Maiden voyage on the Mississippi

As far as Pi Nuernberg knows, the name of her boat, the Gelsomina Von Ludmila, has no special significance. The 21-year-old college student says only her 14-foot aluminum Crestliner powered with a six-horsepower outboard motor knows the meaning behind its moniker.

"She whispered it to me," says Nuernberg, looking down at Gelsomina as it bobs beside a fuel dock on the river in Cape Girardeau.

Nuernberg is half of Escargo-go, a two-piece Iowa City, Iowa, marching band and shadow puppeteering troupe that landed in Cape Girardeau on Monday. This is the latest stop on the group's first Midwestern tour.

"We're figuring it out," says 21-year old Nuernberg. "We've never motored a boat or been out on the Mississippi before."

She and 22-year-old Candida Pagan are students who've been led to this river journey on a self-named boat by their own muses, a legendary literary riverman and a desire to explore the country and see its inhabitants.

In the 37 days and 532 miles since putting in at Dubuque, Iowa, Nuernberg and Pagan have had plenty of river education. Twice they've had to dip into their limited budget to repair their 1974 Johnson Seahorse motor, and once they say they pulled the motor from the bottom of the river when it wasn't clamped on tight enough. They've also watched their possessions scatter across the water's surface as the Gelsomina was swamped by the muddy river.

"We've lost a lot of things on this river," Nuernberg says with a smile. She can be upbeat, because she's aware that she and her friend have gained some things too.

At the moment, the boat holds a basic inventory: Oars, life jackets, an eight-gallon gas tank, several gallons of fresh drinking water, a map, rubber boots, a tent, sleeping bags, 250 pounds of brown rice and mung beans, books, clothes, a flashlight, two Goodwill-bought polyester high school marching band uniforms, a drum, a flute, a clarinet and a toy accordion.

They've also accrued a mental album of memories and experiences performing for and mingling with people in Muscatine, Iowa, Hannibal, Mo., Quincy, Ill., and other river towns.

"I'm really enjoying getting up into these river towns and meeting people," Pagan says. "I'm getting a sense of parts of the country that I wouldn't have otherwise."

Following Finn

The idea for this journey was planted in Nuernberg's brain while she read Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" two summers ago. But that seed lay dormant until this past spring. After the purchase of a $2 "keytar," which is a guitar with piano keys, and a $2 red bass drum from Goodwill, Escargo-go first took to the streets of Iowa City with its unique musical stylings.

"It's like a spontaneous and improvised parade," Nuernberg says of her show.

As the music grew, the duo began incorporating the call-and-response combo of any two of their instruments with a shadow-puppet play. The evening march leads the crowd to the dusk show. With that configuration, Escargo-go does both original work and interpretive pieces of classic literature, including Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Eastern European folk tales. Their first original operetta was entitled "Stern Queen Tuna Show."

Frustrated with lukewarm responses to their music in Iowa -- including being arrested for a satirical protest show during a speech by President Bush in Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- Nuernberg dug up the idea of touring the Midwest and southern United States on the Mississippi, retracing the mythic wake of Huck's raft. Nuernberg bought the Gelsomina for $750, she and Pagan compiled what savings they had and on Sept. 18 they shipped out.

Camping on sandbars and occasionally staying in cheap motels, the pair have floated, rowed and motored down the river. They perform in parks and public areas in the various towns they visit. The further south they go, Pagan said, the more people seem to openly enjoy their performance.

When they broke down in Burlington, Iowa, they became acquainted with a flotilla of three film crews shooting a documentary about two homemade rafts floating the Mississippi from Minnesota to Louisiana. The other boats in that group are currently stranded in Ste. Genevieve waiting for repairs. Nuernberg and Pagan will wait for them here until they arrive later today. After they rendezvous, they'll set out for their mutual destination in New Orleans.

But before leaving Cape Girardeau, Escargo-go will perform their new interpretation of Dino Buzzati's children's book "The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily" today at 6:30 p.m. at the outdoor theater on the terraces of Southeast Missouri State University.

Nuernberg and Pagan think they have enough money, rice and beans to sustain them as they race against the oncoming cold months to get to New Orleans. Once there, they will stay with Pagan's father. They will then try to sell the boat and catch a bus, train or a free ride back to Iowa, where they will face trial on Dec. 16 for misdemeanor obstruction of official acts for their display at the Bush rally.

Then Nuernberg will head back to Goddard College in Vermont, where she will write a report of this adventure to go toward her bachelor's degree in independent studies. Pagan will go to graduate school to take classes in publishing. She hopes to use that degree to publish a book of drawings and prints she's made from the pictures she's taken on and off the river on this excursion.

"I've connected with a lot of different people on this trip," Pagan said. "I've collected so many stories."

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137