Victoria and Albert Museum
Notes from Fashion: Dress in Detail from Around the World
Gold thread is a precious commodity and one of the few materials that dressmakers could not make themselves. Instead, they bought it from specialist producers. They then had to create intricate patterned effects without wasting a single fibre. They often did this by using the ‘couching’ technique, in which the valuable gold thread was secured with tiny coloured stitches, instead of being passed through to the underside. (This note with Eastern European velvet garments with gold trim, 19th century.)
The primary function of pleats and gathers is to control the volume and fullness of fabric, while at the same time producing a garment that is comfortable to wear. But pleating and gathering can also be decorative, or used to create different shapes and silhouettes.
1000 Patterns by Drusilla Cole (that's probably the book that the above quotes are from--I know I didn't write this stuff myself.)
The combination of contrasting fabrics in one garment is common to many cultures, though its purpose may vary. It may be used for a decorative effect, or to make a garment hardier or more comfortable. In some cases, it may be due to a shortage of fabric. In others, it is for religious or symbolic purposes, perhaps to protect the wearer from perceived evil forces or to emphasize a certain area of the body.
I lucked out—the Buddhist and Hindu art happened to be just outside of the Fashion exhibit. I particularly wanted to not only see the Fashion exhibit, but also Eastern art.
Tibet
Dakinis, whose name in Tibetan means ‘skywalker,’ are female deities of the air who initiated or instructed Tibetan yogis on the Buddhist spiritual path toward enlightenment.
[Luke, I am your fairy godmother.]
Vajradhara (a Bodhisattva) is the embodiment of ‘emptiness’ or ‘void,’ the ultimate Buddhist goal, symbolized by the Vajra held in his right hand. The bell (Ghanta), held in the left hand, symbolizes wisdom (Prajna), its sound penetrating the world.’
Indonesia/ Japan
Vasudhara—(means ‘holding the treasure’) the Buddhist Goddess of Abundance—holds vase of gems (Kamandolu), an allusion to the jewel of knowledge, a manuscript (Pustaka) of Buddhist teachings and a stem of grain, indicating both fertility and prosperity. (Four arms)
Earth Goddess
Her attribute: grain of rice. This goddess is associated with Sri Kasmi, with whom she shares a capacity to engage prosperity. The rice attribute of this earth goddess firmly stabilizes the central part agriculture played in the generation of wealth in ancient Java.
Sri Lanka
This country=mainly Hinayana Buddhism (original form)
Nepal
Hindu and Buddhist art
The cultural heart of Nepal is the Kathmandu Valley. This small but prosperous valley drew much of its wealth from the trade which flowed north to Tibetan and south to the plains of India. Its cultural tradition is intimately linked to those of eastern India, as reflected in the Gupta, post-Gupta and Pali styles (4th-12th centuries CE). The production of Nepalese art was largely confined to the Newars, an ethnic group with Tibetan linguistic links. Although mainly Vajrayana Buddhists, the Newars were responsible for the art of all communities, Hindu and Buddhist alike. A consequence of this concentration of art production in one community was a remarkable degree of religious syncretism not seen elsewhere in south Asia, in which motifs and images were appropriated freely to solve common religious ends.
Pakistan: Buddhist Art
Images of the Buddha are often, in Gandharan art, flanked by two attendant Bodhisattvas, Maitreya and Avalokisvara. Bodhisattvas also appear to begin to be worshipped as separate entities. They are distinguished from the Buddha by their princely attire.
India
The protector Mahakala, a violent and vengeful aspect of Siva absorbed by Buddhism as a guardian of the faith (Pharmapala)…Images such as this Mahakala became, in turn, the source for many of the fierce deities of Himalayan Buddhism, the elaborate pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism drawing heavily on the imagery of eastern India.
Nehru Gallery of Indian Art:
The fashion for costume made up from Indian printed cotton began in England, France and Holland in the 1660s. It was especially popular at that time for men’s morning-gowns, and Samuel Pepys records buying one for himself in 1661. By the end of the 17th century, chintz had become fashionable for ladies’ garments, as well, especially in Holland. The accession of William and Mary to the British throne in 1690 gave a boost to Dutch fashions in Britain, and soon all ladies of fashion were wearing chintz material that had previously been favored by their maids.
Even after the introduction of lawn in 1700 and 1720 to stop the massive import of chintzes and other Indian fabrics, they continued to be smuggled into Britain and made up into garments throughout the 18th century. Chintz was imported both in yardage in repeating floral patterns, and as pieces on which the pattern was designed to be made up into specific types of garments, such as dresses, petticoats, banyans (men’s robes), jackets and hat-brims.
Photo—Indian woman’s court costume 1830-40.
Mughal Costume
Men’s costume at the Mughal court was based on the Jama, a tailored gown tied at the side, and the Paijama, tapering trousers which were loose at the top and close-fitting at the lower leg (hey, you can get the pattern from Folkwear!). An elaborate turban (Pagri) was always worn at court, as well as a long decorative waist sash (Patka). Fine Kashmir wool shawls were often draped over the shoulder, sometimes in pairs: a fashion started by the Emperor Akbar.
Mughal women’s dress was also tailored, unlike the basic Hindu garment, the Sari, and also consisted of a long-sleeved gown over trousers. Fine muslin was the most favoured material, often embroidered with silk or gold thread.
Traditional Textiles
The main types of textile decoration in Western India are embroidery, tie-dying, and block-printing. Fine embroidery was, and still is, done by village women for their own families, hangings and covers in the house. The bold and abstract embroidery designs of the desert region often incorporate fragments of mirror-glass to add sparkle.
The dying is carried out by professional dyers in towns, although the tying of the cloth is often done by women and girls in villages. Simple spotted designs are used for women’s’ head-covers, but more complex patterns were also produced in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Zigzag patterns were also formed by folding the cloth before tie-dying are still used for turbans in Rajasthan. Block-printing is done commercially in several centres, and used on many types of costume, such as the full skirts which take the place of the sari in Rajasthan, or as a background for embroidery.
China
Dragon robes, 1700s and 1800s
A special shade of yellow was reserved for use on certain of the Emperors’ clothes. Other members of his household seem to have worn yellow as well. A group of 12 small motifs almost hidden among the patterning on some of the robes might mean that the garments belonged to an emperor. Female members of the imperial family, however, also used them on their gowns. Many more Imperial robes were made than were ever worn, and embroider lengths of robe silk were stored away. After the fall of the Empire in 1911, those lengths were made up into garments and sold. [So basically, we don’t know whether any of the dragon robes in the V&A were ever worn by an emperor.]
Round silver buttons that resemble knots—I have a cheap plastic version that I got on clearance at Joanne Fabrics—glad I got a bunch of them. Same color and size.
Books (I jotted down titles in the museum shop):
Georgian Country House: Architecture, Landscape and Society
Arts of Mughal India: Studies in Honor of Robert Skelton Gail Strongetopsfield
400 Years of Fashion
Followers of Fashion: Graphic Satires from the Georgian Period
European Fashion & Costume: 1490-1790 (Dover Publications)
Lace from the Victoria and Albert Museum
Chinese Silk: a Cultural History
The Corset: a Cultural History Valerie Steele
Buddhist Art and Architecture Robert E. Fisher
Indian Embroidery Rosemary Crill
World of Buddhism edited by Heinz Bechert & Richard Gornbrich
I was ready to leave the shop fifteen minutes before the scheduled time to meet there with my sister, so I darted over to the Chinese exhibit and to the Japanese exhibit. I saw an incredible collection of netsukes.
This evening the weather is, for the first time since we got here, stereotypical London weather: it’s been raining for a few hours, and I can hear a shhh shhh sound of the rain coming down. There’s even thunder and lightning now. I’m really impressed.
AT THE TUBE STATIONS
When you put your Travelcard through the machine that lets you pass through, the doors open with a slam, and they shut with a slam. When there’s a crowd, this makes for a lot of crashing, slamming noise, almost to the point that you don’t hear anything else. But you also hear disembodied, echoing voices telling you things like “Please have your cards ready,” and talking about any delays or keeping track of your possessions. And “Mind the Gap” is indeed important when you get to the platform. Sometimes the voice says, “Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.”
NOISE-- Sometimes there’s little point of trying to converse because of the noise in London. If we’re walking on the sidewalk, our voices are drowned out by the traffic (except at, say, one in the morning). If we’re walking along a subway tunnel, the many clopping feet and the disembodied and echoing voices drown our voices out. If we’re standing or sitting on an underground train, it is rattling away loudly, rattle, rattle, and rattle, not to mention shaking.
Standing on the platform and waiting for the subway train, we’ll hear it roaring before we can see it. I like to look at the entrance of the tunnel, and soon I see two lights, from the two glowing white/yellow lights at the front of the train—they’re like eyes. And the train approaches, with those glowing eyes, roaring away, moving swiftly like a dragon emerging from its cave. It gradually slows down, as many riders and many passengers go past, and when it stops, there’s a half second when it just sits there and you anxiously wait for the doors to open, then finally the doors open and you step on at the closest door, no matter how crowded the car is, no matter how many people are already standing in that particular car.
Sweating bodies are pressed against each other … that’s rush hour on a London Underground train.
I’ve noticed that my evil stepsister has this deadpan look on her face while riding the Tube trains, like she thinks she’s so sophisticated, even though in fact she has the emotional maturity of a two year old. If you’re going to be childlike, it should be the more pleasant aspect of being childlike. Apparently the concept of acting blissful and carefree while being a tourist in a foreign country hasn’t occurred to her. I tend to get euphoric like that—whether I’m lost or what, I want to enjoy the scenery and the ambiance and all, enjoy the moment, but when she’s having her temper tantrums or insulting me, this becomes impossible. Or I’ll get blissful, and she bites my head off, waking me up from bliss to resentment. This is, of course, in general, not just on the subway.
One day, my sister commented, “I love stepping out of a Tube station. You don’t know what you’ll see—you’re in a completely different place.” She said this after we stepped out of a Tube station and I saw a very gothic-looking building right in front of us and for a couple seconds thought it was Westminster Abbey, because that was why we went to that station, but then as I stepped through the big entrance and out from the Tube station, Big Ben hovered overhead, right there before me. It was very surreal. Indeed, you really don’t know what to expect, what fascinating architecture or what kind of neighborhood you’ll be in when you step out of a Tube station. You’ve come off a different planet, in effect.
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
Covent Garden
Covent Garden
At Covent Garden Market, I took one photo of St. Paul’s Church where, in G. B. Shaw's play Pygmalion (which by the way is so much better than the musical My Fair Lady, since Shaw was a feminist), Eliza Doolittle met Henry Higgins on the portico. The portico has great big simple columns, and there’s a big clock face way overhead.
We went to Covent Garden Market and couldn’t see any Pollock’s Toy Museum—just a Pollock’s Toy Shop along with many shops, and through the center of the market were many booths that, at about 10 am, were just opening. We went to the Theatre Museum, which has a big exhibit on the history of London theatre. I paid particular attention to costumes—there were just a few displayed on dress forms and dummies, including some from a production of a play based on and called The Hobbit, with greenish, plant-like costumes, appliqués and shiny drapery, robe-type garments, and also a big purple and black spider (which would no doubt be worn as a costume). I also paid particular attention to models—I made at least one, a Georgian room, when I majored in theatre.
