The Tate

On our first day off, I went over to the Tate, which is very close to where we're staying. It's an enormous museum and they're currently in the process of adding a huge new wing to it (I say "wing" but it's actually "an entire other very large building"). While I love the idea of a huge museum, I can actually only wander through a museum for so long before I start to zone out, so I picked a special exhibition of Surrealist works that are from the Tate's collection.

Julien Trevelyan, "A Symposium, 1936"

I always find it interesting to see works by great artists that I simply don't care for. It's much easier for me to accept this with books and plays and films and music than with the visual arts. I find myself looking and looking, trying to convince myself that I should be looking at this because it's important. In this particular exhibit, I found myself almost entirely disinterested in the three Picasso paintings. I realized that I had to give myself permission to think, "Yes, Picasso - but not my Picasso, apparently," and then bear the odd feelings of guilt as I walked on.

So I wandered some more and found a lot of things that I really loved, especially the Miros and the Calders. I was so excited to see the edge of a Calder mobile around the corner from the room I was in, but then once I was under it I realized that it was displayed - to my mind - very poorly, in a crowded, narrow, and close part of the gallery: a little hallway between rooms that didn't give the space needed to really see it float. I have loved Calder's works - and most especially his mobiles - for years and years, and I was sad to not be able to enjoy it more thoroughly. I've spent enormous amounts of time underneath this particular work:

One of my favorite pieces of art in the world: The 76-foot long Calder mobile in the National Gallery in DC. Impossible to photograph; astounding to experience. 

But I drowned my sorrows with the Rothkos. I happened to walk past a small side gallery where a documentary on restoring the defaced Rothko painting was playing. I vaguely remembered hearing that one of his works had been vandalized - someone scrawling his name onto the piece in the lower right hand corner. The signature was large and had a heavy line, and the restoration work was made much more complicated by the fact that Rothko never talked or wrote about his technique of layering and working with the paint to create his rich and textured colors. Since his technique and even materials were basically giant question marks, the restoration involved not only the chief restoration artist at the Tate, but also a restoration scientist, who did chemical analysis after analysis on the various materials present (which, on the surface of the painting, combined to make entirely new things) both in the making of the painting and in the defacing of it. They had to determine what would break the bond between the signature and the painting, and then create something that would lift the first without destroying the other. Since they didn't know Rothko's technique, they created test work after test work to try to determine what the painting would bear.

They were finally - and really rather miraculously - able to repair the painting in a way that the curator, both of the restorers, the director of the Tate, and Rothko's son were unable to tell the difference, which seems nothing short of miraculous to me.

The series, a sequence of enormous canvases, has its own room that is quite dimly lit to protect the works. There is nothing that denotes the damage that particular painting suffered, so most visitors walk past without knowing - I know I would have. Paintings all have stories - not just in the content, but in the making of them or, in this case, the saving of them - and most of those other stories are secrets of a kind. I loved knowing the details of one of this painting's stories.

The gallery appears much more well-lit in photographs. 

This is an enormously peaceful room.

The Rothko. 

 I'm not entirely sure why I - or anyone, really - take photos of things that have already been photographed. Just part of the record of how I experienced them, I suppose. These images of the Klee and the Trevelyan are really shitty, but they were both new to me, and I love them so:

A detail from Paul Klee, "Ships in the Dark," 1927
This makes me think of Rev's going through life as "a happy little boat."

Julien Trevelyan, "Bomblet," 1937

In my photographic record defense, I do take the time to actually experience the thing before taking the photograph - I don't use the photo to stand in for actually being in front of the thing. All these photos were from my favorite pieces in the exhibit - I found them all very warm and inviting, even playful. I suppose that's what the photos are for - a reminder of the warmth I felt on being with them.

As You Like It

On Monday, we saw As You Like It at the Globe, and I was so, so happy that it was a great production. I loved the Jaques, which is tough - that Sans Everything speech can ruin that play if Jaques is trying too hard. The actress playing Rosalind, on the other hand, was - towards the end at least - trying a little too hard and she was getting on my nerves a bit. That's such a weird role. Written for a girl, played by a young boy, where the girl pretends to be a young boy who then pretends to be a young girl so the man she is in love with can practice being in love. It's always fun discussing allllll those layers of acting and gender with students.

