reading week, I wrote two papers for my Fathers in Film and Third Cinema and Beyond courses. The Friday of reading week I met up with Lili and Laura (both from NDA) because Laura was visiting from Cork, Ireland while her stepmom was in town. We went to lunch at this italian place near Leicester Square since Lili's internship is just a few blocks away. It was good fun and a nice break from writing.
That Sunday night I went to a football (soccer, for the Americans) match for which Accent had bought us (Wash U students) tickets. It was Fulham vs. Newcastle at the Fulham stadium, but we were seated in the Newcastle section, which was really great since they were who I had been planning on cheering for (because Kawai was living in Newcastle when I first emailed her that I was coming to London. Sure, I make decisions with my heart. So sue me. Unfortunately, Newcastle lost, but it was still a great game. I really enjoyed it and the Newcastle supporters sitting around me were really vocal, which made the game even more fun--and made me way more involved! There were a lot of cheers, but most of the time I couldn't actually understand what was being said. I did, however, manage to understand when everyone started singing, "The referee's a wanker! The referee's a wanker!"
On Tuesday (after turning in those 2 papers, but before turning in one for American Underground Cinema), Adam and I went to the N.E.R.D. concert at the Roundhouse. I was fantastic! I'm really pleased that I'm able to say that I went to a concert in London.. Now I just have to get some musical theatre in and I'll be totally set! Anyway, the concert was at the Chalk Road stop in Camden, which is where Amy Winehouse is from. I thought it was charming, but it was pretty dark--so I could be wrong. Anyway, the venue was nice but it was kind of lame that the opener was just a D.J. Adam and I kept talking about how easy it must be to be a D.J. since you pretty much play music for yourself everyday--a.k.a. everyone's a D.J. Also, I think N.E.R.D. could have found a better opener (i.e. a live performer) but maybe that's just me. I was really pleased when they started since they opened with my favorite song on their new album!
So, everyone was having a crazy time and then Pharrell stopped and told the girls to not point to their friends still in the audience because they should be glad that they're on stage at all. It was a little rude, but whatever. I was also a wee disappointed at the end because they only played for an hour and a half, but theyr have 3 albums and could have totally played for longer--but perhaps that's just my opinion. It also didn't help that they didn't play "Stay Together" from their first album, which is definitely one of my favorites.
My paper for American Underground Cinema came out pretty well, and I actually really enjoyed writing it. It was about Kenneth Anger and his use of music in Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kommandos. I'm definitely a bigger fan of Scorpio Rising, but both were interesting. Anger has this other film, Invocation of my Demon Brother, that really creeped me out, actually. Mick Jagger did the sound, which is kind of interesting. By the end of the film, however, it felt like my ears were bleeding. I felt physical pain because of the unpleasantness of listening to it. That actually happened during the screening for the same course when we watched Lawrence Jordan's Our Lady of the Sphere (I looked, but was unable to find it online. Basically the problem was that it had this really pretty fairylike music but then would interrupt it with this buzz that reminded me of the most annoying sound in the world. But I digress. Here are the two parts of Invocation: Part 1 and Part 2. The best part of the film is at 5:11-5:15 in Part 2. That bit actually almost made having to sit through it worth it to me.
That Saturday Accent took us Wash U kids to Oxford. It was a glorious extravaganza--one that I almost missed! I arrived at the meeting place at 9:10 and the bus had just left 5 minutes before. Thank goodness they came back for me! It took about an hour to get to Oxford. Luckily, we had ANGIE with us (Angie's the same tour guide who took us through Greenwich. She is as marvelous as ever!) She told us a bit about the history of Oxford and universities in general. Oxford claims to be the oldest university in the English speaking world. (Angie remarked that there are much older ones in other nations and that there is also a long-lasting argument between Cambridge and Oxford about which of them is older since Cambridge had been teaching for longer but didn't receive the official paper saying they were a university until after Oxford had. So, they'll probably never resolve that issue..) In any event, Oxford and Cambridge both started as monasteries because that is where the printed books were. Great thinkers of medieval times would flock to these monasteries in order to further their study. Often people would follow to learn from them. Anyway, at these monastic universities, students would study four subjects, I think. One of them was music, I'm sure. I think it had to do with relating to astronomy or maths or something like that. So, all these people poured into Oxford, but there wasn't much room for them to stay. At first, the townspeople were happy to be able to charge exorbitant rates to students to let them essentially a mallet on the floor with several other men in the room. After a time, however, resentment began to grow and fights would often break out. So often, in fact, that there developed a system where the church bell would ring to warn those who wanted to stay away from the violence to get inside and another rang to bring those with fighting in their blood out to partake in the brawl. A little obscene, but pretty logical if you really think about it. Angie told us a bit about the English countryside and how much she likes to wander into churches (just like my ma!) and about her childhood and other lovely things. Sadly, I dozed off while she spoke about picnicking and tricking sheep into eating peanut butter so they'd not beg for more food...
