Category Archives: Travel

London 2009 – Day 3 – Market Day Part II

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In which Pawn finds that sometimes life just isn’t what it appears, but a roast almost always is. Further, whilst considering this, makes certain discoveries about the nature of travel.

Oh, what a joy Market Day can be. As I described in this morning’s account, we shopped heartily at the Marylebone Green Market this morning, and tonight we enjoyed the fruits of that effort. But I get ahead of myself. First, then, is an account of our afternoon.

After returning to the flat after marketing, we settled in a bit, and then had a delightful light lunch of a mini-quiche shared amongst us, Florentine, along with some table water crackers, Saint George (a goat’s milk brie), Milano salami, buffalo Cheddar, carrot sticks, Edam and some grapes. Then it was off to see Michael Caine’s new film, “Is Anybody There?” We strolled down Tottenham Court Road/Charing Cross [Ed: an aside is in order. For those of you not familiar with this phenomenon, London streets often change names after only a few blocks. In this case, Tottenham Court Road transmogrifies into Charing Cross about 6 or 7 blocks south of our flat.] towards Leicester Square.

First, however, we let ourselves get side tracked into Chinatown. I was shocked and saddened to find that Lee Ho Fook is gone, replaced by a different new Chinese establishment. An establishment that had survived for many years is gone, just like that, in a little over a year. Oh well, at least I got to eat there once.

The crowds were remarkable, floods of humanity as far as the eye could see. Wall to wall and from one end of the street to the other. We swam through the crowd and finally worked our way back into Leicester Square and the theatre. We were early (a new experience) and got to sit for a spell in the square’s park. I decided to take X over to the edge of the square to show her the Glockenspiel over by the Swiss House. Oops! Not there any more – new works are under way, and the Glockenspiel has apparently gone away. Let’s hope it is merely in storage, waiting to come back for a new perch on the new building.

Then into the theatre. When buying tickets (matinee, £9.95) we have to choose our seats(!) something that comes as a bit of a surprise. We pick Row C, middle, and after getting our popcorn take our seats in an empty theatre. By the time the film starts there are about 12 other people, but it is a small house, so it isn’t empty, at least.

The film was good. It is sentimental to the Nth degree, but that’s what its on about, after all, so no surprise there. Michael Caine turns in a stellar performance as a washed-up caravan magician and is countered by Bill Milner as the young Edward (age 10), whose parents have turned their home into an elderly care centre, and who is chafing at the stress this has put on his life (displacing him from his room, his parents fighting, the old people taking attention away from him). There are at least three scenes in this film where you may find yourself thinking, “Oh, this is the scene that will get the Oscar buzz for Caine.” and yet they are all really that good, and he does really turn in the performance of what is already an exemplary career. Milner, too, is utterly engaging, and pulls you through the angst of his daily life, and the joy of his escapes into investigating the supernatural. Please, overlook the clichés and the pat elements of the storyline, and just let yourself enjoy an uplifting film with some truly stellar performances. [Or just dab at your furtive tears with a popcorn napkin, as Nic surreptitiously tried to. – X]

[Nic has mercifully acknowledged the existence of the London bus system (above ground, with better views) so we were allowed to”Oyster” the 24/7 #24 right to the grocery store. – X] Next we had to do some shopping. When we got home with our market bags we realized that we had nothing to cook the roast in, so we ducked into Sainsbury’s to see if we could score a little roasting pan, you know, the cheap aluminium pans you find in the typical American grocers. Not here! But, as we approached the checkout lane, I spotted an aluminium serving plate (3 pack for £2). Lesson No. 1: In a pinch, use your imagination. [Nic earned one hour of mocking-free time with this shopping coup; the manager he asked knew nothing of this “manager’s special”. – X]

Whew!

