I well and truly indulged my inner dork today -- I managed to hit up a planetarium, a naval museum, and a Lord of the Rings musical in the same day. The only way it could have gotten worse was if I had dressed up for the musical, or written this blog post in Klingon. But I don't know Klingon, so we're all safe!
The day started in Greenwich, at the Royal Observatory, site of the Prime Meridian. I took the requisite photo of my feet astride the meridian, but didn't spend much time in the observatory itself; I got kind of a late start because I was exhausted, and I was more interested in the Maritime History Museum nearby. That museum was great -- if I write pirate romances someday, I'll have to come back and con them into letting me do actual research there, since they apparently have some fabulous documents in their library. They also have some really nice displays on the trans-Atlantic trading routes, the voyages of exploration, and some of Britain's naval battles -- mostly a lot about Admiral Nelson (who fought and died at Trafalgar, not at Trafalgar Square as the girl in Bath mentioned yesterday). They even had the uniform in which he was shot, with the bullethole clearly visible in the shoulder, and I was inordinately excited to see it.
I took a ferry up the Thames to get back to central London, and had a quick dinner before heading to the Royal Theatre in Drury Lane for the 'Lord of the Rings' musical. For what it's worth, I did *not* seek out the LOTR musical because it was LOTR -- the Royal Theatre was opened around 1812, and was quite popular at the time, so I wanted to see it. I won't deny that I was thrilled when I found out what was playing, though -- and the combination was great.
I really enjoyed the production. I can't say that I enjoyed the script or the story -- it was rather laughable how they had to script things to try to make any sense at all when cutting a 1000-page series down to a three-hour musical with a twenty-minute intermission. If you thought that the movies made some unacceptable cuts, you would be appalled by the musical. They cut out Rohan entirely (so no Eomer, no Eowyn, and no scene of Eowyn killing the Nazgul), but inexplicably turned Theoden into Denethor (Aragorn showed up to tell Denethor that Boromir was dead, then Denethor was cured and fought with them in the ensuing battle). Faramir was nowhere to be found, and Isengard, Helm's Deep, and Minas Tirith all seemed to be one place (and one battle). They solved the whole problem of how to get Frodo and Sam out of the volcano even more neatly than Tolkien did -- they dispensed with the eagles entirely, and just had Sam say 'let's go find our friends', and then they turned around and were at the coronation of Aragorn.
However, while the storyline was ridiculous (and if you hadn't read the books, would probably have been completely incomprehensible), the actual production itself was simply breathtaking. The Royal Theatre is quite tall, and they had vines stretching out from the stage across the first few private viewing boxes -- and they had quite a theme of including the audience in the play. At one point towards the end, some orcs appeared in the audience -- and since I had switched seats at intermission to have a better view, and was sitting quite alone several rows back in my section, I had the unsettling feeling of two different orcs breathing down my neck. And during Gandalf's encounter with the Balrog, which closed the Act One, a strong wind picked up in the theatre, blowing pieces of confetti into the crowd that looked like burning embers in the light.
But the most amazing things were: 1) the stage, 2) the suspension acts, and 3) the orcs. The stage was a huge set of four revolving, concentric circles. The middle two circles were cut into eight wedges each, while the outer ring and inner circle were whole. Each piece could rise or fall independently, and the rise was quite high -- I'm guessing thirty feet at least. The stage was constantly in motion to suggest mountains, stairs, travel, etc., and the coordination and planning that would have gone into making sure that everyone could dance and fight across a stage that was constantly switching levels was astonishing.
The suspension acts were also amazing. While not exactly on par with Cirque du Soleil, there were several segments (particularly involving elves) in which people were suspended and dancing in air. They spent a lot more time in Lothlorien than would have been expected, but the woman who played Galadriel had an amazing voice, and she did a great job of singing while entering by descending from the ceiling. Even though she, Arwen, and Elrond all did some weird hand gestures that looked like ninja sign language whenever they spoke, the use of suspension was quite good.
Finally, the orcs were v. impressive. They were much more acrobatic than I would have expected; they each carried two 'swords' that were attached to their arms like crutches, which they used to jump around and do flips and somersaults. Even better were the Uruk-hai -- they needed to be bigger than the other orcs, and they achieved this by wearing curved, springy stilts that allowed them to leap around rather menacingly. The coordination they required was even more impressive than the other cast members, since they were all twirling, flipping, cartwheeling, etc. as the floor levels changed by several feet at a time.
So while some parts were ridiculous (like Aragorn's makeup -- he inexplicably had linebacker paint under his eyes, or Boromir's death scene -- he went through such agonized death throes that I believe the Aragorn actor had to rock back and forth violently in 'grief' just to cover up the 'dead' Boromir's heavy breathing after all his exertions), most of it was fantastic -- the Balrog, the spider Shelob, the battle of Helms Deep/Minas Tirith, the later partial battle at the Black Gate, the musical segment in Lothlorien, the Black Riders (who were v. menacing, although they never showed up on wings), and even the hobbit dancing segment at the beginning were all technically magnificent. And I cried, quite unexpectedly, at the end, which is always a good sign, although I didn't have to blow my nose like the guy a couple of rows away from me.
Now that I've thoroughly bored you with a description of a musical you probably won't ever see (it's closing in London this summer, and there probably aren't a lot of stages that can accomodate the production elsewhere), and confirmed that I am beyond hope when it comes to being 'cool' or 'normal', I think it's time for bed!
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
JAMD Day Six - Bath, Sir John Soane's Museum
It seems like every day is mysteriously the best day of the entire trip. I know that that's impossible, but I actually can't pick out a favorite right now. I suppose last Thursday is the 'worst', only because I was on a plane or public transport until almost 3pm London time...but as soon as I had showered, everything was fine, and it's just kept getting better.
Today was Bath -- I had planned to go this Friday, but decided that the weather is so gorgeous that I should take advantage of it. And today was absolutely lovely -- over seventy degrees, barely a cloud in the sky, just the occasional (and v. welcome) light breeze as I strolled through the town.
Bath was one of the premier destinations for the fashionable crowd in the early 1800s, fueled in part by their desire to 'take the waters', which was supposed to help with all sorts of ailments. But unlike the Romans before them, the main purpose was not to bathe in them (although that also happened); instead, they drank the waters in the Pump Room, which was constructed for that purpose. They also attended balls in the Assembly Rooms, admired the newly-constructed Royal Crescent, and promenaded along the River Avon.
So I went to Bath, intent on experiencing all of these things. My first stop was No. 1 Royal Crescent, one of the townhouses on that famous semi-circular strip that was the premier address in Bath. Few of the visiting aristocrats owned houses in Bath; they let them for the season, which ran during the winter months, before returning to homes in London or the countryside. No. 1 Royal Crescent briefly housed the Duke of York (the Prince Regent's brother), and has now been turned into a museum of Bath/Regency living. I couldn't take photos, but I did take copious notes -- and the guides in each room were some of the most pleasant, talkative, excited guides I've ever had, clearly thrilled to point out anything and everything of interest. I also listened to a brief talk given by some American girl (appeared to be a college student), who had done some research on one of the women depicted in a painting in the house. Her research seemed sound, but she talked way too fast (hypocritical of me, I know), and I enjoyed hearing the elderly British tourists tittering when she mispronounced 'Edinburgh' and 'Thames' and said that Nelson fought in the Battle of Trafalgar Square. Spiteful of me, but I can't help it.
After finishing up with the Royal Crescent, I went to the Assembly Rooms. They now conveniently house the Bath Museum of Fashion, which was fantastic -- they had a multitude of interesting dresses and suits, and a great audioguide. I was also able to see the main ballroom, card room, and tea room of the old Assembly Rooms, and it was fun to picture what it must have looked like when it was full of dancers, chaperones, musicians, servants, etc.
I then strolled back toward the older part of Bath, stopping briefly to admire the River Avon -- the Pulteney Bridge spans the river, and since the bridge is an obvious copy of the shop-lined Ponte Vecchio in Florence, it was lovely to see. But I didn't have time to dally -- next on the list was the Roman Baths and Pump Room.
Even though 'Roman' is in the name of the 'Roman Baths', I kind of forgot that that's what they were all about -- I've been in such an orgy of Regency-period history that it's been easy to forget about the thousands of years of British history that came before George IV and the melodramatic overindulgence of high society in the early 1800s. But the Roman Baths were impressive, almost to a haunting degree -- to some extent it reminded me of the Coliseum, which probably topped my list of favorite attractions in Italy (other than the gigantic steak I had one night in Florence, but I had been in India for three months at that point, which is why 'steak' managed to beat out all of Venice in my affections). They've done an excellent job with the preservation and presentation -- the audioguide had hundreds of little commentaries, and if I had had the time, I probably could have spent several hours just listening to the audioguide. But it wasn't meant to be -- and just seeing the baths was in some ways better than listening to all of the guide stuff. It was just so cool walking through these Roman ruins, knowing that people were making pilgrimages to the site two millennia ago from all over the Roman empire, back when getting to Bath would have been a difficult and dangerous undertaking, unlike now, when the worst thing that happened to me was a delayed Underground train.
I sampled the waters in the Pump Room for myself -- and I have to say that they seem unlikely to be that helpful for illness. Then again, if my parents had given me Bath's waters to cure my coughs as a child, it probably would have had the same effect as what they did give me -- just like 'the recipe', which was a capful of Black Velvet whisky in a small glass of Coke, the Bath waters would have made me suppress my cough just to avoid another treatment. Bath's waters taste a lot like warm, salty bathwater, and I don't recommend them.
But, I had tea and sandwiches in the Pump Room with my glass of the waters, and while the service seemed rather surly, the room was enchanting. Then, I made a quick swing through Bath Abbey, conveniently located next to the Roman Baths (where the Roman curators are likely secretly praying for a disaster to befall the Abbey so that they can excavate under it, since they suspect there are many more ruins there but can't get to them). The Abbey was built by Elizabeth I to replace a much older abbey that her father had destroyed during the whole break-up with the Pope, and it was nice but couldn't compare to St. George's at Windsor.
The reason I was in such a hurry was because I wanted to get back to London by around seven -- tonight was the only night of the month that Sir John Soane's Museum is open from 6-9 for a special candlelight opening. Soane was an architect during the Regency period, and he donated his house virtually intact, which has been preserved ever since. Because everything's out in the open, like someone's still living there, and v. fragile, they're pretty serious about limiting crowds -- so I stood in line outside for an hour, and then felt like I had some of the rooms almost to myself. The line did provide some amusement; one girl got in line behind me, stood for three minutes, called a friend, said 'getting a bit of culture is tedious beyond belief', and left. Then, when I was finally at the front of the line, these two drunk Russian teenagers showed up, tried to walk straight in, then continued to stand on the steps, allowing people to leave but not letting anyone in, and pretending not to understand the guard when he told them to leave. So I had to wait until the kids finally took off while the guard was on the phone with the police before I could be admitted.
But when I got inside, it was pure magic -- Soane was an extraordinary collector, and because he was an architect who believed in clean, classical styles, he had turned a whole townhouse into a virtual museum even during his lifetime so that he could use the pieces to inspire himself and his students. Various pieces of Greek and Roman ruins lined the walls, and he had thousands of beautifully-bound books in the cases lining many of the main rooms. He had this quaint little study that I lusted after -- really no bigger than a closet, but looking into this interior skylight/well filled with plants and pieces of sculpture. There was a fantastic eight-day chronometer, some lovely stained glass on a glazed/enclosed balcony/'loggia' along one side of the drawing room (with a note that most of the glass was a reproduction after being damaged by 'enemy action' in 1941). He had the sarcophagus of Seti I (if I remember correctly) at the bottom of another interior courtyard, with this huge cast of a famous statue of Apollo facing across the second level of the same courtyard.
The best room, though, was the picture gallery. The guide ushered a bunch of us in, closed the door, and proceeded to surprise me. The paintings on the walls were of 'The Rake's Progress', each of which were interesting in their own right. But, it turns out that three of the four walls are actually panels that open to reveal more artwork. The artwork beneath is more fragile, and so the panels served to protect it, allowing Soane to open the panels a couple of times each day for inspiration or to show to students, and then closing them the rest of the time to prevent damage from the light. But the best was last -- the final panel (which had a painting of 'Futtypoor Cikri', which I believe is Fatehpur Sikri outside of Agra) opened to reveal a set of drawings for Soane's renovation of the Bank, his plans for the Masonic Temple in London, and some other architectural stuff...and then opened again to reveal a small, hidden room, with a gorgeous statue, skylights, and more art.
All in all, the museum was fabulous -- and since it was free, and full of such amazing stuff, it was well worth hurrying back from Bath. Seeing it in the candlelight was even better, and gave me just a little bit of a hint of what a Regency house, with all of its silks and brocades and velvets, would have looked like at night.
Now, I'm absolutely exhausted -- I got back to my hotel a little before ten, washed some clothes in the sink, annotated the 260ish photos I've taken in the last two days, and wrote this absurdly long post. Tomorrow's another crazy day, so I should go to bed! I'll likely post pics tomorrow if I'm not too tired, so at least you have something other than another novella to look forward to.
Today was Bath -- I had planned to go this Friday, but decided that the weather is so gorgeous that I should take advantage of it. And today was absolutely lovely -- over seventy degrees, barely a cloud in the sky, just the occasional (and v. welcome) light breeze as I strolled through the town.
Bath was one of the premier destinations for the fashionable crowd in the early 1800s, fueled in part by their desire to 'take the waters', which was supposed to help with all sorts of ailments. But unlike the Romans before them, the main purpose was not to bathe in them (although that also happened); instead, they drank the waters in the Pump Room, which was constructed for that purpose. They also attended balls in the Assembly Rooms, admired the newly-constructed Royal Crescent, and promenaded along the River Avon.
