Since coming to Oxford, I’ve been attending weekly mass in Latin at a church called the Oratory, run by a religious order not common in the United States (the name escapes me; the professor with whom I’ve been going could tell you all about it). The church is large and elegant, adorned with rich paintings and ancient statues. The pews are plain wood, smoothed by thousands of worshippers. The ceiling arches high above the sanctuary until it comes to the altar, when it becomes a painted dome.
Mass begins with a small herd of priests and acolytes processing from the right side of altar to the end of the church, up the centre aisle, all the way back up to the altar. All the while, we sing a hymn in English, generally a plodding, tedious sort of thing, accompanied by an organ high at the back of the church.
The priest begins the service singing, a capella, in a lovely, rich voice, Latin words ringing out over the church. We, the congregation, answer, also singing, the Latin words from the small purple Order of the Mass booklet. I have not been attending the services long enough to predict which melody is to be used for each response—and haven’t the breath or the voice to sing well in any case—so I follow along more softly.
Through the service, I follow along in the purple booklet, learning each week how to better distinguish the individual Latin words, and to identify them with the printed text, which is sometimes confusing and requires quick darting from page to page at some parts of the service. There are very few parts of the mass where it matters, though—besides short responses, the congregation speaks only the Confiteor, and sings the Credo and the Pater Noster. The rest is left to the choir.
The choir, though, is magnificent. Voices—bass, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano, and all the ones in between that I don’t know names for mingle, separate, stand out alone, then come back together, sweet and magical and overpowering. The Gloria, the Agnus Dei, and the Sanctus are the only hymns to which the congregation has words, and the harmonies make it difficult to follow anyway. It is the music, and not the language within it, that has the effect. Listening to the priest speaking or singing alone in Latin has a similar effect. I know the English words, and can sometimes pick out cognates. The oddest part is the Litany of the Saints, each familiar name given a Latin twist—Felicitate for Felicity, Agnete for Agnes, Matthia for Matthew, Barnaba for Barnabas.
But at the same time, I feel separate from all the events, even with my little purple book. As beautiful as it all is, it feels as foreign as though I’d stumbled into a room full of people discussing nuclear physics.
Fortunately, the homily is done in English. Unfortunately, the Greek-speaking, disgustingly well-read, wittily erudite priest at my own lowly, American, English-speaking parish has rather spoiled me for other, less educated priests. I find the man standing in a real pulpit at the top of a spiral stair something of an anticlimax. Still, I’ve managed to glean some amusement—Sunday two weeks ago, I was told that, “God is like a parent who enjoys watching his children play outside, but knows they must come inside to have their tea.” I missed the spiritual significance of this (if ever it had any) in laughing at how utterly British that sentence was. I should like to see even God persuade American children drink tea.
Despite all the formality and the majesty of the service, I have never seen a more disorganized taking of communion. Instead of rising row by row and filing to the front of the church in neat lines, the entire congregation rises en masse and dives into the centre aisle as though it were a train about to leave. People must manoeuvre to get a spot in which to move forward to the communion rail, and really, it seems a bit of a miracle that anybody ever gets sorted out and back in their seats.
Mass is ended first with announcements—some of them invitations to the church’s parish centre for alcoholic beverages—then with a plodding, tedious hymn in English. As often happens with songs with words I can understand, they seem either to make little sense, or far too much, as in the hymn in which Jesus is a vampire: “Hail, Jesus, hail! Who for my sake / Sweet blood from Mary’s veins didst take.”
All in all, it is an enjoyable experience, but one I am glad will not be repeated every week—I can come back to English (and a little ancient Greek) and a priest with an IQ containing more digits than there are persons in the trinity.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Those That Study History Are Also Doomed to Repeat It
Since I have been in England, I have seen a total of four Shakespeare productions for my class. They were staged in various locations, using a variety of different settings and costumes. All were good, or at least, as good as could be expected given the source material in at least one case.
The first one I saw was Twelfth Night, staged in the garden at Wadham College. The text itself is a despicable piece of nonsense. The set-up is improbable, and never explained even by invented laws within his invented realm of Illyria. Characters change personalities to suit the situation, and frankly, the ending is only happy if one doesn’t examine it at all (though isn’t that always the way with fairy tales involving love). There are really no more than two or three amusing lines throughout the entire text, which leaves actors of today (and probably other times as well), required by tradition to vindicate Shakespeare as the God of Authors, in something of a predicament. This production handled it by using a modern beach setting, and using the contrast of their water toy props with the text itself, and by playing up the bawdiness well beyond the point that would have been permissible on an Elizabethan stage. Although the production was humorous, it was rather sad to watch excellent actors forced to try so hard.