Okay, the dinner, you ask (I imagine you ask…I would ask). Where to begin. X masterfully roasted that little 1kg piece of meat, producing a lovely rare roast (Lesson No. 1A: always travel with a foodie!), while I prepared a quick salad of gem and carrot shavings with a mustard vinaigrette. Lesson No. 2: making your own vinaigrette in a strange and under supplied kitchen? A cocktail shaker, 25ml of balsamic vinegar, 25ml of extra virgin olive oil, pinch of salt, a few dashes of pepper and about a ½ tsp of heavy mustard with seeds. Yum! Also on the menu, a pound of asparagus sautéed on high heat with some sea salt and olive oil, and a delightful tea loaf from market.

How was it? OMG!!! The best meal in ages! Oh, the meat was like red butter, the asparagus was crisp yet yielding and flavourful, the salad a sweet and tangy delight and the bread was so earthy, with a slathering of butter on it. Add to that a precious little screw-top red (Oxford Landing, Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz) and all that was missing was some little piece of chocolate to polish the whole meal off.

Now we are just sitting about in the salon, watching British junk food telly, and listening to our brains slowly melt and drain out of our ears.

Bliss!

London 2009 – Day 3 – Market Day

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Sunday, on which Pawn awakens, tortured in his dreams as he is, and yet manages to go back to sleep.

Ah, market day is here! After a light breakfast, we sojourn out with empty shopping bags, and head west for the Marylebone Hight Street. We took a little detour to investigate Marylebone Lane, and the Button Queen, therein. Then into the OxFam book shop to browse.

Readers of this blog from last year’s visit will remember that it was the purchase of a DK Eyewitness guidebook to Prague that lead to the booking of travel there for a 4 day jaunt. So, once inside the shop I made a bee-line for the travel section (well, tried to but had trouble finding it) and looked for another DK Eyewitness guidebook. What did I find, you ask? Amsterdam! I had already been thinking about visiting Amsterdam during the weekend of the 16th, and this little sign from the OxFam travel gods is just the push I needed.

At the checkout stand the clerks were pricing CDs for shelving, and I spotted one by Jools Holland and Tom Jones. Snapped that up tout de suite! We’ll be listening to that this evening.

Off, then, to the Fromagerie to score some great smells and some sweet mints. Then across the street into the green market. We quickly were stocking up on buffalo and goat cheeses, gem, carrots, fruit leather, bread, salad onions and a lovely little roast. We will be dining in this evening, one of the nice things about having an apartment rather than hotel rooms.

We are off shortly for a matinée of the new Michael Caine film, “Is Anybody There.” We wanted to see “Anvil – The Story of Anvil” but that has only one showing a week, so we’re out of luck. This is our slow day, a day to relax a bit, not walk 10 or 15 miles, and just enjoy the time and the pleasant weather.

Tomorrow? Back into the breach! We’ll be attending Family day at the races at Kempton Park.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 3 – The Neighbours

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We already made reference to the fact that we are squatting right across the street from the headquarters of Saatchi & Saatchi, a worldwide advertising concern.  Next door to us, to the east, is an architectural firm, whose various models fill their windows (see photos).  Last night, on the way home from St. Martin’s, we noticed the name of the firm for the first time, it is none other than ARUP, one of the top design/build architectural engineering firms in the world.  There was a fantastic profile of on of ARUP head engineers in the New Yorker a year or so back.  They have been responsible for such projects as the Bird’s Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics.

London 2009 – Day 2 – Uncommon Parallels

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In which Pawn having extricated himself from his day to day life for interval finds that just as life imitates art, so does art imitate life. Furthermore, during this discovery, finds that such mirrors, when held up to one’s life, can provide variously valuable lessons and frequent opportunities for sheepish laughter. Armored with said knowledge, and feeling especially humbled and foolish having just seen his life held up, thusly, for examination, resolves to strive for less drama and less comedy in life, or at least for better drama and comedy, if it must be there.

Day 2, at a decent hour, X launches herself from bed with all the speed and grace of a three toed sloth and after a breakfast of rashers and eggie-weggs your intrepid citizens plummet out of the apartment and into the day, already started without them but showing no signs of waiting for their participation.