So I went to Bath, intent on experiencing all of these things. My first stop was No. 1 Royal Crescent, one of the townhouses on that famous semi-circular strip that was the premier address in Bath. Few of the visiting aristocrats owned houses in Bath; they let them for the season, which ran during the winter months, before returning to homes in London or the countryside. No. 1 Royal Crescent briefly housed the Duke of York (the Prince Regent's brother), and has now been turned into a museum of Bath/Regency living. I couldn't take photos, but I did take copious notes -- and the guides in each room were some of the most pleasant, talkative, excited guides I've ever had, clearly thrilled to point out anything and everything of interest. I also listened to a brief talk given by some American girl (appeared to be a college student), who had done some research on one of the women depicted in a painting in the house. Her research seemed sound, but she talked way too fast (hypocritical of me, I know), and I enjoyed hearing the elderly British tourists tittering when she mispronounced 'Edinburgh' and 'Thames' and said that Nelson fought in the Battle of Trafalgar Square. Spiteful of me, but I can't help it.
After finishing up with the Royal Crescent, I went to the Assembly Rooms. They now conveniently house the Bath Museum of Fashion, which was fantastic -- they had a multitude of interesting dresses and suits, and a great audioguide. I was also able to see the main ballroom, card room, and tea room of the old Assembly Rooms, and it was fun to picture what it must have looked like when it was full of dancers, chaperones, musicians, servants, etc.
I then strolled back toward the older part of Bath, stopping briefly to admire the River Avon -- the Pulteney Bridge spans the river, and since the bridge is an obvious copy of the shop-lined Ponte Vecchio in Florence, it was lovely to see. But I didn't have time to dally -- next on the list was the Roman Baths and Pump Room.
Even though 'Roman' is in the name of the 'Roman Baths', I kind of forgot that that's what they were all about -- I've been in such an orgy of Regency-period history that it's been easy to forget about the thousands of years of British history that came before George IV and the melodramatic overindulgence of high society in the early 1800s. But the Roman Baths were impressive, almost to a haunting degree -- to some extent it reminded me of the Coliseum, which probably topped my list of favorite attractions in Italy (other than the gigantic steak I had one night in Florence, but I had been in India for three months at that point, which is why 'steak' managed to beat out all of Venice in my affections). They've done an excellent job with the preservation and presentation -- the audioguide had hundreds of little commentaries, and if I had had the time, I probably could have spent several hours just listening to the audioguide. But it wasn't meant to be -- and just seeing the baths was in some ways better than listening to all of the guide stuff. It was just so cool walking through these Roman ruins, knowing that people were making pilgrimages to the site two millennia ago from all over the Roman empire, back when getting to Bath would have been a difficult and dangerous undertaking, unlike now, when the worst thing that happened to me was a delayed Underground train.
I sampled the waters in the Pump Room for myself -- and I have to say that they seem unlikely to be that helpful for illness. Then again, if my parents had given me Bath's waters to cure my coughs as a child, it probably would have had the same effect as what they did give me -- just like 'the recipe', which was a capful of Black Velvet whisky in a small glass of Coke, the Bath waters would have made me suppress my cough just to avoid another treatment. Bath's waters taste a lot like warm, salty bathwater, and I don't recommend them.
But, I had tea and sandwiches in the Pump Room with my glass of the waters, and while the service seemed rather surly, the room was enchanting. Then, I made a quick swing through Bath Abbey, conveniently located next to the Roman Baths (where the Roman curators are likely secretly praying for a disaster to befall the Abbey so that they can excavate under it, since they suspect there are many more ruins there but can't get to them). The Abbey was built by Elizabeth I to replace a much older abbey that her father had destroyed during the whole break-up with the Pope, and it was nice but couldn't compare to St. George's at Windsor.
The reason I was in such a hurry was because I wanted to get back to London by around seven -- tonight was the only night of the month that Sir John Soane's Museum is open from 6-9 for a special candlelight opening. Soane was an architect during the Regency period, and he donated his house virtually intact, which has been preserved ever since. Because everything's out in the open, like someone's still living there, and v. fragile, they're pretty serious about limiting crowds -- so I stood in line outside for an hour, and then felt like I had some of the rooms almost to myself. The line did provide some amusement; one girl got in line behind me, stood for three minutes, called a friend, said 'getting a bit of culture is tedious beyond belief', and left. Then, when I was finally at the front of the line, these two drunk Russian teenagers showed up, tried to walk straight in, then continued to stand on the steps, allowing people to leave but not letting anyone in, and pretending not to understand the guard when he told them to leave. So I had to wait until the kids finally took off while the guard was on the phone with the police before I could be admitted.
But when I got inside, it was pure magic -- Soane was an extraordinary collector, and because he was an architect who believed in clean, classical styles, he had turned a whole townhouse into a virtual museum even during his lifetime so that he could use the pieces to inspire himself and his students. Various pieces of Greek and Roman ruins lined the walls, and he had thousands of beautifully-bound books in the cases lining many of the main rooms. He had this quaint little study that I lusted after -- really no bigger than a closet, but looking into this interior skylight/well filled with plants and pieces of sculpture. There was a fantastic eight-day chronometer, some lovely stained glass on a glazed/enclosed balcony/'loggia' along one side of the drawing room (with a note that most of the glass was a reproduction after being damaged by 'enemy action' in 1941). He had the sarcophagus of Seti I (if I remember correctly) at the bottom of another interior courtyard, with this huge cast of a famous statue of Apollo facing across the second level of the same courtyard.
The best room, though, was the picture gallery. The guide ushered a bunch of us in, closed the door, and proceeded to surprise me. The paintings on the walls were of 'The Rake's Progress', each of which were interesting in their own right. But, it turns out that three of the four walls are actually panels that open to reveal more artwork. The artwork beneath is more fragile, and so the panels served to protect it, allowing Soane to open the panels a couple of times each day for inspiration or to show to students, and then closing them the rest of the time to prevent damage from the light. But the best was last -- the final panel (which had a painting of 'Futtypoor Cikri', which I believe is Fatehpur Sikri outside of Agra) opened to reveal a set of drawings for Soane's renovation of the Bank, his plans for the Masonic Temple in London, and some other architectural stuff...and then opened again to reveal a small, hidden room, with a gorgeous statue, skylights, and more art.
All in all, the museum was fabulous -- and since it was free, and full of such amazing stuff, it was well worth hurrying back from Bath. Seeing it in the candlelight was even better, and gave me just a little bit of a hint of what a Regency house, with all of its silks and brocades and velvets, would have looked like at night.
Now, I'm absolutely exhausted -- I got back to my hotel a little before ten, washed some clothes in the sink, annotated the 260ish photos I've taken in the last two days, and wrote this absurdly long post. Tomorrow's another crazy day, so I should go to bed! I'll likely post pics tomorrow if I'm not too tired, so at least you have something other than another novella to look forward to.
Monday, May 05, 2008
JADM Day Five - Brighton
I left for Brighton today expecting to be thoroughly disappointed. That goes against my whole plan to eagerly look for and enjoy every adventure on this trip, but is probably truer to my cynical and pessimistic nature.
The only reason I wanted to go to Brighton was to see the Royal Pavilion, built by George IV when he was still just the Prince of Wales, before becoming Prince Regent due to his father's madness in 1810 [note: hopefully you're happy that I continue to give mini history lessons in these posts, but I'm unlikely to stop, particularly since if you came to this blog looking for scandal and salacious stories of a co-ed style rampage across Europe, you're in for a disappointment -- it's the Jane Austen Death March, kids, not the Love Parade]. The Prince of Wales originally went to Brighton with one of his mistresses on a holiday when he was trying to be 'economical', and stayed in a farmhouse because he was short of funds due to his rather profligate lifestyle. He fell in love with Brighton, bought the farmhouse, and ended up converting it into a small palace -- the farmhouse itself ended up becoming just one drawing room in the larger building.
As I said, I thought I would be disappointed -- but the Royal Pavilion is amazing. I couldn't take pictures inside, so I bought the guidebook for future reference. The outside, though, looks v. similar to some of the buildings I saw in India -- he was going for a fully 'Oriental' look, resulting in a chinioserie style mix of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese influences. So while the outside had domes and turrets similar to the Mughal architecture of northern India, the dining room was this extravagant 'Chinese' fantasy, with a giant sculpted dragon mounted on the ceiling to support a massive chandelier (with six or eight smaller dragons 'breathing fire' into lotus-blossom lanterns) over the thirty-person dining room table. The music room was even more impressive, with 26,000 gold-leafed scallop shells lining the inside of a domed roof, an organ with lacquered/japanned pipes, and an Axminster carpet so thick that you could sink into it.
I stopped in the middle of the tour to catch my breath from all the extravagance, and had a proper tea on the second-floor balcony overlooking the park below. It was a gorgeous day - no rain, approximately seventy degrees, and just like my Irish friends, when the weather's nice in Britain, it seems that every single English person able to walk gets out, finds the nearest piece of grass, and tries to get a tan. I ate my salmon and cucumber sandwich, my fruit scone with clotted cream and jam, and drank my tea, keeping a keen eye on the seagull that brazenly tried to steal my sandwich when I sat down. It was a really nice break, and a little surreal to think of how quickly things change - 200 years is really a historical blink of the eye, and I'm sure that when the Prince of Wales was entertaining his mistresses and cronies at Brighton in 1808, he had no expectation whatsoever that commoners (and American commoners at that!) would be tramping through his rooms and taking tea on his balcony someday.
I finished up the tour, bought the guidebook, sighed wistfully, and walked over to the Brighton Dome, a museum housed in the former stables of the palace. The stables were architecturally interesting as well, and not very stable-like, but I wasn't there for that -- instead, I went directly to their special exhibit on British chinioserie. There were lots of cool things there, and the guards probably thought I was strange for taking copious notes (no photography allowed). But the best thing was another epergne - this one was shaped like a pagoda, with a large bowl inside the pagoda. Then, there were four smaller mesh baskets suspended from 'branches', and four small plates supported by vines twining up from the feet of the pagoda. The whole thing was made of silver, and the craftsmanship was outstanding. Chinioserie was well on its way out of fashion when the Prince of Wales revived it in Brighton, but I could see use for some judicious chinioserie trimmings in the houses of characters in my future novels. My current hero's family is too pragmatic for such overblown decor, but I'm sure I'll have fussier families crop up in the future.
I made it back to London in time for a late dinner, took a shower, and planned what to do tomorrow. I had intended to go to Greenwich tomorrow, but the weather forecast for tomorrow looks fantastic, so I think I'm going to go to Bath instead. Then I need to start prioritizing what I must see vs. what I want to see vs. what is nice to see -- I technically want to see Greenwich, Dover, Canterbury, York, Oxford, the Battle of Hastings site, Kew Gardens, Salisbury/Stonehenge, more of the V&A, the Museum of London, the Soane museum, and some other random stuff, but I only have five days in which to do all of that (four, if I take tomorrow for Bath). Bah.
Okay, time for bed! I'll likely post pictures tomorrow, in case you care and/or are getting tired of reading such long posts.
The only reason I wanted to go to Brighton was to see the Royal Pavilion, built by George IV when he was still just the Prince of Wales, before becoming Prince Regent due to his father's madness in 1810 [note: hopefully you're happy that I continue to give mini history lessons in these posts, but I'm unlikely to stop, particularly since if you came to this blog looking for scandal and salacious stories of a co-ed style rampage across Europe, you're in for a disappointment -- it's the Jane Austen Death March, kids, not the Love Parade]. The Prince of Wales originally went to Brighton with one of his mistresses on a holiday when he was trying to be 'economical', and stayed in a farmhouse because he was short of funds due to his rather profligate lifestyle. He fell in love with Brighton, bought the farmhouse, and ended up converting it into a small palace -- the farmhouse itself ended up becoming just one drawing room in the larger building.
As I said, I thought I would be disappointed -- but the Royal Pavilion is amazing. I couldn't take pictures inside, so I bought the guidebook for future reference. The outside, though, looks v. similar to some of the buildings I saw in India -- he was going for a fully 'Oriental' look, resulting in a chinioserie style mix of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese influences. So while the outside had domes and turrets similar to the Mughal architecture of northern India, the dining room was this extravagant 'Chinese' fantasy, with a giant sculpted dragon mounted on the ceiling to support a massive chandelier (with six or eight smaller dragons 'breathing fire' into lotus-blossom lanterns) over the thirty-person dining room table. The music room was even more impressive, with 26,000 gold-leafed scallop shells lining the inside of a domed roof, an organ with lacquered/japanned pipes, and an Axminster carpet so thick that you could sink into it.
I stopped in the middle of the tour to catch my breath from all the extravagance, and had a proper tea on the second-floor balcony overlooking the park below. It was a gorgeous day - no rain, approximately seventy degrees, and just like my Irish friends, when the weather's nice in Britain, it seems that every single English person able to walk gets out, finds the nearest piece of grass, and tries to get a tan. I ate my salmon and cucumber sandwich, my fruit scone with clotted cream and jam, and drank my tea, keeping a keen eye on the seagull that brazenly tried to steal my sandwich when I sat down. It was a really nice break, and a little surreal to think of how quickly things change - 200 years is really a historical blink of the eye, and I'm sure that when the Prince of Wales was entertaining his mistresses and cronies at Brighton in 1808, he had no expectation whatsoever that commoners (and American commoners at that!) would be tramping through his rooms and taking tea on his balcony someday.
I finished up the tour, bought the guidebook, sighed wistfully, and walked over to the Brighton Dome, a museum housed in the former stables of the palace. The stables were architecturally interesting as well, and not very stable-like, but I wasn't there for that -- instead, I went directly to their special exhibit on British chinioserie. There were lots of cool things there, and the guards probably thought I was strange for taking copious notes (no photography allowed). But the best thing was another epergne - this one was shaped like a pagoda, with a large bowl inside the pagoda. Then, there were four smaller mesh baskets suspended from 'branches', and four small plates supported by vines twining up from the feet of the pagoda. The whole thing was made of silver, and the craftsmanship was outstanding. Chinioserie was well on its way out of fashion when the Prince of Wales revived it in Brighton, but I could see use for some judicious chinioserie trimmings in the houses of characters in my future novels. My current hero's family is too pragmatic for such overblown decor, but I'm sure I'll have fussier families crop up in the future.
