The Mrs. Dalloway 500 (The Street, vol. 3)

45 minutes.

3.5 miles.

One bus.

A decision: to spend the money for a cab to deliver me to the pick-up location, thus ensuring timely arrival but lightening my wallet; or to walk as fast as possible, thus saving money, but risking complete abandonment. Wearing flip-flops and sporting a backpack and a self-loather's fear of awkward, off-putting presentation, running was unfortunately out of the question

I decide to briskly walk the route Mrs. Dalloway takes at the beginning of her eponymous novel. I assure myself that I am faithfully recreating the experience; Clarissa could've been in an awful hurry, or 25 feet tall with long striding legs. Recalling no mention of her height, I happily assume (for my purposes) this to be the truth.

I set off from Westminster Abbey, cutting through St. James's Park (people lounging in the shade, a bevy of ducks, a beautiful view of Buckingham Palace from the bridge). Up through Green Park, where I perspirationally envy the plentiful shade, the soft cool grass, and the ice cream stand. I can't help myself: grabbing my camera, I snap a quick photo of the view of the Palace, peddling backward. A sharp right on Piccadilly Circus; the power is out and bobbies are directing traffic; a flood of pedestrians diverts my straight and narrow path, but I'm too enamored by the gorgeous shops which entreat me with diamond-encrusted fingers and a capitalist's version of a Siren's song. I wish for a bit of money, a new watch; I glance at my phone; 25 minutes remaining.

I've passed Bond Street, so I double back. A crucial error, I think. No time for hesitation of indecision now. I set goals for myself - if I make it to the bus, that girl I have a crush on will love me forever. I'll be a famous writer someday. The temperature in Oxford will drop 20 degrees overnight. My sandals slip and I'll develop blisters and will smell, but it's all worth it, I tell myself. I glance down at my map, deftly avoiding a school of young boys. Is it possible that Bond Street is neverending?

I won't make it; I will make it but be late; the bus will wait for me; Jesus it's hot and that coffee shop looks great right now; to, or to not, wipe my forehead sweat with my sleeve?; what will they think of me when I step aboard the bus, not just late, but putrid?; thankfully others are staying behind - I should be able to get a quadrant to myself, and spare the others; is it possible that Bond Street is really this f*ing long?!

Finally I reach Cavendish Square; it's a pretty place; a man in a top hat is reading the paper, and two children chase each other. I nearly bump into an Albanian (or was he Armenian?), which reassures me that I'm at least in the right area of London. Up to Regent's Park and a left on Albany Street and there! A line of people standing outside a Jeffs Bus! I am the fastest walker in the world. My determination and decision-making are impeccable. My navigational skills are incredible. I will be in love for the rest of my life, which will include stardom and critical acclaim. Oxfordian climate will once again be bearable. I am, in fact, untouchable; exalted; proud; prophetic.

I might not have experienced the walk as Mrs. Dalloway did, but looking back on my divine trek, I feel as though I've gained some crucial knowledge and experience yet. The situation necessitate that I untangle the messy London streets, and in doing so, I now have something vaguely resembling a cognitive map of this area of London. And I also, however fleetingly, experienced a less commercial, tourist-y, rat-race London, in St. James's and Green's Parks. They provide a nice contrast to the museum hopping of previous London trips, and even in passing through, serve to illuminate and deepen my knowledge of the city. I've experienced another side of London, another variable in the equation, seeking the answer to What is London?

An essay written in modern times (Museum vol. 2)

I am walking to the Tate Modern; the placid river is reflecting the city; restaurants and shops are being passed by, but not before being noted for later; I am at the Tate Modern. The museum is enormous; overwhelming; unconquerable. Erin mentions the possibility that most of the enormity is empty space, as a stylistic flair of sorts. The museum looks like a warehouse from the outside - we step through the doors - and the inside, too. Everything becomes monochromatic as the interior is pure, unadulterated grey. Rafters are clearly visible. There are no walls to be seen, initially, save the four large ones. The Tate is an oppressive, half-empty rectangle. Very minimalist; very conjuring-of-mechanization; I will take the liberty of dubbing this building Modernist.