The Covent Garden Market has an underground level, and in the center is a posh restaurant with, outside, café tables and many people seated at them. A railing surrounds an open rectangular overhead, so that you can look down—we could hear the musicians, a string quartet, before we could see them, and the first time we saw them we were leaning over this railing. The quartet played stuff like Pachabel’s Canon—that was wonderful. A soprano alternated with them, but I think her musical accompaniment was an orchestra on a CD, not live musicians. At least for the quartet, the musicians had a basket for money, and they were selling CDs—I donated some coins.
Later, when we were down below, standing a few feet away from the quartet, the violinist, while he played, smiled whimsically and kept dipping his violin, pointing with it toward the basket of tips. I found this very comical but didn’t add more coins, since I had already donated. He was pale and slender, with light golden hair, large blue eyes, a pointed sharp nose and a pointed chin. Puck freelances in Covent Garden.
After we got down below and took a look at the menu for this underground restaurant, I discovered that the food was not cheap by any means, so we ended up going back upstairs and actually eating at a sandwich bar, which played a quite different sort of music, but we nonetheless hung around and listened to the live music quite a bit, off and on.
Covent Garden also includes clowns and people in dramatic and weird costumes doing stuff like standing perfectly still on a box, pretending to be a statue. The latter was a clown with a ruff and ruffled cuffs. A gypsy-like young woman sat cross-legged and sang and played a guitar. It was very Bohemian and alive, and crowded, and this was a weekday. We mostly saw these performers while we went up a narrow street back toward the Tube station. A man who was completely metallic gold stood chatting with a clown.
In the afternoon, a clown performed in front of St. Paul’s Church (I took a photo of the market from the church point of view, and the photo I believe will show a crowd of people lined up and watching the clown), and the clown wore black and white horizontal striped tights, black shoes, black knee britches, a black and red striped shirt, and a red satin jacket. Spiffy for a clown—but basically he did magic tricks, such as juggling three swords while stepping over a volunteer from the audience, who lay on the pavement blindfolded.
At one point, Brat wanted to sit down, but there was pretty much no place to sit; the curb was already filled with people, so we went out of sight of the clown, into a little courtyard next to St. Paul’s Church and through a grand iron gate. Dead people lay buried under the stones, and some bushes and trees and park benches surrounded us, but few live people. Some of the dead people died of the plague in the seventeenth century, and the markings were faded and unreadable, but others were from the early nineteenth century and still somewhat legible. So it was relaxing, to sit here in the courtyard and drink whatever we were drinking at that point. We were not there long before a priest or someone came along and announced that the gates were about to be locked—it was about 5 pm. This was shortly before we headed back to the Tube station.
At Pollock’s Toy Shop, I bought a bunch of toy theatres, paper ones. The shop had an entrance door on the ground floor, and you went up this staircase with various landings till you got up to the little store itself, very full but well organized space. While you climb the stairs, you can look at antique jumping jacks and such hung on the walls.
Cleopatra’s Needle
Cleopatra's Needle is a short walk from Covent Garden Market, it’s by the Thames. Actually, we walked right past the Savoy, a beautiful Victorian hotel with curved glass windows on the corner, on our way to Cleopatra’s Needle. It’s 1500 years old or so, brought from Alexandria, where the monolisk lay for centuries. In the Victorian era, someone made the two sphinxes that flank the needle.
Now I’m seated on steps by the monument, off to the side, and water (the Thames) is at the bottom of the steps. The water keeps steadily splosh-sploshing onto the bottom two steps (stone steps) and it’s muggy brown water and it doesn’t smell very good. It’s very sunny here, almost too much so, definitely warm, like around the seventies. Since when do I think the seventies are warm? Maybe it just feels that warm because of the pavement and sunlight.
The bottom three steps are wet, but that’s just assuming that it doesn’t descend further into the Thames—there may be steps completely submerged in there. A tubular metal railing is on each side of the staircase, and the rail disappears beneath the water, well after what looks like the last step, so it’s possible that the steps go down, down, down…to where? Perhaps there’s a secret place under the Thames, like a house. Perhaps the river wasn’t quite as deep when the Victorians built the embankment (1864-70). Looking up from the steps, to my right, I see plenty of stone or concrete, blocks forming the embankment, with green copper lions—as if gigantic doorknockers—lined up along the edge, every few feet. Above each lion is an elaborate, twisting, and black metal light pole swirling up to a round globe. At the base of the large post are swirling fish, a couple of fish and other miniscule details. Below that is a rectangular base with a floral design molded on it. There’s a long row of these lamps on both sides of the water, and I first noticed them on the first Globe night.
The water is splashing more, and the waves are stronger, and now it’s up to the fifth step as it sloshes more determinedly. But oh, it’s because of a boat buzzing by, creating more waves—it’s not the tide or a sea monster approaching.
Back to Covent Garden
It was about 4 pm by the time we set foot in the London Transport Museum, and at that point we had decided we’d only go in if it were free, since we wanted to get on the Tube at about 5. Well, it was 6 pounds to get into the museum, so we settled for exploring the museum shop meanwhile.
Hamlet at the Old Vic
At Covent Garden Market, I took one photo of St. Paul’s Church where, in G. B. Shaw's play Pygmalion (which by the way is so much better than the musical My Fair Lady, since Shaw was a feminist), Eliza Doolittle met Henry Higgins on the portico. The portico has great big simple columns, and there’s a big clock face way overhead.
We went to Covent Garden Market and couldn’t see any Pollock’s Toy Museum—just a Pollock’s Toy Shop along with many shops, and through the center of the market were many booths that, at about 10 am, were just opening. We went to the Theatre Museum, which has a big exhibit on the history of London theatre. I paid particular attention to costumes—there were just a few displayed on dress forms and dummies, including some from a production of a play based on and called The Hobbit, with greenish, plant-like costumes, appliqués and shiny drapery, robe-type garments, and also a big purple and black spider (which would no doubt be worn as a costume). I also paid particular attention to models—I made at least one, a Georgian room, when I majored in theatre.
The Covent Garden Market has an underground level, and in the center is a posh restaurant with, outside, café tables and many people seated at them. A railing surrounds an open rectangular overhead, so that you can look down—we could hear the musicians, a string quartet, before we could see them, and the first time we saw them we were leaning over this railing. The quartet played stuff like Pachabel’s Canon—that was wonderful. A soprano alternated with them, but I think her musical accompaniment was an orchestra on a CD, not live musicians. At least for the quartet, the musicians had a basket for money, and they were selling CDs—I donated some coins.
Later, when we were down below, standing a few feet away from the quartet, the violinist, while he played, smiled whimsically and kept dipping his violin, pointing with it toward the basket of tips. I found this very comical but didn’t add more coins, since I had already donated. He was pale and slender, with light golden hair, large blue eyes, a pointed sharp nose and a pointed chin. Puck freelances in Covent Garden.
After we got down below and took a look at the menu for this underground restaurant, I discovered that the food was not cheap by any means, so we ended up going back upstairs and actually eating at a sandwich bar, which played a quite different sort of music, but we nonetheless hung around and listened to the live music quite a bit, off and on.
Covent Garden also includes clowns and people in dramatic and weird costumes doing stuff like standing perfectly still on a box, pretending to be a statue. The latter was a clown with a ruff and ruffled cuffs. A gypsy-like young woman sat cross-legged and sang and played a guitar. It was very Bohemian and alive, and crowded, and this was a weekday. We mostly saw these performers while we went up a narrow street back toward the Tube station. A man who was completely metallic gold stood chatting with a clown.
In the afternoon, a clown performed in front of St. Paul’s Church (I took a photo of the market from the church point of view, and the photo I believe will show a crowd of people lined up and watching the clown), and the clown wore black and white horizontal striped tights, black shoes, black knee britches, a black and red striped shirt, and a red satin jacket. Spiffy for a clown—but basically he did magic tricks, such as juggling three swords while stepping over a volunteer from the audience, who lay on the pavement blindfolded.
At one point, Brat wanted to sit down, but there was pretty much no place to sit; the curb was already filled with people, so we went out of sight of the clown, into a little courtyard next to St. Paul’s Church and through a grand iron gate. Dead people lay buried under the stones, and some bushes and trees and park benches surrounded us, but few live people. Some of the dead people died of the plague in the seventeenth century, and the markings were faded and unreadable, but others were from the early nineteenth century and still somewhat legible. So it was relaxing, to sit here in the courtyard and drink whatever we were drinking at that point. We were not there long before a priest or someone came along and announced that the gates were about to be locked—it was about 5 pm. This was shortly before we headed back to the Tube station.
At Pollock’s Toy Shop, I bought a bunch of toy theatres, paper ones. The shop had an entrance door on the ground floor, and you went up this staircase with various landings till you got up to the little store itself, very full but well organized space. While you climb the stairs, you can look at antique jumping jacks and such hung on the walls.
Cleopatra’s Needle
Cleopatra's Needle is a short walk from Covent Garden Market, it’s by the Thames. Actually, we walked right past the Savoy, a beautiful Victorian hotel with curved glass windows on the corner, on our way to Cleopatra’s Needle. It’s 1500 years old or so, brought from Alexandria, where the monolisk lay for centuries. In the Victorian era, someone made the two sphinxes that flank the needle.
Now I’m seated on steps by the monument, off to the side, and water (the Thames) is at the bottom of the steps. The water keeps steadily splosh-sploshing onto the bottom two steps (stone steps) and it’s muggy brown water and it doesn’t smell very good. It’s very sunny here, almost too much so, definitely warm, like around the seventies. Since when do I think the seventies are warm? Maybe it just feels that warm because of the pavement and sunlight.
The bottom three steps are wet, but that’s just assuming that it doesn’t descend further into the Thames—there may be steps completely submerged in there. A tubular metal railing is on each side of the staircase, and the rail disappears beneath the water, well after what looks like the last step, so it’s possible that the steps go down, down, down…to where? Perhaps there’s a secret place under the Thames, like a house. Perhaps the river wasn’t quite as deep when the Victorians built the embankment (1864-70). Looking up from the steps, to my right, I see plenty of stone or concrete, blocks forming the embankment, with green copper lions—as if gigantic doorknockers—lined up along the edge, every few feet. Above each lion is an elaborate, twisting, and black metal light pole swirling up to a round globe. At the base of the large post are swirling fish, a couple of fish and other miniscule details. Below that is a rectangular base with a floral design molded on it. There’s a long row of these lamps on both sides of the water, and I first noticed them on the first Globe night.
The water is splashing more, and the waves are stronger, and now it’s up to the fifth step as it sloshes more determinedly. But oh, it’s because of a boat buzzing by, creating more waves—it’s not the tide or a sea monster approaching.
Back to Covent Garden
It was about 4 pm by the time we set foot in the London Transport Museum, and at that point we had decided we’d only go in if it were free, since we wanted to get on the Tube at about 5. Well, it was 6 pounds to get into the museum, so we settled for exploring the museum shop meanwhile.
Hamlet at the Old Vic
There were delays in the subway, but eventually we got to Waterloo Station. The grumbling brat completely could not remember the way to the Old Vic, but I remembered visual things like what buildings we passed, though not which streets and underpasses, so we went with that. When we were almost in front of the little old church with a yard paved in tombs behind an iron fence, my sister rushed into the street to cross it (not for the first time). I started to hesitantly step across when a car stopped in front of her. Unfortunately, it was a cop car. It’s a bad sign when you get pulled over, and you’re not even driving. The bobby talked to Brat, and she said we were tourists from the States, and he warned her to be careful and that we should use the underpasses. A little bit later, while we walked down the sidewalk, Ms. Thing had a mild fit (mild by her standards, that is) about not having any memory of how to get there, and I said that I remember buildings and scenery, not streets and underpasses. That’s what it boiled down to—I was leading the way based on visual aids. And that’s how we got there—to the Old Vic and the Thai restaurant very close to it. I don't see what she gets out of using everything as an excuse to be a bitch and thereby making every situation infinitely worse than it otherwise would be.