I made it back to London in time for a late dinner, took a shower, and planned what to do tomorrow. I had intended to go to Greenwich tomorrow, but the weather forecast for tomorrow looks fantastic, so I think I'm going to go to Bath instead. Then I need to start prioritizing what I must see vs. what I want to see vs. what is nice to see -- I technically want to see Greenwich, Dover, Canterbury, York, Oxford, the Battle of Hastings site, Kew Gardens, Salisbury/Stonehenge, more of the V&A, the Museum of London, the Soane museum, and some other random stuff, but I only have five days in which to do all of that (four, if I take tomorrow for Bath). Bah.
Okay, time for bed! I'll likely post pictures tomorrow, in case you care and/or are getting tired of reading such long posts.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
JADM Day Four - Hampton Court, V&A Museum
This will be quicker than usual, since I'm about to run out of time on my internet connection and don't want to deal with the free internet on the tv tonight. But, I had another great day of history-packed tourism, starting with a trip out to Hampton Court. Hampton Court is an interesting mishmash of architectural styles; one half is Tudor, and was one of the main (and only surviving) palaces of Henry VIII, and the other was designed by Christopher Wren in the late 1600s for William and Mary (of 'Glorious Revolution' fame) and refurbished again by George II and his wife Caroline in the 1700s. I toured the later half first, and was only partially impressed; it's hard to be impressed when you've recently been to Windsor, I suppose, since much of it seemed like not-quite-so-good replica of many of the State Apartment rooms at Windsor.
However, the Tudor wing was really good, probably helped along by the fact that Henry VIII had such a tremendous personality and executed so many people, in addition to the whole thing with his six wives and the separation from the Catholic church. They've done a great job turning the Tudor kitchens into a really detailed tour, with a lot of 'food historians' who are on hand demonstrating how meat was roasted, the jobs of the various cooks and kitchen staff, etc. Contrasting the opulent Henry VIII apartments (only a few rooms of which survive due to the later passion for renovation) with the huge, efficient, and likely incredibly uncomfortable Tudor kitchens that were capable of turning out 600 meals at a time was quite interesting.
After Hampton Court, I came back to London and went to the V&A Museum again (pics below). Between the Tudor stuff at Hampton Court and the stuff I saw today (focused on Britain from 1500-1700), I want to write earlier romance novels at some point in the future - medievals were my first romance novel love, but they fell out of favor in the 1990s, and I'm hoping that I can help to bring them back. Of course, I'll stay true to romance novel tradition and make sure that I create heroes and heroines who have an unusual fetish for cleanliness and an altogether anachronistic ability to conduct their sexual affairs in complete privacy.
I had dinner at Wagamama and spent the rest of the evening reading up on the Tudors and annotating today's pictures. Tomorrow's another excursion outside of London - likely to Brighton. Wish me luck!
PS - Mom and Dad, I still haven't purchased a phone card - I'll try to call you later this week.
However, the Tudor wing was really good, probably helped along by the fact that Henry VIII had such a tremendous personality and executed so many people, in addition to the whole thing with his six wives and the separation from the Catholic church. They've done a great job turning the Tudor kitchens into a really detailed tour, with a lot of 'food historians' who are on hand demonstrating how meat was roasted, the jobs of the various cooks and kitchen staff, etc. Contrasting the opulent Henry VIII apartments (only a few rooms of which survive due to the later passion for renovation) with the huge, efficient, and likely incredibly uncomfortable Tudor kitchens that were capable of turning out 600 meals at a time was quite interesting.
After Hampton Court, I came back to London and went to the V&A Museum again (pics below). Between the Tudor stuff at Hampton Court and the stuff I saw today (focused on Britain from 1500-1700), I want to write earlier romance novels at some point in the future - medievals were my first romance novel love, but they fell out of favor in the 1990s, and I'm hoping that I can help to bring them back. Of course, I'll stay true to romance novel tradition and make sure that I create heroes and heroines who have an unusual fetish for cleanliness and an altogether anachronistic ability to conduct their sexual affairs in complete privacy.
I had dinner at Wagamama and spent the rest of the evening reading up on the Tudors and annotating today's pictures. Tomorrow's another excursion outside of London - likely to Brighton. Wish me luck!
PS - Mom and Dad, I still haven't purchased a phone card - I'll try to call you later this week.
Days 3-4 - Victoria and Albert Museum, Hampton Court
V&A - A Chippendale bed, ca. 1775.
V&A - Woman's court mantua, 1775-1785. This one was cut down and reused a few decades later, salvaging the intricate embroidery but removing the out-of-fashion hoops that would have made it impossible to walk straight through a door in the original gown.
Interior courtyard at Hampton Court.
V&A - Vauxhall admission ticket, 1786. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens feature prominently in a number of romance novels, probably because any number of indiscreet liaisons happened there, which makes it an easy place to send your heroine if you want her to be able to flirt without being ruined in the process.
Days 3-4 - Victoria and Albert Museum, Hampton Court
V&A - The cafe in the V&A Museum is one of the most opulent I've ever eaten in, and happily the price doesn't match the decor.
V&A - Muslin gown with shawl, 1800. The Regency period (and the decade before it) saw a shocking move toward more classically-influenced women's apparel, with an emphasis on draping, that abandoned the full petticoats, long tapered waists, panniers, and powdered hair/wigs of the previous decades.
V&A - A remnant of the 'Glass Drawing Room' for the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland in 1770. Now imagine an entire large room with walls done in this glazed crimson and gold gilt.
V&A - A late 18th-century epergne, which served as a centerpiece to hold fruit or other objects. I'm glad I know what one looks like now, since there is already one on the table in my romance novel when Malcolm's 'enemy' arrives to toss a sheep's head at it.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
JADM Day 3 - Victoria & Albert Museum, London
After doing remarkably well with jetlag on my first full day in London, I ended up not really falling asleep until almost four a.m. last night. Consequently, I somehow managed to sleep until after eleven -- I shut off my alarm while I was still asleep, and so ended up changing my plans for today. I had meant to leave the city for parts unknown, but instead went to London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
Simply put, the place was spectacularly up my alley -- so much so that I spent five hours there and still have to go back tomorrow to see the other half of what I wanted to see. Luckily, the main museum is free -- but the first thing I did was pay to enter the special exhibition called 'Thomas Hope: Regency Designer." I'm thrilled that I did; cameras weren't allowed in the special exhibition, but I took copious notes. They had recreated a few of his rooms, and many of his furnishings, sculptures, and artworks were on display. Between this, the State Rooms at Windsor Palace, Aspley House, and my planned visits to Brighton, Bath, and some other musuems, I'm getting a tremendous feel for pre- and post-Regency British interior design, which is fueling all sorts of ideas for future books. I wanted to buy the book they were selling outside the exhibit, but it costs 50 pounds and seems to weigh that much as well, which would destroy my baggage allowance. Sigh.
After the exhibit, I had a sandwich in the outrageously opulent museum cafe (will post pics tomorrow when I'm logged onto my computer rather than the internet connection on my room's tv) and used the museum map to plot my plan of attack for the rest of the museum. While I do love Asian design (and they have nearly a whole floor of it, in addition to a special exhibition on China), I decided to skip all things non-British and prioritize time periods that may be useful for future romance novels. However, I only made it to two sections -- Britain 1760-1900, and the fashion gallery.
The great thing about this museum is that it's focused primarily on art and design, but with a heavy emphasis on furnishings, textiles, and craftsmanship. This makes it ideal for better understanding the lifestyles of the upper classes (since fewer artifacts from lower classes have survived, and anyway who wants to read a romance novel about two peasants with dim prospects and limited life expectancy?), and is preferable to me personally since I've always liked just about any other kind of decorative, musical, or written art over paintings.
So I got to see all sorts of furnishings, and some mouthwatering replicas of drawing rooms, wall-hangings, etc. I also got to see a lot of interesting fashion -- Tammy would have been more interested in the modern fashions, including a poster of Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss modeling Calvin Klein underwear ca1990, as well as a velour Juicy Coutur tracksuit, but I preferred the great 1800s day gowns. Also, who says the Victorians didn't have a sense of humor -- one exhibit mentioned that in honor of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, someone made bustles (which go under your skirt to make your derriere look bigger, balancing out the hoopskirts that were popular at the time) that played 'God Save the Queen' when you sat on them.
After leaving, I had dinner at an Italian restaurant near my hotel, where I had a glass of wine with dinner and a glass of Bailey's with dessert in an effort to ensure that I fall asleep tonight. I also wrote five or six (small, notebook) pages about a romance novel that I want to write after this one -- I had originally thought that the girl in that book would by Malcolm's sister (Malcolm is the hero of my current book) -- but now I think that I want to set it in the Georgian period (likely early 1770s or late 1790s) and increase the conflict for the girl by ensuring that she has no family she would be willing to turn to when the hero of that book shows up to take revenge for some evildoings perpetrated by her late husband. It all sounds farcical now (what romance isn't?), but I've got some good ideas for it -- and the possibility that I can work in the long-awaited character of Salim the Moor, which my friend Salim has lobbied heavily for.
I spent the last hour uploading today's pictures (all 169 of them) and annotating them using Picasa's captioning software. I'll hook the internet up to my laptop tomorrow and post some of them, but now I'm going to bed!
Simply put, the place was spectacularly up my alley -- so much so that I spent five hours there and still have to go back tomorrow to see the other half of what I wanted to see. Luckily, the main museum is free -- but the first thing I did was pay to enter the special exhibition called 'Thomas Hope: Regency Designer." I'm thrilled that I did; cameras weren't allowed in the special exhibition, but I took copious notes. They had recreated a few of his rooms, and many of his furnishings, sculptures, and artworks were on display. Between this, the State Rooms at Windsor Palace, Aspley House, and my planned visits to Brighton, Bath, and some other musuems, I'm getting a tremendous feel for pre- and post-Regency British interior design, which is fueling all sorts of ideas for future books. I wanted to buy the book they were selling outside the exhibit, but it costs 50 pounds and seems to weigh that much as well, which would destroy my baggage allowance. Sigh.
After the exhibit, I had a sandwich in the outrageously opulent museum cafe (will post pics tomorrow when I'm logged onto my computer rather than the internet connection on my room's tv) and used the museum map to plot my plan of attack for the rest of the museum. While I do love Asian design (and they have nearly a whole floor of it, in addition to a special exhibition on China), I decided to skip all things non-British and prioritize time periods that may be useful for future romance novels. However, I only made it to two sections -- Britain 1760-1900, and the fashion gallery.
The great thing about this museum is that it's focused primarily on art and design, but with a heavy emphasis on furnishings, textiles, and craftsmanship. This makes it ideal for better understanding the lifestyles of the upper classes (since fewer artifacts from lower classes have survived, and anyway who wants to read a romance novel about two peasants with dim prospects and limited life expectancy?), and is preferable to me personally since I've always liked just about any other kind of decorative, musical, or written art over paintings.
So I got to see all sorts of furnishings, and some mouthwatering replicas of drawing rooms, wall-hangings, etc. I also got to see a lot of interesting fashion -- Tammy would have been more interested in the modern fashions, including a poster of Mark Wahlberg and Kate Moss modeling Calvin Klein underwear ca1990, as well as a velour Juicy Coutur tracksuit, but I preferred the great 1800s day gowns. Also, who says the Victorians didn't have a sense of humor -- one exhibit mentioned that in honor of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, someone made bustles (which go under your skirt to make your derriere look bigger, balancing out the hoopskirts that were popular at the time) that played 'God Save the Queen' when you sat on them.
After leaving, I had dinner at an Italian restaurant near my hotel, where I had a glass of wine with dinner and a glass of Bailey's with dessert in an effort to ensure that I fall asleep tonight. I also wrote five or six (small, notebook) pages about a romance novel that I want to write after this one -- I had originally thought that the girl in that book would by Malcolm's sister (Malcolm is the hero of my current book) -- but now I think that I want to set it in the Georgian period (likely early 1770s or late 1790s) and increase the conflict for the girl by ensuring that she has no family she would be willing to turn to when the hero of that book shows up to take revenge for some evildoings perpetrated by her late husband. It all sounds farcical now (what romance isn't?), but I've got some good ideas for it -- and the possibility that I can work in the long-awaited character of Salim the Moor, which my friend Salim has lobbied heavily for.
I spent the last hour uploading today's pictures (all 169 of them) and annotating them using Picasa's captioning software. I'll hook the internet up to my laptop tomorrow and post some of them, but now I'm going to bed!
Friday, May 02, 2008
JADM Day Two - Windsor Castle
Today, I managed to rouse myself (after sleeping for nearly eleven hours) and catch a train to Windsor Castle. The castle is apparently England’s second-busiest attraction (after the Tower of London), and at first I was concerned that it wouldn’t be worth the effort -- the line to enter was ~20mins, and shortly behind me was a family with a toddler who was screaming the entire time we were in line. However, after purchasing a ticket and passing through the metal detectors (where the woman operating the x-ray machine was sure I had a knife in my purse), I quickly determined that the castle surpassed its own hype.
The castle has been the residence of England’s royal family for 900 years, making it the oldest continuously-inhabited royal palace in the world. The exterior is quite impressive and ‘castle-like’; in fact, I was amused to hear during one of the audiotour segments that George IV (who was the Prince Regent during the madness of George III, and the ostentatious man whom the Regency period is named after) added ten meters to the top of the Round Tower during his reign to make it even more impressive. If that’s the case, I can’t wait to go to Brighton, where he built a pavilion that was so over-the-top that his niece, Queen Victoria, gave it away during her reign.
I’m a sucker for audiotours and for reading every available placard, so I spent a lot of time at Windsor. In particular, the State Apartments were incredible, and I felt compelled to listen to the audiotours for every single room. The State Apartments were packed with priceless paintings and furnishings, all designed to further the grandeur of the royal family and the British state. One of the sets of china (created for William IV and used at the coronation dinner for Queen Victoria) cost nearly 300,000 pounds in the 1830s, so you can imagine how elaborate it is given that it would cost millions of dollars today (if you could find anyone capable of reproducing it, which you probably couldn’t).
