All The Water Bottles
When your job is finding ways to do things that look impossible, doing that job often involves things that would seem a bit odd to most people. It might be hiring a mermaid, making a very long blank audio track, or cutting up a couple of hundred playing cards.
This time, it was buying a sample of every brand of bottled water in the supermarket.
That's them there, sitting on my apartment table. So, why so many different bottles?
I’m in Hamburg at the moment, about to do 148 shows over four months in the 100+ year old Hansa Variety theatre.
One of the main pieces of the act I’ll be doing involves a bottle of water. For various reasons, the exact shape, size, and structure of the bottle are very important to how well the piece works. It’s also not something you can easily tell just by looking at a bottle – you have to work through the routine with the bottle and see how it goes.
In Australia, I know all the main bottled water brands inside out, through years of trial and error. German brands? No idea. And since I only have a few days before rehearsals start, it’s going to be a more aggressive R&D schedule than usual.
Hence, buying one of every water bottle I can find, a lot of testing, and then a trip back to the supermarket to buy 148 of whichever bottle works best.
And another very odd look from the guy at the checkout counter.