The restaurant where we had a delicious dinner was called Thai Silk. I ordered Phad Thai with bean curd, followed by coffee, and we split a desert of apple fritter like stuff, but we were in a hurry to get to the Old Vic, because Hamlet started at 7 pm, not 7:30 or so (7:30 is quite typical). Restaurants in London are very leisurely, and this was one occasion when I didn't want to wait around.
The actor playing Hamlet, Ben Wishaw, was everything my sister’s Canadian friend and her husband said he would be—he seemed like a gawky teenage boy going through an awkward stage, like when you’re a teenager and you can’t stand your parents. Hmmm. Then again, does that phase ever end? But anyway, in one scene, Hamlet’s mom and his uncle are sitting elegantly on one side of the stage, looking like a Yuppie couple, and Hamlet, dressed entirely in black and with black boots and a black stocking cap, petulantly plopped down, sprawled out in a chair with his back to them, and curled his arm around his head. It was a modern dress production, and the whole thing was superb. Ophelia looked and acted very much like a modern teenager also, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Shadows were important. Upstage left was a very long, straight staircase leading up to a door, and when the door opened a stream of light would come in, in contrast with the otherwise dark stage decor. Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern showed up with hiking gear, and I thought they looked vaguely like hobbits, perhaps in part because one of them had a slight physical resemblance to Sean Aston, from the Lord of the Rings films.
Monday, July 5, 2004
Da Vinci Code Day
Christ Church Greyfriars
The ruins were visible when we got off the St. Paul’s Tube station. It was built and ruined off and on between the 1200s and 1500s, bombed in WWII. Now it consists of two walls and a tall stone tower and contains a rose garden arranged like the original floor plan, with rows representing the previous locations of pews. Some arched windows are still intact, with metal frames that originally held separate panes, but no glass. (I took a picture.)
Many business people wear black suits, some even pin striped. On the Tube this morning, a woman near me wore a velveteen black pinstriped jacket, and I refrained from petting her. Something to keep in mind next time I'm in a fabric store . . . . .
The Houses of Parliament are across the street from the back of Westminster Abbey—this is something I just didn’t know until we stepped out of the Tube station. I was not expecting to see Big Ben looming overhead. On the wrought iron railing of the pedestrian meridian thingy in the center of the street, big handmade signs faced the Parliament building, put up by people who opposed the attack on Iraq and Tony Blair’s participation. The words “peace” and “Tony Blair” were rather prominent on these signs. Cool. Brits supporting the monstrosity are a very small minority, unlike in the Idiot Country across the pond.
Westminster Abbey
Poets corner includes a floor plaque for Lewis Carroll and one for Dickens, the impressive old tomb of Chaucer (built into the wall, it looks like a sarcophagus with him lying on it, and with an arch over him), small wall plaques for the Bronte’s (except Branwell) and for Jane Austen. The Abbey is a sort of museum for sculpture, all these old sculptures somewhat crowded together. Quite lovely—lots of really old architectural details, worn out, and all these very old tombs of royalty. Paint and gold places worn away, faded.
I didn’t notice Sir Isaac Newton’s tomb—it plays a part in The Da Vinci Code by Don Brown--but there were so many other statues to see, I could have walked right past it. Goofy.
St. Paul's Cathedral
We’re up in the Whispering Gallery—we climbed the several hundred steps up. It’s sweaty up here, but despite the scaffolding the view is stunning. Paintings on the domes (murals) and down below is the alter and many amazing mosaics that include gold and silver. And of course the carved stone arches connected to something similar to Corinthian columns.
From the Stone Gallery, a high outdoor balcony, I took two pictures of the view: my photos included the glass pinecone, which I heard a local call “the Gherkin,” and they also included the New Globe and the Thames.
Going up to the Stone Gallery, my claustrophobia got the better of me. I didn’t panic really, but I was gasping and had to rest—fortunately there were little alcoves with benches, and we stopped and watched people from behind us wind up the narrow, curving, stone steps. Going back down from the Stone Gallery, my acrophobia got the better of me, because I was looking down while descending a narrow spiral staircase of one hundred nineteen steps.
After seeing altar cloths, covered in appliqué and embroidery, on display, I decided that I want to do a similar altar cloth, except of course it will be a pentacle rather than a cross. In any case, for the altar cloths, they’re in some cases—well, put it this way: I’d like to make one that’s at least 2 feet by 2 feet; the altar cloths at St. Paul’s had lots of gold embroidery and maybe gold fabric. I don’t know that I necessarily want to do that—I’m more likely to go with bright colors representing the different elements—bit of tradition in there—and in the proper order. I’ve drawn out a diagram that I had in mind for a pentacle quilt, but as an altar cloth it’s if anything more appropriate. Though the altar table I’ve been using seems small in comparison to those altar cloths—but I can always get another table.
We got lunch from Boots, which is a lot like 7-11 in the U.S.A., and we ate on a bench at Greyfriars—I’ve noticed a Da Vinci Code theme today. We went to Westminster Abbey, which is in the book, and we passed Temple Station and considered going to the Temple Church, although it would at this point be closed by the time we got there (it’s after three now, and it closes to the public at 3:45). I have seen two people today reading a paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code: one woman on the Tube, and one on the next bench here at Greyfriars.
Sitting here on a bench, I can smell the roses. Now that I’ve eaten a salad (goat cheese and roast vegetables with romaine lettuce) and chips—oddly this salt and vinegar flavor—I’m rather comfortable. It’s amazing how many steps we climbed up and down. But I’m OK, really. It was good exercise—I wish I’d walk so much on a normal basis, not just while visiting foreign countries.
Just a moment ago a Muslim couple walked past—the woman actually wore a black cloth covering her entire head and face, with just a slit for her eyes. And she wore this with a single full-length, off-white gown, with long sleeves. Part of me wants to say, “Hey, you can take the shroud off in this country, and you won’t get stoned for it!” But part of me realizes that if you’re used to wearing a mask, it’s hard to take it off, and it becomes a shield.
Clouds have shifted, and it feels—at least for the moment—cooler than it did with the sun beaming on me. The temp feels like about seventy degrees. Sunny, bright blue sky, that sort of thing. The weather hasn’t been what I expected, based on London’s reputation, but of course it is summer.
Royal National Theatre
“Am I frightened by all the people in the bathroom? Yes, I am.” A patron said this as he sat down behind us at the Lyttleton Theatre, Royal National Theatre.
We went to the Lyttleton Buffet for dinner—it’s the same building as the theatre, and all the tables were full, so we wandered around, carrying our trays full of food and also with lidless bottles of fruit juice—the cashier used a bottle opener on them—and a waiter told us there were more tables upstairs. As we slowly went up the wide carpeted stairs, carrying these trays with the tall, skinny, glass bottles of fruit juice precariously sitting on them, I said, “Imagine if we were carrying these while going up the narrow spiral stairs at St. Paul’s.”
Iphegenia at Aulis
I took off my shoes—after climbing all those stairs, what do you expect—and also have a bag of books from the National Theatre bookstore, and I also have my purse. Here I am at the theatre, in the middle of the audience, and I have all this baggage. (Note: instead of calling the first floor seats Orchestra, here they’re called Stalls. And instead of wait in line or stand in line, you queue.) When some people started moving down the row, I realized I had all this stuff piled up in front of me, and they had to wait while I frantically pushed all this stuff under my seat and finally stood up and backed up while still holding a boot. It was all quite comical.
11:00 pm—At the hostel, now a guitar is playing on the balcony below us. It’s rather pleasant to hear, even accompanied by chatting and giggling voices.
Before the above-mentioned dinner, and right after we bought our Iphegenia tickets, we went into the bookshop that is to the left of the box office and part of the huge complex that is the Royal National Theatre. We did this because my so-called sister wanted a copy of The History Boys, the book version that is, since the play is sold out till August and we won’t be seeing it (hardly surprising, since it stars Richard Griffiths and another famous actor). Someone out on the balcony just said, “Excuse me, but can you sing as well?” I discovered a whole bunch of books by the English playwright Alan Aykeburn, author of Woman in Mind, which I’ve seen as three entirely different productions.
I'm thinking I'd like to use a particular building in a work of fiction: Harley House, the yellow stone building just around the corner from the hostel. (When I said to the brat that I want to use this building in a story, she said, “You don’t even know what it looks like inside.” Whatever. I’m writing fiction.) The building has black wrought iron fences and gates in front (or at least on the side view), and the alley in back has an archway with a pretty curved wrought iron gate. Bright gold doorknobs are right in the center of each door, and the doors also have lion-face knockers (“Scrooge!”), and the doors themselves are paneled, shiny black wood. The building has some large bay windows. On the side street, cars are parked, some facing each other as if to totally disregard which side of the street they’re parked on. The building is, I think, three stories tall, plus one attic with dorm windows and elaborate windows on the top floor. A big honeysuckle vine spreads on one of the fences, at an apartment toward the back, and I get a whiff of the flowers as I walk by. Steps lead down to basement apartments, and about five or six steps lead up to ground floor apartments.
In the hostel, we got onto the topic of Brat’s atheism, and I have previously hoped she’d become a Neopagan like our brother and me (we both did in college), but it sounds like she’s determined to remain atheist. She goes into these old Christian churches, such as Westminster Abbey, and is awed by her surroundings and says that if she had lived back then she could have been religious, but I get the impression that she’s saying that just because of the décor, the reverence and awe that the artists for the churches have created, not because of the actual beliefs. Ascetics are not the same thing as aestheticism, although that sounds funny coming from me—the art I create is very much connected to my spirituality and philosophy. In any case, although I have an aesthetic appreciation for Christian churches, they don’t move me the way Goddess art, Pagan art, and Buddhist art do. That evening in the hostel, Brat talked about how in college she had a tendency to talk as if she assumed everyone else was an atheist. I certainly was briefly out of the broom closet after I graduated, but I didn’t assume everyone was Pagan—I more like assumed that everyone was tolerant of other religions. I quickly learned otherwise and climbed back into the broom closet.
The ruins were visible when we got off the St. Paul’s Tube station. It was built and ruined off and on between the 1200s and 1500s, bombed in WWII. Now it consists of two walls and a tall stone tower and contains a rose garden arranged like the original floor plan, with rows representing the previous locations of pews. Some arched windows are still intact, with metal frames that originally held separate panes, but no glass. (I took a picture.)
Many business people wear black suits, some even pin striped. On the Tube this morning, a woman near me wore a velveteen black pinstriped jacket, and I refrained from petting her. Something to keep in mind next time I'm in a fabric store . . . . .
The Houses of Parliament are across the street from the back of Westminster Abbey—this is something I just didn’t know until we stepped out of the Tube station. I was not expecting to see Big Ben looming overhead. On the wrought iron railing of the pedestrian meridian thingy in the center of the street, big handmade signs faced the Parliament building, put up by people who opposed the attack on Iraq and Tony Blair’s participation. The words “peace” and “Tony Blair” were rather prominent on these signs. Cool. Brits supporting the monstrosity are a very small minority, unlike in the Idiot Country across the pond.
