Elizaveta Ephemeris

madness and miniature robots

We are running around, quite frantically, and getting ready to shoot a music video for Dreamer next week. Oh la la! Later this afternoon, we are headed to the Universal Costume department at the Universal Studios. I am excited like a little kid. Will be taking lots of guerilla photos. We are also done with our Lollapalooza E-Chronicles, to be posted shortly - very analog-meets-digital! I love the final result.

A very talented woman is directing and shooting the video for Dreamer and her name is Sarah Renard. Her website http://www.sarahrenard.com/

She is a very tall, striking and skinny Swedish girl. My designer/friend Missy is also on the thin side, and I am the Russian version of skinny. So now there are three skinny, stressed out and determined artistic women running around Los Angeles, getting ready to pull a rabbit out of a very small hat (read: perform a magic trick).

By the way - what is going on? Earthquakes, hurricanes... my car overheated yesterday on the way back from the Blue Microphones headquarters, where I did a podcast+ live performance + some random chatting on various topics. Tyler Barth, who is Da Man there is the quintessential California Dreamy ideal male. He also has this perfect speaking voice - he must have had some acting training. He must have also surfed, gone out with models and tried yoga at some point. Or maybe I am completely off course here. Either way, I had a lovely time, and hopefully my acoustic performances - of Odi et Amo and Snow in Venice were up to par. And now, courtesy Blue Mics, I am starting my first ever official microphone collection:

 

For now, also, here is a performance of Meant, filmed at the Nokia Theater, to be part of a PBS special in weeks to come.

 

 

Maps

Do you ever wake up and for a moment feel disoriented? But not in a manner such as: where the hell am I? And who is this next to me? Although, perhaps, that applies, as well.

I mean, feeling like you don't know who you really are. Knowing who you have become, through circumstance or sheer power of will, but not who you really are.

The way I see it is we all have our internal maps of the "innerverse" we are born with, and when we start out on the journey, they are mostly blank. Sure, there is always that huge, great ocean. But we have to find out ourselves whether our world is round or flat and temporarily housed on a giant turtle. Its edges are not defined, and we do not always know where the continents are.

Some of us never leave, content to stay put on a square of land our parents made their own. Some are explorers, by chance, necessity or choice. We sail out past our self-imposed boundaries - and those set by the society or family we are born into - and discover new vistas. Sometimes we run aground for many years. Other times we return with a hoard of treasure.

As the years go by, the maps become more and more defined. We know the mountain ranges, the seas and the deserts. We learn the hows of our emotional weather and sometimes we are still utterly puzzled by it. The cities have names. 

But there are mornings when you wake up and your map is missing, if just for a few moments. It is a scary, strange thing, because all of a sudden you do not know who you really are. Your reference points are not there. You are floating - or flailing - past the edges of the world you have painstakingly built, numbered and measured over time. Then minutes pass, and you are back. You stretch, wonder at yourself and get up to make the morning coffee. Reality as you know it rushes back in to soothe or irritate you - or both. After all, we revel in what is known, even if it is not quite what we dreamed of not so long ago.

I had a thought this morning: all true creativity happens when you are off the map, so to speak. Humans have, for aeons, sought to temporarily get there, via drugs, religious ecstasy, sex and adrenaline overdoses.

But no one can truly live off the map long term and stay sane. Or can they? Without it, one may well go crazy, become very depressed or fearful - or create a work of genius. Sometimes, it seems, all three go together.

Is that what also happens when you meditate? Do you get a bird's eye view of your world and soar past the boundaries of your internal story?

I tried to explain some of this to a friend. I said: 'Reality is what happens inside and outside you at the same time. And magic - the undefinable, "misty" stuff - is what you see out of the corner of your eye. The moment you stare at it directly, it is no longer there'. 

Perhaps this is when you are getting a glimpse of what lies beyond your precious and oh-so-little-in-the-scale-of-things world you have been mapping out for so long you completely forgot where you really came from:

The stars and  beyond?

 

 

 

releases and massages

So three weeks of traveling can feel like three months. Not in a bad way: not at all. But I am glad to temporarily be in my little cocoon back in Venice, CA. I can always dream of Europe some more, but right now I need to decompress and then get ready for more shows, as well as my first release date coming up end of September.

Yes, you heard me. Not very long now. It won't be the full record - not yet - but an EP.

So much to do now, but at least for today - my second day back - I can just lay back, contemplate and plan.

In the meantime, Missy and I will get ready our first issue of Chronicles of The Flower Alchemist - our first time together on tour, Lollapalooza etc.

x

getting ready for the stage in Chicago...

Lollapalooza! -take 2 - and lack of sleep

I am back home and it's 2 am. So much happened in the last three days it will take a little bit to process. Anyway, I will write more as I wake up - for that I have to go to sleep first, obviously - I just flew back from Chicago...

Here is a little something:

Galapalooza, August 4, 2011 - Chicago.

Lollapalooza! and 20 hours at home

Yes, I am back in Los Angeles/Venice... for 20 hours total. It was Moscow, Russia - via Paris, France - now, Los Angeles. And, in 8 hours, we'll be at the airport again, going to Chicago to perform at Lollapalooza. 

I am a little delirious and tired, but excited.

If you are in Chicago, come to the downtown/Lincoln Park Apple store this Friday at 6 PM. I will be doing a performance!

 

We'll be documenting a lot of this traveling/performing for the next few days, so there will be a nice bit to read/look at soon, as well.

I spent some time away from computer - well, over two weeks, really - on an electronic 'cleanse' of a sort, and now I know I owe some writings to this blog, as well. I'll make up for it shortly...