Prof. Cvetkovich had reminded us to notice and consider the building itself, and now I knew why. The very structure housing modern art was itself a work of modern art, insofar as we can define a term like "modern art." Indeed, what does that mean? Minimalism? Post-structuralism? Dada? There are, of course, numerous angles and opinions on the value and aesthetics of modern art, modernism, what have you, but what really intrigued me is that the Tate picked one and designed the modern art museum in that selected style. I shall list what I perceive to be the implications of this: 1. That modernism, in fact, is truly definable, or at least, that its aesthetic is. 2. That a museum should be designed in the style of the art it claims to hold, so long as it can define said art (see Implication #1). 3. That the building housing aforementioned art, insofar as it is definable, should likewise be defined, so that said building itself becomes a piece of art (and maybe should be housed within a larger, non-modernist building?) And 4. That all art within said building is modern art...in so far as that term can be defined. So that, you know, we have the Rothko room, an assortment of Dali, a smattering of Matisse, and a warehouse.

What will happen to the Tate Modern in a hundred years, when this modern art movement is no longer modern? Will it have to change it's name? And I wonder why there don't seem to be museums dedicated to other -isms. Where's the Tate Romantic? The Smithsonian Gothic? The Fort Worth Museum of Dada Art? (Would that building be shaped like a toilet?) I guess we just have a fascination with the period in which we live.

The Paradoxical Oscar Wilde (The Novel, vol. 3)

"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde

One could reasonably ask Mr. Wilde, should the commonly held perception of death prove false, and he spring back to life: Why then, sir, did you devote your life to creating it?

Essential to the understanding and the interpretation of Wilde is his penchant for the paradoxical. Wilde also writes that "there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." Thus, art is amoral. There is no moral to the story, so to speak. Far be it from the author to impart some essential truth, or teach us a lesson by making an example of his characters.

But (paradoxically) Wilde does exactly that in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Throughout the entire novel, Dorian is developed as a Messianic figure for the New Hedonism. In fact, some of the imagery is quite explicit; see p. 62:
"He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses."

and p. 155: "'[Your friends] have gone down into the depths. You led them there.'"

Dorian's art is his life; his furnishings and adornments are his paintings; his speech is his poetry; and he does this all so perfectly, so stainlessly, that it is clear that he will be the savior of the pragmatic, heralding a new truth by living it flawlessly. And that would be the end of the story, if all art were amoral, and it's aim to beautify.

But as the novel progresses, Dorian grows increasingly unhappy, culminating with his destroying the source of that unhappiness, the painting of himself for whose eternal beauty he traded his soul. Upon stabbing the painting, which houses his soul, he dies, and the original beauty of the paper art work is restored. This improbable, supernatural ending raises a few questions of identity: wherein lies the definable I, the essence of the individual - is it the body, or the soul? Does Dorian, in attempting to stab the painting, mistakenly stab himself? Or, by stabbing the painting, and thus his soul, does he murder himself? But also, we must ask: what is Wilde trying to demonstrate here?

It would seem that the death of the embodiment of beauty would contradict Wilde's theories of art being for aesthetic purposes only, as well as amoral, if we interpret Dorian's life to be artistic, and the ending to carry with it some ethical warning. Is Dorian a cautionary tale - or just unfortunate? Is the book amoral - or, perhaps, the preface itself amoral, and thus it's claims of the amorality of art rendered obsolete? There are no clear answers to these questions, and I think that is Wilde's goal. He writes what sounds beautiful, but he also tries to shock, inspire, change, or teach you. It's a paradox - anything any reader gleans from the text is due to the reader seeing himself, and his beliefs, in the text. "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors," writes Wilde. And owing to the innumerable lives who've come into contact with The Picture of Dorian Gray, there are innumerable moral lessons, or not; innumerable beautifully constructed phrases; innumerable paradoxes.

Tea, crumpets, and a side of Esther (The Novel, vol. 2)

At one point, so very long ago, near the beginning of my affair with Bleak House, Esther's narrative was to the novel what an oasis is to a desert traveler. Her narrative, an easier read than the third-person narrative, was unassuming, honest, and often humorous. It was easier to follow the progress of the plot, to identify with the characters, and to generally CARE about them.