Westminster Abbey
Poets corner includes a floor plaque for Lewis Carroll and one for Dickens, the impressive old tomb of Chaucer (built into the wall, it looks like a sarcophagus with him lying on it, and with an arch over him), small wall plaques for the Bronte’s (except Branwell) and for Jane Austen. The Abbey is a sort of museum for sculpture, all these old sculptures somewhat crowded together. Quite lovely—lots of really old architectural details, worn out, and all these very old tombs of royalty. Paint and gold places worn away, faded.
I didn’t notice Sir Isaac Newton’s tomb—it plays a part in The Da Vinci Code by Don Brown--but there were so many other statues to see, I could have walked right past it. Goofy.
St. Paul's Cathedral
We’re up in the Whispering Gallery—we climbed the several hundred steps up. It’s sweaty up here, but despite the scaffolding the view is stunning. Paintings on the domes (murals) and down below is the alter and many amazing mosaics that include gold and silver. And of course the carved stone arches connected to something similar to Corinthian columns.
From the Stone Gallery, a high outdoor balcony, I took two pictures of the view: my photos included the glass pinecone, which I heard a local call “the Gherkin,” and they also included the New Globe and the Thames.
Going up to the Stone Gallery, my claustrophobia got the better of me. I didn’t panic really, but I was gasping and had to rest—fortunately there were little alcoves with benches, and we stopped and watched people from behind us wind up the narrow, curving, stone steps. Going back down from the Stone Gallery, my acrophobia got the better of me, because I was looking down while descending a narrow spiral staircase of one hundred nineteen steps.
After seeing altar cloths, covered in appliqué and embroidery, on display, I decided that I want to do a similar altar cloth, except of course it will be a pentacle rather than a cross. In any case, for the altar cloths, they’re in some cases—well, put it this way: I’d like to make one that’s at least 2 feet by 2 feet; the altar cloths at St. Paul’s had lots of gold embroidery and maybe gold fabric. I don’t know that I necessarily want to do that—I’m more likely to go with bright colors representing the different elements—bit of tradition in there—and in the proper order. I’ve drawn out a diagram that I had in mind for a pentacle quilt, but as an altar cloth it’s if anything more appropriate. Though the altar table I’ve been using seems small in comparison to those altar cloths—but I can always get another table.
We got lunch from Boots, which is a lot like 7-11 in the U.S.A., and we ate on a bench at Greyfriars—I’ve noticed a Da Vinci Code theme today. We went to Westminster Abbey, which is in the book, and we passed Temple Station and considered going to the Temple Church, although it would at this point be closed by the time we got there (it’s after three now, and it closes to the public at 3:45). I have seen two people today reading a paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code: one woman on the Tube, and one on the next bench here at Greyfriars.
Sitting here on a bench, I can smell the roses. Now that I’ve eaten a salad (goat cheese and roast vegetables with romaine lettuce) and chips—oddly this salt and vinegar flavor—I’m rather comfortable. It’s amazing how many steps we climbed up and down. But I’m OK, really. It was good exercise—I wish I’d walk so much on a normal basis, not just while visiting foreign countries.
Just a moment ago a Muslim couple walked past—the woman actually wore a black cloth covering her entire head and face, with just a slit for her eyes. And she wore this with a single full-length, off-white gown, with long sleeves. Part of me wants to say, “Hey, you can take the shroud off in this country, and you won’t get stoned for it!” But part of me realizes that if you’re used to wearing a mask, it’s hard to take it off, and it becomes a shield.
Clouds have shifted, and it feels—at least for the moment—cooler than it did with the sun beaming on me. The temp feels like about seventy degrees. Sunny, bright blue sky, that sort of thing. The weather hasn’t been what I expected, based on London’s reputation, but of course it is summer.
Royal National Theatre
“Am I frightened by all the people in the bathroom? Yes, I am.” A patron said this as he sat down behind us at the Lyttleton Theatre, Royal National Theatre.
We went to the Lyttleton Buffet for dinner—it’s the same building as the theatre, and all the tables were full, so we wandered around, carrying our trays full of food and also with lidless bottles of fruit juice—the cashier used a bottle opener on them—and a waiter told us there were more tables upstairs. As we slowly went up the wide carpeted stairs, carrying these trays with the tall, skinny, glass bottles of fruit juice precariously sitting on them, I said, “Imagine if we were carrying these while going up the narrow spiral stairs at St. Paul’s.”
Iphegenia at Aulis
I took off my shoes—after climbing all those stairs, what do you expect—and also have a bag of books from the National Theatre bookstore, and I also have my purse. Here I am at the theatre, in the middle of the audience, and I have all this baggage. (Note: instead of calling the first floor seats Orchestra, here they’re called Stalls. And instead of wait in line or stand in line, you queue.) When some people started moving down the row, I realized I had all this stuff piled up in front of me, and they had to wait while I frantically pushed all this stuff under my seat and finally stood up and backed up while still holding a boot. It was all quite comical.
11:00 pm—At the hostel, now a guitar is playing on the balcony below us. It’s rather pleasant to hear, even accompanied by chatting and giggling voices.
Before the above-mentioned dinner, and right after we bought our Iphegenia tickets, we went into the bookshop that is to the left of the box office and part of the huge complex that is the Royal National Theatre. We did this because my so-called sister wanted a copy of The History Boys, the book version that is, since the play is sold out till August and we won’t be seeing it (hardly surprising, since it stars Richard Griffiths and another famous actor). Someone out on the balcony just said, “Excuse me, but can you sing as well?” I discovered a whole bunch of books by the English playwright Alan Aykeburn, author of Woman in Mind, which I’ve seen as three entirely different productions.
I'm thinking I'd like to use a particular building in a work of fiction: Harley House, the yellow stone building just around the corner from the hostel. (When I said to the brat that I want to use this building in a story, she said, “You don’t even know what it looks like inside.” Whatever. I’m writing fiction.) The building has black wrought iron fences and gates in front (or at least on the side view), and the alley in back has an archway with a pretty curved wrought iron gate. Bright gold doorknobs are right in the center of each door, and the doors also have lion-face knockers (“Scrooge!”), and the doors themselves are paneled, shiny black wood. The building has some large bay windows. On the side street, cars are parked, some facing each other as if to totally disregard which side of the street they’re parked on. The building is, I think, three stories tall, plus one attic with dorm windows and elaborate windows on the top floor. A big honeysuckle vine spreads on one of the fences, at an apartment toward the back, and I get a whiff of the flowers as I walk by. Steps lead down to basement apartments, and about five or six steps lead up to ground floor apartments.
In the hostel, we got onto the topic of Brat’s atheism, and I have previously hoped she’d become a Neopagan like our brother and me (we both did in college), but it sounds like she’s determined to remain atheist. She goes into these old Christian churches, such as Westminster Abbey, and is awed by her surroundings and says that if she had lived back then she could have been religious, but I get the impression that she’s saying that just because of the décor, the reverence and awe that the artists for the churches have created, not because of the actual beliefs. Ascetics are not the same thing as aestheticism, although that sounds funny coming from me—the art I create is very much connected to my spirituality and philosophy. In any case, although I have an aesthetic appreciation for Christian churches, they don’t move me the way Goddess art, Pagan art, and Buddhist art do. That evening in the hostel, Brat talked about how in college she had a tendency to talk as if she assumed everyone else was an atheist. I certainly was briefly out of the broom closet after I graduated, but I didn’t assume everyone was Pagan—I more like assumed that everyone was tolerant of other religions. I quickly learned otherwise and climbed back into the broom closet.
Sunday, July 4, 2004
Hyde Park and Kensington Garden, London
Hyde Park
When we entered Hyde Park, I saw gates that were up my alley: on either side stood a rather Art Nouveau curving look of light-colored metal, connected to stone pillars, and in the center was a somewhat colorful and whimsical variation on the Lion and the Unicorn. It reminded me of a poem and characters from Through the Looking-Glass.
The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown.
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Walking through Hyde Park, we came to flowers and landscaping, and surrounded by rose bushes was a water fountain with a cupid holding a curling fish. We were in a rose garden, and it even included light purple roses (and I took a picture at that point). A trellis arched over walkways, and flowers clung to the trellis and drooped overhead.
The Serpentine is a long lake in the middle of the park—it has a café, where we had lunch (I had fruit juice, a huge potato stuffed with tomatoes, broccoli and cheese, and a piece of French bread) and we ate indoors but watched as someone eating outdoors fed pigeons and the pigeons surrounded her. Before we went inside, I stopped and walked up to a goose at the edge of the Serpentine, to see how close I could get to it. I got really close, like about a foot and a half away. The goose backed away softly at first but mostly just stared back at me. In the café, I saved some of my French bread and took some of Sally’s left-over tortilla (she had a wrap), and I took these left-overs to the edge of the lake and fed pigeons and other interesting birds—duck-size black birds with a spot of white on their head and with rather round bodies. Afterwards, we walked further down the lake and saw two cranes standing very still across the lake, one standing on a log. We saw up close ducklings—thee ducklings and their mom were really close to the edge and we stopped to watch. One of the ducklings ducked under the water, at the shallow edge, and I gasped; we could see it swimming, with little wings floating at its sides, and it suddenly popped its head back up. It did this several times, and it was quite fascinating to watch. Eventually, four Japanese tourists came along and noticed, and when they witnessed the duckling duck under water, they were so astonished that they simultaneously said, “Aaaahhh!” No translation necessary.
Serpentine Gallery
The gallery is very small, it’s a pretty red brick Georgian building, with one artist’s work on exhibit—his name is Gabriel Orazco. About five rooms. He seemed to be going through a compulsive phase of painting circles and semi-circles, mostly in gold, blue, and red, on found paper. I go through phases myself—such as my current Buddha phrase--not to mention Goddess art—these may of course be more than phases. And of course bright colors are a new and exciting thing for me, especially with interior decorating.
Kensington Palace
We didn’t pay the ten pound thirty to get in, but walking around the palace gardens is free, so we’re doing that. At the moment we’re on a bench in front of an archway formed from curved, controlled trees, and there’s a striking garden and human-made pond (sunken garden) on the other side of the archway, with flowers of many colors. Before we got to the palace, we passed a bandstand on which a band is playing more or less “Boston Pops” type music; right now we can hear them in the distance, playing, “Singing in the Rain.” In any case, we went to the palace’s gift shop and I got a guidebook and a book on historic costume, complete with illustrations of vintage garments on dress forms.
After we were at the palace, we were walking around the Round Pond, because I wanted to get closer to the many swans. By then, we had ice cream cones, and I started to sit down in one of the many wooden and canvas, low folding chairs facing the Round Pond, but a man came jogging toward us and saying that you have to pay to use the seats, so I got up, and we walked a little further and sat on the grass to finish our ice cream cones.
As we walked toward some swans, I smiled and said cheerfully, “Mad King Ludwig would like this—he was very fond of swans.”
The brat said with scathing contempt, “It’s always either Mad King Ludwig or Neverwhere.” Speechless, yet again feeling as if I had been slapped across the face, I just looked at her for a moment, and got a deadpan evil spawn look back, just as has happened at least once before on this trip.
I can't go for an entire day on this trip without her treating me with scathing contempt. How did I ever think I got along with this monster? I could have said just as condescendingly, and with a lot more justification, “It’s always either Doctor Who or Paul McGann.” That was, incidentally, the first time I mentioned Ludwig, and yet she acted as if I had been talking about him every other sentence. As for Neverwhere—the brat has read the novel and has even seen the miniseries, and months ago I was under the impression that she really enjoyed both. Now she acts as if she could care less about Neverwhere, which happens to be one of my very favorite fantasy novels. Another thing: before we left, I told her I reread the book and was bringing it along. If it weren’t for London, there would be no Neverwhere—it is very central to the book and is its inspiration. The entire book takes place in, under, and above London. It is only to be expected that I would think of Neverwhere while in London.
