Default Adult Settings With Paul de Tourreil
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This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life is delighted to welcome Paul de Tourreil. Paul is a writer, fight choreographer, non-practising biologist, retired kung fu teacher, and self-described Swiss-Indian weirdo.
He has written, produced and directed countless plays as part of the Montréal Fringe Festival.
This year, 2023, Paul is thrilled to be performing his first ever solo show, 9 Lives, 8 Near Misses: life lessons from near-death events.
In Part 1 of Paul’s two-part interview, we talk about Montréal’s beloved niche creative events, for example Sherwin Tija’s Slow Dance and Strip Spelling Bee. We offer the Coles Notes of Paul’s debut at Confabulation, Montréal’s beloved and longest running storytelling show. Paul shares his theories on default adult settings and how to avoid becoming a bitter and resentful human when you grow up, plus how to be a loving partner, friend, and parent, even if you didn’t get everything you needed when you were a kid. Erica asks Paul for advice on confidence, and she learns it has to do with competence and kung fu, any discipline or skill achieved through hard work and practice. Then we wrap up Part 1 with a doozie of a listener question from Attached. Be sure to hit up Paul’s second episode: Default Creative Settings With Paul de Tourreil. The best is yet to come!
About Paul:
Paul de Tourreil is on Instagram @postitpaul
Check out Paul’s website at postitpaul.ca/
Learn more about his show here
Get your tickets here
10% of all proceeds go to The Native Women’s Shelter of Montréal
Support Paul’s show via his crowd-funding campaign
9 Lives, 8 Near-Misses: life lessons from near-death events—check out show times below!
Paul’s Show Venue: ESPACE FREESTANDING ROOM 4324 Boulevard, Saint-Laurent, #300 Montreal, Quebec, H2W 2R2 freestandingroom.com
Friday, June 2 @ 9 p.m.
Saturday, June 3 @ 6 p.m.
Sunday, June 4 @ 6 p.m.
Friday, June 9 @ 5 p.m.
Saturday, June 10 @ 8 p.m.
Sunday, June 11 @ 6 p.m.
Thursday, June 15 @ 7 p.m.
Friday, June 16 @ 6 p.m.
Saturday, June 17 @ 9 p.m.
Sunday, June 18 @ 5 p.m.
Plugs and Resources:
Sherwin’s Quirky Events (Slow Dance coming up June 2! You can catch it after Paul’s show.)
Confabulation, Live Stories, True as We Can Tell Them
Mixing, Ukulele, and Cover Art by Erica J. Schmidt in Montréal, Quebec.
Special thanks to Taes Leavitt (darling big sister, Big Heart Journey), Sherwin Tjia (technical and creative advisor, Sherwin’s Quirky Events), and my dearly departed Eileen Gun, whose generous gift helped to fund my new podcast equipment. Thank you so much for listening! Stay tuned for more episodes extra soon. Don't forget to follow This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life on your favourite podcast platform. And if you enjoyed the episode, I would be immensely grateful if you could share it with a friend and/or leave a kind and enthusiastic rating and review.
This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life is brought to you by Lil and Bud dog cards, purchasable at ericajschmidt.com/merch. If you would like to sponsor the podcast, I would love to plug your product, service, or project as long as it doesn’t harm any people or their bodies. Please get in touch via my website or Instagram.
Website: ericajschmidt.com
Instagram: @erica. j.schmidt
You can also write to Erica with a listener question.
Today’s Listener Question from Attached:
Dear Erica (and Paul),
I am about to enter my 36–40 age bracket. I spent my 31–35 age bracket with a boyfriend I’ll call Old Man Dad. OMD. I tend to refer to my partners as old men or dads because I seem to need supervision and reassurance through standard adult tasks. Me and OMD have always had great chemistry but there have been red flags from the start. He has a complicated relationship with his volatile ex who is controlling and financially manipulative. She calls all the shots in terms of custody so my bf is almost never available on evenings and weekends. There’s a ton of unspeakable drama and. OMD also has chronic financial distress. Whenever I express concern or frustration that we don’t get to spend much quality time together, he bites my head off. He tends to put me down for being too needy and demanding and he criticizes me for having slept with other people before we got together and during breaks in our relationship. When I try to stick up for myself, he says I am too sensitive. We have probably broken up 49 times in the last four years. But I’m never able to call it quits for good. I love him and believe he’s a good person. But I don’t want to spend my 36–40 age bracket in a relationship that will never meet my needs. What should I do?
Love, Attached
PS: We had a few technical glitches during this recording. You may hear a tiny intermittent chirp in the background toward the end of the episode. The power went out and despite my best efforts, I could not silence the chirp. I did everything I could to minimize this interference in the recording and tried to make it as subtle as possible. Unfortunately, I could not completely get rid of it. My apologies! Perhaps you can pretend it is a benevolent imaginary bird friend. But I wanted to mention it in case you thought it was your tinnitus acting up.