But, at some later point, I began to grow tired of Esther. I am not exactly sure when this was, though I have suspicions that it coincided with the drastically reduced pace at which I finished Bleak House. Esther seems to me the voice of the Victorian model women, with a "proper" (for the mindset at the time! Don't get the wrong idea...) sense of place and obligation. In short, she's a domestic goddess, and is even crystallized as such with nicknames like Dame Durden and Little Woman. This didn't really bother me at first - and in fact, it was never her seemingly stereotyped role that changed my opinion of her. Moreso, it was that she never transcended that role; she never really changed, actually, and I became bored with her. Her narrative, in my opinion, detracts a bit from the social consciousness and call to awareness promoted by the rest of the novel. It is like a bubble (possibly indicating that the home provides a buffer from the horrors and misgivings and injustices of the outside world?); and she draws her character descriptions with softer lines, glossing over or haphazardly joking about the faults of others, and thus creating for the readers characters whom also look like as Victorian moralistic idols. This is most visible with regards to Jarndyce, Ada, and Caddy.

In class, we talked briefly about Dickens's penchant for the melodramatic, and I think the saccharine, contrived ending he crafts for Esther is the final nail that ultimately supplants her living, breathing persona from last month with an idealized statue of a human. Her total self-effacing, selfless persona is all-too-moralistic and unbelievable. Some depth is added when her face is permanently altered by smallpox - the reader begins to see inside Esther's head, witnessing her doubts and seeing a semblance of a crack in her perfection heretofore. But (and I hate to be so dully pragmatic) this physical fault makes her happy ending with Woodcourt even more unrealistic. This, combined with the tragic endings met by the beautiful Lady Dedlock and the destitute Jo, is a not-too-thinly-veiled morality lesson from Dickens: be selfless and giving, and fulfill your role, and not even smallpox will ruin your life; exterior beauty is no replacement for inner goodness; and for God's sake, people, help the poor.

However, I've come to realize that I must ask myself the question, What is Esther's role? And of equal importance, How does she herself envision her role? It is a consequence of fiction that all characters are contrived by their authors, so I don't feel that Dickens's portrait of Esther is really a fault in any way, if one keeps in mind his purpose for creating the character in the first place. As a character in the novel, Esther takes on a journalistic objectivism critical to the development of Jarndyce, Ada, Richard, etc. in the reader's eye. It is her style and her personality that result in her humble detachment (combined, perhaps, with Victorian morals and ideals). Her brief stops on her negative experiences, however, are crucial to her development, and in fact, perhaps add more depth than I initially credited her. Is her humility and benevolence a reaction to the altering tragedies she has faced in her life? Is she repressing some dark inner thoughts, and if so, why? Because of the Victorian model, because of her carrying the burden of observer, because the memories are too difficult to bear, or because Dickens wants us only to see the sweetness in her? Considering these possibilities, it is easier to believe Esther as a narrator, because she is a more believable as a person.

The Essence of Essentiality (The Museum, vol. 1)

I spent most of my time at the Museum of London perusing the Satirical London exhibit. While there, I mostly just walked around, chuckling at various Hogarth or Steadman illustrations but not thinking much of them. Increasingly, however, I've been thinking about the practicality and purpose in having an exhibit about Satirical London, in the Museum of London, and what that means.

What do we expect upon entering a museum? Josh posed that question to me today, and I've grappled with various answers since. The best I can come up with: it depends on the museum you're entering. Or, more importantly (for my purposes) the name of the museum you're entering. A visitor to the John Soanes Museum expects to see items that Soanes once collected. A traveler to the Dickens House Museum expects to ascertain some sense of how Dickens lived, the space he inhabited, if only for a blip in time. But the Museum of London? A museum audacious enough to adorn itself the Museum of London inherently burdens itself with the task of representing London. But, what does this mean, and is it even plausible? How does the museum define the city of London; determine what artifacts and totems are symbolic of the city; objectively portray itself, while at the same time, being part of the very city it's portraying?