One of the bizarre things about all of this was how strange it was to imagine being, say, Queen Elizabeth II, and having mementos from your own life on display, to the public, in areas of your own home while you are still alive. One room contained dolls and dresses that had been given to Elizabeth and her sister on a state visit to France when they were still little girls. Another room contained various wedding pictures and mementos celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. And another room contained her official state portrait. Granted, she’s probably used to all of this by now, but regardless of how glamorous the life of a royal is, they give up a lot of freedom for it -- and they can no longer chop off heads or lay siege to other kingdoms, so it doesn’t seem like the benefits are quite as awesome as they used to be.
I’m not sure whether I was more impressed by the State Apartments (splendid receiving rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and staircases) or by St. George’s Chapel, the home chapel of the Knights of the Order of the Garter. The name ‘chapel’ doesn’t do it justice; it rivals some of the best Gothic cathedrals I’ve been in, although I suppose it’s not technically a cathedral because it doesn’t have a bishop. The arches, columns and buttresses are beautifully carved, interspersed with some gorgeous stained glass, various stone effigies of people buried within, and the graves of some of England’s kings and queens. While most of kings and queens of England are buried at Westminster, some are buried at Windsor -- including Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour (note: not the woman who was in ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman’), as well as Elizabeth II’s parents, George VI and the Queen Mother.
I hung around the town of Windsor and had tea and scones until the 5:15 sung Eucharist service at the chapel, which was open to the public. It was awesome in the truest sense of the word. I sat in one of the choir stalls belonging to a Knight of the Order of the Garter -- each knight’s stall is crowned by a flag bearing his/her personal coat of arms, a headdress, a half-drawn sword (symbolizing readiness to defend the Queen), and a brass plaque with the knight’s name and date of installment into the Order of the Garter. When a knight dies, his or her plaque is placed within the choir stall that s/he had occupied; among others, the choir stall I sat in had been occupied by one of the Dukes of Argyll in the 1800s.
The service included some gorgeous singing by a choir made up of a mix of men and boys, including one boy who was so small that, when he knelt, you couldn’t see his head over the top of the railing. And I don’t think I can describe the feeling of kneeling in the same chapel where Henry VIII, the man who broke away from the Catholic Church and started this whole Church of England business, was buried, and listening to this glorious music that more than made up for all the years of awful congregational singing I’ve sat through in various Methodist Christmas services. You’ll just have to imagine it for yourself.
When I left the chapel, I took one last look at the Round Tower and saw that the flag had switched from the Union Jack to the royal standard -- which meant that the queen had arrived at some point during the afternoon. Feeling properly awash in history, I made it back to London, where I had dinner at Wagamama. While I ignore the exchange rate when it comes to things like entrance fees and train tickets (since the whole point of being here is to see things, I’m not going to skimp on tickets), it does tend to strike home when it comes to meals -- Wagamama is like a noodle-house equivalent of Baja Fresh (or, like a step between fast food and restaurant food, for those of you who don’t know Baja Fresh either), and my spicy noodles, Diet Coke, and water came out to ~$26. Considering that I spent $40 on food today and only got spicy noodles, a Diet Coke, a latte, a couple of waters, tea and a scone, this is quite tragic. But, I shall persevere, and the fact that I can make tea and keep milk and cereal in my room is v. helpful.
Pictures are below -- and you’ll have to put up with these long posts while I’m traveling, because I’m saving this for my own memories. Now it’s time for bed so that I can go off and have another adventure tomorrow!
The castle has been the residence of England’s royal family for 900 years, making it the oldest continuously-inhabited royal palace in the world. The exterior is quite impressive and ‘castle-like’; in fact, I was amused to hear during one of the audiotour segments that George IV (who was the Prince Regent during the madness of George III, and the ostentatious man whom the Regency period is named after) added ten meters to the top of the Round Tower during his reign to make it even more impressive. If that’s the case, I can’t wait to go to Brighton, where he built a pavilion that was so over-the-top that his niece, Queen Victoria, gave it away during her reign.
I’m a sucker for audiotours and for reading every available placard, so I spent a lot of time at Windsor. In particular, the State Apartments were incredible, and I felt compelled to listen to the audiotours for every single room. The State Apartments were packed with priceless paintings and furnishings, all designed to further the grandeur of the royal family and the British state. One of the sets of china (created for William IV and used at the coronation dinner for Queen Victoria) cost nearly 300,000 pounds in the 1830s, so you can imagine how elaborate it is given that it would cost millions of dollars today (if you could find anyone capable of reproducing it, which you probably couldn’t).
One of the bizarre things about all of this was how strange it was to imagine being, say, Queen Elizabeth II, and having mementos from your own life on display, to the public, in areas of your own home while you are still alive. One room contained dolls and dresses that had been given to Elizabeth and her sister on a state visit to France when they were still little girls. Another room contained various wedding pictures and mementos celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. And another room contained her official state portrait. Granted, she’s probably used to all of this by now, but regardless of how glamorous the life of a royal is, they give up a lot of freedom for it -- and they can no longer chop off heads or lay siege to other kingdoms, so it doesn’t seem like the benefits are quite as awesome as they used to be.
I’m not sure whether I was more impressed by the State Apartments (splendid receiving rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and staircases) or by St. George’s Chapel, the home chapel of the Knights of the Order of the Garter. The name ‘chapel’ doesn’t do it justice; it rivals some of the best Gothic cathedrals I’ve been in, although I suppose it’s not technically a cathedral because it doesn’t have a bishop. The arches, columns and buttresses are beautifully carved, interspersed with some gorgeous stained glass, various stone effigies of people buried within, and the graves of some of England’s kings and queens. While most of kings and queens of England are buried at Westminster, some are buried at Windsor -- including Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour (note: not the woman who was in ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman’), as well as Elizabeth II’s parents, George VI and the Queen Mother.
I hung around the town of Windsor and had tea and scones until the 5:15 sung Eucharist service at the chapel, which was open to the public. It was awesome in the truest sense of the word. I sat in one of the choir stalls belonging to a Knight of the Order of the Garter -- each knight’s stall is crowned by a flag bearing his/her personal coat of arms, a headdress, a half-drawn sword (symbolizing readiness to defend the Queen), and a brass plaque with the knight’s name and date of installment into the Order of the Garter. When a knight dies, his or her plaque is placed within the choir stall that s/he had occupied; among others, the choir stall I sat in had been occupied by one of the Dukes of Argyll in the 1800s.
The service included some gorgeous singing by a choir made up of a mix of men and boys, including one boy who was so small that, when he knelt, you couldn’t see his head over the top of the railing. And I don’t think I can describe the feeling of kneeling in the same chapel where Henry VIII, the man who broke away from the Catholic Church and started this whole Church of England business, was buried, and listening to this glorious music that more than made up for all the years of awful congregational singing I’ve sat through in various Methodist Christmas services. You’ll just have to imagine it for yourself.
When I left the chapel, I took one last look at the Round Tower and saw that the flag had switched from the Union Jack to the royal standard -- which meant that the queen had arrived at some point during the afternoon. Feeling properly awash in history, I made it back to London, where I had dinner at Wagamama. While I ignore the exchange rate when it comes to things like entrance fees and train tickets (since the whole point of being here is to see things, I’m not going to skimp on tickets), it does tend to strike home when it comes to meals -- Wagamama is like a noodle-house equivalent of Baja Fresh (or, like a step between fast food and restaurant food, for those of you who don’t know Baja Fresh either), and my spicy noodles, Diet Coke, and water came out to ~$26. Considering that I spent $40 on food today and only got spicy noodles, a Diet Coke, a latte, a couple of waters, tea and a scone, this is quite tragic. But, I shall persevere, and the fact that I can make tea and keep milk and cereal in my room is v. helpful.
Pictures are below -- and you’ll have to put up with these long posts while I’m traveling, because I’m saving this for my own memories. Now it’s time for bed so that I can go off and have another adventure tomorrow!
day 2 - windsor castle
The ceiling of the nave in St. George's Chapel (taken right before a nice guard told me that I wasn't allowed to take pictures -- I somehow missed the sign, even though I'm usually pretty conscientous about such things).
The Round Tower -- the flag is the Royal Standard, which means the Queen is in residence.
St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, home chapel to the Knights of the Order of the Garter and burial place of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, George VI, and the Queen Mother.
days 1-2 - london, windsor castle
The Serpentine -- a lake in Hyde Park, frequently mentioned in Regency romances.
St. George's Gate at Windsor Castle -- this figure of St. George slaying the dragon is at the top of a large archway.
Windsor Castle -- the dry moat has been turned into a terraced garden.
The spires of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle -- many of the stone figures are real or mythological beasts, holding spears that serve as lightning rods.
day 1 - london
Australia's WWI/WWII War Memorial at Hyde Park Corner. The birthplaces of servicemen who lost their lives are etched into the stones, and some letters are bolded to create the much larger names of the battles in which Australia's forces fought. Water cascades over the main segment, and poppy wreaths pay tribute to the fallen.
The flowers of Hyde Park -- spring is fully in bloom throughout London.
Close-up of the flowers in Hyde Park.
Rotten Row, Hyde Park -- there were no horses when I visited, but during the Regency era, 5pm was a highly fashionable time to see and be seen, and this path would have been teeming with aristocrats in their best riding outfits.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
letting the cables sleep
I have arrived in London! And I have proven that business class was not designed with 5'0" girls in mind -- maybe I should start a class action. Even after takeoff, there were only a couuple of positions in which I could put my footrest so that I could rest my feet, and I didn't sleep much because the ultrafancy reclinn function made me uncomfortable. But I got food on real china, and cloth napkins, and wine in a glass rather than warm tap water in a plastic cup, so all in all it was a great time. I also spent a lot of time in conversation with the woman sitting next to me, which I usuallyy avoid, but I'm trying to practice so that I am ready for whatever happens on the bus tour.
So I got to London with minimal drama, bought my Underground pass, found my hotel, took a fast shower and unpacked a bit, and then went to Aspley House. It is the former home of the Duke of Wellington, who was one of the foremost English heroes of any era after defeating Napoleon (both before Elba, and after his escape which culminated in Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo). Waterloo happened in 1815, smack in the middle of the Regency period, and the Napoleonic Wars had a tremendous effect on England. Even better (for me), the house has lots of lovely reconstructed wall hangings and rugs, as well as the massive portraits and paintings that Wellington decorated his house with. Apparently the custom for royalty back then was to send you a life-size portrait of themselves if you did something noteworthy, which is why he had to find a place for eight gigantic portraits of the kings who ruled the Allied countries during the Napoleonic Wars. If I follow that tradition, do you think Chris and Connie would appreciate an oil painting of me for their wedding?
The most amazing thing in the house, though, was this silver table centerpiece commissioned by the Portuguese in honor of Wellington's victory at Waterloo. It was part of a complete dinner service of more than 1000 pieces, and the centerpiece ran down the length of a dining room table that could easily seat thirty people. It commemorated all of his major battles, had a bunch of dancing nymphs that could be linked by garlands of live flowers, and the center contained a globe, supported by four figures representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, with a Victory figure standing on the Iberian Peninsula (key to the earlier victories in the wars). The craftwork was stunning, and the amount of stuff that Wellington ended up with (most nations gave him a full dinner service in addition to portraits of their monarchs, titles, swords, field marshal batons, artwork, ribbons/medals/orders, etc.) was overwhelming. While Apsley House is probably a second- or third-tier London attraction (and rather expensive given that it can be easily seen in an hour), it was worth it for me just to see the interior of a Regency-period home, with the connecting drawing rooms, the mirrord gallery, etc.
Aspley House is at the entrance of Hyde Park, so I went for a bit of a walk through the park after finishing up. For those of you who read Regency romances, you know that Hyde Park was one of the main places to see and be seen -- people used to ride up and down an area called Rotten Row, or park their carriages and gossip with each other. Rotten Row still exists, preserved for horse-riding even though there are v. few horses left in London. I also had tea in a cafe overlooking the Serpentine -- it's a lake in the middle of the park, also typically mentioned in romance novels, and I was surprised at how large it was. 'Serpentine' made think long, thin, and wiggly, but it's actually rather wide and rectangularish. I'll post pics sometime soon, but I'm blogging this on the tv in my room (which is why there are some weird spacebar issues).
After that, I came back to my hotel. It's in a great location - 2mins' walk from the tube, a Boots pharmacy (where I got a couple of things I forgot), and a Marks&Spencer (where I got a sandwich, teabags, milk, sugar, and cereal). Now it's 8:15pm -- I'm going to try to stay up until at least 9:30 and figure out what I'm doing tomorrow before going to bed.
Finally, happy birthday John! And I hope the rest of you are also having lovely days.
So I got to London with minimal drama, bought my Underground pass, found my hotel, took a fast shower and unpacked a bit, and then went to Aspley House. It is the former home of the Duke of Wellington, who was one of the foremost English heroes of any era after defeating Napoleon (both before Elba, and after his escape which culminated in Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo). Waterloo happened in 1815, smack in the middle of the Regency period, and the Napoleonic Wars had a tremendous effect on England. Even better (for me), the house has lots of lovely reconstructed wall hangings and rugs, as well as the massive portraits and paintings that Wellington decorated his house with. Apparently the custom for royalty back then was to send you a life-size portrait of themselves if you did something noteworthy, which is why he had to find a place for eight gigantic portraits of the kings who ruled the Allied countries during the Napoleonic Wars. If I follow that tradition, do you think Chris and Connie would appreciate an oil painting of me for their wedding?
The most amazing thing in the house, though, was this silver table centerpiece commissioned by the Portuguese in honor of Wellington's victory at Waterloo. It was part of a complete dinner service of more than 1000 pieces, and the centerpiece ran down the length of a dining room table that could easily seat thirty people. It commemorated all of his major battles, had a bunch of dancing nymphs that could be linked by garlands of live flowers, and the center contained a globe, supported by four figures representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, with a Victory figure standing on the Iberian Peninsula (key to the earlier victories in the wars). The craftwork was stunning, and the amount of stuff that Wellington ended up with (most nations gave him a full dinner service in addition to portraits of their monarchs, titles, swords, field marshal batons, artwork, ribbons/medals/orders, etc.) was overwhelming. While Apsley House is probably a second- or third-tier London attraction (and rather expensive given that it can be easily seen in an hour), it was worth it for me just to see the interior of a Regency-period home, with the connecting drawing rooms, the mirrord gallery, etc.