The second production I saw was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I have already seen twice before in different theatres and at different times in the States. This production was at the Globe Theatre in London, the theatre built as a reproduction of the theatre in which Shakespeare’s plays were staged before it burned to the ground. When they rebuilt it, they kept many details the same, including the flammable thatched roof and the central area (the theatre is round) in which they force patrons to stand around the stage, through the entire production. Evidently, it was tradition that tickets were sold for a penny to “groundlings,” who could crowd on foot around the stage to watch. They have chosen to keep the part of the tradition in which they force innocent people to stand for three and a half hours, though they have seen fit to charge another £4.99 for the privilege. I assume they have also seen fit to install modern, and not Elizabethan, plumbing and heating and so forth, probably following modern fire codes, even in the thatch, despite that historical inaccuracy. But standing—no, no. They feel that is a significant part of any Shakespeare experience. And truly, it is an experience, craning over the heads of the entire western world, trying to see the stage, while one’s legs turn slowly to aching, painful lead. I saw the play mostly from the side, which meant I chiefly saw a large pillar, which is part of the support of the stage.
The production was good, however, with interesting music—sung by a contra tenor, and experience I’ll happily not repeat—and the actors were talented. However, both of the American productions I’d seen trumped them, and my favourite character, the Puck, Robin Goodfellow, was a sad disappointment. He was played by a middle-aged, plump man, who wheezed around the stage very comically, but not at all representing the “merry wanderer of the night,” or, as I prefer, Neil Gaiman’s “giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb” wanderer of the night. Still, it couldn’t be called a bad production by any stretch of the imagination, but I was a little let down.
The third play I saw was The Merchant of Venice, at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace and hometown throughout parts of his life. The town is much given over to all things Shakespearean, from naming every business in town after him, his family members, of his characters, but the theatre we were in is not entirely devoted to Shakespeare’s plays. It is built with no attempt at resembling an older theatre, and had seats and galleries much like any normal theatre. However, once again, history wrapped its ugly fingers around someone’s brain. The last row in the ranks of seats at the highest gallery was not a row of seats, but an aisle in which people were assigned places to stand. The view was no better than from a seat. The historical accuracy was all but nonexistent—the “groundlings” here were nowhere near the stage, which is several floors below them. The standing area took up exactly the same amount of room as a row of seats would have—my trusty tape measure told me so, much to the bemusement of my fellow theatre-goers—but there it was. More money spent to stand, while my feet slowly squish themselves into fiercely aching pancakes, as I try to appreciate art.
But it was a magnificent production. The actors were wonderful, the austere set fit the play perfectly, and I could even bear standing at least long enough to see every bit of the trial scene, where Shylock shone. Unfortunately, said brilliance was all but unappreciated by my peers, who clearly don’t know a good thing when they see it.
The fourth play I saw was also A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This one was in Oxford, in Headington Hill Park, and was a “promenade” performance, which meant the audience followed the actors around to various sets throughout the performance. Having already seen this play three times, and having been very disappointed at the Globe, I was loath to see it a fourth time, but had a paper to write which would be difficult to do without seeing this other production. I had low expectations, especially when a friend told me that they had made a great many changes. However, I was not disappointed.
First of all, I had a seat. Somehow, this lowly, outdoor production had managed to come upon the startling revelation that people are much better able to enjoy themselves if they are not aching from the position in which their bodies are. They had arranged logs and tarps to create moderately tolerable—absolutely heavenly, compared to the Globe or the Courtyard—seating for every single solitary patron. Truly, a commendable success right there, regardless of the content of their production.
However, the production itself was excellent. They had few actors—Hyppolyta and Titania were played by the same actor (a man in drag; it was a rather interesting choice, but it worked); Theseus and Oberon were the same; Helena and Robin Starveling; Hermia and Snug the Joiner; Egeus and Nick Bottom; Lysander and Flute the Bellows-mender; Demetrius and Peter Quince. They made Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, and the other fairies nothing but little spots of light shown on actors’ fingertips. But their performance was magnificent. Running all over the park—at Puck’s beckoning—made the scenes with the lovers less repetitive and silly, and made it feel more realistic.
And Puck. I cannot praise Puck enough. Of all the Pucks I’ve seen, he was my favourite. The actor must have been exhausted by the end of the performance—he ran everywhere, performed acrobatics, lifted other actors off the ground, delivered his every line with giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb verve. Truly, even if the rest of the actors had been terrible, Puck’s performance alone would have made their play able to put the Globe’s attempt to shame.
However, tomorrow I can look forward to another Globe production, another three and half hours standing in a crowd on a concrete floor, while watching King Lear. Then, come the following Monday, I’ll see Much Ado About Nothing, in Oxford, produced by the same company that did the second Midsummer. Although I hold out high hopes for the actors, I’ve been warned by Douglas Adams that, once again, Shakespeare’s text is something of a cruel imposition. But, we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck.