I'm looking at Hogarth's "Gin Lane" in the Satirical London exhibit, and my eyes are focused, amongst the general madness of the cartoon, on a drunken mother who has just dropped her baby. This is not Gin Lane's only unfortunate event; elsewhere, a man wrestles a dog for a bone; down the street, presumably alcohol-induced riots erupt; and through a second-story window, I can see a man dangle from a rope. I get the impression that London had a gin problem. (It's solution? According to Hogarth's "Beer Street," more beer.)

I'm beginning to have more thoughts on why this exhibit existed, in this place, at this time. The museum presented it historically; that is to say, the drawings, masks, puppets, etc. were, in a historical museum, themselves artifacts of that history. But I found it ironic that the items in this satirical exhibit were (at least at one point) satirizing the very ideas, cultures, dogmas, whatever, that the other items in the museum supposedly represent; that is, the city of London. To recap: the Museum of London, by reason of it's naming, becomes both part of and representative of the city of London - because of this, it's collection are emblems of the city and it's history/culture/whathaveyou - however, it features a section satirizing London, and by consequence, the very city it represents.

The exhibit, while allowing for a diametric viewpoint of that which is London, is nevertheless presented almost solely in non-artistic terms. I wonder how such an exhibit would be displayed and interpreted in different museums? In the Victoria and Albert Museum, maybe the collection is divided according to it's historical genesis, and is presented in terms of the times it satirizes, or an example of the art of that time. In the Tate Britain, perhaps there is more critical analysis of Hogarth's use of shading, or Steadman's use of splatter. But none of these places would offer the same essential paradox as having the gallery in the Museum of London.

Calling London (The Street, vol. 2)

I absently gazed out over Trafalgar Square as the record breaking heat sapped my body of it's last remaining energy. I leaned my elbows on the cool stone barrier, laid down my head, and burned with jealousy of the multitudes below with their rolled-up jeans and bare feet, gently kicking their toes in the waters of the fountain.

It must be duly noted that, at this point in our second London excursion, I was tired, drained, it was blazing, and I'd just spent £20 to have the wrong dish served to me in an Italian restaurant, which provided no relief from the heat, as 93 degrees is enough of an anomaly in the U.K. that air conditioners are never provided. We had somewhat aimlessly meandered along the Wilde walk, but currently had no direction, which added to the mounting sense of frustration and acrimony.

People-watching, while innately very creepy, is nevertheless endlessly interesting. My eyes traced the population in the square, noticing a couple playfully splashing water on each other with their toes; a man in a red beret peacefully combing a novel; children chasing one another, their mother not far behind; suits discussing God-knows-what over coffee and cigarrettes. I just wanted to cast off my backpack and lose myself in that place. This was London. I was tired of tracing over maps, digging through my bag for my camera, debating what we should and should not do - what we MUST or MUSTN'T do - scanning the skyline for those must-sees, thinking about this assignment, and being part of the same group. Not that I disliked my group at all - but it's one experience to explore a foreign place with a group, and it's a completely different experience to do it alone. With a group, a sense of propriety and a working order develop, and there are clashes of personality and inclination. Should we visit the Portrait Gallery? Closed. Well Soho is a short distance from here, and it's part of the walk. Maybe we should stop for a pint. Is anyone else hungry? If we look to the right, we'll see suchandsuch attraction, sporting suchandsuch architecture, famous for thisandthat event. I was bored with all that. I felt as if I'd been trying to manifest some vague sense of touristic destiny, glancing and walking within the vicinity of eveything without really noticing anything. I wanted to stop looking at London and try to be part of London. Is this even possible for a tourist? I found myself wandering what it is to "experience" London, and it seemed to me that a city is really nowhere to be found. There is the vague, overarching term London, but in reality, how does it exist? Is it in the museums and the tourist attractions, held up as essential to the experience of London, yet largely contrived and static in nature? Or is it in the flow of people in and out of a place like Trafalgar Square, the experience therefore being rendered as nebulous, mercurial, and ultimately unnavigable? To me, tourist attractions are like a person's clothing, whereas the blood and water of a place is ultimately stripped of presentation, of seperation between I and The Other - so that the experience is one focused more on integrating (as much as possible) into it's unpredictable vibrancy, rather than beholding what the city itself holds up as representative.