Aspley House is at the entrance of Hyde Park, so I went for a bit of a walk through the park after finishing up. For those of you who read Regency romances, you know that Hyde Park was one of the main places to see and be seen -- people used to ride up and down an area called Rotten Row, or park their carriages and gossip with each other. Rotten Row still exists, preserved for horse-riding even though there are v. few horses left in London. I also had tea in a cafe overlooking the Serpentine -- it's a lake in the middle of the park, also typically mentioned in romance novels, and I was surprised at how large it was. 'Serpentine' made think long, thin, and wiggly, but it's actually rather wide and rectangularish. I'll post pics sometime soon, but I'm blogging this on the tv in my room (which is why there are some weird spacebar issues).
After that, I came back to my hotel. It's in a great location - 2mins' walk from the tube, a Boots pharmacy (where I got a couple of things I forgot), and a Marks&Spencer (where I got a sandwich, teabags, milk, sugar, and cereal). Now it's 8:15pm -- I'm going to try to stay up until at least 9:30 and figure out what I'm doing tomorrow before going to bed.
Finally, happy birthday John! And I hope the rest of you are also having lovely days.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Goodbye Minnesota
I am on the plane for London. I am in business class, which,
amusingly, won't be comfortable until I can put the footrest up, since
I am too short to reach the floor :(
amusingly, won't be comfortable until I can put the footrest up, since
I am too short to reach the floor :(
But it is rather bad of me to complain about business class, so I
should stop. It's time to sign off anyway, so I'll blog when I get to
London!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
she's short...the kind of girlfriend you want if you have an apartment
My love for Craig is over, since he implied that short girls are only good if you have minimal space!
Just kidding, I will love him forever.
In other news, I spent today getting ready for an exciting adventure -- I'm leaving tomorrow for a trip to England and Scotland! I'm billing it as the 'Jane Austen Death March' -- not that I'm necessarily a fangirl for Jane Austen, but she lived during the time period in which I intend to set the majority of my romance novels, and so many of the attractions that appeal to a Jane Austen fangirl are also good for researching romance. So I'm currently planning to hit up Bath, Brighton, Oxford, the Victoria and Albert Museum (which has early 1800s fashion/costumes), the Soane museum (a Regency-era house that conveniently has a candlelight evening tour while I'm in the area), Windsor, Hyde Park, and some other gardens and castles in England. Then, I'm going to Edinburgh to catch a five-day bus tour of the Highlands (including Iona and Isle of Skye). The bus tour could be scary, and will likely be populated by well-off septuagenarians, but we shall see -- it seemed to be the most convenient way to see what I wanted to see without having to rent a car, so I'm taking my chances. I'm rounding off the trip by flying to Amsterdam to meet up with Walter (you may remember him?) and hopefully Doug (who may or may not be able to pry himself away from the charms of Copenhagen).
I am taking my laptop, so you will not get a reprieve from my loquacious blogging. In fact, you may benefit from an improved pictures:text ratio. I'm also hoping to use the laptop to finish the first draft of my novel -- I'm tantalizingly close (there's only five or six scenes left in the book, including the 'climax' of the scene that I had to stop writing last night, if you get my drift). So, the trip should be good. And if nothing else, while I'm in London I'll be within walking distance of a latte, rather than ninety miles away, so that's exciting. Then again, I'll be several thousand miles away from my parents, and won't be able to afford steak at the outrageous exchange rate, so I will likely end up eating Marks and Spencer sandwiches -- unlike the delicious mushroom steak, baked potato, and corn that my mom made for dinner tonight. As you can see, everything's a tradeoff.
Now I should go to bed -- I have to get up and do some last-minute things before leaving for Des Moines. If you like Jane Austen / the Regency period / tales of travel horrors / England / Scotland / Walter, check back frequently. If not, you might want to take a pass on the blog for the next couple of weeks, and check back when I return to the country on 5/19.
Just kidding, I will love him forever.
In other news, I spent today getting ready for an exciting adventure -- I'm leaving tomorrow for a trip to England and Scotland! I'm billing it as the 'Jane Austen Death March' -- not that I'm necessarily a fangirl for Jane Austen, but she lived during the time period in which I intend to set the majority of my romance novels, and so many of the attractions that appeal to a Jane Austen fangirl are also good for researching romance. So I'm currently planning to hit up Bath, Brighton, Oxford, the Victoria and Albert Museum (which has early 1800s fashion/costumes), the Soane museum (a Regency-era house that conveniently has a candlelight evening tour while I'm in the area), Windsor, Hyde Park, and some other gardens and castles in England. Then, I'm going to Edinburgh to catch a five-day bus tour of the Highlands (including Iona and Isle of Skye). The bus tour could be scary, and will likely be populated by well-off septuagenarians, but we shall see -- it seemed to be the most convenient way to see what I wanted to see without having to rent a car, so I'm taking my chances. I'm rounding off the trip by flying to Amsterdam to meet up with Walter (you may remember him?) and hopefully Doug (who may or may not be able to pry himself away from the charms of Copenhagen).
I am taking my laptop, so you will not get a reprieve from my loquacious blogging. In fact, you may benefit from an improved pictures:text ratio. I'm also hoping to use the laptop to finish the first draft of my novel -- I'm tantalizingly close (there's only five or six scenes left in the book, including the 'climax' of the scene that I had to stop writing last night, if you get my drift). So, the trip should be good. And if nothing else, while I'm in London I'll be within walking distance of a latte, rather than ninety miles away, so that's exciting. Then again, I'll be several thousand miles away from my parents, and won't be able to afford steak at the outrageous exchange rate, so I will likely end up eating Marks and Spencer sandwiches -- unlike the delicious mushroom steak, baked potato, and corn that my mom made for dinner tonight. As you can see, everything's a tradeoff.
Now I should go to bed -- I have to get up and do some last-minute things before leaving for Des Moines. If you like Jane Austen / the Regency period / tales of travel horrors / England / Scotland / Walter, check back frequently. If not, you might want to take a pass on the blog for the next couple of weeks, and check back when I return to the country on 5/19.
Monday, April 28, 2008
her flowing skirt is blowing in a transcendental wind
I went to Des Moines today in an effort to make progress on my romance novel (and to have french onion soup at Panera, and to have dinner with Aunt Becky and her scandalous fiance). I wrote approximately three thousand words in the cafe at Borders (where the staff knows my name, but I keep 'em guessing by ordering different drinks every time).
One of the last sentences I wrote today was this: "'Remember your hoydenish ways when night falls,' he said darkly, and she felt a jolt of electricity at the heated promise in his voice." From this, you may be able to gather that the tension was escalating and they were about to reach another 'steamy' scene (since it's required to have at least a couple in any standard historical romance novel). But alas for them, I tend to get interrupted just as they're about to move into more physical territory, so they're going to have to chill out in the dining room until I get around to finishing the scene.
I left Borders to have dinner with Aunt Becky and the scandalous fiance at an Italian restaurant on the southeast side of Des Moines. My pesto ravioli was quite good, and the conversation (about romance publishing, India, and Britain) was v. entertaining. The scandalous fiance is nominally involved in hosting a couple of people visiting his company from India, and when he arrived at the hotel to pick them up this morning, he discovered that the fire department was there because one of them had started a fire by attempting to microwave rice for ten minutes. Ha! It made me homesick for Hyderabad.
On the way home, I chatted with Emily on the phone for awhile, which was nice, since we hadn't talked in ages. And I also confirmed that living in California has made me soft -- I was six inches away from killing a raccoon, and I swerved to avoid it rather than gunning for it. Verily, I am a bridge between two worlds, familiar with both but comfortable with neither, since my animal-killing instincts are anathema to Californians but my inability to follow through with them makes me a pansy in the heartland. Sigh.
Now, my friends, it's time for bed!
One of the last sentences I wrote today was this: "'Remember your hoydenish ways when night falls,' he said darkly, and she felt a jolt of electricity at the heated promise in his voice." From this, you may be able to gather that the tension was escalating and they were about to reach another 'steamy' scene (since it's required to have at least a couple in any standard historical romance novel). But alas for them, I tend to get interrupted just as they're about to move into more physical territory, so they're going to have to chill out in the dining room until I get around to finishing the scene.
I left Borders to have dinner with Aunt Becky and the scandalous fiance at an Italian restaurant on the southeast side of Des Moines. My pesto ravioli was quite good, and the conversation (about romance publishing, India, and Britain) was v. entertaining. The scandalous fiance is nominally involved in hosting a couple of people visiting his company from India, and when he arrived at the hotel to pick them up this morning, he discovered that the fire department was there because one of them had started a fire by attempting to microwave rice for ten minutes. Ha! It made me homesick for Hyderabad.
On the way home, I chatted with Emily on the phone for awhile, which was nice, since we hadn't talked in ages. And I also confirmed that living in California has made me soft -- I was six inches away from killing a raccoon, and I swerved to avoid it rather than gunning for it. Verily, I am a bridge between two worlds, familiar with both but comfortable with neither, since my animal-killing instincts are anathema to Californians but my inability to follow through with them makes me a pansy in the heartland. Sigh.
Now, my friends, it's time for bed!
best sign i've seen in iowa thus far
Nothing says good home cookin' like fresh hot chicken and fishing worms! This is even better than the sign for '24-hour live bait' conveniently located next to the cemetery in Indianola -- I wonder where they get those worms, and what they've been feeding on?
moebius strip
Today I went to Seymour to celebrate my great-aunt Leila's 90th birthday. Aunt Leila is a sister to my deceased maternal grandmother Eleanor; there were five girls in that family, and the remaining four (Leila, Lucile, Irma, and Mary) converged on southern Iowa to celebrate Aunt Leila's birthday.
You'll be sad to know that the Seymour Community Center no longer thinks that senior citizens are our most valuable national resource, since this poster (which I fell in love with last summer at a similar gathering) was missing:
So if any of you reading this blog consider yourself to be an 'older American', apparently you're not worth as much as you used to be!
Anyway, the gathering was as much fun as can be expected. My brother and I shared a moment of abject horror when the woman who had been my grandma's maid of honor asked us, 'Where's Eleanor?' -- but luckily, she was just accidentally calling my mom by the wrong name, rather than demonstrating senility by asking for a woman who has been gone for almost four years. I also had a poignant wish that I had known my maternal grandpa, who died before I was born; Leila's scrapbooks contained a one-paragraph WWII clipping about 'Lt. Harold Holder', who was stationed at Guadalcanal after being the first on the beach on one of the Marshall Islands. While he probably wouldn't have told me anything about his war experience (which was likely unpleasant, to put it mildly, given the battles he was in), it still would have been nice to have known him.
Michael and I escaped in time to briefly see Aunt Becky and her scandalous fiance before they left for Des Moines. I then had to help my grandma put in her earrings (her fingers are too twisted from arthritis to do it herself), and because she had left them out for several days, I ended up drawing blood, which made me feel bad.
The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed -- I'm sitting in my room, sucking on the remnants of a stick of honey that I picked up at the local apiary last week. Supposedly, eating local honey will help to improve one's pollen-based allergies. Honey sticks are great, but I forgot to look for raw honeycomb -- that's even better, and I haven't had it in at least a decade. Now, though, I'm going to go to bed so that I can go to Des Moines tomorrow and attempt to write. Goodnight!
You'll be sad to know that the Seymour Community Center no longer thinks that senior citizens are our most valuable national resource, since this poster (which I fell in love with last summer at a similar gathering) was missing:
So if any of you reading this blog consider yourself to be an 'older American', apparently you're not worth as much as you used to be!
Anyway, the gathering was as much fun as can be expected. My brother and I shared a moment of abject horror when the woman who had been my grandma's maid of honor asked us, 'Where's Eleanor?' -- but luckily, she was just accidentally calling my mom by the wrong name, rather than demonstrating senility by asking for a woman who has been gone for almost four years. I also had a poignant wish that I had known my maternal grandpa, who died before I was born; Leila's scrapbooks contained a one-paragraph WWII clipping about 'Lt. Harold Holder', who was stationed at Guadalcanal after being the first on the beach on one of the Marshall Islands. While he probably wouldn't have told me anything about his war experience (which was likely unpleasant, to put it mildly, given the battles he was in), it still would have been nice to have known him.
Michael and I escaped in time to briefly see Aunt Becky and her scandalous fiance before they left for Des Moines. I then had to help my grandma put in her earrings (her fingers are too twisted from arthritis to do it herself), and because she had left them out for several days, I ended up drawing blood, which made me feel bad.
The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed -- I'm sitting in my room, sucking on the remnants of a stick of honey that I picked up at the local apiary last week. Supposedly, eating local honey will help to improve one's pollen-based allergies. Honey sticks are great, but I forgot to look for raw honeycomb -- that's even better, and I haven't had it in at least a decade. Now, though, I'm going to go to bed so that I can go to Des Moines tomorrow and attempt to write. Goodnight!
Friday, April 25, 2008
our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain
I've probably used the blog post title before, but for those of you who aren't aware, it's the Iowa state motto. Way better than 'Eureka', right?
Today, I went to Des Moines with the intention of having lunch with my Uncle Mark, running errands, and writing a significant amount. I succeeded in two of those three goals. I made it downtown in time for lunch -- and Uncle Mark took me to a restaurant called Latin King on the east side of Des Moines. You may be surprised to know that 'Latin' in this case means Italian, not Latin American. And it was *awesome*. I had a sausage sandwich -- made with hot Italian sausage and mozzarella. Mmm. It was fun to see Uncle Mark, and he gave me a book on Victorian England that he'd picked up from a book fair. He also gave me a tour of his office -- he's an administrative law judge, and I have to say that the state of his office building (which, while architecturally interesting, is rather run down and slated for demolition) reminded me, as always, of how good I had it in California. I'm sad because I can't eat at my favorite sandwich-making cafe for free because I'm 1800 miles away, but now I'm even sadder that the only food offerings in my uncle's building are hamburgers out of a vending machine. Ugh.
