Dispatches from E.D. Sedgwick’s tour through Europe.

We awake in a freezing room in Hamburg and, after breakfast, leave at around noon. The gray sky pisses rain, which stops only as we leave the city, revealing a rainbow. Then, the rainbow disappears, and the gray sky pisses more rain.

Outside Marburg, I see a castle and mistake the city for Wurzburg, another German city with a castle about 200 kilometers to the south that I have played between three and seven times. When I realize my mistake, I blame it on GPS. Now that no one has maps, I think, no one knows where they are. I mention this to our traveling party. No one seems to notice. “Where in Germany isn’t there a castle?” our driver says.

Life goes on.

The venue in Marburg is a rock club with a very high stage. We are a fed a curious vegan lasagna with almonds on top. This is less of a disaster than it sounds. After eating the lasagna, we prance about the stage like AC/DC. But then, during the show, our bass player’s borrowed bass breaks, and we play half the set without her. I am just beginning to enjoy the bassless set when, through the not inconsiderable intervention of the sound guy and our driver, the bass is repaired, and I must adjust to its return. We play for about 40 people, sell about 50 euros of merchandise, and make 400 euros. Tonight, 25 percent of this goes to the opening band.

We sleep in a hospital that has been turned into a dormitory. Mercifully, many of the inhabitants are young lesbians. No one but me seems concerned about ghosts, haunts, and spectres. The WiFi password is “ilovefeminism83.” I ask the young woman who is hosting us whether she was born in 1983. She says no.