We alight first at the Tottenham (pronounced Tot-nam) Court tube to procure our Oyster cards. Much fuss with the machines, which don’t really work but serve to distract people who would otherwise be queuing for the single gate agent and complain about the length of queue, so they instead complain about the failed machines and get into a now shorter queue after those who belligerently stayed on queue in the first place have been served and on their way. I pity the poor TFL wage slave whose job it is to convince people to un-queue and use the machines instead, just to have to watch, powerless, as the machines fail to do anything useful. [but he did resemble Robert Carlyle, so some were grateful for his attentions – X]

Once cleared through what feels like a more rigorous and grueling process than cross-border customs, we are being rocketed south through the Northern Line underground to Southbank and the Hayward Gallery. Two exceptional exhibits are in right now, Annette Messager “The Messengers” and, closing Tuesday, “Mark Wallinger curates The Russian Linesman: Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds.” [overheard, “Is it like “The Wichita Line Man?” – X] Whoa Nellie, hold onto your hat! It is hard to imagine two more different shows for this venue, and it is hard to imagine two shows which could exceed any expectation you might bring to the Hayward. Where to start?

Annette Messager is a collector and a purveyor of collections. She uses a multitude of media; sketch, oil, acrylic, collage, fibre, fabric, motion control… the list goes on and on. She builds collections of objects, concepts, thoughts, guilty pleasures, embarrassments, revelations, whimsy, and finds ways to display them so that we can enter into her world, or not, engage or remain aloof; our choice. But, even if we remain standoffish, we are inside her head, or a model of her head, and we start to understand her world view.

Her work is not always comfortable, and we sometimes find ourselves wondering if a particularly difficult image or installation is real, or sarcastic or ironic. There is much violence and much shame in her work, and while sometimes it may force the viewer to confront the presence of violent or shameful behaviours or thoughts in their own hearts, sometimes it may just leave the viewer cold, hurt or dumbfounded.

There is much remarkable within this exhaustive retrospective. Of special note to Pawn were:

  • How My Friends Would Do My Portrait: A collection of dozens of portraits of the artist in a variety of media showing just how differently we may be viewed by all of those people in our lives.
  • Collection To Find My Best Signature: A collection of over a hundred small framed works, each featuring up to 10 different takes on the artist’s signature, arranged in a large diamond shaped grid.
  • The Men I Love, The Men I Don’t Love: This is part of the Room of Secrets, a sort of meta-collection of collections, displayed as a room into which holes have been cut at different heights and positions, allowing the viewer a glimpse inside a woman’s private study, as it were, to see what she collects and what does that really say about her. There are dozens of collections in this room, including Voluntary Tortures, a look at the things that women do to themselves, or allow to be done to them, in the name of beauty.
  • Gloves – Head: A large installation piece in which hundreds of knit gloves, with coloured pencils inserted where the finger tips would be, are arranged on the wall to make the image of a face. The gloves bulge out, all stuffed, making their sharpened coloured-pencil fingernails seem quite vicious and threatening.
  • The Exquisite Corpse [le Cadavre Exquis]: A human pelvis, spine and skull to which are attached, via long cords, moulded claw-like hands and feet, and a beakish proboscis. This is all suspended in air from a scaffold and the hands and feet are moved about like those of a marionette by means of motors and winches, trolleys and suchlike, all while strikingly lit from the sides and above, casting ghoulish shadows all about. The effect, accompanied by Philip Glass-ian music, was hypnotic, to say the least. The guard, a strikingly beauty in an Audrey Hepburn kind of way, just stared at this spectre the whole time we were there.
  • And a room of slowly inflating, writhing and collapsing lush fabric shapes, organic and carnal, yet so enticing I wanted to be among them, just another gently respirating member of this eternal/internal seraglio – X

We could go on, but you’ve already stopped reading, so what’s the point. We finally took our leave of Annette Messager and trundled upstairs to The Russian Linesman.

You know what? This is just too much to disgorge all at once. I will say this; the Russian Linesman was a superbly curated show, very inventive, very revealing, and it will be closed before you could ever hope to see it, so what does it matter anyway?