The Golden Dragonfly and mumblings on various plays

It was at Bourton-on-the-Water, which was en route to Stratford-upon-Avon, that we found a hedge maze. We'd stopped at Bourton for a sense of what small rural town England was like (I think; but actually, no reason for stopping at Bourton-on-the-Water was definitively provided). A few of us went to an antique shop, where I bought a first edition of Nabokov's Ada, and sometime later, we went in search of a mysterious place called Birdland. When we located this Birdland, which did not prove to be difficult, as Bourton is an example of small rural town England, we realized, with alacrity, that to enter would be to pay 5 pounds. So we walked on further, until coming upon the hedge maze. The hedge maze promised exceeding adventurous fulfillment, and beckoned us to engage our childlike natures, and also had 14 clues within it's hedges, which would lead us to a brick chamber in the middle, wherein we would find a golden dragonfly, provided we'd decoded the symbolic clues, and accurately pieced them together in order to decipher the total message, a piece of which each contained. I was, at the time, too excited to think in complete sentences, and have attempted to piece together the fragments exploding in my mind at the time.

Alpha Group (Josh, Erin, Travis, Phillip) shot into the maze, attempting to leave our lesser Beta adversaries in a daze. In our haste, however, we ran past the first 3 clues, which we did not realize until stumbling across clue 4, by accident. Eventually backtracking, we found the first 3 clues, and winding our way through the maze (which proved quite difficult, actually) we found every clue but 6. After a few minutes of angst-filled repetitions and wrong turns, we finally stumbled out in the middle, and stared upon our goal. Entering the dimly lit chamber, we beheld a pedestal, on which was a glass case holding a large illuminated frog. The walls of the glass case were mirrors on the inside, and on the floor of the chamber were bronzed idols of a caterpillar, a rat, a spider, and a bird. Around the wall were various other animals. We'd ascertained from the clues that we were to step on the caterpillar, which we did, but the missing clue 6 proved consequential. After repeatedly stepping on the caterpillar, and searching for other ways to find the golden dragonfly, we gave up, and began walking out, when Josh suddenly realized what we had to do. Rushing back, we restepped on the caterpillar, and had put one hand on one the monkeys on the wall, which, in fact, held minute buttons. As we were searching for the other monkey, the archnemesis Beta group burst in, found it, and pressed the button. Instantly the dim glow in the chamber went out, and the glass case was the only source of light. The frog rose up, and slowly began opening his mouth, in which sat the golden dragonfly.

In typical archaelogical brouhaha fashion, a vociferous debate ensued as to which group, Alpha or Beta, had claim to the discovery. My feelings on the subject should be obvious.

Stratford-upon-Avon was quaint, but by the time we'd toured Shakespeare's birthplace, most of us were tired. So we ate, lounged in the park, and then went to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Henry IV Part I, at the Swan. I liked the play but thought it was overdone at spots. Still a positive experience, nonetheless.

Yesterday, I went to London with Josh, Spencer, Colin, and Adam, and being a bit late, did a little of nothing except walk around and eat dinner, until another play for which we had tickets, Woyzeck, was to begin. Woyzeck is a nightmarish schizo-comedy that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Orwellian world. The music was done by Nick Cave.

Today consists of work and a meeting to discuss particulars for the Dublin trip next weekend. As I've run out of steam, I will leave you with a "cheers!"

Cup of Jo (Novel, vol. 1)

The lasting image of Jo that will not stop rattling around in my mind is the final image of Chapter 19, when, after an excruciating series of being kicked around and pushed off, told repeatedly to move on, and that no place is his, he sits on a corner near Blackfriar's Bridge and gazes up through the "red and violet-tinted cloud of smoke" to the cross at the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral. To Jo, it is emblematic of the confusion of the city, and to Dickens, of the ignorance and destitution of Jo, for the cross is "so golden, so high up, so far out of his reach." He will sit there, looking without understanding, the crowds streaming past him, until he is once again ordered to move on.

Yesterday, as I was walking around London, I looked out over theThames and saw, rising in the distance, the same cross that so befuddled Jo. I was at once giddy and in awe, contemplating in a rush all the historical and religious grandeur symbolized by the ancient cross atop the magnificent dome. I stood there and gazed at it on a perfectly clear day, and then remembered the scene where Jo does the same.