I am mortified with the thought that, over the years, I have confided in this monster as one would confide in a close friend; all along she must have been sneering at me while reading my personal e-mails, and I had no idea. I even thought she had more or less the same sense of humor as I. From now on I shall have to make sure I don’t blurt out my jokes that she finds so unfunny, and I shall make a point of not confiding in her anymore. Acting guarded instead of open and spontaneous won’t exactly make this a dream vacation, but having this insulting, rude, foul-tempered, condescending spoiled brat for a traveling companion has ensured that this is no dream vacation. Without her, it would have been.
In any case, back to the swans at the pond. Some swans stood or sat around the edges, and I walked up really close to one that stood on one leg. The brat wasn’t so impressed with the swans—she commented that they look so graceful when they’re in the water, but not so much when they’re standing. They really don’t look graceful when they’re standing and pooping. I was fascinated nonetheless, and took pictures (without the poop), and gazed at the swans. I also got a bit compulsive about collecting swan feathers.
I’ve noticed, particularly along Marylebone in Regent Park, that sidewalks are made of rectangular concrete slabs, about two feet long by slightly more than one foot wide. Plenty of opportunities for unevenness. Also, many of the crosswalks are not directly on the corner, and sometimes there’s a black iron railing to go around. The pedestrian lights are a red standing figure and a green walking figure, wearing bowler hats.
Quite a few people rode horses in the park, and some of them—the riders, that is---wore the traditional garb, even the rounded hat. Jodhpurs, frock coat, that sort of thing.
Another thing I didn’t already mention—at some point, before we went to the palace, we sat under a tree. Actually, I lay under the tree or at least part of the tree. A cute little brown dog occasionally wandered shyly toward us. I did get to pet her once, though she was a bit timid about being touched. She was actually with a pair of men deep in conversation under the next tree, but it seems that dogs without leashes are the norm in this park—they must be very well trained.
I have to say that the Prince Albert Memorial is pretty obnoxious, in a very Victorian sort of way. Since I’ve been into Victorian art and culture all my life, I wasn’t weirded out by it the way Sally was, and I understood it a lot more. The Prince Albert Memorial is right across the street from the circular Royal Albert Hall, and there are other beautiful buildings—probably seventeenth—around the concert hall.
When we entered Hyde Park, I saw gates that were up my alley: on either side stood a rather Art Nouveau curving look of light-colored metal, connected to stone pillars, and in the center was a somewhat colorful and whimsical variation on the Lion and the Unicorn. It reminded me of a poem and characters from Through the Looking-Glass.
The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown.
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Walking through Hyde Park, we came to flowers and landscaping, and surrounded by rose bushes was a water fountain with a cupid holding a curling fish. We were in a rose garden, and it even included light purple roses (and I took a picture at that point). A trellis arched over walkways, and flowers clung to the trellis and drooped overhead.
The Serpentine is a long lake in the middle of the park—it has a café, where we had lunch (I had fruit juice, a huge potato stuffed with tomatoes, broccoli and cheese, and a piece of French bread) and we ate indoors but watched as someone eating outdoors fed pigeons and the pigeons surrounded her. Before we went inside, I stopped and walked up to a goose at the edge of the Serpentine, to see how close I could get to it. I got really close, like about a foot and a half away. The goose backed away softly at first but mostly just stared back at me. In the café, I saved some of my French bread and took some of Sally’s left-over tortilla (she had a wrap), and I took these left-overs to the edge of the lake and fed pigeons and other interesting birds—duck-size black birds with a spot of white on their head and with rather round bodies. Afterwards, we walked further down the lake and saw two cranes standing very still across the lake, one standing on a log. We saw up close ducklings—thee ducklings and their mom were really close to the edge and we stopped to watch. One of the ducklings ducked under the water, at the shallow edge, and I gasped; we could see it swimming, with little wings floating at its sides, and it suddenly popped its head back up. It did this several times, and it was quite fascinating to watch. Eventually, four Japanese tourists came along and noticed, and when they witnessed the duckling duck under water, they were so astonished that they simultaneously said, “Aaaahhh!” No translation necessary.
Serpentine Gallery
The gallery is very small, it’s a pretty red brick Georgian building, with one artist’s work on exhibit—his name is Gabriel Orazco. About five rooms. He seemed to be going through a compulsive phase of painting circles and semi-circles, mostly in gold, blue, and red, on found paper. I go through phases myself—such as my current Buddha phrase--not to mention Goddess art—these may of course be more than phases. And of course bright colors are a new and exciting thing for me, especially with interior decorating.
Kensington Palace
We didn’t pay the ten pound thirty to get in, but walking around the palace gardens is free, so we’re doing that. At the moment we’re on a bench in front of an archway formed from curved, controlled trees, and there’s a striking garden and human-made pond (sunken garden) on the other side of the archway, with flowers of many colors. Before we got to the palace, we passed a bandstand on which a band is playing more or less “Boston Pops” type music; right now we can hear them in the distance, playing, “Singing in the Rain.” In any case, we went to the palace’s gift shop and I got a guidebook and a book on historic costume, complete with illustrations of vintage garments on dress forms.
After we were at the palace, we were walking around the Round Pond, because I wanted to get closer to the many swans. By then, we had ice cream cones, and I started to sit down in one of the many wooden and canvas, low folding chairs facing the Round Pond, but a man came jogging toward us and saying that you have to pay to use the seats, so I got up, and we walked a little further and sat on the grass to finish our ice cream cones.
As we walked toward some swans, I smiled and said cheerfully, “Mad King Ludwig would like this—he was very fond of swans.”
The brat said with scathing contempt, “It’s always either Mad King Ludwig or Neverwhere.” Speechless, yet again feeling as if I had been slapped across the face, I just looked at her for a moment, and got a deadpan evil spawn look back, just as has happened at least once before on this trip.
I can't go for an entire day on this trip without her treating me with scathing contempt. How did I ever think I got along with this monster? I could have said just as condescendingly, and with a lot more justification, “It’s always either Doctor Who or Paul McGann.” That was, incidentally, the first time I mentioned Ludwig, and yet she acted as if I had been talking about him every other sentence. As for Neverwhere—the brat has read the novel and has even seen the miniseries, and months ago I was under the impression that she really enjoyed both. Now she acts as if she could care less about Neverwhere, which happens to be one of my very favorite fantasy novels. Another thing: before we left, I told her I reread the book and was bringing it along. If it weren’t for London, there would be no Neverwhere—it is very central to the book and is its inspiration. The entire book takes place in, under, and above London. It is only to be expected that I would think of Neverwhere while in London.
I am mortified with the thought that, over the years, I have confided in this monster as one would confide in a close friend; all along she must have been sneering at me while reading my personal e-mails, and I had no idea. I even thought she had more or less the same sense of humor as I. From now on I shall have to make sure I don’t blurt out my jokes that she finds so unfunny, and I shall make a point of not confiding in her anymore. Acting guarded instead of open and spontaneous won’t exactly make this a dream vacation, but having this insulting, rude, foul-tempered, condescending spoiled brat for a traveling companion has ensured that this is no dream vacation. Without her, it would have been.
In any case, back to the swans at the pond. Some swans stood or sat around the edges, and I walked up really close to one that stood on one leg. The brat wasn’t so impressed with the swans—she commented that they look so graceful when they’re in the water, but not so much when they’re standing. They really don’t look graceful when they’re standing and pooping. I was fascinated nonetheless, and took pictures (without the poop), and gazed at the swans. I also got a bit compulsive about collecting swan feathers.
I’ve noticed, particularly along Marylebone in Regent Park, that sidewalks are made of rectangular concrete slabs, about two feet long by slightly more than one foot wide. Plenty of opportunities for unevenness. Also, many of the crosswalks are not directly on the corner, and sometimes there’s a black iron railing to go around. The pedestrian lights are a red standing figure and a green walking figure, wearing bowler hats.
Quite a few people rode horses in the park, and some of them—the riders, that is---wore the traditional garb, even the rounded hat. Jodhpurs, frock coat, that sort of thing.
Another thing I didn’t already mention—at some point, before we went to the palace, we sat under a tree. Actually, I lay under the tree or at least part of the tree. A cute little brown dog occasionally wandered shyly toward us. I did get to pet her once, though she was a bit timid about being touched. She was actually with a pair of men deep in conversation under the next tree, but it seems that dogs without leashes are the norm in this park—they must be very well trained.
I have to say that the Prince Albert Memorial is pretty obnoxious, in a very Victorian sort of way. Since I’ve been into Victorian art and culture all my life, I wasn’t weirded out by it the way Sally was, and I understood it a lot more. The Prince Albert Memorial is right across the street from the circular Royal Albert Hall, and there are other beautiful buildings—probably seventeenth—around the concert hall.
Saturday, July 3, 2004
Measure for Measure
Walking along the Bank from the National Theatre to the Globe, we passed many booths and a band on a stage at one point—closer to the Globe than the former—and I believe I saw over the stage the words “Coin Street Festival.” Merchants sold jewelry, beads, a booth of books, and a few booths that had fabric things, such as bags, from Indian and Africa (I could tell by the type of fabric)—that was exciting. But we were rather in a hurry and didn’t take the time to browse. I said, “Now we know where the Floating Market is located,” referring to Neil Gaiman’s novel and miniseries Neverwhere. It comes to mind a lot, for me, since after all it takes place in London. Or perhaps I should say London Below. The Brat, instead of being amused, merely rolled her eyes and walked faster. My jokes are utterly wasted on this odious brat and I really should just keep silent around her, since all she gives me is scathing contempt. Perhaps I should make a sign that says, “Laugh” and hold it up every time she’s supposed to laugh or at least smile.
I took the trouble to go get fruit, nuts, and juice at the concession stand, and Ms. Thing is looking at a book that I bought at the Tower of London—she didn’t even ask to look at it, didn’t thank me for the food, and had the audacity to snap at me for saying, “Hey, look at that!” and turning back a page to see an illustration of a gold dragon that she didn’t even glance at. She snapped, “You can look at it later.” EXCUSE ME?! I bought the book, you didn’t ask to look at it, the least you can do is refrain from biting my head off, you evil spoiled brat.
It strikes me as rather ironic that this foul-tempered and insufferable brat actually, at lunch, apologized for her behavior from when she was a child. She hasn’t apologized for her behavior of the past week, I can’t help but notice. I have fortunately acquired a great deal of patience since that brat was a child. I suggest she do the same, unless she wants to antagonize every human with whom she spends more than two minutes.
I have several times told myself not to speak to the brat unless I have to, but then, this brat is the only person I’m with constantly, so refraining from speaking to her is certainly a challenge. Sometimes I speak stupidly—small talk—in lieu of awkward silence, and I just feel stupid when I do that—not just with this brat, but also with people in general throughout my adult life. I’ve told myself before that small talk is something I should refrain from starting. Here, the awkward silences tend to be at breakfast (perhaps from a combination of my not being a morning person and my being extremely ruffled by her evil treatment from the evening before, and I say something just to fill the silence—but I do that not only at breakfast, but here and there. I don’t know what’s the point of speaking to such an arrogant, rude and nasty brat. I no longer seriously think she’s consciously trying to ruin my first visit to London. She has, however, made it quite clear that she considers me beneath her contempt, for whatever reason.
One interesting detail I want to add: the strange sensation that you’re shaking, as if you were still on the Tube, when you’re actually standing still and haven’t been on the Tube for several hours. I’ll probably be more accustomed to it later.
