Built for Seasons
and who I'm opening for next week!
When I lived in Palm Desert teaching high school music, I briefly had the pleasure of sharing an apartment with one of my best friends. He finished a post-grad year working at a parish in Ireland and I convinced him to come teach with me in the Coachella Valley while he waited for his girlfriend to finish her final year of college.
Dan was a great roommate. He was sincerely committed to cleanliness. He understood that my emotions were colorful and would, when I got home after rehearsals for the spring musical, tell me he had ten minutes before the game started (basketball, baseball, football) to receive them. I would relay my day and act out conversations. He listened attentively, offered a few even-keeled takes, and went into his room, often leaving me a plate of shepherd’s pie in the fridge.
When the year came to an end, I asked if his girlfriend might move out to the desert and join him here, since he was well loved by his students and the high school baseball team. His response was simple. “It’s not natural to live in a place without seasons.”
I wanted to argue, to point out that the purple haze only sits on the mountains in winter, and that the scorching summer builds to the relief of a temperate autumn, bringing with it deep gratitude. The seasonality of the desert is special in a way that a year in the midwest or the Rocky Mountains cannot mimic; when things change so slightly, every change feels enormous. The body starts to notice the slightest shift in humidity. Every rainstorm is precious.
I do understand what Dan means, though. Humans are built for seasons. We have been moving with the earth through 365-day cycles since we stood upright some few hundred thousand years ago. I went to college in northern Indiana. That four year period brought my hottest, wettest summers and bone-cold winters. I remember exactly what I wore freshman year, 2008, the first day of spring when I didn’t need to wear a coat. I bounded down the stars of McGlinn Hall in nothing but a sweatshirt filled with the promise of summer that peaks at age 19.
Germany moves with seasons in a way that most Americans would find exhausting. AC is reviled here, with the population much preferring to purchase electric fans and open the windows. To control the environment in such a complete way with “synthetic air chemicals” is regarded as ridiculous. (I have a great bit about this.) In the winter, wear a sweater in the house. Change out the duvet for the one stuffed with down; bring the wool blankets from the cellar.
One of the delightful parts of seasonal living in Germany – one of those things you don’t recognize until you’re in it – is the food in restaurants. It’s more than just stew in the winter and salad in the summer. Germany moves through pumpkin season to asparagus season. Entire menus are built for the three-week period when the skinny mushrooms come in.
Germans have a wonderful saying: Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, nur schlechte Kleidung. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing. We are meant to move with the seasons, accommodating them with better choices, not bending the environment to what makes us most comfortable.
It’s not natural to live in a place without seasons. Turns out, Dan Masterton was right, and he continues to share thoughtful views on living a good life in his own newsletter. Thankfully, I find myself moving between seasons again, changing out the metaphorical duvet.
I’m moving into a new apartment, one that is bigger and belongs to a dear friend. She’s moved from Berlin back home with her kids, so I’ll keep the fire warm, at least until her oldest turns 18. I visited the apartment with a bottle of wine many times. Now I get to pull out the glasses. It’s in a nicer, hipper part of town, full of yummy mummies and their high-end brands. I’m leaving my corner of Weisensee, the stretch of apartments in between two retirement homes and sidewalks full of pensioners getting their daily groceries.
I’ve been in this apartment longer than any other place in the past nineteen years.
It feels fitting that this transition happens during one of society’s other seasonal shifts: the end of the school year. I’m graduating, moving my life and professional work to a new location. Along with filling the space with guests and memories, I hope to teach voice lessons out of the new apartment.
This week’s newsletter is a bit of a navel gaze. I appreciate the patience as I sort out my life in a very literal sense. If you’re new here, you can get an idea of the scope of what I write about by taking a look at the problem of men in comedy or why so many American opera singers in Germany are unemployed. That’s what I’m doing, as my Grand Life Art Project: the juxtaposition of the highest and lowest art forms (society’s terms). I’m currently known for bringing opera into comedy spaces. I’m working on bringing comedy into the opera house.
Speaking of, if anyone has contacts with the educational outreach branch of any opera, I’d love to do a bespoke version of my modern translation or my bit about how singing works for someone’s opening season pre-gala lecture or similar. I’ve already emailed with the folks at Komische. I’d love to work with an opera’s young or ensemble artists on a program that involves live translation of their rep and explaining opera with the delightful irreverence of the comedy stage. I have talked about opera in comedy clubs from Barcelona to Brussels, and I’m here to tell you, people love understanding how resonance works and what our bodies are doing. They love the knowledge paired with the art.
And in comedy news… I’m opening for Fortune Feimster on Friday, May 28th at Cosmic Comedy. The first show sold out so they’ve added a second. She’s a massive comic in the US and she loves to sing. I’m just bursting to get her to duet with me. Do you think she’ll let me teach her how to sing opera on stage? Definitely going to ask.
I’m doing a Berlin preview of my Edinburgh Fringe show on Sunday, July 12th “on the boat,” at the Floating Lounge/Shiphotel next to Oberbaumbrücke on the Spree. Ticket link isn’t up yet but mark your calendars.
Other than that I’m out of town Friday, May 22 until June 8th (dipping back into Berlin quickly for Fortune’s show). This newsletter will be on summer break until the week I return.
If you want to follow along on my travels, I’m active on Instagram, where I just passed 14,000 followers. Egads!
As always, the best way to support me as an independent artist is to subscribe here, on Substack, for the price of two coffees a month.
Or, if long-term commitment isn’t your thing, you can simply buy me a coffee (or a beer).
“You’re Invited to Laugh” is a weekly look at work as an American stand-up comedian based in Berlin, Germany. I’m Steph DePrez, and I moved to Europe as an opera singer in 2019. You can find my upcoming schedule here. This publication is free, and you can choose to upgrade to a paid subscription if you’d like to support my work. You can find out more at www.stephaniedeprez.com and also follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Can confirm: great roommate, great maker and leaver of shepherd’s pie, great efforts at trying to do the bit I could for my friend.