Jo's experience in London led me to consider my own experience in London, and in a larger sense, of my surroundings and environment wherever I be. Tourism is a funny phenomenon in this light. Whereas Jo moves on around London "stone blind and dumb" to every scrap of London life that goes on around him, I paid 11 pounds to take a bus from Oxford just to see the same objects he so blindly walked by. Obviously, with education, with class, comes the ability to be a tourist; but the monuments we both stare at are the same. It dawned on me that certain landmarks are held up as tourist attractions, and while I may know the history behind them or the significance of them, such knowledge derives almost solely from the long-ago classication of St. Paul's, or Buckingham Palace, or Big Ben, as culturally significant tourist attractions. I found myself wondering how much I really understood, and how ignorant I was to London. Only I'm here on a guise, as a tourist, whereas Jo was deposited here. But I have my symbols of class (camera, clothes, money) and this act of touring therefore spares me the critical scorn of native Londoners. Jo, on the other hand, draws its full ire.

An essay of questionable literary merit (The Street, vol. 1)

A one-thousand page tome never fails to remind you of its presence in your backpack; and so on my maiden voyage to the great city of London, my excitement was somewhat clouded and tempered by Dickens’s apocalyptic depiction of the city. I daydreamed of Harrod’s and the Dickens House Museum and the Victoria and Albert; I was remonstrated back to reality by the weight of the work on my back. Seeing no other way to rid myself of its lingering presence, I begrudgingly acknowledged the little voice that had been entombed amongst a litany of other papers and pens in my backpack, and forced myself to admit that “yes, you must do this, you have too, you don’t want to fail a study abroad session.” So I removed Bleak House, but couldn’t really focus my mind on the plot of the novel, and instead skimmed the opening passages that we had discussed in class the previous day. I wanted to get a sense of how Dickens wrote about what I was just about to see. I practiced holding my breath for extending periods of time, remembered the sage advice of firefighters (smoke always rises, so stay low!), and repeated a hundred times in my head, “dinosaurs ARE extinct.” Though I would remain, I concluded, hyper-aware to any sudden blockages of what little sunlight was cutting through the fog, for such blockages could very well be caused by elephantine lizards, or Noah’s Ark, at which point I would probably be hopeless.

Thankfully, London was sunny on July 12^th, 2006, and, I might add, rather scorchingly so. This is not meant to undermine in any way my feelings about London. It’s a funny thing to be driving on a bus and to hear your bus driver say such silly things as Look to Your Left to See Big Ben; to be in a place that gives you a sense of déjà vu, like you’re walking around in a postcard, and that no matter how much you’ve looked forward to an experience, and no matter how toweringly high you’ve stacked your expectations, they are still toppled every time you enter a city like London for the first time.

And so, like an 8 year old meandering about in Disney Land, I skipped along the streets of London, humming the Barney Song. When our group stopped at Lincoln’s Inn, I was frankly shocked at how serene and pretty the courtyard was. Adam and I walked onto the grass to get a better angle for a photograph, when a (random?) British guy walked up and, without bothering to make sure he had our attention, bluntly ordered us off the grass, and inquired if we had not noticed the many signs posted? For There Are A Good Number Of Them, Sirs. Grass must be a serious thing, I thought, but why? It could not be the same grass Dickens had traipsed, for surely that Megalosaurus would have devoured all that grass within a few hours of its discovering the grass. Or, I further thought, any combination of extensive flood waters, mired dogs and vagabonds, deluges of mud, or proximate humans in the process of Spontaneous Combustion would have equally served the same purpose, in regards to the grass, as the aforementioned Megalosaurus.

So, I stepped off the grass and looked back on the garden mentioned by Miss Flite. I noticed the flowers, I felt the sun, and all of a sudden I wondered why this weren’t bleaker. During Dickens’s time, a sign warning those less informed to keep off the grass would’ve been a) laughable and ill-suited; or b) what grass? But the moment when I was kicked off the grass crystallized just how much this city has cleaned itself up, both figuratively and literally. In Bleak House, lives are ruined by interminable suits snagged on by-laws and bureaucratic triflings and ineptitude. Countless orphans roam the streets and sleep in gutters and beg for work, any work. Fog emanates from the people themselves. One would need an umbrella to not be mistaken for a chimney sweeper. But now, 150 years later, a willing traveler to this place, lost amidst thoughts and the awesome sights and the peaceful aura, is breeching the grass boundary, an act considered damaging to the serenity of the city.