What’s next, you ask? [Well, it’s a leisurely walk along the Thames, with stops for photography, sand castle construction, coffee, mocking of tourists, etc., suddenly turning into a speed walk that rivalled Chairman Mao’s Long March under Nic’s whip, as we realized we might well be late for the play at the Barbican. Which is a 1970’s mixed use labyrinth in itself, especially when you we arrive three minutes before curtain (not that there was a curtain). – X ] Well, it’s “Andromaque,” by Jean Racine. Written in the 17th century, this is the tale of what happened after the Trojan war. What happens after Achilles and Agamemnon and Helen and all go back home and try to return to life as usual. More specifically, what happens to their kids, when they grow up, and have to deal with the overturned landscape which had been in place for generations. What happens? Well, they are all wrapped up in ridiculous love triangles, requited and unrequited, and with all of the subtlety of a soap opera and the plotting side kicks from your favourite Shakespeare play…well, all hell breaks loose.

This play is presented in the original French, with super titles. In the Silk Road theatre in the Barbican complex, this is a problem. This is a lovely, intimate, proscenium theatre, but with the steeply raked seating section so popular during the 1970s. Why is this a problem? Because for all but those in the very rear rows this means that the audience are constantly having to look up to the super titles and then back down to the actors. This deprives the audience of the opportunity to really watch the actors’ craft, and deprives the actors of the undivided attention of the audience. In a less steeply raked theatre, the super titles would not have had to be placed so high up, and more of the audience would have been spared this difficult choice. [Except for the lady in front of us who spent the interval reading the play in French…show off! – X]

The show itself was wonderful. It was beautifully lit, staged, acted and produced. Two thumbs up! We do not single out any one performance, for this was truly an ensemble piece. [Not quite, says X, The king, Pyrrhus and Helen’s daughter, Hermione, “If there had been any scenery, they would have chewed it!”]

Okay, where do two pagans go from there? To church, of course. We bused and trudged from Barbican, in The City, down to Waterloo, and then back to Victoria Embankment and up to Trafalgar Square, to St. Martin-in-the-fields to acquire tickets to a concert of Vivaldi, “Four Seasons by candlelight,” in the nave of St. Martin-in-the-field. We got two in pews, restricted views (WTH, it’s music, not dance) and caught a quick bite to eat in the Crypt. Pork and leek sausages over potato mush with boiled red cabbage and a red wine/gravy reduction; £7.99. Quite good, despite my general loathing for British sausage. These were moist and tender, and delightfully tasty in the gravy. [and consumed at tables set over the graves of English worthies of centuries past, whose early departures from this world were probably due to a similar diet. – X]

The concert was about what we expected; top 40 classics played by the Belmont Ensemble of London:

  • Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
  • Vivaldi – Concerto for Two Violins
  • Bach – Air on the G String
  • Pachelbel – Canon in D
  • Vivaldi – Sinonia ‘Alla Rustica’
  • Mozart – Salzburg Symphony No. 2
  • Handel – Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

While the whole program was good, and hung well together, there were some disappointments. There was something wrong, in the first portion, with the sound from the viola. This was not a performance issue, but simply that the sound of the viola was “boxy” in its upper registers. Maybe a misplaced bridge or a bad tuning. [too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know there WAS a viola until Nic made this perceptive comment. – X] Hard to say, but after interval it was all good. The Mozart, especially, and the Handel were quite strong, and led to a partial ovation. [And quick exit by your correspondents, with no genuflecting. It was a long day, and the Scotch, the Scotch was calling. – X]

This type of ”Pops classics” show is quite common these days in large European cities, but they do deliver what the audience really comes for: an opportunity to hear familiar music in an exceptional venue, played by competent, and sometimes even inspired, musicians. A nice night out, but nothing to write home about (oops, guess that means I have to erase those last several graphs!).

Back home now, [via Charing Cross Road. Number 84 is vacant, next to a Subway sandwich shop and across from “BARGAIN BOOKS OFFICIAL SEX SHOP” – X] taking turns at the keyboard (X is editing and contributing) and getting ready for bed. Lot’s of new photos, will post those shortly.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 2 – Cannot Sleep

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It is 4:45 am London time and I am awake again. That’s life, I guess.

