I see what my brother meant about black spots on his tissue, when he blew his nose back when he was in London seventeen years ago. Talk about pollution. In Topeka, that only happens to me when I’ve been doing some house cleaning, particularly the basement or garage. Of course, that also makes me really congested. Even changing kitty litter or lighting incense makes me choke—it’s best to burn incense by an open window.
I recall that an Amy I knew in St. Louis (she worked at Cloth World and the Shakespeare Company and was a Neopagan and a friend of Larry Hill’s—I ran into them at a really cool bead store, White Heart Trading Post, while it was going out of business) came back from England and spoke of “all the cute English boys.” Personally, I’ve seen a lot more cute Asian boys than cute English boys. Not to mention French boys with big eyes and big noses and Crazy Tim Burton Hair (that is my description of thick, curly hair that stands out in all directions, approximately shoulder length). Maybe Amy’s tastes are different from mine, or maybe she was in a less diverse city. [Since writing this paragraph, I noticed more cute English boys, but the Asians still come out ahead.]
London is like an international space station. I might not be exaggerating if I said that about ¼ of the people I’ve seen here are Indian, or at least of Indian descent. I’ve also heard the people speaking French and I think German, maybe Dutch or something like it. With British TV, you mostly see white people and sometimes black people—I guess the others just aren’t into acting. Or there aren’t roles that directors think appropriate for them. True, a lot of the people here are tourists, especially Japanese and German, but London does have a Chinatown.
Madam Tussaud’s and the Sherlock Holmes Museum are pretty close to the hostel—we can walk there, so I came to the conclusion that would be a good thing during the Tube strike Wednesday.
At about 5 pm yesterday, we stood by the stature of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, and lots of people just hung out on the steps leading up to the statue. Lots of people, all kinds of people, also walked past, but nobody wearing an orange denim jacket—we were watching for Sally’s Canadian friend, Lisa, and her husband Kevin. Sally and Lisa had met via the Internet—Dr. Who chat, that sort of thing, and she and her husband are both professors and doing research here in London. I saw a couple leaning against the wall of the C---------- Theatre, where the Reduced Shakespeare Company is performing, (maybe it’s called the Criterion Theatre—I forget) and the woman wore an orange jacket. I mentioned her to Sally, asking if that might be her, and we walked casually by to see if they noticed us. It worked.
The time we spent with them turned out to be great fun—they were really fun to hang out with (being academics and fantasy/sf fans) and Lisa treated us to dinner at this wonderful old pub, the Bunch of Grapes, built in 1777 and almost next door to Harrods. We had to pass Harrods to get to the pub, and I thought of Neverwhere. The pub has beautiful décor, lots of dark carved wood (including carvings of bunches of grapes indoor and out), and the second floor is entirely nonsmoking (not to mention it was practically empty—there were lots of people downstairs in the smoking section, and quite a lot of them were smoking, creating a haze). I choked before we got upstairs, up a staircase with a heavy wooden banister and one landing, and the air was much fresher upstairs.
THE NEW GLOBE
The New Globe Exhibit includes examples of Elizabethan/ Jacobean costumes made for various productions at the New Globe—like a Queen Elizabeth costume based on a painting, lots of pearls individually sewn, sleeves with rows of large buttons, round handmade buttons covered with fabric that matches the floral brocade gown. Lots of gold lace. I noticed her ruffles and cuff ruffs have a little band, with 2 handmade buttonholes at each end, and strings for lacing them up and tying the ends together. Oh my do I have some costuming ideas.
A display room was made up like a Tudor tailor’s shop, with some samples of partially complete garments, like a piece of quilted orange fabric, and samples of bobbin lace—mostly gold metallic bobbin lace on pieces of white card with prices like “6 p” written next to them. Three was also a partially done strip of metallic gold bobbin lace, with the bobbins hanging from it.
Then beyond that room were some more costume displays, including an Elizabethan gown made for a male actor, in white brocade and gold and red trim. There was at least one—actually, a couple—of men’s Elizabethan suits that were black with gold lace trim, such as a doublet that had the gold lace making vertical stripes in the skirt. ¾ round capes, porkpie hats trimmed with a feather and ribbon, and often a gold brooch. Bliss.