Toward the end of tonight’s Globe performance of Measure for Measure, the Duke turned to the audience and asked, “Would any lady here be willing to be Lucio’s wife?” A groundling up front raised her hand, and the audience roared with laughter. The Duke informed Lucio that he would marry the lady, sort of presenting her to him, and Lucio said in horror, “I wouldn’t marry this whore!” They did a fine job of keeping this going. As, I believe, with Much Ado About Nothing, there was a dance at the end of the play accompanied by the live band, of course, and the audience soon began to clap to the music, and the dance smoothly transformed into the curtain call.
When we stepped out of the Globe gates and faced the Thames, I saw (as soon as the crowd thinned enough for me to see something other than people’s backs), the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, across the river and surrounded by a darkish blue—I almost want to say teal—sky with very dark grey, almost black, clouds. I don’t know when the sun is completely set. This dramatic view included the city lights here and there and reflected in the water.
Down the Bank, where the festival was before the play, a pretty big crowd still lurked, and we heard a steady rhythmic beat of drums—that’s how we first knew the festival wasn’t over—now a strange procession moved to the drums—it was in appearance reminiscent of a Chinese dragon. A row of drummers—with huge, black metal drums—wore strange black costumes and marched in a row, circling around and whatnot, and at the front was someone wearing this huge, elaborate black metal frame-like head—reminiscent of the mice heads in stage productions of The Nutcracker Ballet, and I think it even had glowing lights for eyes. An enthusiastic and varied crowd watched, mesmerized, and clapped to the drumming, and some people moved around a little to get out of the dancing “animal’s” way. Some spectators, a little further on, stood on park benches to watch.
In the dark, the clock face of Big Ben is lit up a glaring yellow, and while I saw it, I listened to it chime the hour of eleven pm.
Unfortunately, to mar this surreal atmosphere and lovely view, that was about when both of us suddenly realized that we had walked too far. So back to Brat grumbling and fuming as we turned around and went up a metal flight of stairs in order to reach Waterloo Station. I don’t know why the brat wastes so much energy in these childish temper tantrums when she should be enjoying the fact that we’re in a foreign country. While we’re in England, we should have as much fun as possible, but this brat for a companion makes that impossible for me, to truly enjoy my stay here as much as I should. Very, very poor choice of traveling companion, and it is all the more reason to not let it be my last visit to London.
Around the globe, people are abused, tortured, and starved, and yet this brat has temper tantrums at every opportunity and is rude and ungrateful and mean. She should be extremely grateful and consider herself lucky—we have the privilege of spending two weeks in London as tourists, two weeks that should be enjoyed and savored.
I took the trouble to go get fruit, nuts, and juice at the concession stand, and Ms. Thing is looking at a book that I bought at the Tower of London—she didn’t even ask to look at it, didn’t thank me for the food, and had the audacity to snap at me for saying, “Hey, look at that!” and turning back a page to see an illustration of a gold dragon that she didn’t even glance at. She snapped, “You can look at it later.” EXCUSE ME?! I bought the book, you didn’t ask to look at it, the least you can do is refrain from biting my head off, you evil spoiled brat.
It strikes me as rather ironic that this foul-tempered and insufferable brat actually, at lunch, apologized for her behavior from when she was a child. She hasn’t apologized for her behavior of the past week, I can’t help but notice. I have fortunately acquired a great deal of patience since that brat was a child. I suggest she do the same, unless she wants to antagonize every human with whom she spends more than two minutes.
I have several times told myself not to speak to the brat unless I have to, but then, this brat is the only person I’m with constantly, so refraining from speaking to her is certainly a challenge. Sometimes I speak stupidly—small talk—in lieu of awkward silence, and I just feel stupid when I do that—not just with this brat, but also with people in general throughout my adult life. I’ve told myself before that small talk is something I should refrain from starting. Here, the awkward silences tend to be at breakfast (perhaps from a combination of my not being a morning person and my being extremely ruffled by her evil treatment from the evening before, and I say something just to fill the silence—but I do that not only at breakfast, but here and there. I don’t know what’s the point of speaking to such an arrogant, rude and nasty brat. I no longer seriously think she’s consciously trying to ruin my first visit to London. She has, however, made it quite clear that she considers me beneath her contempt, for whatever reason.
One interesting detail I want to add: the strange sensation that you’re shaking, as if you were still on the Tube, when you’re actually standing still and haven’t been on the Tube for several hours. I’ll probably be more accustomed to it later.
Toward the end of tonight’s Globe performance of Measure for Measure, the Duke turned to the audience and asked, “Would any lady here be willing to be Lucio’s wife?” A groundling up front raised her hand, and the audience roared with laughter. The Duke informed Lucio that he would marry the lady, sort of presenting her to him, and Lucio said in horror, “I wouldn’t marry this whore!” They did a fine job of keeping this going. As, I believe, with Much Ado About Nothing, there was a dance at the end of the play accompanied by the live band, of course, and the audience soon began to clap to the music, and the dance smoothly transformed into the curtain call.
When we stepped out of the Globe gates and faced the Thames, I saw (as soon as the crowd thinned enough for me to see something other than people’s backs), the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, across the river and surrounded by a darkish blue—I almost want to say teal—sky with very dark grey, almost black, clouds. I don’t know when the sun is completely set. This dramatic view included the city lights here and there and reflected in the water.
Down the Bank, where the festival was before the play, a pretty big crowd still lurked, and we heard a steady rhythmic beat of drums—that’s how we first knew the festival wasn’t over—now a strange procession moved to the drums—it was in appearance reminiscent of a Chinese dragon. A row of drummers—with huge, black metal drums—wore strange black costumes and marched in a row, circling around and whatnot, and at the front was someone wearing this huge, elaborate black metal frame-like head—reminiscent of the mice heads in stage productions of The Nutcracker Ballet, and I think it even had glowing lights for eyes. An enthusiastic and varied crowd watched, mesmerized, and clapped to the drumming, and some people moved around a little to get out of the dancing “animal’s” way. Some spectators, a little further on, stood on park benches to watch.
In the dark, the clock face of Big Ben is lit up a glaring yellow, and while I saw it, I listened to it chime the hour of eleven pm.
Unfortunately, to mar this surreal atmosphere and lovely view, that was about when both of us suddenly realized that we had walked too far. So back to Brat grumbling and fuming as we turned around and went up a metal flight of stairs in order to reach Waterloo Station. I don’t know why the brat wastes so much energy in these childish temper tantrums when she should be enjoying the fact that we’re in a foreign country. While we’re in England, we should have as much fun as possible, but this brat for a companion makes that impossible for me, to truly enjoy my stay here as much as I should. Very, very poor choice of traveling companion, and it is all the more reason to not let it be my last visit to London.
Around the globe, people are abused, tortured, and starved, and yet this brat has temper tantrums at every opportunity and is rude and ungrateful and mean. She should be extremely grateful and consider herself lucky—we have the privilege of spending two weeks in London as tourists, two weeks that should be enjoyed and savored.
Friday, July 2, 2004
Charles Dickens and Forbidden Planet
No, I did not meet Charles Dickens on a Forbidden Planet. Though that has possibities for a short story.
Dickens House
When can I move in?
This is, like the Sherlock Holmes Museum, a house that has relatively small floors but many of them. I remember reading a book on Victorian London that described the houses in detail—tall and skinny, with about three or four flights typically. Sally had felt out of place at the Sherlock Holmes Museum and described it as fannish rather than scholarly, but she wasn’t as certain about whether the Dickens House was more scholarly or fannish. I think it qualifies as both—after all, there are not only things like manuscripts, but also little things that Dickens owned. But no wax figures.
Dragon claw holding a crystal ball—I thought a modern phenomena, but Dickens had a pocketknife with that for a handle, holding a red and white porcelain ball. The claw looks like it could have come out of the same mould as any contemporary dragon claw pendant.
Forbidden Planet
It really is forbidden—we wandered back and forth around that weird intersection, around Oxford Street and New Oxford Street and all these other interconnecting streets (gee, doesn’t that sound like Piccadilly Circus), and her majesty—big surprise—got all foul tempered yet again. There she was, complaining, grumbling, stomping, and grabbing the map out of my hands. I, on the other hand, stepped into a comic books store and asked for directions (rather more productive than having a temper tantrum)—it turned out that my map, which came with Forbidden Planet marked on it, is incorrect—the store had moved. We eventually found it, in any case, and I admired a lot of books and action figures, and Sally bought a bunch of Dr. Who books. Some statues were inside a great glass case—they included a beautiful Edward Scissorshands (at least 16 inches tall and out of my budget) and some Dr. Who figures.
The performance of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, at the Olivier Theatre (part of the Royal National Theatre) included a scene in which the mother character rides around in a carriage (the stage had a revolving section, like in Les Miz) and behind her “carriage” landed a huge pile of horse dung, which stopped right in front of her husband, Hero’s dad. He stood still looking at it with a scowl, downstage center. My sister and I sat in the front row, and she laughed so loudly that the actor, without changing his facial expression, turned to her and scowled at her the same way. I then laughed louder. Soon quite a number of audience members were, like the actor on stage, looking at us!
The chorus consisted of approximately six young male actors who continually made quick changes because they played different groups of characters, such as slaves, eunuchs, and soldiers. At intermission I said, “There sure are some cute chorus boys.” Sally agreed. We also both thought that one of them looked a lot like Michael Crawford when he played Hero in the film version of Forum. During the curtain call, when the chorus members made their bow, Sally let out a loud, shrill, and extremely enthusiastic “Whooooo-hoooo!” True, I think she said at intermission that chorus members don’t have it easy and she’s been one a couple times. And I mentioned the time I was a wardrobe mistress, so I also relate to all the quick changes they did.
Thursday, July 1, 2004
British Museum
Notes Taken at the British Museum
Sakhmet—Leonine Goddess whom the Egyptians regarded as a bringer of destruction to the enemies of the Sun God Re. Temple of Mut—statues at British Museum.
The solar disk surrounds the head of the Goddess, and she clasps the symbol of life in one of her hands.
Nereid Monument—SW Turkey—Combination Greek and Persian style (I took a photo)
ANCIENT INDIA:
As Indo-Aryan populations spread through India, ideas about social stratification—the caste system—became increasingly important. Theoretically, the priests (Brahmanas) and warriors (Kshatriyas) were the dominant groups; lower down the scale were traders and agriculturist (Vaishyas) and labourers (Shudras). Outside this hierarchy of traditional Indian society were the outcasts—menials, tribal groups and foreigners.
Ritual Equipment (Hinduism):
In the sanctum of a Hindu temple, the deity is invoked through acts of ritual; following this, offerings are made and worship takes place. These activities are collectively known as Puja and invariably require the attendance of a priest, or Brahmin, and various items of ritual equipment.
The ritual element may require the recitation of sacred texts accompanied by the ringing of bells. Other actions make the temple residence of the deity in the in the shrine as pleasing as possible and special vessels are provided to hold the water required to keep the image cool and clean. Lighted lamps are offered to the god; some are permanently suspended in the shrine, while others, often with many wicks, are reverentially waved in front of the god’s image.
Yakshis—female tree spirits, with command over fertility
Ganesha—son of Parvati, the lord of beginnings and placer and remover of obstacles [he’s a bit more than an elephant-head boy].
The Great Goddess—the evidence for a goddess connected with the earth and with fertility can probably be traced back to the sixth millennium BCE at sites in Baluchistan west of the Indus. The religion of a powerful female deity developed further in historical periods. She was sometimes seen as a consort of Shiva, but also as a fiercely independent figure [personally I prefer the latter].
