcé who marries his partner, a sexy teenage witch superhero who hears prophetic messages from her talking log, then raises an eclectic assortment of international ghost children (one of whom struggles with his or her sexuality) and together they all form a rock band that travels the country, uncovering arcane governmental conspiracies regarding the existence of stop motion-animated aliens. Oh, and they have a dog named Tiger. (and a second passage) Everything was different after I left my shoes at the Hotel Stromboli. I did it on purpose, of course. These shoes I've had for more than a year and I still liked them, but foot odor demons possessed them long ago. Plus they had holes in their soles. Perhaps that's how the demons got in there in the first place. Their heaviness outweighed their usefulness. On a similar note, I decided against returning to the Sistine Chapel this morning. I opted to get to Genoa earlier and Charlie didn’t fight it. I'll probably regret this decision later, just like the shoes, which really weren't in such bad condition, now that I think about it. Maybe it’s the way my stomach flipped when I saw the Vatican — stunning, beautiful, damn close to perfect, but it made me feel sad. All that money donated over the years by hardworking Catholics over the years built a palace of marble and gold fancy enough to trap God inside. Glorious and gluttonous, it’s everything that’s right and wrong with Catholicism, my religion, stamped in my brain forever. And the maid at the Stromboli probably just threw my shoes away. Next stop: Livorno. How many to Genoa? Nice? Barcelona? London? Hollister? I’m wearing a t-shirt advertising a Joy Division album I'm not sure I've heard. As beaches blur by in my window, Italians cluster against the water like mussels on a rock, sleek and shiny. I wonder what Justin is doing. How do you say goodbye to an answering machine? 

 i think i thought nice was nice, even if i only saw the nice outside the train station and i think nice is where lucy is from and i thought about how great lucy is and how she's only in san luis now and i could go say hi some day if i only had here number but the train didn't board until way late at night and our car was full of backpackers desperate to get to barcelona and i swear the french punished us by not starting the air conditioning until way late and we were wet with sweat and thirsty and hungry from not eating all day but it did eventually pull out of the station and charlie and i shared our car with all these girls from california including this one named ashley who i found attractive in a rose mcgowan way and she went to the same high school in lafayette as shannon and we saw valeria again and i thought maybe valeria boded well for the rest of the journey since i felt so bad about stranding her back in interlaken and these horrible frenchwomen with sour faces like vinegar got in our car too and gave ashley and i dirty looks for talking and i don't think charlie liked ashley all that much but we had to leave anyway because we were in someone else's seats but charlie found an open, empty couchette and we crashed there and Ah, the couchette. I think I have never have felt such a wonderful embrace as that of the leather bench-bed of that vacant couchette car. I only gained three hours sleep, but the alternative was total zombie status in Barcelona. If I ever become fantastically wealthy and build my dream mansion, I will include a couchette room, in which the couchette experience will be perfectly simulated, rocking and creaking and flashing lights passing through the edges of the window drapes and everything. No sweeter word exists in the French language before "couchette." Saint Couchette, the patroness of the travel-weary. the ride through the spanish countryside to barcelona made me feel homesick because i thought it looked a lot like california, what with the golden hills and agriculture and all and even the people speaking spanish made me wish the train could have just kept going across the atlantic and all the way home only it didn't because that would be silly and instead it took us to the barcelona train station where we saw valeria a third time and i'm totally convinced that little ecuadorian woman is an angel because she serendipitously stopped us directly in front of the internet station where we could check our mail only the news wasn't as good as i had hoped Excerpts from Kristen's bad news epistles, the first of which bore the subject "Big Problem":

ag and i just got to barcelona and the journey went fine, just took a while. on the metro on our way to go find a hostel, ag's money belt was stolen out of her little backpack. no cash was in it but both her passports, her american green card, her student visa for paris, her expired ATM, her eurail pass, and her social security card were in there. we went to the police station and reported it and it seems that she might need to go to paris ASAP because there is an actual canadian embassy there and here... i saw two guys get on, one had an accordion and the other stepped between me and ag. while one was playing the accordion to distract us apparently, the other unzipped ags little back pack that she was holding in front of her and pulled the money belt out we think. ag also saw a third guy that was making eye contact with the other two that may have been involved. ag noticed it was unzipped a little when we got off and the metro was just leaving. if you want to meet us in barcelona or paris, we'll work it out when we find out info from the embassy. but if you don't want to wait to find out or travel that far, thats ok too. i'll be emailing you asap about the next results.