Loaded chamber

My preliminary travel schedule:

7/14-7/17: London
7/21-7/23: Dublin
7/28-7/30: Amsterdam
8/4-8/6: London, Edinburgh
8/11-8/14: Paris

If all goes according to these very tenuous and unratified plans, that's the order in which I'll be seeing those cities.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to obtain a well-rested night. For example, yesterday I woke up at 7:00, more than an hour before I need arise, but only 5 hours since I went to bed. I have two theories as to the cause of this problem: my bed is very hard, and makes returning to sleep once you've woken up somewhat of a chore; and it's very bright here early in the morning.

Yesterday was also the first "real" day of classes since Monday's were more of the "here's your syllabus, now state your name" type. I was readily absorbed in both classes, and both seem like they will be fantastic learning experiences, if not barriers to my total freedom. There was a moment during Anne's class in which I had a mini-realization. Listening to the conversation over Bleak House, and copying down my notes, I suddenly felt calm. Settled. I had a routine now, to counterbalance the mad rush of new euphoric pleasures and resettlement that bombards and disorients you when you arrive in a totally foreign environment. It was as if my whole world were placed in a cannon and shot into the air, and all the pieces were finally falling into a proper place.

After class, some of us (Erin, Adam, Josh, Colin, and Spencer) tried out the Indian food restaurant across the street from Brasenose. We discovered we're all burgeoning cineastes, and at least one of us was a scotch connoisseur, so naturally we decided to watch a Hong Kong New Wave film whilst gasolining our throats. It took us almost an hour to find glasses, but at the very least, I obtained a decent walking knowledge of Oxford, and where two malls are. The malls of Oxford were built in 1329, and ransacked by the Moors soon thereafter, during which pillaging, Ye Olde Navy was sadly burned to the ground, but not before playing host to the brutal massacre of over one million football moms. The English won back the malls of Oxford in 1512, during the Great Red Apple Sale; however, it appears as though all silverware had been removed, to be replaced by something called 'cutlery,' which does not include Scotch glasses.

We watched In the Mood for Love, a Wong Kar-wai film I'd been wanting to see for a few months. It was fantastic, but I don't like scotch.

I got another tour of Oxford when I went out a little after 9 to find batteries for my camera. Everything here closes very early, so I had to walk a ways to find a Sainsbury (grocery store) where I could buy my batteries. On the way there, I found a Borders that was still open, and so I popped in there, and discovered that many books published here have completely different covers than their counterparts back home. I had never really thought of this, being mentally underwhelming, so it was a neat reminder of the subtle differences that often are lost amidst the enormous ones.

Today we are going to London to see some of the locales important to Bleak House, the Sir John Soane Museum, the Dickens House Museum, Harrod's, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I'm either going to be late to class, or very pungently punctual, if I don't end this here.

I leave you with an image from Stourhead:

The view from my window.

Oxford, England, 8:28 PM

Oh gosh...

After much procrastination, and hemming and hawing, and flitty web surfing, and a victory in my staring contest with Bleak House, and literally diagramming the assignments for my two classes because they're kind of confusing, I have finally begun this blog.

Hi. I'm Phillip. The one who has only read half of Bleak House, is sarcastic, misses playing his guitar, didn't sleep on the flight, has never been to this side of the Atlantic, and who majestically performed somersaults on the lawn with utmost felicity on his first night here. It all depends on which "meet and greet" you were present at.

Le sigh, now I'm going to begin the arduous task of looking back in time and documenting my first few days here. Ready?

