Free speech??? Is it free speech when people force you to post shit in your blog?? (you know who you are.....)
ok. Here's what I did in London:
ThursdaY-
Landed.
Met up with Anna and partook in her current obsession, which is checking out the mark-down shelf at Tesco supermarket. Seriously, we went to Tesco like 3 times that day, and she had gone there twice before I had gotten there. Sick!
We went to her posh flat near Oxford Circus, made dinner, went out for a walk, went home and crashed.
Friday-
I knew I was gonna be on my own on Friday night, so I bought a ticket to this play called "The Goat". I got the ticket for 20 pounds and since it was a single I got a second row seat! But then since I was late getting to the play I had to sit all the way in the back! Bollocks!
Friday afternoon I met with the Fairwood Music peeps. Had a lovely chat with everyone there, and it was good to put faces to names.
That evening I went to go see "The Goat", which is a play about a man who has an affair with a goat. The treatment of the bizarre subject matter was what was interesting. I felt that if I was ever in the wife's situation, I would have reacted the same way. During the course of her explosive argument with her husband, she manages to destroy absoutely everything on stage. The story then takes a turn when their sexually confused son has a rather awkward "moment" with dad - but what can dad really say?? He's been doin' it with a frigging goat! I won't tell you how it ended, but I thought the ending really grounded the whole story. It made me realize that the wife had taken her husband's affair with the goat as a very serious threat, and it took the comic edge off the situation.
After the show I took myself out for curry, then coffee somewhere (had the worst panna cotta EVER!!!!). At the end of the evening, I was kinda shocked that I had not been able to strike up a conversation with a single human being during the course of my night out. And it wasn't me. I just think London is a cold place.
That night I stayed up until 4am reading "Girl With A Pearl Earring". Not one of my favorite books ever, but certainly entertaining. And I think it was the first time in a long time I had enough peace of mind to just shut everything out and get absorbed in a book.
Anna had a great night out with Clay and Tammi. They had gone to see Ded Prez and she accidentally wound up backstage and met Mos Def.
Saturday-
Anna and I went to the Tate Modern Museum. We pretty much spent the whole day there. It was incredible!! The galleries are separated by subject matter rather than time periods. Anna pointed out that the exhibits were very well curated. There was one in particular which dealt with history and social consciousness and political movements. It started off with a room full of posters and banners of Soviet propaganda, and moved into a room with pieces dealing with various forms of idealism. Very cool.
I loved the Nudes and Human Body in Action exhibit. By the time you're almost to the end of the exhibit, you've been bombarded with shocking, abrasive images, and also increasingly more abstract and distilled images of the human body. Then you walk into a room with a copy of Rodin's famous statue "The Kiss" and it looks so real after you've been numbed by all those other images, so intimate and so tangible. It's almost too private to look at this couple in this moment.
There were two more exhibits I thought were really cool. Sorry I can't remember artist names. Maybe I'll Google them and post later.
Anyway. There were these two rooms. You stand in one and you get surrounded by colored light. As the light changes, your eyes do this crazy trick where you start seeing the negative of the color you just saw projected onto the color you're looking at now. Example: You were looking at blue, then it changed to green. While you're looking at green, you're seeing red cuz it's the opposite of blue. Cool, eh? Then there's another room which is just black ceiling with white light, to serve as a palate cleanser.
The last exhibit which made an impression on me was a room which essentially put you next to an explosion. This woman spent months collecting odd items from her friends - shoes, dolls, hair curlers, a cello, etc. She put everything in a barn and with the help of the British Army, blew it up. And took pictures. In this room, she recreated a frozen moment of the explosion by suspending all these items in the air (using string and wires). She arranged them just as they would have looked in mid-explosion - smaller pieces like the curlers and dolls on the inside, and larger pieces like pieces of wood that made up the barn on the outside. There was a single light bulb in the center of it all, causing a fucking freaky shadow all around.
After hitting up another 8 Tesco's, Anna and met up with Clay and Tammi at a really tasty Thai place.
Sunday-
Dina arrived on Sunday. We went to Camden and bummed around the market. I bought a cheap and trendy little pleated skirt (sky blue corduroy with pink stitching). Now all I need is a jelly kelly bag, some legwarmers and pointy shoes and a little tank top that says something awfully whitty and original - like "it's not shopping it's retail therapy". (yawn)
We walked all through Regent Park, which was unbelievable beautiful. Took lots of pictures. Later when we got home, we made our own curry and a salad, and then got too lazy to go anywhere. So we crashed.