mostly at charlie's urging, he and i went to paris, but not before i cursed both agnes for allowing some swarthy accordion man charm her into dancing away all her valuable documents and the six or so hours we hung out in barcelona, which passed like a kidney stone, although we did meet this cute viennese girl named mary/marie who knew more about swedish rock and david lynch than hot girls usually do and she reminded me of someone i can't quite place in my mind and she said i reminded her of thom yorke (which i kind of have trouble taking as a compliment) and also the lead singer of coldplay (which i guess i take as slightly more of a compliment) and we stayed with her until she went her own way and left us with the stereotype of the american nuclear family where the dad was in the navy and i suspect didn't like me and the mom was a dead ringer for peggy hill from king of the hill and they told us some stories about how they used to be wild before the wed and bred but i suspect their wild was on the wild side of mild I arrived in Paris after two straight days of travailing travel and I arrived in Paris after two straight days of travailing travel and instantly wanted to escape to home by moving my flight up a few days. Upon the advice of the A, C, and K or D.A.C.K., however, I took a hot shower, brushed my teeth, exchanged the brown pants and Joy Division shirt I had been wearing for the last two days and allowed myself time to reconsider. One afternoon on the streets of Paris and I submitted to the city's allure. And now here I write. As it should be, nine days.

Meg Ryan Breaks the Fourth Wall

Roman holiday.

I’m glad Rome is hot. That’s how I imagined it, reeking of baked asphalt. The sun is presently baking all of Europe, in fact, but it looks like I might not suffer in the Spanish heat, as the train from Milan to Barcelona is booked through August 16. Beyond that, me and Charles-in-Charge split from the girls temporarily so they could go see Barcelona early. No we have to negotiate new plans from opposite ends of Italy.

And now, in true Faulknerian style, a host of surprise guest narrators. First, a note from mom reminding me that, yes, it really is as hot as I think and, yes, Jim Vanderszwann has not also died in my absence:

Hello again Drew,

Just want to let you know that your tube with the posters has arrived and is waiting for you in your room. If you mailed the box with the clothes at the same time I guess it will be not far behind. I was listening to the news tonight and Jim Vanderszwann said it has been unusually hot in Europe this summer. Even London has been hot . . . so hot that they shut down the Millennium wheel because it was too hot inside the capsule that people were getting sick...like being in a giant terrarium for a whole hour! I am supposing you got a chance to go on the Wheel? Anyway, keep us up to date on your travels, have fun, stay safe. Love you, MOM

And that's not all:

Drew--

Okay, so I got my pictures back from London already, and — oh, man — there are some real winners of you. It's great, you amuse me even a zillion miles away. Let me know how your travels go and where they take you. I'm really jealous. Bastard. Lafayette is super boring; I can't wait to start work. Good to hear from you. . .

*Shannon

p.s. "I hope they don't procreate in there" -- Colin, in frustration about the noise level of our fellow students.

An email hilariously sent to me by Kristen — the same Kristen with whom I am travelling — updating me as to what I have done on my vacation:

hey y'all,

Leaving Interlaken today for florence. it was amazing. we got advice about a cool hike to take in the alps in this town called grindelwald or something and it was even prettier than interlaken. drew likened it to a model train town and it was so true, it was the most picturesque perfect little swiss town. and we hiked up to this glacier and it was way way pretty. and in switzerland, they're really into kids and novelty, i have decided. they're just everywhere. on the mountain we hiked, there were these toboggan rides for 4 francs. everybody comes to interlaken for the extreme sports like hang gliding and bungee jumping but those are expensive! so we took the little toboggans instead and it was awesome. the whole town is pretty expensive so the first night, we ended up eating at hooters because it was the cheapest place in town. hooters. hope you all are having a great summer.

love,
kristen

Good to know I'm having such a great time. But Kristen's right about what i said about the model train-like appearance of Switzerland. The whole countryside has, to steal the coinage of Agnes, a "manicuredness" to it that it is nearly too perfect. Italy, with its cracked sidewalks, and overgrown, weedy gardens seems more realistic.

And finally, an email titled "I am addicted" from a newly reintroduced character:

Your "online journal" is like a bad reality show. I just can't stop reading it. You have changed so much, but it's still you. Maybe it's just that I haven't seen you for so long, it's kinda like getting back to old time. Either way, I don't what I'll do once you stop writing.

- Meg

Meg Ryan goes through the fourth wall. I like guest narrators. Fifteen days.

T

Letter of the week: "T." If Mrs. Dalloway has taught me nothing else, Fortnum and Mason are gods among men, and my homeland should promptly adopt the sugar-coated extra meal known as "tea." Nine cups without a psychotic episode: the Royal Blend.

No longer shooting merely myself in the foot without any foresight, I'm kicking the Koopa shell without heed of what unseen, reflective blocks and pipes await it in the screens beyond.

A doubly perplexing email from Jill:

Hey - I just found out there is a gay bar in the Castro call the "Twin Peaks Tavern." No info yet whether or not it is based on the show.

Jill