One display case had some antique pieces, such as the front of a 17th century corset (there was also such a corset in a photo, and an old-looking dark wooden dress form wore it—rather made me want to set something like that up at my house, although I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want to carve wood—I could make a “dress form” perhaps of papier-mâché and make a detailed, dramatic costume (such as something Elizabethan). I have for some time had a similar idea, in the form of a papier-mâché bust, on which I would periodically change accessories such as hats, sunglasses, the Dr. Who scarf, etc. But anyway, the display case with the corset front also contained examples of very old embroidered linen, including this triangle of embroidered white linen (reminiscent of eyelet) that was worn over the forehead, underneath a woman’s cap. I wondered if perhaps the Globe’s gift shop has books on costume—like I don’t have enough of those.
TATE MODERN
Inside the Tate, one group of school kids wore plum-colored jackets with shield-like emblems embroidered on the pocket. And they even have the striped ties—I think those were purple and yellow. This time I didn’t make any remarks to my evil stepsister—but then, we split up inside. Fortunately for me, we split up inside the museums.
Jan Svankmajer—Czech artist—Punch and Judy: the Coffin Factory (1960 film). It has not only puppets, but also a real guinea pig. He also did the equally weird films Alice and Faust that I like so much. My taste can be a bit dark and twisted. Just a bit.
This big gallery has a room devoted to surrealist paintings including Salvador Dali’s take on Narcissus (a myth I’ve always found curiously appealing, and I’ve made more than one character who could be easily compared to Narcissus), and while looking at the surrealist art I rather got to wanting to work with surrealism myself, to make art that is based on some of my dreams. I could at least turn more dreams into fiction.
Actually, on the subject of dreams: at the Bank subway station, we were walking through a very long tunnel that was all white—white tile floor, white porcelain tile walls up to about four feet, holding up a semi-circular white ceiling (perhaps of fiberglass). Walking along this tunnel, I first joked about how much this looked like a near-death experience, but then I realized it was more like I was in one of my dreams, because I have in recent times had many dreams that involve long white corridors.
If you pick the right entrance into Tate Modern, you go up this long walkway, and there are big tall speakers on either side. The speakers are speaking. Some of them are laughing, or yelling, or screaming. It was all quite amusing and weird. Straight ahead are busts of many very different people, different mediums, different colors and styles, placed on identical dark grey pedestals that stand in numerous rows.
People are continually walking past us. A tall guy just walked by, wearing a bluish suit, and he had blonde hair, and he was talking on a cell phone in German—I understood the phrase “ein bischen.” He crossed in front of us walking toward the right about 30 seconds after a guy in a dark suit, speaking British English into a cell phone (or should I say mobile phone) passed us going to the left. I have heard a great many languages and accents since arriving here. And I have seen a great many cell phones.
We are currently sitting on cement steps leading down to the Bank walkway, which overlooks the Thames (which, by the way, isn’t nearly as wide as either of us pictured it, probably because we’re used to the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers, or at least I am). I have no idea what that language was…. But anyway, it’s getting chilly and distractedly breezy, and we’re right underneath the Millennium Bridge, so we hear the metallic clang-clang-clang of people walking on the bridge over our heads.
Now we’re seated on the ground (actually, concrete) right in front of the stage at the New Globe Theatre. When we took the tour this morning, the guide explained that the thatched roof is made just like the original, except for the little black spikes. They are the water sprinkler system. On a tour the previous day, a little boy had said, “I know what those spikes are for! That’s where they put the heads of traitors!”
GLOBE PERFORMANCE—7:30 pm 6/29/04—Much Ado About Nothing –performed by an all-female cast with exquisitely detailed Elizabethan costumes (both male and female costume, and false beards). Excellent! There’s even same-sex kissing at the end of the play. I recall that Lisa, at dinner, had gotten a New Globe poster of two men kissing, one dressed as a woman, and she had added the caption: “Shakespeare: Slashing Since the Sixteenth Century” or something like that. It’s funny how many women I meet are into slash—it’s not unlike how I’m attracted to gay men and Buddhist monks. Any man who’s more butch than Oscar Wilde or the Dalai Lama just does not impress me. Machismo makes me want to hurl.
While walking toward the Globe in the morning, we passed a tall and skinny young man in a dark suit, talking on a mobile phone, and I thought he looked like Ben Wishaw, the actor pictured in an ad for Hamlet at the Old Vic. He had enormous dark eyes, high cheekbones, and black hair. I think he’d do better to dress like a Romantic poet or a Goth than like a businessman. If I were a popular fashion consultant, all the world would really look like a stage. But I digress. Lisa and Kevin had sung high praises for this production of Hamlet when we ate with them at the pub. I wondered if we passed Hamlet, particularly the actor they had spoken of, who really seemed like a gawky sixteen-year-old.