She, like Shiva, is worshipped both as a symbol (the female organ, yoni) and also as a human figure. Her concerns, both benign and malevolent, are with human and agricultural fertility as well as with epidemics and disease. She is also associated with the fruitfulness of rivers of India and is sometimes regarded as the very land itself, Mother India.
The Great Goddess of India has many names; in her fierce aspect she may be Durga, Kali or Chumunda; in her benign form she may be Parvati, Ganga (Ganges River), or Annapurna. She is also worshipped in sets of ‘Mothers,’ especially in the group known as ‘the 7 Mothers’ (Saptamatrika).
INDIAN RELIGIONS
Yantra—metal plaque used to invoke the presence of deities, usually goddesses. Combo of script with circles, squares and triangles (the latter symbolic of female power) is considered highly effective. [At this museum, they’re between three and six inches across, and a dark reddish color.]
Yantras are visual versions of Mantras, for they are signs specific to individual deities. The iconography associated with goddesses contain a variety of Yantras, mostly based on interlocking triangles and circles—the triangle being the symbol of female power. [I’ve come across that in books on goddess art, from various cultures around the world, and at least one modern doll artist has incorporated the triangle into stylized dolls.]
Mandalas are powerful diagrams similarly connected with individual deities. In schematic form they represent the divine palace where the deity is enthroned surrounded by courtiers. They occur as paintings, as temporary diagrams in powders, as sculptures in 3D form—and even as temple plans. In Buddhism especially they are used as aids in meditation. [I’m tempted to get myself a Tibetan Mandala thangka some day, and I’ve bookmarked a website from which they can be purchased.]
Mantras are short verses or sometimes single syllables which, as chants, are thought to be intrinsically powerful and have particular connections with individual gods or goddesses. The most frequent: Om, at beginning of many prayers and texts.
Hariti—was fierce ogress who ate children. Buddha converted her to protect children. Consort of Panchika, general to Kubera the god of riches.
BUDDHISM
Buddhist art from Gandhara--Hellenistic features—big influence from Greece.
Ghandhara is the ancient name for part of NW Pakistan where an influential Buddhist art flourished in the early centuries CE. Although the campaign of Alexander the Great (327-6 BCE) left no impression on the region, the succeeding Hellenistic state in Northern Afghanistan (Bactria) soon expanded south and east of the Hindu Kush and into the plains of NW India. In the Punjab, the kings were Indo-Greeks. During the early centuries CE, the empire of a central Asian dynasty, the Kushans, controlled the region and for a time much of the Gangetic plan to the East.
JAINISM
Is founded on the teachings of an historic figure, Mahavira, who was probably born in the mid-6th Century BCE in Eastern India, and was a contemporary of the Buddha. He, like the Buddha, found the constraints of orthodox sacrificial religion too rigid and sought a more humanistic approach to existence.
As in all Indian religions, release from the continuous cycle of births was the basis of the teaching of Mahavira. He thought the necessity of a measured lifestyle, especially the avoidance of all life-taking. Any activity involving killing would mean an accumulation of bad karma and a lower rebirth in the next life. Jains consider vegetarianism to be essential therefore, and professions which involve the taking of life are to be avoided.
The goddess of learning, Sarasvati, is particularly honoured by the Jains: their monasteries have traditionally maintained substantial libraries where scriptures detailing the life of Mahavira as well as large collections of secular works are preserved.
Sarasvati—the Jains have a pantheon of 16 Goddesses of Learning, the most important of which is Sarasvati or Shruta Devi, the ‘Goddess of Sacred Learning.’ The importance of learning in Jainism helps explain why Sarasvati is shown holding a book; in her other hands she holds a noose (to tie ignorance) and a club (to subdue evil). The missing hand (in the sculpture) would have held a rosary, an emblem of meditation and inward knowledge. [Is it any wonder that Sarasvati is my favorite Hindu goddess, at least that I’ve read up on so far? And like quite a few Eastern deities, she’s not for just one religion—that’s cool that she’s also Jain.]
[Somewhere I’ve read that Jains tend to be so anti-materialist that some of them don’t even wear clothing. Excuse me, but can you tell me; is this a monastery or a nudist colony? They also tend to not travel—a good thing if they’re naked. If they went to an airport, they’d get arrested. Besides, they wouldn’t have any money for tickets anyway. I can just see the headlines: NAKED JAIN MONKS HIJACK PLANE. OK, don’t get me wrong—really, I respect their religion. This just went a little overboard. I’m not entirely sure there are Jain monks, or if they’re the homeless wandering sort.]
THE INDIAN TEMPLE
In South Asia, the temple is considered the location on Earth of a deity or a figure worthy of veneration. The earliest surviving temples are rock cut Buddhist shrines dating from the late 2nd century BCE. This tradition of excavated shrines continued for almost a thousand years in the Deccan and includes Buddhist, Hindu and Jain examples. The most enduring form of Indian temple architecture, however, is of a constructed building.
Temples are made up of elements which replicate ideas of the Indian universe. In a Hindu temple, the deity is placed at the centre encircled by consort and court. A towering superstructure is usually built above the deity to recall the mountain home of the gods. Surrounding the shrine is a courtyard separated by protective deities providing access.
SACRED ARCHITECTURE
Architectural features in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain temples: ground plans which reflect the need to proceed around a central shrine, to make eye contact (Darshon) with the image and to make offerings.
Different materials were used in temple building in SE Asia. Terracotta panels on outside. More usual—use of stones for Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples. Wood was commonly used for temples in Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayas and in the forested regions of South Asia.
Indian terracotta:
Unlike stone or bronze, which were commissioned by wealthy patrons, terracotta was inexpensive and perishable.
The objects displayed illustrate important uses of terracotta:
-Images from religious cults, which are among the best records of popular Indian religion from the earlier periods
-Modeled bricks, ranging from 5th to 8th centuries CE, which testify to the popularity of brick and timber architecture throughout Indian history.
-Terracotta icons, such as votive plaques, which served as vehicles for disseminating religious ideas.
Bodhisattva Prajnaparamita—embodiment of Mahayana texts, the Prajnaparamita or ‘Perfection of Wisdom.’ Her most important attribute is the text itself, visible on the lotus above her left shoulder. [She's also considered Mother of the Buddhas.]
A monkey…gave honey to the Buddha, at Vaishali. The monkey fell into a trance while he worshipped, was drowned, and was reborn as a god.
Vishnu’s wives are Bhu Devi and Shri Devi (also called Lakshmi). Bhu Devi is the Earth Goddess and Shri Devi, the Goddess of Wealth and Auspiciousness. [No wonder I remember Lakshmi—apparently she’s really popular in India].
Lakshmi was originally a mother goddess and personification of the Earth. Later she became the Goddess of Riches and Beauty. She is most often, as here, depicted carrying a lotus.
Kinnari—the female form of a semi-divine being; the upper part human, the lower part avian. They are the singers and musicians of the gods and are known in all Indian religions.
Writing After Leaving the Museum
At Tottenham Court Station (we were footsore after walking around the British Museum), we did not come across a cat named Grizabella, but we discovered the true meaning of rush hour at a Tube station. We got into the station, and then suddenly I saw wall-to-wall humans, moving slowly because of the crush. I truly think a person could be crushed to death at a Tube station during rush hour. An official person announced that if you’re taking the Northern Line, use the spiral staircase to the left, so we followed those directions—at the same time following a huge crowd of people down those metal, curving stairs, around and around, a metal staircase, and I really should have put my book bag in my right hand and used the railing against the wall, because my feet were too big to comfortably use the inner end, which was very narrow, especially when moving that fast. I was afraid I would fall.
Here we are at the Fitzroy Tavern, but it’s very crowded, with no empty table upstairs, and also very loud and containing smokers, and my sister didn’t recognize any of the people there—she only knew the Dr. Who fan group from the Internet, not face to face, and has only seen one photo each of a couple of the people we were supposed to meet with. I asked at the bar (after we went to the basement and didn’t see or hear people hanging out there), but the guy at the counter didn’t know of a Dr. Who fan club, and he suggested downstairs, which makes sense because it’s the place for writers group meetings. So we went back down and really looked around—there were two guys putting away photography equipment or something, and soon they left and we were the only ones. So we went back upstairs, wandering around shyly looking at people, got drinks, and came back down here to the basement. That’s right, I ordered a pint! Of Coca cola.
I had a great time at the British Museum all day, in any case. I saw the Elgin marbles and an ancient Greek temple and the Egyptian statues—I was really looking for a Bastet statue and thought I might have seen one somewhere around the front entrance—I settled for buying a Bastet post card. I want to sculpt a Bastet, complete with a pierced ear so I can put an earring on her. Better her than me.
In any case, I spent most of the day in the Asian art exhibit, mainly Hindu and Buddhist art, and also some Jain. It was really impressive—in the long gallery containing Asian religious art, they even have quite a bit of Tibetan art (not to mention the museum shop has quite a few books on Tibetan art, and even one on the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet). I saw ritual musical instruments--the big long trumpets, a very elaborately decorated conch shell, and large cymbals, that sort of thing. I also saw about four hand-held prayer wheels (including a fairly large one that had lost its handle), lots of Buddha and lama statues, including a small bronze Malarepa. Big, big gold Avalokitesvara Buddha standing in a display case that you can walk around. Another one still had lots of little bits of coral and turquoise. Most of the Tibetan stuff was 18th and 19th century, though some was as old as the 14th-15th. Oh, yes, I saw a pair of carved wooden nesting tables painted in bright, lively colors—red, yellow, blue, green, white---flowers and I think birds. (Gee, they’d look good in my dining room.) Three butter lamps, one of which was really big, about a foot tall.
After we got back to the hostel, my sister mentioned the Rosetta Stone—she was so happy to see it at the British Museum and had not known it was there, and my mouth dropped open as I suddenly realized: I had glanced at it for just a moment and walked past it. I was so absorbed in looking for cat goddesses like Bastet, not a simple rectangular chunk of pinkish stone. Oh dear.
Musicians At Tube Stations
On our first or second day, a flautist was playing at a fork in the underground tunnel—I forget which station, but it reminded me of the character Lear in Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel Neverwhere. There was another musician between that and today, but I forget what they were playing. This morning, a good-looking musician with a dark ponytail and an electric guitar was playing a Beatles song (“I once knew a girl…”) at the Tottenham Court Station, and long before we reached him, the music trailed down the tiled tunnels—impressive acoustics. Later, on our way back, we passed another guy (not nearly as good looking—quite homely, actually) in approximately the same spot, playing a non-electric guitar.
Sakhmet—Leonine Goddess whom the Egyptians regarded as a bringer of destruction to the enemies of the Sun God Re. Temple of Mut—statues at British Museum.
The solar disk surrounds the head of the Goddess, and she clasps the symbol of life in one of her hands.
Nereid Monument—SW Turkey—Combination Greek and Persian style (I took a photo)
ANCIENT INDIA:
As Indo-Aryan populations spread through India, ideas about social stratification—the caste system—became increasingly important. Theoretically, the priests (Brahmanas) and warriors (Kshatriyas) were the dominant groups; lower down the scale were traders and agriculturist (Vaishyas) and labourers (Shudras). Outside this hierarchy of traditional Indian society were the outcasts—menials, tribal groups and foreigners.