After parting ways with Uncle Mark, I dropped some stuff off for my parents, and then took back a couple of the things that I bought last week and realized I didn't want/need. I took the 'proceeds' and bought some 'necessities' at Sephora and Target, then went to Borders to write. But I didn't stay there all that long; I wrote less than a thousand words before being grossed out by this guy sitting across from me. He looked like what Gollum would look like if Gollum gained eighty pounds -- really pasty, stringy hair, oversized creepy pale blue eyes, and such disregard for propriety that he was openly digging in his nasal cavity while talking to his friend. Thank goodness he wasn't wearing a loincloth, or else I might have thrown up.
So I came home, where I recovered nicely by watching the new episode of 'Moonlight'. They're banking all the fortunes of the show on the attractiveness of the main character; the rest of it is completely ridiculous, but it's entertaining. I also found out that my mom was one of the people who voted for it for 'Best New Drama' at the People's Choice Awards, partially because it was one of the only CBS shows in the running and she didn't know any of the others -- but 'Moonlight' actually won, so clearly there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who think it's awesome.
Now, I'm going to bed. Take a look below -- I've finally posted pictures! Now that it's getting a bit greener, I may feel more motivated to take photos, rather than sitting inside (although the fact that it was 45 degrees in Des Moines today did not make me happy).
Today, I went to Des Moines with the intention of having lunch with my Uncle Mark, running errands, and writing a significant amount. I succeeded in two of those three goals. I made it downtown in time for lunch -- and Uncle Mark took me to a restaurant called Latin King on the east side of Des Moines. You may be surprised to know that 'Latin' in this case means Italian, not Latin American. And it was *awesome*. I had a sausage sandwich -- made with hot Italian sausage and mozzarella. Mmm. It was fun to see Uncle Mark, and he gave me a book on Victorian England that he'd picked up from a book fair. He also gave me a tour of his office -- he's an administrative law judge, and I have to say that the state of his office building (which, while architecturally interesting, is rather run down and slated for demolition) reminded me, as always, of how good I had it in California. I'm sad because I can't eat at my favorite sandwich-making cafe for free because I'm 1800 miles away, but now I'm even sadder that the only food offerings in my uncle's building are hamburgers out of a vending machine. Ugh.
After parting ways with Uncle Mark, I dropped some stuff off for my parents, and then took back a couple of the things that I bought last week and realized I didn't want/need. I took the 'proceeds' and bought some 'necessities' at Sephora and Target, then went to Borders to write. But I didn't stay there all that long; I wrote less than a thousand words before being grossed out by this guy sitting across from me. He looked like what Gollum would look like if Gollum gained eighty pounds -- really pasty, stringy hair, oversized creepy pale blue eyes, and such disregard for propriety that he was openly digging in his nasal cavity while talking to his friend. Thank goodness he wasn't wearing a loincloth, or else I might have thrown up.
So I came home, where I recovered nicely by watching the new episode of 'Moonlight'. They're banking all the fortunes of the show on the attractiveness of the main character; the rest of it is completely ridiculous, but it's entertaining. I also found out that my mom was one of the people who voted for it for 'Best New Drama' at the People's Choice Awards, partially because it was one of the only CBS shows in the running and she didn't know any of the others -- but 'Moonlight' actually won, so clearly there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who think it's awesome.
Now, I'm going to bed. Take a look below -- I've finally posted pictures! Now that it's getting a bit greener, I may feel more motivated to take photos, rather than sitting inside (although the fact that it was 45 degrees in Des Moines today did not make me happy).
pictures from iowa, pt. 2
Des Moines's skyline at night (taken after the Craig Ferguson show)...the tallest building in Iowa is the Principal Building, at 45 stories.
Common springtime sight in southern Iowa -- muddy roads, newly-green pastures, cows, and impending storms. I took this photo this morning; the cows/house belong to one of our neighbors, whose dog I will likely run over.
Some metal thing in my uncle's office building, with the Iowa State Capitol in the background.
A tribute to Iowa's farming past in the lobby of my uncle's office building...the plaque says, "This memorial is dedicated to Iowa's sturdy farm pioneers and tot he plows they used to break the prairie sod, thereby unlocking the riches of Iowa's fertile soil and enabling Iowa to achieve world leadership in food production. -Presented by Iowa Plowing Association, 1979"
pictures from iowa, pt. 1
The gravel road outside my house; I took this when I first got home, when the muds were the worst, but they've been pretty soft the last few days as well.
Ignore the fact that my parents haven't had time/dry weather to landscape the area behind the new house yet, and focus on the fact that I can see half a dozen deer (of the 20-30 who were routinely hanging out in the field) from my bedroom window.
My bedroom -- notice the combo teenager / India / college student aesthetic I have going, with the twin bed, the mirror-work bedspread and Indian carpet, and the college-style papasan. Also, I didn't intend for the paint color to be quite this pink, but that's what I get for choosing paint based on its name (in this case, 'Bombay')...and now I really like it.
This is what happens when you try to fit childhood and adulthood in one closet; the right side contains shirts, purses, and twenty pairs of shoes; the left side contains boxes of Nancy Drew books, dress-up clothes, high school awards, dolls, hatboxes, sewing implements, my flute, etc. My favorite thing is the teddy bear in the middle, made out of my granddad's dress blues from his WWII Marines service.
i wanna be an industry
We had dinner guests tonight -- Tammy, Gail, and Nancy. One of those three is a man -- can you guess who it is?
If you guessed Gail, you would be correct. Gail is the sheriff's deputy whose retirement party I went to a few weeks ago; Tammy is his wife, the former editor of the town paper; and Nancy is the other reporter at the paper. My mom used to be the advertising department, so we know Tammy and Nancy pretty well; Nancy is also in the secret society. Tammy and Gail are moving to southern Missouri, so this was sort of a farewell get-together.
They all came over for dinner, which was delicious -- steak, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, and spinach salad (note: spinach salad does not consist of fresh spinach and a vinaigrette; it consists of frozen chopped spinach, boiled eggs, onion, miracle whip/mayo, and some other secret ingredients I can't divulge for fear of my grandmother's wrath). Fun seemed to be had by all, since they stayed until 11:30. Many small-town stories were exchanged, gossipy histories rehashed, family ties explored, etc. Mix together two small-town newspaper reporters, a member of law enforcement, and my father (who keeps pretty up-to-date on what goes on around here, and was once in law enforcement himself), and you hear all kinds of stories. If I were more extroverted and wanted to go to the bar every day to get people to tell me all the dirt from the past sixty years, I could have ideas for a score of novels.
As it is, I really need to be focused on *this* novel, so I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow to work on it. Today was not particularly productive -- I ran into town twice, once to pick up the pants I had shortened (Melvina charges $2.50/pair, which is a steal), and once to get some ice. And it's funny -- if I run into someone I know (like today, when I was at the convenience store I used to work at and ran into one of the guys who works with the propane delivery), I definitely drop into a little bit more of a drawl. Not that it's probably noticeable as a drawl, since I still talk waaay too fast, don't enunciate, and generally have a hard time making myself understood, but I still notice it. I will never get to the point where I say 'ain't,' but if I stay here long enough, maybe my speech patterns will slow down enough that I won't have to repeat myself constantly. We'll see...
If you guessed Gail, you would be correct. Gail is the sheriff's deputy whose retirement party I went to a few weeks ago; Tammy is his wife, the former editor of the town paper; and Nancy is the other reporter at the paper. My mom used to be the advertising department, so we know Tammy and Nancy pretty well; Nancy is also in the secret society. Tammy and Gail are moving to southern Missouri, so this was sort of a farewell get-together.
They all came over for dinner, which was delicious -- steak, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, and spinach salad (note: spinach salad does not consist of fresh spinach and a vinaigrette; it consists of frozen chopped spinach, boiled eggs, onion, miracle whip/mayo, and some other secret ingredients I can't divulge for fear of my grandmother's wrath). Fun seemed to be had by all, since they stayed until 11:30. Many small-town stories were exchanged, gossipy histories rehashed, family ties explored, etc. Mix together two small-town newspaper reporters, a member of law enforcement, and my father (who keeps pretty up-to-date on what goes on around here, and was once in law enforcement himself), and you hear all kinds of stories. If I were more extroverted and wanted to go to the bar every day to get people to tell me all the dirt from the past sixty years, I could have ideas for a score of novels.
As it is, I really need to be focused on *this* novel, so I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow to work on it. Today was not particularly productive -- I ran into town twice, once to pick up the pants I had shortened (Melvina charges $2.50/pair, which is a steal), and once to get some ice. And it's funny -- if I run into someone I know (like today, when I was at the convenience store I used to work at and ran into one of the guys who works with the propane delivery), I definitely drop into a little bit more of a drawl. Not that it's probably noticeable as a drawl, since I still talk waaay too fast, don't enunciate, and generally have a hard time making myself understood, but I still notice it. I will never get to the point where I say 'ain't,' but if I stay here long enough, maybe my speech patterns will slow down enough that I won't have to repeat myself constantly. We'll see...
Thursday, April 24, 2008
cold, distant, first explored by scandinavian sailors...remind you of anyone?
Today I read approximately 80% of a book called 'Sex in Georgian England'. It's v. amusing, mostly because the author (who holds a doctorate from Cambridge) writes about sex with the same dry, dull sobriety that I've seen in traditional college textbooks. It's one thing to fall asleep reading about Russian intellectuals or second-order desires or thousand-page bios of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's another thing to fall asleep from boredom while reading an analysis of 18th-century artistic portrayals of women's nipples.
However, since I'm a good little researcher, I persevered. There were some good pieces of information, such as the number of murderers prosecuted in England and Wales from 1805-1818, the average number of divorces per year (ranging from 3 to 4.3 per year, due to the fact that divorce in England required an Act of Parliament), the going rate for streetwalkers, and an amusing anecdote of a man in Edinburgh in 1760 who accidentally set his wife's pubic hair on fire with a candle while shockingly attempting to see her private parts. Ah, the good old days. I don't think I'll be reading the book again anytime soon, but it was worth the purchase.
In other news, I demonstrated exceptional self-sacrifice and went to a secret society meeting tonight, when I really just wanted to sit at home and watch 'Big Brother'. After the meeting, when we were eating cake, it was clear that several other women had wanted to do the same thing, since the conversation turned to how stupid everyone in the Big Brother house is, and how much we all wish that Ozzy hadn't been ejected from 'Survivor' last week. But, I suppose I'll recover from the disappointment.
The only other thing worth reporting (sort of) is that I washed my car this afternoon. I was about ten minutes away from the car wash when a bird shat all over my car. I thought it was just the windshield (which I was able to use the wipers on), but when I got home, there was shit all over the hood of my car as well. I've never seen that much bird shit from a single bird -- it must have been a buzzard, or perhaps an emu that had been selectively bred to enable flight. But I suppose I should be grateful -- my sunroof was open, so another foot farther back and it would have been in my passenger seat. Ugh.
Okay, that's all you get tonight -- it's time for bed!
However, since I'm a good little researcher, I persevered. There were some good pieces of information, such as the number of murderers prosecuted in England and Wales from 1805-1818, the average number of divorces per year (ranging from 3 to 4.3 per year, due to the fact that divorce in England required an Act of Parliament), the going rate for streetwalkers, and an amusing anecdote of a man in Edinburgh in 1760 who accidentally set his wife's pubic hair on fire with a candle while shockingly attempting to see her private parts. Ah, the good old days. I don't think I'll be reading the book again anytime soon, but it was worth the purchase.
In other news, I demonstrated exceptional self-sacrifice and went to a secret society meeting tonight, when I really just wanted to sit at home and watch 'Big Brother'. After the meeting, when we were eating cake, it was clear that several other women had wanted to do the same thing, since the conversation turned to how stupid everyone in the Big Brother house is, and how much we all wish that Ozzy hadn't been ejected from 'Survivor' last week. But, I suppose I'll recover from the disappointment.
The only other thing worth reporting (sort of) is that I washed my car this afternoon. I was about ten minutes away from the car wash when a bird shat all over my car. I thought it was just the windshield (which I was able to use the wipers on), but when I got home, there was shit all over the hood of my car as well. I've never seen that much bird shit from a single bird -- it must have been a buzzard, or perhaps an emu that had been selectively bred to enable flight. But I suppose I should be grateful -- my sunroof was open, so another foot farther back and it would have been in my passenger seat. Ugh.
Okay, that's all you get tonight -- it's time for bed!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
gouryella (magik version)
When I've been listening to trance a lot, it's difficult to come up with lyrics for my blog posts. So you'll have to settle for a song title tonight instead.
Today was kind of a blah day in spite of the lovely weather outside. I'm glad I'm taking my triple-drug allergy cocktail, since I still have a massive sinus headache; if I weren't drugged up, I'd probably be in a state of despair right now.
It probably didn't help that I stayed up past three a.m. last night reading 'Northanger Abbey' straight through from cover to cover. I had remembered loving it, but now I love it all over again -- Austen's satire of the classic gothic novel, combined with the delightful dialogue between Henry and Catherine, is simply awesome. It's probably dangerous, too, since romance novels are not expected to rival Austen's brilliance, but it made it difficult to go back and work on my novel this afternoon.
Other than that, nothing really happened today. We had a great dinner, watched tv, and now I am going to go to bed so that I can write tomorrow! I'll likely work from home, since my mom and I have a secret society meeting tomorrow night (unless I feign illness to stay home and watch 'Big Brother', but that would be obnoxious). Goodnight!
Today was kind of a blah day in spite of the lovely weather outside. I'm glad I'm taking my triple-drug allergy cocktail, since I still have a massive sinus headache; if I weren't drugged up, I'd probably be in a state of despair right now.
It probably didn't help that I stayed up past three a.m. last night reading 'Northanger Abbey' straight through from cover to cover. I had remembered loving it, but now I love it all over again -- Austen's satire of the classic gothic novel, combined with the delightful dialogue between Henry and Catherine, is simply awesome. It's probably dangerous, too, since romance novels are not expected to rival Austen's brilliance, but it made it difficult to go back and work on my novel this afternoon.