I thought I would take a moment to describe the flat we’re staying in, as it is such a contrast with the flat I had last year. Last year I had a dinky studio in Marylebone, a tiny flat in a tony district. This year, as I have X as a traveling companion for the first couple of weeks, I have a two bedroom in Fitzrovia, a different tony district. Last year the whole flat was 2 metres by 5 metres, plus a small en suite bathroom and a closet. Last year’s flat could fit in one of this year’s bedrooms. Welcome to comfort!

One can walk (if one knows where one is going) from one flat to the other. Fitzrovia is a lovely neighbourhood, and quite central to everything. Last year I would not have been able to afford such luxurious digs, but this year, thanks to a combination of factors, it is not that far a reach. The pound was much dearer last year, at $2/£ versus this year’s $1.42/£. Combine that with the fact that the depressed economy has put downward pressure on last year’s inflated housing prices and that X is paying half the rent, and you can suddenly find things much more affordable.

Oh, and the fact that after suffering so last year, without a proper place to sit and write or a decent bed to sleep in, I resolved to treat myself a bit better this time around.

The flat, Eliza Court, is on the second storey of a slender brick block with north facing windows which look across the street to the offices of Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the world’s largest advertising firms, who were responsible for the YouTube sensation of the flash-mob dance scene at Liverpool train station a few months ago. Just a reminder, in England the floor numbering is off by one compared to the US, as there is first a “ground floor” then the first floor, etc. So, in American terms we are on the third floor.

Each bedroom, at about 3 metres by 4.5 metres, is the size of last year’s pad. Add to that a spacious (3 metres x 5.5 metres) reception lounge (living room) and a serviceable and well fitted kitchen alcove and you’ve got an apartment that is rather posh. A one bedroom flat two storeys above us is currently listed for sale for £380,000, and another one bedroom on the same floor is available to rent for £1,320/month.

Okay, enough about the flat. This is Early May Bank Holiday, or May Day, in the UK, which means it is a three day weekend, and there are many sales and promotions tied to that. For us it means a cheap day at the horse races, which we’ll attend on Monday. The city was abuzz last night with a palpable excitement of the long weekend, as large crowds spilled out of many of the more popular establishments. Along James Street in the West End there were entire blocks where the side walks were nearly impassable due to the crowds of people out enjoying the lovely weather and the opportunity to get away with a several days long buzz.

We were too tired for that, which somehow doesn’t explain why I am sitting here now, at 5:30 in the morning, watching the sunrise reflect off of the sturdy brick block across the street. >sigh<

Today, Saturday, brings a matinee performance of one of the two shows we pre-booked for this visit. “Andromaque,” by Jean Racine, a 17th century French play produced here by Cheek By Jowels productions at Barbican. Other than that we will likely spend the day getting better oriented to the neighbourhood (an obvious need, based on last night’s experience).

Tomorrow will bring the Marylebone Green Market, and we will have an opportunity to stock up on some good groceries, meat & cheese. Having a decent kitchen, and a wonderful cook in X, we should eat well at home or afoot this trip. Looking forward to a lunch at the Bidendom this trip, when we go to check out the latest Banksy exhibit later on in the visit. There are worse things than traveling with a foodie!

That’s enough for now, must sign off and get cleaned up for the new day. I am too wide awake to sleep any more now, so I’ll just embrace the early morning and get about things.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 0/1 – Departures and Arrivals

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Pawn’s Interval. So called because in the script of Pawn’s year, spanning October 2008 – October 2009, we have reached the mid point. We have witnessed, have we not, the epic highs of the conclusion of the 2008 US Presidential election cycle. Which event, coming to a conclusion, as it did, with the triumphant election of Pawn’s candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, on 4 November, 2008. Such timing, coincided with the “reverse,” the first in a series of cardiac events of Pawn’s dear friend, Tom, who subsequently perished in a flurry of sad and dilatory events, culminating on 4 December 2008, thus sending our script writers into abject depression and several of those involved into excessive consumption.

