Physics_Has_Its_Seedy_Side
---
So I am in Oslo.
I have no damn idea why I am in Oslo.
I know nothing except that I have this absurd habit of rolling into cities where I know no one, and praying that a witch's brew of good karma, fickle fate, and boyish charm will keep me from sleeping outside in-between a piss stain and a big burly man who has neither teeth nor a boyfriend.
I am, in other words, a reckless and penny-pinching idiot.
My tried-and-true tactic in these situations - honed on the streets of Minneapolis, so it should translate well to Scandinavia - is to ask strangers where I can find a cheap place to eat, or a cheap place to stay, or amazing things to do. The idea is to announce my upstanding yet hardscrabble ways, as evidence that I am not a freeloading punk. By and large, the only ones who fall for this...are freeloading punks.
My first few attempts provide me with the location of two things: hostels, and falafels. I am better off than I was before. I am also colder, because the sun is now racing toward the ground like a Blue Angels stunt gone bad.
There is a tattoo shop across the street. Brilliant, I think. Because nothing says 'hospitality' more than permanent scars and questionable hygiene. So in I go.
I will ignore the fact that the hours posted on the street-level door suggest this place was closed an hour ago. I will ignore the fact that these three people, now staring at me quizzically from around the autoclave, have no idea who the hell I am. I will ignore the fact that I am so tattoo-free, I might as well be a church friar at an orgy.
I am simply here, in a downtown tattoo shop, in Oslo, to ask total strangers about falafels.
This is obviously the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
---
The man who takes me under his wing - the man whose curiosity is peaked, the man whose English sounds like something cribbed from both the BBC and Hawaii 5-0 - is a generous man. Which must be why he offers to buy me dinner.
This is a fascinating man, I think. He is Greek, and I can't quite discern why he is even here in Norway. He doesn't speak Norwegian: he, in fact, considers all Scandinavian languages to be mongrels, tragedies, phonological mistakes. Born Greek, he learned as a child both ancient Greek and Latin - so by the grace of linguistic history, most every European language is now an open book to him. My little polyglot heart twitches with envy.
He is the heir to an Albanian logging company, he says: hence, why he can afford to buy me dinner, pulling a fresh handful of kroners from his billfold. He was, he tells me, a child prodigy: hailed in the Greek media as as the next Michelangelo. And would I like something to drink?
Orange juice, please. Tak. The Norwegian courtesy makes him twitch.
I am not as reckless as my trip-planning makes me appear. I know the dangers of strangers buying you drinks - I have worked in bars, and the air of spontaneous intimacy I am now enjoying did not go unsuspected. Being friendly is sometimes all the sad, sad green light that certain lonely men ever really need. A man in New York once tried to seduce me with Scrabble.
I have watched this man's hand all the way back the bar. His hand has remained firmly around the glass itself, with no awkward, down-facing grasp around the rim: the prime position for depositing an unannounced chemical gift from in-between your fingers. I settle onto the conclusion that the only man who could have squeezed a roofie into this citrus treat is a thousand miles away, and his name is David Blaine.
So I relax. And I've been so focused on his hands that I've lost the thread of the conversation. I hurry to catch up.
It appears this man is asking me about gangbangs.
Not just any gangbangs, mind you. Beautiful gangbangs. Evocative gangbangs. Gangbangs that will stir your very soul. Gangbangs...for the silver screen.
This film will change the world, he says. It will evoke in mankind such force of feeling that their entire weltanshaung will be changed forever. He has been working on this film for years: it is his driving ambition, his one true obsession. It is just this one part that frustrates him, and he would like my input.
How do you direct a gangbang scene...like electrons circling a nucleus?
So...it's a physics question.
And suddenly, we are back on comfortable ground.
I inform him of everything he needs to know. Valence shells. Nuclear force. Where are the protons in this equation of his? I dissuade him from any troublesome Newtonian mechanics he might be considering: if this is to be a film for a new millennium, he needs to think quantum!
He listens quietly, and nods in subtle appreciation. Occasionally, he asks for clarification: tell me more about this cat. And what is this, 'double-slit experiment'?
Our conversation is winding down, but it's been more productive than either of us we could have ever dreamed. On this sleepy Monday evening in Oslo, the groundwork has been laid for a monumental production. When all is said and done, everyone will know this man's name.