We alighted from the bus near Christ Church College, which
is one of the many colleges included in Oxford. Just across from the entrance gate is a shop dedicated to Alice in Wonderland (my favorite bit of the movie) that sells little knick knacks related to the story because Lewis Carroll used to work at Christ Church. Apparently Alice was the chancellor's daughter and Carroll (whose real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodson) would delight her with stories--even though everyone who had lectures with him thought him the most abysmal professor. A complete dullard. Anyway, real life Alice (Liddell) had dark hair, and I seem to remember Angie saying that another one of the Liddell sisters had light hair. (I also think that she died relatively young--the sister, not Alice.) Angie said she wasn't really surprised that the Alice books were written in Oxford because you're always going through little gateways or paths and finding new places.
If the picture above looks familiar but you can't quite place it, perhaps it's because Christ Church was where the Harry Potter films were shot. Oxford has managed to retain its original character with beautiful architecture and cobblestoned streets. When coupled with the hidden gates and everything, it really is like stepping into another era. I mean, Christ's campus literally had cows chillin' on the grounds, so it's definitely an entirely different concept of a university. For me it was really nice to see another kind of university considering how much a part of the city King's College London is--that's not to say that Oxford isn't a part of the city, but they work in completely different ways. KCL is part of London in the sense that its streets are the streets of the city, and the university is quite literally just a building. What I mean is that if you weren't looking for the building where I take all my courses, you wouldn't even notice it--save for the dozens of students standing outside smoking and chatting. Oxford, on the other hand, essentially IS the city. Everything sort of grew up around it. But, it somehow still reminds me of Wash U in the way that there is a lot intended just for students. The colleges have beautiful, verdant quads (I've noticed how green lawns always are in England.) with food halls and chapels just for them near to accommodation. I would put up a picture of another of the smaller colleges, but I looked through my pictures and just realized that I only took a photo of one with a slate floor. Silly me!
We then walked through a little of the city to get
to this quad that had a beautiful round library that stood in front of a college that had been built for the poor. Unlike the Naval Hospital in Greenwich, however, this college was actually used by those for whom it had been built. It was really beautiful, and if you look closely, you can see the sundial that is in all of the colleges. (It's in the middle at the bottom.) Unfortunately, that college is only open to those who attend it and even Angie has never been inside. If Angie hasn't done
it, I don't want it. So, the library obviously can't house all of the books that Oxford now has, especially since they've got a deal kind of like the one at Trinity in Dublin where they get a copy of every book printed in the country. Angie said that you can go in with a request for a book and wait for them to bring it from the larger library, and it travels on a belt underground and it'll arrive in about an hour. To our right was the church where one of the bells that would alert the townspeople in the days of yore was. The church actually was originally a lecture hall, but as Oxford grew, they stopped that practice. Angie really enjoyed telling us about the gargoyled along the church's trim. Gargoyles, as I'm sure you know, were included in order to scare away the devil. The scarier the face, the better. (Disney took this to mean, "scary face, awesome singer"--kind of like "cold hands, warm heart." Eh?) Angie commented that some of the faces are so hideous, and you just know that the workers modeled them off of people in the town--perhaps even bosses who weren't paying the wages.
We went into what used to be the main library for Oxford, I think.
I'm actually not really sure what it was. it was really lovely, with some very ornate ceiling carvings. The symbols on the ceiling represent the crests of families who paid for the construction, I think. I just realized I don't really know. We didn't spend too much time in here and Angie didn't really say that much about it.
It was lovely, of course. It was made mostly of glass and stone, which later proved problematic. There wasn't enough support for the building and it was starting to warp outwards, but luckily Sir Christopher Wren noticed when he was constructing a building just next to it and reinforced the sides so that they would be kept upright. Actually, the building Wren was constructing was the second one he built. Apparently there was a contest for the design, and Wren won so he got to build his design: the Sheldonian Theatre. The design was based on an Italian building and Wren essentially added a roof to make it his own. Guess what else he added? You got it! A dome!