Other than that, nothing really happened today. We had a great dinner, watched tv, and now I am going to go to bed so that I can write tomorrow! I'll likely work from home, since my mom and I have a secret society meeting tomorrow night (unless I feign illness to stay home and watch 'Big Brother', but that would be obnoxious). Goodnight!
Monday, April 21, 2008
nothing's unconditional
Today I took a lovely jaunt to Des Moines to get some writing done. I got there around 1:45pm, and stopped first at Panera for some french onion soup. Then, I went to Borders, where I reread a significant portion of my book before writing ~3400 words. My hero and heroine went on an expedition to steal (or 'liberate') some sheep, and the adrenaline rush may lead to some lovemaking in their near future. Yay.
My heroine is a writer, and I decided that I need to read a couple of the Gothic novels that were intensely popular during her time period. Borders didn't carry any in the store, so I came home and ordered a couple via Amazon; they should be here by the end of the week. It's unfortunate that I didn't pay closer attention to the class I took on Gothic/Romantic literature at Stanford, but I made the mistake of taking the class around the same time that I was taking multiple classes for my major -- and it was also the quarter during the 2002 Winter Games, which destroyed my academic attention span. I remember reading one of the major Gothic Novels ('Romance of the Forest' by Ann Radcliffe), but I can't remember much about it. The books I ordered will be here by the end of the week, though, so that's exciting. I also got a book on the social history of the English country house, and Katie will be pleased to know that I got the newly-released fourth book in the werewolf/vampire/paranormal series I was so excited about a few weeks ago. So, I have much to look forward to!
One of the other books I read during my Gothic/Romantic class was Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey', which I remember liking quite a bit. I know that I have a copy somewhere in storage in California, but Borders had another copy for only $6, and one of the things I want to go back and revise in my manuscript is making sure that the dialogue sounds a little less modern. Not that I want to parody Austen, but I don't want my heroine to sound like a valley girl either. I should also dig out some Georgette Heyers from the boxes I brought back from California and have left stacked in my parents' garage -- but that's a project for another day.
Finally, on the way home, Felicia called me, which was a v. pleasurable way to spend an hour of driving through nowhere. And I didn't hit any deer, so it was quite a good evening! Now, though, I should go to bed -- I need to write tomorrow! But I'll probably read some 'Northanger Abbey' before going to sleep -- let's see if I actually make myself go to bed before two a.m....
My heroine is a writer, and I decided that I need to read a couple of the Gothic novels that were intensely popular during her time period. Borders didn't carry any in the store, so I came home and ordered a couple via Amazon; they should be here by the end of the week. It's unfortunate that I didn't pay closer attention to the class I took on Gothic/Romantic literature at Stanford, but I made the mistake of taking the class around the same time that I was taking multiple classes for my major -- and it was also the quarter during the 2002 Winter Games, which destroyed my academic attention span. I remember reading one of the major Gothic Novels ('Romance of the Forest' by Ann Radcliffe), but I can't remember much about it. The books I ordered will be here by the end of the week, though, so that's exciting. I also got a book on the social history of the English country house, and Katie will be pleased to know that I got the newly-released fourth book in the werewolf/vampire/paranormal series I was so excited about a few weeks ago. So, I have much to look forward to!
One of the other books I read during my Gothic/Romantic class was Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey', which I remember liking quite a bit. I know that I have a copy somewhere in storage in California, but Borders had another copy for only $6, and one of the things I want to go back and revise in my manuscript is making sure that the dialogue sounds a little less modern. Not that I want to parody Austen, but I don't want my heroine to sound like a valley girl either. I should also dig out some Georgette Heyers from the boxes I brought back from California and have left stacked in my parents' garage -- but that's a project for another day.
Finally, on the way home, Felicia called me, which was a v. pleasurable way to spend an hour of driving through nowhere. And I didn't hit any deer, so it was quite a good evening! Now, though, I should go to bed -- I need to write tomorrow! But I'll probably read some 'Northanger Abbey' before going to sleep -- let's see if I actually make myself go to bed before two a.m....
Sunday, April 20, 2008
there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
I got tricked into helping the Round Barn today. Actually, I wasn't precisely tricked -- my dad asked me if I could enter a list of ~150 names and addresses into a database that he could use for an upcoming mailing -- but I remembered as I was typing them that I had made the dire prediction several months ago that I would end up getting roped into helping out with barn activities. And sadly, that was the case tonight. I didn't mind doing it -- I took a typing test online tonight and was regularly at 90-105 words/minute, so I could clearly do it more efficiently than my father could. I could have been such a great secretary (and I have a state typing trophy from high school to prove it), but alas, I have decided to pursue other ventures.
As promised, my mother made Sunday dinner, which consisted of ham, scalloped potatoes, and baked beans. Her baked beans are to die for, and I think this was either the first or second time she made them since I've been home, so that was great. My brother hung around for awhile this afternoon, and informed me that the desk chair I've been surreptitiously borrowing from him is actually broken. I had been sitting in it for two weeks, but I dragged it back into his room before he got home. He *hates* when people borrow things without asking him -- and his rage at such events is so strong that I took the extreme measure of spending a few minutes yesterday smoothing out his carpet with my feet so that he wouldn't notice the track marks of the chair wheels when he got home. But then I asked for permission, and he said it was broken, so I guess I won't be using it again :(
And that, my friends, was it. I'm going to go to Des Moines tomorrow to work -- Uncle Mark, do you want to have lunch on Wednesday or Friday? I'll call you and we can plan.
As promised, my mother made Sunday dinner, which consisted of ham, scalloped potatoes, and baked beans. Her baked beans are to die for, and I think this was either the first or second time she made them since I've been home, so that was great. My brother hung around for awhile this afternoon, and informed me that the desk chair I've been surreptitiously borrowing from him is actually broken. I had been sitting in it for two weeks, but I dragged it back into his room before he got home. He *hates* when people borrow things without asking him -- and his rage at such events is so strong that I took the extreme measure of spending a few minutes yesterday smoothing out his carpet with my feet so that he wouldn't notice the track marks of the chair wheels when he got home. But then I asked for permission, and he said it was broken, so I guess I won't be using it again :(
And that, my friends, was it. I'm going to go to Des Moines tomorrow to work -- Uncle Mark, do you want to have lunch on Wednesday or Friday? I'll call you and we can plan.
keep moving in case anyone in here has a scope
I only have two goals in life: to become a successful novelist, and to see Craig Ferguson. Tonight, I accomplished the second goal. It's so huge to accomplish half of your life's ambition that I think I can take a break from the novelist thing for another decade at least.
I'm just kidding about stopping the writing thing, but I'm not kidding about Craig. He was playing for one night only at the Hoyt Sherman Theatre in Des Moines. I convinced my parents and brother to go to the show, and I'm quite happy that we did. One of Craig's writers tours with him as the opener, and he was v. funny -- the part that got the most laughs from the audience was when he ripped on the hotel they were staying in, since he was v. harsh. And then Craig came out and did an hour and a half of pure comedy. He covered a lot of topics in that hour and a half, such as growing up in Scotland (where 'damp was a color'), trying to get high off of chloroform, coming to America to be an actor, and the wonders of the birthing process. He also made fun of a San Francisco hotel that I've actually been to (the Clift, where my friend Irish Matt typically stays when he comes to SF), because it's one of those trendy places with the really dark purple lobbies where all of the staff is too good-looking to be bothered with helping you.
But the happiest moment for me was the five minutes he spent discussing Sean Connery, particularly since I can verify that Sean Connery did indeed deliver milk as a boy (Craig said that he and Sean Connery had both delivered milk, and so Craig thought that 'actor' was the next logical step for his own career). I'm quite surprised that Sean Connery is still alive -- rest assured, former Loro residents, that I will plan a fabulous wake for him when he is gone.
Anyway, Craig was hilarious. I suggest that you TiVo him sometime -- his facial expressions alone are a good bit of entertainment, let alone the happiness that ensues when you realize that you're watching someone who is more likely to make a joke about J. Edgar Hoover than about Britney Spears. Okay, maybe that's not a selling point to some of you, but it is to me!
The only other thing I did of interest today was take a few pairs of pants to a woman so that she could shorten them. Her name is Melvina, which is rather unusual; it's also unusual to know someone who makes her living as an independent seamstress, but I'm glad that she does, since unless I buy pants that are intended to be capris on 'normal' women, I have to get things shortened. She was babysitting two of her great-grandsons, one of whom is the child of a girl who graduated in my class. Based on the age of the kid, my classmate had him around the same time that I came perilously close to contracting a lip fungus from kissing a water buffalo in India. Since I still loathe the idea of commitment, I would definitely take the water buffalo over a toddler any day of the week.
Now it's time for bed; my brother's home for the weekend, which means Sunday dinner, which means I can't laze around all day tomorrow. Goodnight!
I'm just kidding about stopping the writing thing, but I'm not kidding about Craig. He was playing for one night only at the Hoyt Sherman Theatre in Des Moines. I convinced my parents and brother to go to the show, and I'm quite happy that we did. One of Craig's writers tours with him as the opener, and he was v. funny -- the part that got the most laughs from the audience was when he ripped on the hotel they were staying in, since he was v. harsh. And then Craig came out and did an hour and a half of pure comedy. He covered a lot of topics in that hour and a half, such as growing up in Scotland (where 'damp was a color'), trying to get high off of chloroform, coming to America to be an actor, and the wonders of the birthing process. He also made fun of a San Francisco hotel that I've actually been to (the Clift, where my friend Irish Matt typically stays when he comes to SF), because it's one of those trendy places with the really dark purple lobbies where all of the staff is too good-looking to be bothered with helping you.
But the happiest moment for me was the five minutes he spent discussing Sean Connery, particularly since I can verify that Sean Connery did indeed deliver milk as a boy (Craig said that he and Sean Connery had both delivered milk, and so Craig thought that 'actor' was the next logical step for his own career). I'm quite surprised that Sean Connery is still alive -- rest assured, former Loro residents, that I will plan a fabulous wake for him when he is gone.
Anyway, Craig was hilarious. I suggest that you TiVo him sometime -- his facial expressions alone are a good bit of entertainment, let alone the happiness that ensues when you realize that you're watching someone who is more likely to make a joke about J. Edgar Hoover than about Britney Spears. Okay, maybe that's not a selling point to some of you, but it is to me!
The only other thing I did of interest today was take a few pairs of pants to a woman so that she could shorten them. Her name is Melvina, which is rather unusual; it's also unusual to know someone who makes her living as an independent seamstress, but I'm glad that she does, since unless I buy pants that are intended to be capris on 'normal' women, I have to get things shortened. She was babysitting two of her great-grandsons, one of whom is the child of a girl who graduated in my class. Based on the age of the kid, my classmate had him around the same time that I came perilously close to contracting a lip fungus from kissing a water buffalo in India. Since I still loathe the idea of commitment, I would definitely take the water buffalo over a toddler any day of the week.
Now it's time for bed; my brother's home for the weekend, which means Sunday dinner, which means I can't laze around all day tomorrow. Goodnight!
Friday, April 18, 2008
when the worrying starts to hurt, and the world feels like graves of dirt
I'm blogging v. fast tonight because I want to watch Craig in five minutes, and I also want to paint my fingernails, both of which are more important than documenting what I did today. That's mostly because today was something of a wash -- I did wake up and go to Des Moines, with the intention of spending a couple of hours shopping and at least five hours writing.
Instead, I spent five hours shopping and two hours writing. There were a lot of things to get on my shopping list, and I also went to two different malls, which contributed a lot to the amount of time I spent on this endeavor. The top things on my list were a spring coat and a good all-purpose sweater; sadly, I discovered that all of the spring coats were stocked in February and have already been cleared out to make way for summer stuff. And of course sweaters were all gone in like November or something. I really dislike how far ahead of the season you have to buy things; by the time the weather is appropriate and you want something, you're a season and a half too late. Bleh.
But I did find a jacket that I liked, although it was exactly the opposite of what I initially wanted -- I was aiming for a trench coat in either black or a cute spring color, and instead ended up with a magenta raincoat. It's actually perfect for me, but so much for my attempts to grow up.
The rest of the stuff that I got is suitable for my impending old age, though; I got several new pairs of pants, and there isn't a single pink pair among them. I also got a couple of skirts, a dress, and several shirts. I've realized that my wardrobe is way too heavily focused on the super-casual side, and I have too many tshirts, so while I have time off and can spread the shopping out (since contrary to popular belief, I don't like shopping), I'm trying to reconfigure my clothing selections. Granted, it's not fun that I have time off to shop but don't have an income with which to retrofit my closet, but c'est la vie.
I did manage to write 2400 words at Borders, even though there was a live band -- I believe their name was Soundrabbit, and they were from Boulder, Colorado. They were pretty good, although I think they may have been surprised by the crowd -- after me, the next youngest person was probably in their late thirties/early forties, and most of the people were part of a knitting group that had apparently already planned to meet there. So, I was entertained and productive and caffeinated, which is a great combo.
Okay, Craig's on, so you lose. Or win, if you are glad that I am not going to keep rambling. Goodnight!
Instead, I spent five hours shopping and two hours writing. There were a lot of things to get on my shopping list, and I also went to two different malls, which contributed a lot to the amount of time I spent on this endeavor. The top things on my list were a spring coat and a good all-purpose sweater; sadly, I discovered that all of the spring coats were stocked in February and have already been cleared out to make way for summer stuff. And of course sweaters were all gone in like November or something. I really dislike how far ahead of the season you have to buy things; by the time the weather is appropriate and you want something, you're a season and a half too late. Bleh.
But I did find a jacket that I liked, although it was exactly the opposite of what I initially wanted -- I was aiming for a trench coat in either black or a cute spring color, and instead ended up with a magenta raincoat. It's actually perfect for me, but so much for my attempts to grow up.
