Public Humiliation, 8/27/08

This Wednesday will mark my debut as an improv performer. With my classmates from ImprovAsylum, I will be bringing comedy to the bowels of Boston in an impromptu performance on the T. Although the particulars are yet to be determined, I believe we will enter the train, and have an announcer alert riders to the fact we will be doing a quick performance; I think some clarification would be needed, since a T ride can be quite theatrical without the presence of actors, and it might serve us well to explain to people that we're not crazy and they might be less inclined to tell us to pipe down so they can focus on their sudoku.

You may ask: is this *really* Katherine's blog? Could it be possible that Katherine will perform in public, in a potentially disruptive and humiliating way? To that, I can only answer: I think I can do it, but we'll see.

You may also ask: where and when will this performance be? That, gentle reader, I must withhold from you. Improv class has changed me, but not to the extent that I think I could perform such a silly thing in front of people I knew. However, if this is a smashing success, perhaps you will be invited to a future performance. ;)

In other news, I just had dinner with my brother, who is currently visiting from Germany. He's writing a book on an interesting WW2 battle, the battle of Breslau, and I can't help feeling an envy for his life -- spending his days interviewing survivors in Germany and Poland and pouring over books and documents in the library. It sounds like such a literary life, and I wanted to know all of the details: how much he writes every day; how he broaches painful topics and asks people to recall traumatic experiences; who translates for him, Polish to German, or to English? J is also finding distant relatives in Germany, and there is something delicious about that as well. I was worried when he first announced that he was quitting his job and moving to Germany, but I see things quite differently now, eight months into it; he is really living life to the fullest and doing remarkable things. I will be the manuscript's first editor, and I'm excited about that as well. Having worked in the arcane world of textbook publishing, there is unfortunately little I know about publishing trade books, and I wish I had more insights for him. I need to find friends of friends who were in trade at Houghton Mifflin.