After we walked to an outdoor market to break for lunch. Angie went off to eat alone again--and she had the same thing as before: a yoghurt. You probably think I accidentally misspelled "yogurt." If you do, you're wrong. They spell it differently, but they also pronounce it "yaw-gert" as opposed to "yoe-gert." Fascinating stuff, really. So, yeah, I ate with Linh and Allison. Allison and I got baguettes, olives, and goat cheese. So delicious. (Oh yeah. I love olives now.) It was really exciting to get the baguettes because the bakery stand we got them from was French, so I got to work those skills (again!). Actually, a lot of the stalls at the market were French, which was a bit surprising but lovely just the same.
After lunch, we all met up again to go to Blenheim Palace, which is about 20 minutes away from Oxford. As soon as we got onto the grounds I was completely awestruck at how beautiful it was. Again, it was like being taken into another time. The sprawling lawns, a stone bridge, grand lakes, all of it! The castle itself wasn't too bad either. We went through the gates with 24k gold on them and into the courtyard, which was really lovely. It looked out onto the massive grounds. I could completely understand why someone was having a wedding there that day. Anyway, we went inside to get an official tour of the palace. I was really sorry when I found out that Angie wouldn't be giving it to us because I'm sure she would have done a wonderful job--especially since she goes on the tour every year when Wash U/Accent sends her with the kids. Oh well. One of the main reasons that Blenheim Palace is such a big deal is because it is where Winston Churchill was born. And if there's one person all the Brits love, it's Winston! Let me tell you! They love him in the same way that the Irish seem to love John F. Kennedy! (If this doesn't make sense to you, let me give you a little story to show what I mean. When I was in Galway--a.k.a. where JFK once went to make a speech--when Allison and I went into a church they had installed a mosaic of JFK's face next to a statue of Jesus. That seems to be almost saint status to me... I don't know about you.)
Anyway, we went on a little tour of the ground floor and saw stuff from Winny's childhood and actually stood in the room where he was born. Redickuhlous. Churchill really had a fond place in his heart for Blenheim as it was the same place where he was born and where he got engaged. He has mentioned being pleased with both of his decisions. Supposedly Churchill had been courting this woman (Clementine Hozier) for ages and simply hadn't had the nerve to ask her to marry him. Anyway, Churchill's uncle or father or something told Churchill that he needed to quit playing games with her heart and get it together that very day. So, he sent Churchill out with Clementine, and they went to the Temple of Diana in the gardens. I guess she was also getting fed up with waiting because she later said she saw a spider climbing to the top of a column and decided that if it reached the top before Churchill popped the question that she would return to London. Good thing he managed to ask before and that she accepted because when the couple returned to the house, the father/uncle had assembled the staff to welcome them back with a celebration!
We then took a brief tour of the rest of the ground floor and
heard about the history and a great deal about the family. In addition to Winston being born there, the Spencer's have a stake in the house. The Spencers are, of course, the family of Princess Diana. Much earlier, however, Consuelo Vanderbilt was married to Charles Spencer-Churchill, the current owner of the home and the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Consuelo was the only daughter of William Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt's wife, Alva, was determined to have Consuelo marry someone of noble birth. After Alva set up the engagement without Consuelo's knowledge, Consuelo rebelled and refused to marry him. Alva locked her in her room and allowed her only bread and water until Consuelo yielded. After Consuelo and the Duke were married, they had two children, whom Consuelo called "the heir and a spare." She decided that she wouldn't separate from her husband until her oldest son was 12, I believe. (It might be 9...) After that, Consuelo and the Duke separated and eventually their marriage was annulled because Consuelo was forced into marrying him. (Unfortunately, I couldn't really hear most of what the tour guide said, which was fine because she mostly talked about some tapestries and a set of Polish china. Luckily, though, Angie told us all about Consuelo in the car on the way back. Again, Angie is ballerific--she managed to work in a love story!) Consuelo actually died 44 years ago today.
When we got outside we walked around the gardens a bit and then stopped for some cream tea at the tea room in the palace because Angie said it was a really inexpensive place to get it--full tea at the Ritz in London is £35! Obscene! Well, unfortunately I misunderstood what cream tea was. To ME, the title "cream tea" would suggest a type of tea that is creamy or has cream in it. If I were to assume that, I would be wrong. Cream tea= regular tea + scone with clotted cream and jam on top. Those sneaky little english kids! In any event, it was really delightful. Angie says you have to be piggy about cream tea, and really slather on the jam and cream. I did it wrong with the first half of my scone because I didn't put enough clotted cream on and they laughed at me a little. A.k.a. Angie and I are super tight. Watch out! We then took the coach back to London and I returned to my halls before going to the cinema to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno with Adam, Vicky, and Laura (not one of the ones from my floor, but Laura from Floor 6).
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