The rest of the stuff that I got is suitable for my impending old age, though; I got several new pairs of pants, and there isn't a single pink pair among them. I also got a couple of skirts, a dress, and several shirts. I've realized that my wardrobe is way too heavily focused on the super-casual side, and I have too many tshirts, so while I have time off and can spread the shopping out (since contrary to popular belief, I don't like shopping), I'm trying to reconfigure my clothing selections. Granted, it's not fun that I have time off to shop but don't have an income with which to retrofit my closet, but c'est la vie.
I did manage to write 2400 words at Borders, even though there was a live band -- I believe their name was Soundrabbit, and they were from Boulder, Colorado. They were pretty good, although I think they may have been surprised by the crowd -- after me, the next youngest person was probably in their late thirties/early forties, and most of the people were part of a knitting group that had apparently already planned to meet there. So, I was entertained and productive and caffeinated, which is a great combo.
Okay, Craig's on, so you lose. Or win, if you are glad that I am not going to keep rambling. Goodnight!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
i've been through the desert on a horse with no name
Today, Felicia directed me to this site - www.facestat.com - interestingly enough, one of the three people behind the company running FaceStat is our mutual friend Brendan. FaceStat allows you to upload a picture; using a wisdom-of-crowds approach, it gives you feedback an hour or so later on a number of attributes that a bunch of complete strangers judged while looking at the picture.
So I gave it a test. I uploaded this picture (from my friend Katie's wedding a year and a half ago):
And approximately an hour later, got these results (apparently from a sample of ten strangers):
ethnicity: Caucasian / White
weight: chunky
political affiliation: moderate
relationship status: dating
intoxicated?: true
gender: female
trustworthy?: false
wealth: average
attractive?: true
intelligence: average
age: 25
funny?: true
And I thought - this is a great way to screen pictures if one is going to join an online dating service. For instance, of the 10 people who rated this picture, 9 of them thought that I looked untrustworthy, which completely surprised me. Also, I wasn't intoxicated when this picture was taken. And 2 of the people actually rated my intelligence as 'dull' - I can attribute some of this to either the well-known correlation between perceived attractiveness and perceived intelligence, and there is also a likely sample bias given that the people who will sit around and rate pictures may not completely represent the overall population. Still, it says something interesting about me that the thing that most offended me was that people thought I didn't look intelligent.
However, I thought that the whole thing was interesting. So if you have a somewhat thick skin/morbid curiosity, check it out. You can only upload one photo per day, but the interface is easy to use, and the results come in less than an hour. Let me know what you think!
And that, my friends, was pretty much the only 'productive' thing I did today. I did a lot of online window-shopping. I watched tonight's fine CBS programming ('Survivor' - I paid for my excitement over Natalie's BB9-eviction by having to watch Ozzy, my favorite survivor, get blindsided at tribal council; after that, I watched 'CSI' and 'Without a Trace', the 10pm news, Letterman, and Craig). I read the latest issue of the Romance Writers' Report, published by the Romance Writers of America, and got excited about all the great workshops that they'll have at the conference in July. My mother made some delicious steak fajitas, which I enjoyed with my parents. I exfoliated my face. Yay.
Tomorrow I must write, so I'm going to escape the house and go someplace, even if there are more thunderstorms like there were today. We only had one brief power flicker this afternoon, and there were no tornadoes, so it was all pretty unremarkable. Now it's time for bed!
So I gave it a test. I uploaded this picture (from my friend Katie's wedding a year and a half ago):
And approximately an hour later, got these results (apparently from a sample of ten strangers):
ethnicity: Caucasian / White
weight: chunky
political affiliation: moderate
relationship status: dating
intoxicated?: true
gender: female
trustworthy?: false
wealth: average
attractive?: true
intelligence: average
age: 25
funny?: true
And I thought - this is a great way to screen pictures if one is going to join an online dating service. For instance, of the 10 people who rated this picture, 9 of them thought that I looked untrustworthy, which completely surprised me. Also, I wasn't intoxicated when this picture was taken. And 2 of the people actually rated my intelligence as 'dull' - I can attribute some of this to either the well-known correlation between perceived attractiveness and perceived intelligence, and there is also a likely sample bias given that the people who will sit around and rate pictures may not completely represent the overall population. Still, it says something interesting about me that the thing that most offended me was that people thought I didn't look intelligent.
However, I thought that the whole thing was interesting. So if you have a somewhat thick skin/morbid curiosity, check it out. You can only upload one photo per day, but the interface is easy to use, and the results come in less than an hour. Let me know what you think!
And that, my friends, was pretty much the only 'productive' thing I did today. I did a lot of online window-shopping. I watched tonight's fine CBS programming ('Survivor' - I paid for my excitement over Natalie's BB9-eviction by having to watch Ozzy, my favorite survivor, get blindsided at tribal council; after that, I watched 'CSI' and 'Without a Trace', the 10pm news, Letterman, and Craig). I read the latest issue of the Romance Writers' Report, published by the Romance Writers of America, and got excited about all the great workshops that they'll have at the conference in July. My mother made some delicious steak fajitas, which I enjoyed with my parents. I exfoliated my face. Yay.
Tomorrow I must write, so I'm going to escape the house and go someplace, even if there are more thunderstorms like there were today. We only had one brief power flicker this afternoon, and there were no tornadoes, so it was all pretty unremarkable. Now it's time for bed!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
the other white meat
The only good thing that happened today was that Natalie was kicked out of the Big Brother house. Yes, my life has sunk to the level that I'm paying attention to Big Brother. Bleh.
Actually, I lied -- several great things happened today. For starters, it was 74 degrees at one point today, which is awesome considering that it was snowing last week. And, my mother made tenderloins for dinner -- I never see proper tenderloins anywhere in California, so it's awesome when I get them here. Tammy will be happy to know that we had tater tots with them, which were also awesome, albeit not quite as awesome as the tenderloins.
For those of you who have never seen a real tenderloin, I found this site, which you can explore at your leisure. The best tenderloins are the ones so big that they cannot be contained by one bun; in fact, at the tavern in town, they actually serve them with two buns, but my mother's tenderloins are a million times better than those. For the curious, she breads hers with crushed saltines (none of them fancy panko breadcrumbs that you coast-dwellers are familiar with!), and if you like pork, tenderloin is second only to bacon in the vast pantheon of pork goodness.
Now that I've said that, though, I'm not sure that I can accurately rate the pork pantheon. My brother doesn't eat pork, because it was all we ate in Ukraine (other than chickens who had clearly starved to death), and he has a serious aversion to it. But I love the stuff, and often come to the startling realization that I rarely have it in California. In my mind, the top members of the pork pantheon are:
1) Bacon
2) Tenderloins (breaded and fried)
3) BBQ pork butt, shredded (I had this at my high school graduation party)
4) Ham (either whole hams baked for dinner, or leftover ham for sandwiches)
5) BBQ ribs
6) BBQ pork buns (dim sum)
7) Bologna
8) Hotdogs (plain, corndogs, or pigs-in-a-blanket style)
9) Pork sausage
10) Porkchop (baked)
11) Ham and bean soup
12) Pork roast (this is what we ate in Ukraine virtually every night -- and I have to admit that if the smell of boiling cabbage permeated the kitchen just like it did everything in Ukraine, I would probably be less thrilled)
13) Porkchop (grilled)
14) Ham balls (Gram Wampler makes these - ground ham, baked into ball form, with some syrupy sauce. Sounds gross, but they're delicious)
15) Bologna salad (only in v. small quantities, like on a cracker - grind up some bologna, mix with Miracle Whip and chopped sweet pickles, and serve on a Ritz cracker at your next fancy function)
16) Bac'o'bits (probably not real pork)
Do you agree or disagree with my pork pantheon? Did I miss anything? Do you find any of it to be an abomination? I'll admit that the ranking is pretty loose, since the top eleven, at least, could all be number one at some point depending on my mood. And 'bacon' probably shouldn't be number one -- but bacon is a number one condiment/sandwich topper, even if I don't usually eat it by itself.
Okay, I'm going to bed -- I skipped Craig tonight so that I could go to bed early, but thinking about the wonders of pork kept me awake later than planned. Goodnight!
Actually, I lied -- several great things happened today. For starters, it was 74 degrees at one point today, which is awesome considering that it was snowing last week. And, my mother made tenderloins for dinner -- I never see proper tenderloins anywhere in California, so it's awesome when I get them here. Tammy will be happy to know that we had tater tots with them, which were also awesome, albeit not quite as awesome as the tenderloins.
For those of you who have never seen a real tenderloin, I found this site, which you can explore at your leisure. The best tenderloins are the ones so big that they cannot be contained by one bun; in fact, at the tavern in town, they actually serve them with two buns, but my mother's tenderloins are a million times better than those. For the curious, she breads hers with crushed saltines (none of them fancy panko breadcrumbs that you coast-dwellers are familiar with!), and if you like pork, tenderloin is second only to bacon in the vast pantheon of pork goodness.
Now that I've said that, though, I'm not sure that I can accurately rate the pork pantheon. My brother doesn't eat pork, because it was all we ate in Ukraine (other than chickens who had clearly starved to death), and he has a serious aversion to it. But I love the stuff, and often come to the startling realization that I rarely have it in California. In my mind, the top members of the pork pantheon are:
1) Bacon
2) Tenderloins (breaded and fried)
3) BBQ pork butt, shredded (I had this at my high school graduation party)
4) Ham (either whole hams baked for dinner, or leftover ham for sandwiches)
5) BBQ ribs
6) BBQ pork buns (dim sum)
7) Bologna
8) Hotdogs (plain, corndogs, or pigs-in-a-blanket style)
9) Pork sausage
10) Porkchop (baked)
11) Ham and bean soup
12) Pork roast (this is what we ate in Ukraine virtually every night -- and I have to admit that if the smell of boiling cabbage permeated the kitchen just like it did everything in Ukraine, I would probably be less thrilled)
13) Porkchop (grilled)
14) Ham balls (Gram Wampler makes these - ground ham, baked into ball form, with some syrupy sauce. Sounds gross, but they're delicious)
15) Bologna salad (only in v. small quantities, like on a cracker - grind up some bologna, mix with Miracle Whip and chopped sweet pickles, and serve on a Ritz cracker at your next fancy function)
16) Bac'o'bits (probably not real pork)
Do you agree or disagree with my pork pantheon? Did I miss anything? Do you find any of it to be an abomination? I'll admit that the ranking is pretty loose, since the top eleven, at least, could all be number one at some point depending on my mood. And 'bacon' probably shouldn't be number one -- but bacon is a number one condiment/sandwich topper, even if I don't usually eat it by itself.
Okay, I'm going to bed -- I skipped Craig tonight so that I could go to bed early, but thinking about the wonders of pork kept me awake later than planned. Goodnight!
ten hundred percent
Today I took a trip to Chariton, which is the county seat of the county directly to our north. I picked up my brother's contact lenses at the eye doctor's, where I unexpectedly ran into my grandmother. I also went to the homemade candy store on the town square and bought some peanut clusters and 'turtles' (walnuts covered in caramel and chocolate, yum). Their candy is amazing, so it's a good thing that it's half an hour away.
On the way home, I stopped in at my former high school. Very few of my former teachers are still there; as the social studies teacher told me, the junior/senior English position is now like the 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' job from Harry Potter, since it's been held by five people in four years. But I did see my social studies teacher and my Spanish teacher; I was hoping to see the band director and the guidance counselor, but they weren't around.
Katie will of course think I was a huge dork for going back -- but I was a huge dork in high school, and it's not like I've gotten any cooler. And the social studies teacher promised some good gossip if I go back sometime when he's not on his way to a track meet, so I'll have to stop by again. He hasn't changed at all -- I've always thought that it was a miracle that he hasn't been fired for sexual harassment (and in fact, during my senior year, I flipped him off and walked out of class at one point when he made a joke about my menstrual cycle), but apparently his charm has carried him through. Anyway, today he asked me where I'd been living before I came home, I responded 'San Francisco', and he asked me if I was still straight. I'm glad that he hasn't changed -- there's something strangely comforting about it.
I spent the rest of the night playing around with my blog template, eating a delicious dinner made by my mother (cheeseburgers, corn, and fried potatoes -- healthy!), watching Big Brother (why am I so stupid?), and rereading the last forty pages of my manuscript so that I can figure out where to go next with it. Tomorrow I need to write like crazy, so I should go to bed!
On the way home, I stopped in at my former high school. Very few of my former teachers are still there; as the social studies teacher told me, the junior/senior English position is now like the 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' job from Harry Potter, since it's been held by five people in four years. But I did see my social studies teacher and my Spanish teacher; I was hoping to see the band director and the guidance counselor, but they weren't around.
Katie will of course think I was a huge dork for going back -- but I was a huge dork in high school, and it's not like I've gotten any cooler. And the social studies teacher promised some good gossip if I go back sometime when he's not on his way to a track meet, so I'll have to stop by again. He hasn't changed at all -- I've always thought that it was a miracle that he hasn't been fired for sexual harassment (and in fact, during my senior year, I flipped him off and walked out of class at one point when he made a joke about my menstrual cycle), but apparently his charm has carried him through. Anyway, today he asked me where I'd been living before I came home, I responded 'San Francisco', and he asked me if I was still straight. I'm glad that he hasn't changed -- there's something strangely comforting about it.
I spent the rest of the night playing around with my blog template, eating a delicious dinner made by my mother (cheeseburgers, corn, and fried potatoes -- healthy!), watching Big Brother (why am I so stupid?), and rereading the last forty pages of my manuscript so that I can figure out where to go next with it. Tomorrow I need to write like crazy, so I should go to bed!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
another day, another new template
I'm trying out another new template. My tastes run towards either calm, serene sea tones, or awful, over-the-top black/magenta schemes, so we'll see what wins out. My desire to act like I'm 26 instead of 16 is pushing me towards seafoam, but I've lost that battle before.
I'll post a real post later!
I'll post a real post later!
experimentation
I'm playing around with new templates, since I'm v. bored with the way my blog looks. RSS feeds are the way of the future, so many of you won't even see the changes -- for those of you who still come here manually, rest assured that even if the background gets all snazzy, the content will still be as snooze-worthy as before.
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