No good could come of this, of course, and our intrepid protagonist was left with little choice but to pick him self up, dust off the clichés and start all over…when a series of increasingly comic events, mostly having to do with epic misjudgements and miscalculations has led our poor Pawn into a seeming spiral of affected comedy of the sort of Willie S’s Twelfth Night or Moliere’s Tartuffe.

Bring us then now unto our present particulars. To whit:

  • This being Spring, the weather is particularly nice
  • This being the end of a particularly dreary winter in Milwaukee, our protagonist and his trusty side-kick X have virtually exploded onto the London scene with a level of appreciation for the current circumstances which may leave some here especially baffled.

Okay, a moment of seriousness, impending, overcoming, overwhelming sleep demands that I retake the reins of this operation and send the id packing, for now. We had a fairly dreadful flight getting here, including the not very pleasant element of the Indian family who boarded the plane in Chicago, and then changed their seats, by themselves without consulting crew, several times before the crew stopped them to do a head count and realised that it was all bullocks and had to be put right before we could take off. Oh my! Paging Mr. Patel, Paging Mr Patel…His absence mysteriously coincided with an emergency call to an airlines employee, armed with a giant roll of duct tape, who hastily secured an overhead luggage bin and labeled it with dire warnings.

Mr. Patel had not been located by the time we disembarked at Heathrow. The stern lecture by the Head Purser (lips pursed and jaw clenched throughout) did not appear to affect the merry group of seat and boarding pass exchangers in the least.

Then we launched, and the flight itself was fairly typical. Landed in London on time, quick connections, and into the apartment in a jiff. The apartment, as previously referenced on some social networking sites, is a beaut. Well appointed, well fitted, and nice. Oh, and perfectly situated for our needs. Even cheap, to boot, for a two bedroom in Fitzrovia.

Took two long walks today. One took us south to Covent Gardens, looping through the Victoria Embankment Gardens (see photos) and then back up through various climbs to the apartment. Along the way we shopped for food (mostly breakfast and snack goods), toiletries, vitamins, wine and liquor, etc. Oh, and we stopped in at Ha Ha, next to Charing Cross station to get a couple of martinis (see photos).

Then back to the pad to upload the first batch of photos (see earlier post) and veg out a bit. X found British junk food telly and was glad for it.

Out again shortly after 5:00 to take a stroll through Regents Park and admire the gardens (see new photos). Then a stroll by last year’s quarters and to a sumptuous dinner at Base Brasserie – braised lamb shank for X and roast rack for moi. Disparaging sneer by waiter at our wine selection daunted us not, Great salad of “asparagus, rocket and parmesan.” I got us lost a bit on the way back, and didn’t have a map along. Oops! Won’t let that happen again.*

*you got that right, pal.

-X

p.s. “a bit”?????

The OCO

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baikonur-cosmodrome-kazakhstan-history-3

It all went wrong when we listened to the man on the bus. Should have known better, he was a little too eager and a little too polished. “Where you off to, then?” he asked. “London,” we politely replied. “Aye, you’re taking the O’Hare Cosmodrome option then, are ye?”

“What?” This should have been the first clue.

“Oh, the Cosmodrome option. It’s the latest. Why they zip you up in a tube, they do, and fire you off, and before you know it you’re cross the pond and happy as a lark on Carnaby Street!”

“You must be joking,” we said in a mixture of astonishment and incredulity.

Look, it is all so easy when you travel. You seem to trust people in a whole different way, people you have never met before. The seat-mate on the bus, the person at the airport bar with whom you take turns watching bags and sluffing off to the loo to discharge the extra baggage earned waiting for your too late flight. Call it traveler’s camaraderie or Stockholm syndrome. You are all in it together, after all, and so you adjust the normal boundaries of life to accommodate this different reality made up of train stations, airports and motor coach life.

We listened to him for a while, and as he spoke we found it all making more and more sense. The Russians, it seems, had quite taken to the idea of lofting people into space for fun and profit, and had apparently made a deal with one Richard M. Daley to equip his beloved O’Hare International Airport with the necessary accouterments to launch such a service. All made sense to us.