Two great things about this production, besides the great actor playing Jaques: first, during the very first scene, where Orlando and Oliver fight, the door for the trap in the floor wouldn't shut completely. It was one of those moments on stage where the actors were having to work around it, but - of course - that was all the audience could think about. Orlando made his exit and Oliver spoke his soliloquy (quite well), and as he turned to address the character who came into speak to him ... it was one of the technicians, dressed in the classic pumpkin pants and a headset, apologizing to the audience and to the actor, saying that they needed to stop and secure the door. The actor handled it beautifully, the audience was both relieved that the problem was solved, and very very pleased about the way it was handled. The actor had to jump back into the text at a tough spot, and the audience was entirely delighted by him at that point (which was fun - no one ever really likes Oliver during Act I) and he was obviously delighted by the energy they offered him.

Then the other great thing ALSO involved Oliver, but this was an interpretive choice within the production rather than the deft handling of a tough situation on the part of the actor. After Oliver comes to tell Ganymede about Orlando's injury, and to pass on the message that Orlando had not forgotten his Rosalind. Rosalind faints, though as Ganymede she tries to pretend she was pretending (yet another layer of acting that I hadn't thought about until right now!). In the scene, there was a sudden shift in the energy of the conversation - Celia invites Oliver to return to their house with them, and Oliver says, "That will I; for I must bear answer back/How you excuse my brother .... Rosalind."

It was such a lovely choice in that scene to not let Oliver simply be pulled into the ruse, but rather to use that moment to see through Ganymede and let her know that he knows. Then that was echoed again, when Ganymede meets Orlando with Oliver, and she calls him "brother" as part of her man-to-man kind of a greeting, and he uses the word "sister" to reinforce that she is - or soon will be - his sister in marriage.

It wasn't a huge detail, but I'd never seen an actor make that choice before and it was such a lovely little piece that deepened Oliver's character and made the scene/s a touch richer.

Yay Oliver!

Oliver and Orlando, about the time that the trap was unable to close in a safe and subtle manner.

Er. Pardon me while I ... do something else.

So far, one of the hardest things I've done while I've been here is to not burst into tears in front of my students when we took our seats at the Globe. I am easily moved to tears; I cry almost as easily as I laugh. I am not unlike those small children on the internet, captured on video, who burst into tears of deeply confused joy when handed a new puppy.

And I sometimes cry in front of my students - certainly when we watch some plays (and if it's Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Winter's Tale, Othello, or Lear, then always)***, or when I teach Angels in America and the history of AIDS and HIV in the US (I warn my students in advance). But I really try to avoid simply spontaneous weeping (especially when some of them are students I have only known for a few days).

Anyway. It caught me by surprise. I hadn't thought - and in fact, still don't think - of the Globe as any kind of personal or artistic Mecca. I wasn't aware that I had attached much of anything to the place itself. But we marched up several flights of stairs and found our narrow wooden benches, and I turned around and looked at the stage and the people below me and suddenly found myself trying my hardest to not think of anything at all.

We'll be back there on Monday night and again during the day on Tuesday when we tour the space. I don't know if being there will keep sneaking up on me during those trips as well, or if I simply sidestepped the whole thing. I don't think so - I would actually hate to lose the opportunity to have that feeling, whatever it is. I'd rather not do that in front of people whose papers I will be responsible for grading. Maybe that was an unwise choice. Or at least not a very genuine choice.

***when I was proofreading this post, I had to keep going back and adding more plays. I finally stopped re-reading it because I was just going to list: ALMOST ALL PLAYS THAT ARE GOOD, which was going to be a really long list.

Easily the viewiest place I will ever live

The view:

to the left

to the right

dare i say "the boring bit in the middle that doesn't include famous landmarks, old and new"?

Also: I can see Parliament from my kitchen window. And the London Eye from everywhere. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING.