The airport seems like weeks ago already. I was freaking out on the way there because we were caught in traffic, and I was assuredly going to miss my flight to Oxford, and be solemnly escorted back to Arlington, Texas where it was probably 167 degrees today, and there is little to do. But of course I made it, and should've probably been at least 2 hours later because the flight was delayed so long. The journey itself started off well: I was seated next to one of the (13?) Laurens, albeit in an aisle seat (this matters). I read some Bleak House, I met some new people, I generally had a pleasant experience. Nine hours later, I hadn't slept a wink and was growing increasingly agitated. If that seems like a quick transition in my train of thought, it's only because I've decided to spare you (the reader) and I (who must relive such a terrible experience) any attempt on my part to render such extended boredom and sleepiness into words.

I'm sure everybody has or will say this in his/her own blog, but the UK looks like a quilt. Brilliant patches of green, light green, dark green, forest green, green ochre, pale sage, muted turquoise (at this point, I'm typing the names of my Earthy colored pencils for Lisa's class), ginger root, chestnut, and a splash of red.

Orientation was short and sweet, with the added humor of Lisa clarifying what one of our "orienters" meant when she said 'don't move your furniture, or the scouts won't Hoover,' and the entire class echoing with resounding "oooooohs!" when told that to Hoover is to Vacuum. The first evening, I went out with Doug, Jonathan, Laura, Lauren, Lauren, Christine, Adam, Erin, Collin, and Daniel (I think I've got everybody). The first pub we went to was called the City Tavern, where we watched the consolation match between Germany and Portugal. Two of the guys who work at Brasenose were there as well, and they directed us to a heavy metal pub called Gloucester Arms. The heavy metal pub was craziness incarnate. We met a lad named Keith, who told me he'd been there since 9 AM, and wanted me to start a mosh pit in the middle of the room, which was approximately 1x4 feet. Some other British guy debated with Jonathan for a long time about which sport was superior, soccer or football, and included in his reasons for why soccer is better the length of American football games (10 hours) and the fact that football is just a rip-off of rugby anyway, and with all the rules and pads, how can kids play football in the street? They don't; they place soccer. He then compared our ethnicities (Irish, Italian) and cited our diversity as the reason America is great. Then he gave me a hug. Too many beers in that guy! Because seriously, football games are not 10 hours long.
The final stop of the evening was an underground chamberesque bar/club called The Purple Turtle, in which odd versions of American songs were playing, and Brits were gettin' low to Lil' Jon.

This is getting lengthy. Should've spaced this out over a few days.

The next day, we did the Lisa Moore garden tour of Oxford, which included stops at a few of the other colleges that make up Oxford University. One of these was Magdalen College, aka the college OSCAR WILDE attended. Patrick did his Oscar Wilde pose outside the front gate, and his happiness is assuredly guaranteed for at least a few years. Let me apologize in advance if I am incorrect with your name, the spelling of your name, which Lauren you are, or any sweeping generalizations about you. We also spent some time in the Oxford botanic gardens, which you breathtaking, but I was by that time too weary and hungry to fully appreciate it's radiant aura. The group the reconvened and walked too a pub called The King's Head (I think) where I had my first (and last) fish-and-chips-in-England experience. Not that it was bad, but I'm a vegetarian, although apparently one of little willpower. That evening, I returned with Colin and Josh to the City Tavern to watch the World Cup final, after which hundreds of Italians where running, jumping, and chanting "Italia!" in the streets of Oxford for hours.

Today was the first day of classes. Little was done, but we did do a brief free-writing exercise in the Sister Arts class. I wrote about Dylan's performance in "Visions of Johanna," and only with about 8 seconds left did I realize that my short blurb needed more personal reflection. Oh well. We took a journey to Stourhead Home and Gardens, in which some of the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice was filmed. The estate was magnificent, offering breathtaking landscape views and standing as a paragon of architectural poetic gardening. Until we traversed the storyline of the garden; descended the shadowy path in a grotto symbolizing vice; looked across an artificial lake, a visualization of the ideal of Reason as supreme beauty; climbed the steep path to Virtue and the Temple of Apollo, where we were most prone to the falling rain but also privy to the most sublime view; stumbled down the slippery slope from Virtue to the bottom, completing our narrative - I had no concept of how a garden could be poetic.

So far, so amazing. Brasenose college is truly serene. Oxford town is adorned with ancient steeples, theatres, colleges, bridges, streets, castles - the longevity and history of which I find fascinating. All of the people on this trip are intelligent, engaging, thoughtful, and unique.