Before you know it the die was cast and we were to be SBT (space borne tourist) class travelers. We got badges with little antennae rather than boarding passes, and we queued when told, and we all went the same, egalitarian, class. Signs of Old Russia here. The drinks were good, however, so that helped. Next thing we knew we were loaded into a tube, trundled out to a launch pad somewhere between Kirghistan and Peoria and fired into space like the human cannonball at a county fair.

It was X who was first to express doubt as to the wisdom of this plan. It was somewhere between the signing of the waivers and the strapping into our “flight suits” (they looked suspiciously like straight jackets). “I don’t know about this, Nic. What was so bad about a red eye into Heathrow, anyway?”

So now we sit, eating like astronauts, little tubes of chicken and lasagna to suck on, globules of salad dressing drifting in the air. “Watch out for the ‘whipped spread’,” warns X, “It’s entirely melted and scalding hot.” She was right, of course, I quickly realized as I pierced the foil lid and it sprayed into my face. Clingy stuff, that hot, whipped, spread.

“Love and Quiches!” read the label on the brownie. Sure enough, you could feel the love that went into the…packaging. By the time I had the little bugger open it was all a big chocolate schmear…Okay, I was all a big chocolate schmear. In the epic struggle of man v. cellophane it was the cellophane what won.

Must sign off now, dinner is over and time to put the straight jacket flight suit back on. Will write more after splash down. Just hoping we’re closer to Wapping than Vladivostok.

Ta!

WOC – Day 1

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In Las Vegas for setup for World Of Concrete 2009 — My second year.  Town is much quieter this year.  There are a slew of half finished construction projects seemingly frozen in time.  The huge cranes, derricks and boom pumps are all still standing, but they are still and calm.  Everyone seems a little bit more on edge, the gaming floors less peopled, the lounges more empty.

Several of the big attractions are closed or closing.  The Hilton has one fewer restaurant, and another on reduced hours.  Tom Jones closes in a couple days.  The Doobie Brothers are here for a limited engagement, and Heart will play for only two days.  Upkeep on the hotel seems to be down as well; it takes longer for the hot water to reach the upper floors, the windows are filthy.  Kind of goes hand-in-glove with the US Airways charging for the 1st checked bag, and for water…

Took a walk along Desert Inn Drive this afternoon and the air was acrid with exhaust and diesel fumes.  At 57 degrees I feel fine in my shirt sleeves, but the locals are wearing jackets.  The show floor is succumbing to a fresh blanketing of carpet.  Tens of thousands of square feet of carpeting with under-foam, will be laid today and tomorrow morning, then covered with plastic sheeting so that the thousands of tons of construction machinery can be driven around on it and manuevered into perfect position.   Once positioned the trucks will be detailed, touched up, tricked out.  The furniture and potted plants will be brought in, the structures will rise up out of thousands of crates which appear and disappear in seemingly perfect choreography…or is it barely controlled chaos?  Large format plasma screens will alight like so many butterflies on so many exhibit walls.  Cables will be plugged, connected, strung and stretched (and cut and broken).

When all is set the plastic sheets will be trimmed back from everything, the candy dishes will be filled, the coolers stocked with fluids of all sorts.  The computers booted up, the badge readers plugged in, the booth-bunnies given their marching orders…etc.

Ahh yes, WOC 2009.

London Journal – Epilogue – Echos From Dreamland

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I imagine myself to be a simple enough man. I am not given to epiphany with great regularity, nor am I given to cypher. I am probably plain to a fault, and tend to expose too much of my inner world. I do not often have dreams which move me. I had one last night, and it is still resting heavy in my chest.

I will, no I must, try to record what I dreamed in order to lighten this weight. I am on an airplane right now, flying somewhere over Canada on my way home from a month in London. I went to try to find myself, and in some ways I have. I have a better sense of who I am right now than I long have. I once again feel a level of confidence which I once carried like a shield but which has been missing for too long now. But this dream.