Monday-
It was my last day, so I had to cram everything I didn't have time for earlier. Dina and I rushed through the Renaissance wing of the National Gallery. We saw some pretty sick Michaelangelo's and a few really beautiful portraits. Then we got tired of all the religious imagery...or in Dina's words "It's like Jesus's photo-album....this is me with my mom....and this is me with the apostles...that's me with John the Baptist...." So we moved on to some more modern stuff. I wanted to see the Vermeers since I had just finished the book, but we didn't make it that far before we ran outta time. We got through most of the impressionists (Van Gogh's Sunflowers - live! woo-hoo!).
After the museum, I dragged Dina to Burberry's where she hated everything, but I wanted a pink cashmere scarf. But I didn't wanna pay $260 for it.
We went on to Harrod's and spent some time bumming around the food hall. I spent like $90 on chocolate, tea, cheese, and a Thai rose apple (so yummY!!!!)
After Harrod's Dina and I went to check out a depressing outdoor photo exhibition called "From Earth To The Sky". This guy had shot a bunch of photos froma helicopter, and each one was accompanied by a personalized guilt trip. "Here's a beautiful shot of people doing laundry in a river in Mozambique. Due to your ignorance and unwillingness to save the planet, the river has become utterly polluted and a breeding ground for ebola virus. By the year 2007, Mozambique and its native people will have been replaced by killer mutant cockroaches."
Somehow, Dina and I navigated ourselves back to Anna's place, met up with Clay and Tammi, and headed out to a pub where we met up with Anna and Shana. I had a really creamy beer called Boddington's and tried to convince Shana to drop Political Economics (or whatever the hell she's studying over there), come to Hollywood and become a voice-over person cuz her speaking voice just rocks.
After getting kicked out of the pub at 11pm, we went to a club called Dog Star, shot the shit for a while, grabbed some greasy fish & chips at some joint where I met a Sri Lankan fellow, and took the bus home where some guy tried to talk to us about Jesus.
Tuesday morning I left for Heathrow.
That's it! That's my trip!
-rs
ok. Here's what I did in London:
ThursdaY-
Landed.
Met up with Anna and partook in her current obsession, which is checking out the mark-down shelf at Tesco supermarket. Seriously, we went to Tesco like 3 times that day, and she had gone there twice before I had gotten there. Sick!
We went to her posh flat near Oxford Circus, made dinner, went out for a walk, went home and crashed.
Friday-
I knew I was gonna be on my own on Friday night, so I bought a ticket to this play called "The Goat". I got the ticket for 20 pounds and since it was a single I got a second row seat! But then since I was late getting to the play I had to sit all the way in the back! Bollocks!
Friday afternoon I met with the Fairwood Music peeps. Had a lovely chat with everyone there, and it was good to put faces to names.
That evening I went to go see "The Goat", which is a play about a man who has an affair with a goat. The treatment of the bizarre subject matter was what was interesting. I felt that if I was ever in the wife's situation, I would have reacted the same way. During the course of her explosive argument with her husband, she manages to destroy absoutely everything on stage. The story then takes a turn when their sexually confused son has a rather awkward "moment" with dad - but what can dad really say?? He's been doin' it with a frigging goat! I won't tell you how it ended, but I thought the ending really grounded the whole story. It made me realize that the wife had taken her husband's affair with the goat as a very serious threat, and it took the comic edge off the situation.
After the show I took myself out for curry, then coffee somewhere (had the worst panna cotta EVER!!!!). At the end of the evening, I was kinda shocked that I had not been able to strike up a conversation with a single human being during the course of my night out. And it wasn't me. I just think London is a cold place.
That night I stayed up until 4am reading "Girl With A Pearl Earring". Not one of my favorite books ever, but certainly entertaining. And I think it was the first time in a long time I had enough peace of mind to just shut everything out and get absorbed in a book.
Anna had a great night out with Clay and Tammi. They had gone to see Ded Prez and she accidentally wound up backstage and met Mos Def.
Saturday-
Anna and I went to the Tate Modern Museum. We pretty much spent the whole day there. It was incredible!! The galleries are separated by subject matter rather than time periods. Anna pointed out that the exhibits were very well curated. There was one in particular which dealt with history and social consciousness and political movements. It started off with a room full of posters and banners of Soviet propaganda, and moved into a room with pieces dealing with various forms of idealism. Very cool.