Ritual Equipment (Hinduism):
In the sanctum of a Hindu temple, the deity is invoked through acts of ritual; following this, offerings are made and worship takes place. These activities are collectively known as Puja and invariably require the attendance of a priest, or Brahmin, and various items of ritual equipment.
The ritual element may require the recitation of sacred texts accompanied by the ringing of bells. Other actions make the temple residence of the deity in the in the shrine as pleasing as possible and special vessels are provided to hold the water required to keep the image cool and clean. Lighted lamps are offered to the god; some are permanently suspended in the shrine, while others, often with many wicks, are reverentially waved in front of the god’s image.
Yakshis—female tree spirits, with command over fertility
Ganesha—son of Parvati, the lord of beginnings and placer and remover of obstacles [he’s a bit more than an elephant-head boy].
The Great Goddess—the evidence for a goddess connected with the earth and with fertility can probably be traced back to the sixth millennium BCE at sites in Baluchistan west of the Indus. The religion of a powerful female deity developed further in historical periods. She was sometimes seen as a consort of Shiva, but also as a fiercely independent figure [personally I prefer the latter].
She, like Shiva, is worshipped both as a symbol (the female organ, yoni) and also as a human figure. Her concerns, both benign and malevolent, are with human and agricultural fertility as well as with epidemics and disease. She is also associated with the fruitfulness of rivers of India and is sometimes regarded as the very land itself, Mother India.
The Great Goddess of India has many names; in her fierce aspect she may be Durga, Kali or Chumunda; in her benign form she may be Parvati, Ganga (Ganges River), or Annapurna. She is also worshipped in sets of ‘Mothers,’ especially in the group known as ‘the 7 Mothers’ (Saptamatrika).
INDIAN RELIGIONS
Yantra—metal plaque used to invoke the presence of deities, usually goddesses. Combo of script with circles, squares and triangles (the latter symbolic of female power) is considered highly effective. [At this museum, they’re between three and six inches across, and a dark reddish color.]
Yantras are visual versions of Mantras, for they are signs specific to individual deities. The iconography associated with goddesses contain a variety of Yantras, mostly based on interlocking triangles and circles—the triangle being the symbol of female power. [I’ve come across that in books on goddess art, from various cultures around the world, and at least one modern doll artist has incorporated the triangle into stylized dolls.]
Mandalas are powerful diagrams similarly connected with individual deities. In schematic form they represent the divine palace where the deity is enthroned surrounded by courtiers. They occur as paintings, as temporary diagrams in powders, as sculptures in 3D form—and even as temple plans. In Buddhism especially they are used as aids in meditation. [I’m tempted to get myself a Tibetan Mandala thangka some day, and I’ve bookmarked a website from which they can be purchased.]
Mantras are short verses or sometimes single syllables which, as chants, are thought to be intrinsically powerful and have particular connections with individual gods or goddesses. The most frequent: Om, at beginning of many prayers and texts.
Hariti—was fierce ogress who ate children. Buddha converted her to protect children. Consort of Panchika, general to Kubera the god of riches.
BUDDHISM
Buddhist art from Gandhara--Hellenistic features—big influence from Greece.
Ghandhara is the ancient name for part of NW Pakistan where an influential Buddhist art flourished in the early centuries CE. Although the campaign of Alexander the Great (327-6 BCE) left no impression on the region, the succeeding Hellenistic state in Northern Afghanistan (Bactria) soon expanded south and east of the Hindu Kush and into the plains of NW India. In the Punjab, the kings were Indo-Greeks. During the early centuries CE, the empire of a central Asian dynasty, the Kushans, controlled the region and for a time much of the Gangetic plan to the East.
JAINISM
Is founded on the teachings of an historic figure, Mahavira, who was probably born in the mid-6th Century BCE in Eastern India, and was a contemporary of the Buddha. He, like the Buddha, found the constraints of orthodox sacrificial religion too rigid and sought a more humanistic approach to existence.
As in all Indian religions, release from the continuous cycle of births was the basis of the teaching of Mahavira. He thought the necessity of a measured lifestyle, especially the avoidance of all life-taking. Any activity involving killing would mean an accumulation of bad karma and a lower rebirth in the next life. Jains consider vegetarianism to be essential therefore, and professions which involve the taking of life are to be avoided.
The goddess of learning, Sarasvati, is particularly honoured by the Jains: their monasteries have traditionally maintained substantial libraries where scriptures detailing the life of Mahavira as well as large collections of secular works are preserved.
Sarasvati—the Jains have a pantheon of 16 Goddesses of Learning, the most important of which is Sarasvati or Shruta Devi, the ‘Goddess of Sacred Learning.’ The importance of learning in Jainism helps explain why Sarasvati is shown holding a book; in her other hands she holds a noose (to tie ignorance) and a club (to subdue evil). The missing hand (in the sculpture) would have held a rosary, an emblem of meditation and inward knowledge. [Is it any wonder that Sarasvati is my favorite Hindu goddess, at least that I’ve read up on so far? And like quite a few Eastern deities, she’s not for just one religion—that’s cool that she’s also Jain.]
[Somewhere I’ve read that Jains tend to be so anti-materialist that some of them don’t even wear clothing. Excuse me, but can you tell me; is this a monastery or a nudist colony? They also tend to not travel—a good thing if they’re naked. If they went to an airport, they’d get arrested. Besides, they wouldn’t have any money for tickets anyway. I can just see the headlines: NAKED JAIN MONKS HIJACK PLANE. OK, don’t get me wrong—really, I respect their religion. This just went a little overboard. I’m not entirely sure there are Jain monks, or if they’re the homeless wandering sort.]
THE INDIAN TEMPLE
In South Asia, the temple is considered the location on Earth of a deity or a figure worthy of veneration. The earliest surviving temples are rock cut Buddhist shrines dating from the late 2nd century BCE. This tradition of excavated shrines continued for almost a thousand years in the Deccan and includes Buddhist, Hindu and Jain examples. The most enduring form of Indian temple architecture, however, is of a constructed building.
Temples are made up of elements which replicate ideas of the Indian universe. In a Hindu temple, the deity is placed at the centre encircled by consort and court. A towering superstructure is usually built above the deity to recall the mountain home of the gods. Surrounding the shrine is a courtyard separated by protective deities providing access.
SACRED ARCHITECTURE
Architectural features in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain temples: ground plans which reflect the need to proceed around a central shrine, to make eye contact (Darshon) with the image and to make offerings.
Different materials were used in temple building in SE Asia. Terracotta panels on outside. More usual—use of stones for Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples. Wood was commonly used for temples in Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayas and in the forested regions of South Asia.
Indian terracotta:
Unlike stone or bronze, which were commissioned by wealthy patrons, terracotta was inexpensive and perishable.
The objects displayed illustrate important uses of terracotta:
-Images from religious cults, which are among the best records of popular Indian religion from the earlier periods
-Modeled bricks, ranging from 5th to 8th centuries CE, which testify to the popularity of brick and timber architecture throughout Indian history.
-Terracotta icons, such as votive plaques, which served as vehicles for disseminating religious ideas.
Bodhisattva Prajnaparamita—embodiment of Mahayana texts, the Prajnaparamita or ‘Perfection of Wisdom.’ Her most important attribute is the text itself, visible on the lotus above her left shoulder. [She's also considered Mother of the Buddhas.]
A monkey…gave honey to the Buddha, at Vaishali. The monkey fell into a trance while he worshipped, was drowned, and was reborn as a god.
Vishnu’s wives are Bhu Devi and Shri Devi (also called Lakshmi). Bhu Devi is the Earth Goddess and Shri Devi, the Goddess of Wealth and Auspiciousness. [No wonder I remember Lakshmi—apparently she’s really popular in India].
Lakshmi was originally a mother goddess and personification of the Earth. Later she became the Goddess of Riches and Beauty. She is most often, as here, depicted carrying a lotus.
Kinnari—the female form of a semi-divine being; the upper part human, the lower part avian. They are the singers and musicians of the gods and are known in all Indian religions.
Writing After Leaving the Museum
At Tottenham Court Station (we were footsore after walking around the British Museum), we did not come across a cat named Grizabella, but we discovered the true meaning of rush hour at a Tube station. We got into the station, and then suddenly I saw wall-to-wall humans, moving slowly because of the crush. I truly think a person could be crushed to death at a Tube station during rush hour. An official person announced that if you’re taking the Northern Line, use the spiral staircase to the left, so we followed those directions—at the same time following a huge crowd of people down those metal, curving stairs, around and around, a metal staircase, and I really should have put my book bag in my right hand and used the railing against the wall, because my feet were too big to comfortably use the inner end, which was very narrow, especially when moving that fast. I was afraid I would fall.
Here we are at the Fitzroy Tavern, but it’s very crowded, with no empty table upstairs, and also very loud and containing smokers, and my sister didn’t recognize any of the people there—she only knew the Dr. Who fan group from the Internet, not face to face, and has only seen one photo each of a couple of the people we were supposed to meet with. I asked at the bar (after we went to the basement and didn’t see or hear people hanging out there), but the guy at the counter didn’t know of a Dr. Who fan club, and he suggested downstairs, which makes sense because it’s the place for writers group meetings. So we went back down and really looked around—there were two guys putting away photography equipment or something, and soon they left and we were the only ones. So we went back upstairs, wandering around shyly looking at people, got drinks, and came back down here to the basement. That’s right, I ordered a pint! Of Coca cola.
I had a great time at the British Museum all day, in any case. I saw the Elgin marbles and an ancient Greek temple and the Egyptian statues—I was really looking for a Bastet statue and thought I might have seen one somewhere around the front entrance—I settled for buying a Bastet post card. I want to sculpt a Bastet, complete with a pierced ear so I can put an earring on her. Better her than me.
In any case, I spent most of the day in the Asian art exhibit, mainly Hindu and Buddhist art, and also some Jain. It was really impressive—in the long gallery containing Asian religious art, they even have quite a bit of Tibetan art (not to mention the museum shop has quite a few books on Tibetan art, and even one on the indigenous Bon religion of Tibet). I saw ritual musical instruments--the big long trumpets, a very elaborately decorated conch shell, and large cymbals, that sort of thing. I also saw about four hand-held prayer wheels (including a fairly large one that had lost its handle), lots of Buddha and lama statues, including a small bronze Malarepa. Big, big gold Avalokitesvara Buddha standing in a display case that you can walk around. Another one still had lots of little bits of coral and turquoise. Most of the Tibetan stuff was 18th and 19th century, though some was as old as the 14th-15th. Oh, yes, I saw a pair of carved wooden nesting tables painted in bright, lively colors—red, yellow, blue, green, white---flowers and I think birds. (Gee, they’d look good in my dining room.) Three butter lamps, one of which was really big, about a foot tall.
After we got back to the hostel, my sister mentioned the Rosetta Stone—she was so happy to see it at the British Museum and had not known it was there, and my mouth dropped open as I suddenly realized: I had glanced at it for just a moment and walked past it. I was so absorbed in looking for cat goddesses like Bastet, not a simple rectangular chunk of pinkish stone. Oh dear.
Musicians At Tube Stations
On our first or second day, a flautist was playing at a fork in the underground tunnel—I forget which station, but it reminded me of the character Lear in Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel Neverwhere. There was another musician between that and today, but I forget what they were playing. This morning, a good-looking musician with a dark ponytail and an electric guitar was playing a Beatles song (“I once knew a girl…”) at the Tottenham Court Station, and long before we reached him, the music trailed down the tiled tunnels—impressive acoustics. Later, on our way back, we passed another guy (not nearly as good looking—quite homely, actually) in approximately the same spot, playing a non-electric guitar.
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