Room with a "holy fuck!" kind of a view

Holy fuck, did I win the "We're Sorry You've Not Been Here Before - Let Us Make It Up To You!" travel prize of this studio apartment with this completely insane balcony view. When I delightedly told the admins that I had a balcony (that I share with the next-door apartment), I assumed they had all planned ahead (since they were here a full two weeks before we were), and had also claimed balconies for themselves. As I immediately confess that I would have done if I were them. Apparently they were surprised at not being me, because it was immediately obvious that none of them had balconies, and hadn't even thought about getting one in advance of everyone else moving in (which is odd, given the very obvious balcony-centric quality of the architecture). I mean - if *I* was told that we'd be taking up the whole floor, I would have immediately gone outside, looked up at the 7th floor (the building only has 8 floors and is the tallest building in its immediate vicinity, so the view from the 7th floor is what you might call "pretty fucking compelling"), and demanded the balcony. Perhaps I am a bad person. Perhaps I plan ahead for the wrong things. Perhaps they are simply not very clever when it comes to architecture and the assigning of hotel rooms. Perhaps all these things are true, more or less. Or perhaps the travel gods are trying to make up for that Galapagos thing.

In any case, they all immediately and silently made a mental note of my room number, so I can pretty much guarantee that no faculty member of this program will ever have a balcony ever again. I intend to make the most of it. As Stirling would say, "Absolutely!"

Who could not have noticed the fucking balconies? 

Isn't the rest of this building designed to simply hold up the balconies?

Full English

On the ground in London.

It's still kind of amazing to me that I've traveled in so many amazing places around the world and yet have never been in the UK. Especially given the theatre thing. But here I am and etc.

First, of course: the jet lag. I've had bad, BAD jet lag before, and have managed to turn things around pretty quickly. I have insomnia, I'm used to a certain amount of fixing where my sleep is concerned. But here, where I'm not only working for someone, I'm also middle management in charge of implementing how all my students will be dealing with their jet lag - ok. I did not love that. In fact, it made me crankier than almost anything else I've ever run into with traveling, with the exception of some inept and complete dickhead planning on the part of a travel partner causing me to almost miss my flight to the Galapagos. Or those guys that ran the Indiana Collectivo that couldn't decide whose turn it was to drive. Anyway. I know I have grown more protective of my sleep, but holy fuck. The rage I felt when the administrator for the trip left no room in the schedule for my hoped-for one hour nap was pretty fucking impressive. I was ready to pull his face off with my teeth. I simply quietly made note of the many ways I hoped to damn his soul while limping through the 2 mile tour of our classroom and neighborhood, and then the obligatory welcome (yet oddly unwelcoming) dinner.

One more complaint and then I'm done. London: get a grip on your fucking sidewalk situation. Eighteen different materials appearing in 2 blocks of sidewalk is bullshit, especially in an area where every second building is under construction. Also: don't use stone unless it's already been there for 100 years or more. I'm ok with my middle-aged feet dealing with Virginia Woolf era stone. Or with Dickensian stone. Or Chaucerian stone. Or with stone that goes all the way back to the fucking Ancient Britons, but really. Pull it the fuck together. My feet loathe this city with the rage of a thousand fiery suns (or, as a friend of mine once misheard that: "the rage of a thousand fiery nuns." Your call). The few (rare) sections of asphalt mixed in make me feel like I'm walking on fluffy rugs made of kitten and bunny fur.

I was ready for a lot of walking. I was not prepared to walk on sidewalks the Romans would laugh at.

Ok. Now that's all out of my system. Moving on. (More slowly than I had planned on, and with a slight limp.)

generation x

The only time I believe in the idea of being "born on the cusp" is when it comes to where I belong in the generational divisions of American society. Born in 1961, the US Census Bureau classifies me as the last gasping tail of the Boomer generation - and certainly there are differences between me and many younger members of Generation X. But Douglas Coupland, who gave the term "Generation X" a huge public push when he published his novel by that name.

As the wiki linked above states, "X" was originally coined by Paul Fussell in his book "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, and it referred to those who chose to step outside of the class system to pursue their own way in the world - a reasonable enough idea to borrow and apply to our generation. Apparently, up to the point of Coupland's novel, it hadn't occurred to much of anyone that any generation after the Boomers even needed a name. I'll tell you this: I am no fucking Boomer.