I loved the Nudes and Human Body in Action exhibit. By the time you're almost to the end of the exhibit, you've been bombarded with shocking, abrasive images, and also increasingly more abstract and distilled images of the human body. Then you walk into a room with a copy of Rodin's famous statue "The Kiss" and it looks so real after you've been numbed by all those other images, so intimate and so tangible. It's almost too private to look at this couple in this moment.
There were two more exhibits I thought were really cool. Sorry I can't remember artist names. Maybe I'll Google them and post later.
Anyway. There were these two rooms. You stand in one and you get surrounded by colored light. As the light changes, your eyes do this crazy trick where you start seeing the negative of the color you just saw projected onto the color you're looking at now. Example: You were looking at blue, then it changed to green. While you're looking at green, you're seeing red cuz it's the opposite of blue. Cool, eh? Then there's another room which is just black ceiling with white light, to serve as a palate cleanser.
The last exhibit which made an impression on me was a room which essentially put you next to an explosion. This woman spent months collecting odd items from her friends - shoes, dolls, hair curlers, a cello, etc. She put everything in a barn and with the help of the British Army, blew it up. And took pictures. In this room, she recreated a frozen moment of the explosion by suspending all these items in the air (using string and wires). She arranged them just as they would have looked in mid-explosion - smaller pieces like the curlers and dolls on the inside, and larger pieces like pieces of wood that made up the barn on the outside. There was a single light bulb in the center of it all, causing a fucking freaky shadow all around.
After hitting up another 8 Tesco's, Anna and met up with Clay and Tammi at a really tasty Thai place.
Sunday-
Dina arrived on Sunday. We went to Camden and bummed around the market. I bought a cheap and trendy little pleated skirt (sky blue corduroy with pink stitching). Now all I need is a jelly kelly bag, some legwarmers and pointy shoes and a little tank top that says something awfully whitty and original - like "it's not shopping it's retail therapy". (yawn)
We walked all through Regent Park, which was unbelievable beautiful. Took lots of pictures. Later when we got home, we made our own curry and a salad, and then got too lazy to go anywhere. So we crashed.
Monday-
It was my last day, so I had to cram everything I didn't have time for earlier. Dina and I rushed through the Renaissance wing of the National Gallery. We saw some pretty sick Michaelangelo's and a few really beautiful portraits. Then we got tired of all the religious imagery...or in Dina's words "It's like Jesus's photo-album....this is me with my mom....and this is me with the apostles...that's me with John the Baptist...." So we moved on to some more modern stuff. I wanted to see the Vermeers since I had just finished the book, but we didn't make it that far before we ran outta time. We got through most of the impressionists (Van Gogh's Sunflowers - live! woo-hoo!).
After the museum, I dragged Dina to Burberry's where she hated everything, but I wanted a pink cashmere scarf. But I didn't wanna pay $260 for it.
We went on to Harrod's and spent some time bumming around the food hall. I spent like $90 on chocolate, tea, cheese, and a Thai rose apple (so yummY!!!!)
After Harrod's Dina and I went to check out a depressing outdoor photo exhibition called "From Earth To The Sky". This guy had shot a bunch of photos froma helicopter, and each one was accompanied by a personalized guilt trip. "Here's a beautiful shot of people doing laundry in a river in Mozambique. Due to your ignorance and unwillingness to save the planet, the river has become utterly polluted and a breeding ground for ebola virus. By the year 2007, Mozambique and its native people will have been replaced by killer mutant cockroaches."
Somehow, Dina and I navigated ourselves back to Anna's place, met up with Clay and Tammi, and headed out to a pub where we met up with Anna and Shana. I had a really creamy beer called Boddington's and tried to convince Shana to drop Political Economics (or whatever the hell she's studying over there), come to Hollywood and become a voice-over person cuz her speaking voice just rocks.
After getting kicked out of the pub at 11pm, we went to a club called Dog Star, shot the shit for a while, grabbed some greasy fish & chips at some joint where I met a Sri Lankan fellow, and took the bus home where some guy tried to talk to us about Jesus.
Tuesday morning I left for Heathrow.
That's it! That's my trip!
-rs
posted by Myasorubka at 4:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home