And then I slept on his couch.
So I am in Oslo.
I have no damn idea why I am in Oslo.
I know nothing except that I have this absurd habit of rolling into cities where I know no one, and praying that a witch's brew of good karma, fickle fate, and boyish charm will keep me from sleeping outside in-between a piss stain and a big burly man who has neither teeth nor a boyfriend.
I am, in other words, a reckless and penny-pinching idiot.
My tried-and-true tactic in these situations - honed on the streets of Minneapolis, so it should translate well to Scandinavia - is to ask strangers where I can find a cheap place to eat, or a cheap place to stay, or amazing things to do. The idea is to announce my upstanding yet hardscrabble ways, as evidence that I am not a freeloading punk. By and large, the only ones who fall for this...are freeloading punks.
My first few attempts provide me with the location of two things: hostels, and falafels. I am better off than I was before. I am also colder, because the sun is now racing toward the ground like a Blue Angels stunt gone bad.
There is a tattoo shop across the street. Brilliant, I think. Because nothing says 'hospitality' more than permanent scars and questionable hygiene. So in I go.
I will ignore the fact that the hours posted on the street-level door suggest this place was closed an hour ago. I will ignore the fact that these three people, now staring at me quizzically from around the autoclave, have no idea who the hell I am. I will ignore the fact that I am so tattoo-free, I might as well be a church friar at an orgy.
I am simply here, in a downtown tattoo shop, in Oslo, to ask total strangers about falafels.
This is obviously the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
---
The man who takes me under his wing - the man whose curiosity is peaked, the man whose English sounds like something cribbed from both the BBC and Hawaii 5-0 - is a generous man. Which must be why he offers to buy me dinner.
This is a fascinating man, I think. He is Greek, and I can't quite discern why he is even here in Norway. He doesn't speak Norwegian: he, in fact, considers all Scandinavian languages to be mongrels, tragedies, phonological mistakes. Born Greek, he learned as a child both ancient Greek and Latin - so by the grace of linguistic history, most every European language is now an open book to him. My little polyglot heart twitches with envy.
He is the heir to an Albanian logging company, he says: hence, why he can afford to buy me dinner, pulling a fresh handful of kroners from his billfold. He was, he tells me, a child prodigy: hailed in the Greek media as as the next Michelangelo. And would I like something to drink?
Orange juice, please. Tak. The Norwegian courtesy makes him twitch.
I am not as reckless as my trip-planning makes me appear. I know the dangers of strangers buying you drinks - I have worked in bars, and the air of spontaneous intimacy I am now enjoying did not go unsuspected. Being friendly is sometimes all the sad, sad green light that certain lonely men ever really need. A man in New York once tried to seduce me with Scrabble.
I have watched this man's hand all the way back the bar. His hand has remained firmly around the glass itself, with no awkward, down-facing grasp around the rim: the prime position for depositing an unannounced chemical gift from in-between your fingers. I settle onto the conclusion that the only man who could have squeezed a roofie into this citrus treat is a thousand miles away, and his name is David Blaine.
So I relax. And I've been so focused on his hands that I've lost the thread of the conversation. I hurry to catch up.
It appears this man is asking me about gangbangs.
Not just any gangbangs, mind you. Beautiful gangbangs. Evocative gangbangs. Gangbangs that will stir your very soul. Gangbangs...for the silver screen.
This film will change the world, he says. It will evoke in mankind such force of feeling that their entire weltanshaung will be changed forever. He has been working on this film for years: it is his driving ambition, his one true obsession. It is just this one part that frustrates him, and he would like my input.
How do you direct a gangbang scene...like electrons circling a nucleus?
So...it's a physics question.
And suddenly, we are back on comfortable ground.
I inform him of everything he needs to know. Valence shells. Nuclear force. Where are the protons in this equation of his? I dissuade him from any troublesome Newtonian mechanics he might be considering: if this is to be a film for a new millennium, he needs to think quantum!
He listens quietly, and nods in subtle appreciation. Occasionally, he asks for clarification: tell me more about this cat. And what is this, 'double-slit experiment'?
Our conversation is winding down, but it's been more productive than either of us we could have ever dreamed. On this sleepy Monday evening in Oslo, the groundwork has been laid for a monumental production. When all is said and done, everyone will know this man's name.
And then I slept on his couch.