Before I left on my trip I wrote my ex-wife a letter about an essay I had read. No, not really about the essay, but about how my own experiences have left me in a different place than that author. That essay was by a woman who had lost her father when she herself was already an adult. In her map of the universe there were places which she associated with her father, places from which she had stayed away, as though they were off limits to her. There was his Brooklyn, and there was hers. Only after he passed had she allowed herself to venture too far into his Brooklyn.

I wrote that I had a very different map than she. In my map of the universe my father occupies times and not places. I do not think of a place and say “That’s my fathers” (fill in the blank). I think of times, “When my father was alive we…” I can no more venture into those times than could H. G. Wells without his time machine. I could not understand, I couldn’t relate to what this woman wrote, but she wrote it beautifully and it did make me think to recount in writing an event of which I had never written before – my father’s death in my 13th year. This I did in painful detail, and I cried while I wrote it. I suspect she cried when she read it. Later, when I cleaned up the letter and put it on my website, I suspect that other people cried when they read it. I did not intend to make people cry, I just had to get that account out of my system, and I had.

This was all in prelude to my month-long trip to London, and it served as a sort of cathartic warm up. In London I took a day to go and try to find my father’s London, and ended up finding how much the world changes in 60 years. Instead I found myself, or part of myself, and had a new catharsis. That prelude piece had ended in my admission that in a way I had always blamed my mother and her pack-rat tendencies for his death. I don’t know how aware I have ever been of this, but it must have been there and it came out full force as I wrote that memoir. I shudder to think of my siblings reading that and what they may now think of me.

But my dream really startled me, for in my dream I found myself confronting those demons directly in way I have never imagined one could in a dream. Here then is that dream, make of it what you will.

I am 45 years old now, middle aged. My marriage of 12 years failed, though there were many good years and much happiness, there was an unhappy period which came over me and by annex my marriage, commencing a few years ago, roughly coinciding with my mother’s final illness and ultimate death. After her illness, death and the administering of her estate I never really get back to enjoying my life as it was. Too much has changed. I cannot even see what is different or what is wrong, I am just sublimely unhappy.

But now I am a teenager again, I am in my mother’s living room and the room is clean, something it had not been since my father passed away. This in part is how I place my own age, as I cannot see myself. I am in a clean living room so I must be a teenager. The doorbell rings and someone answers. My father is at the door. He has been dead for five years now, and has come to talk about that. My mother comes out from the kitchen and they have the same little kiss on the lips with which they would greet each other every time he came home. My mother wore an apron and tea was soon served. We sat and chatted; my father, a neighbor, some other people. I was there, but I cannot recall any of my four siblings being in the room.

Dad in a clean living room, circa 1975

Dad asks for a glass of water. Oh my god, I cannot explain, but his voice is just the same, that thin reedy voice with the palest of English accents, the almost singsong lilt. My heart jumps as I offer to go get him one.

The kitchen is a mess, it is not clean like when dad was alive, it is a horrid, unlivable mess as I remember it from visits to mom 10 or so years after dads death. I am caught in a Sisyphean struggle to find a clean cup, or a cup I can clean, or something to clean a cup with, or …

My mother comes into the kitchen. She is still wearing her apron but is now as she was in the era of the kitchen looking like this, she is as she was at 60, not the 47 she was when dad died. I look at her with contempt and frustration. Dad is out there, in the other room, and if only she could keep house I would be there with him instead of trapped in this kitchen trying in vein to get him a cup of water. How long have I got, will he still be there when I get back? She is old now, will he be gone? Is the dream over? The dream, the dream

Yes, the dream. It slips away as I realize that I have been dreaming. I try to fetch it back, but I will never go back into the living room with a glass of water. I have failed. All I have done is find contempt for my mother, who certainly didn’t deserve it.

That is how I awoke at 4:00 this morning. I never really did get back to sleep properly, and a couple hours later was getting up to go to the airport and fly home. We will land shortly, so I must power down and stow my computer. Much to think about I guess.

Maybe I’ll sleep on it.