The first one I saw was Twelfth Night, staged in the garden at Wadham College. The text itself is a despicable piece of nonsense. The set-up is improbable, and never explained even by invented laws within his invented realm of Illyria. Characters change personalities to suit the situation, and frankly, the ending is only happy if one doesn’t examine it at all (though isn’t that always the way with fairy tales involving love). There are really no more than two or three amusing lines throughout the entire text, which leaves actors of today (and probably other times as well), required by tradition to vindicate Shakespeare as the God of Authors, in something of a predicament. This production handled it by using a modern beach setting, and using the contrast of their water toy props with the text itself, and by playing up the bawdiness well beyond the point that would have been permissible on an Elizabethan stage. Although the production was humorous, it was rather sad to watch excellent actors forced to try so hard.
The second production I saw was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I have already seen twice before in different theatres and at different times in the States. This production was at the Globe Theatre in London, the theatre built as a reproduction of the theatre in which Shakespeare’s plays were staged before it burned to the ground. When they rebuilt it, they kept many details the same, including the flammable thatched roof and the central area (the theatre is round) in which they force patrons to stand around the stage, through the entire production. Evidently, it was tradition that tickets were sold for a penny to “groundlings,” who could crowd on foot around the stage to watch. They have chosen to keep the part of the tradition in which they force innocent people to stand for three and a half hours, though they have seen fit to charge another £4.99 for the privilege. I assume they have also seen fit to install modern, and not Elizabethan, plumbing and heating and so forth, probably following modern fire codes, even in the thatch, despite that historical inaccuracy. But standing—no, no. They feel that is a significant part of any Shakespeare experience. And truly, it is an experience, craning over the heads of the entire western world, trying to see the stage, while one’s legs turn slowly to aching, painful lead. I saw the play mostly from the side, which meant I chiefly saw a large pillar, which is part of the support of the stage.
The production was good, however, with interesting music—sung by a contra tenor, and experience I’ll happily not repeat—and the actors were talented. However, both of the American productions I’d seen trumped them, and my favourite character, the Puck, Robin Goodfellow, was a sad disappointment. He was played by a middle-aged, plump man, who wheezed around the stage very comically, but not at all representing the “merry wanderer of the night,” or, as I prefer, Neil Gaiman’s “giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb” wanderer of the night. Still, it couldn’t be called a bad production by any stretch of the imagination, but I was a little let down.
The third play I saw was The Merchant of Venice, at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace and hometown throughout parts of his life. The town is much given over to all things Shakespearean, from naming every business in town after him, his family members, of his characters, but the theatre we were in is not entirely devoted to Shakespeare’s plays. It is built with no attempt at resembling an older theatre, and had seats and galleries much like any normal theatre. However, once again, history wrapped its ugly fingers around someone’s brain. The last row in the ranks of seats at the highest gallery was not a row of seats, but an aisle in which people were assigned places to stand. The view was no better than from a seat. The historical accuracy was all but nonexistent—the “groundlings” here were nowhere near the stage, which is several floors below them. The standing area took up exactly the same amount of room as a row of seats would have—my trusty tape measure told me so, much to the bemusement of my fellow theatre-goers—but there it was. More money spent to stand, while my feet slowly squish themselves into fiercely aching pancakes, as I try to appreciate art.
But it was a magnificent production. The actors were wonderful, the austere set fit the play perfectly, and I could even bear standing at least long enough to see every bit of the trial scene, where Shylock shone. Unfortunately, said brilliance was all but unappreciated by my peers, who clearly don’t know a good thing when they see it.
The fourth play I saw was also A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This one was in Oxford, in Headington Hill Park, and was a “promenade” performance, which meant the audience followed the actors around to various sets throughout the performance. Having already seen this play three times, and having been very disappointed at the Globe, I was loath to see it a fourth time, but had a paper to write which would be difficult to do without seeing this other production. I had low expectations, especially when a friend told me that they had made a great many changes. However, I was not disappointed.
First of all, I had a seat. Somehow, this lowly, outdoor production had managed to come upon the startling revelation that people are much better able to enjoy themselves if they are not aching from the position in which their bodies are. They had arranged logs and tarps to create moderately tolerable—absolutely heavenly, compared to the Globe or the Courtyard—seating for every single solitary patron. Truly, a commendable success right there, regardless of the content of their production.
However, the production itself was excellent. They had few actors—Hyppolyta and Titania were played by the same actor (a man in drag; it was a rather interesting choice, but it worked); Theseus and Oberon were the same; Helena and Robin Starveling; Hermia and Snug the Joiner; Egeus and Nick Bottom; Lysander and Flute the Bellows-mender; Demetrius and Peter Quince. They made Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, and the other fairies nothing but little spots of light shown on actors’ fingertips. But their performance was magnificent. Running all over the park—at Puck’s beckoning—made the scenes with the lovers less repetitive and silly, and made it feel more realistic.
And Puck. I cannot praise Puck enough. Of all the Pucks I’ve seen, he was my favourite. The actor must have been exhausted by the end of the performance—he ran everywhere, performed acrobatics, lifted other actors off the ground, delivered his every line with giggling-dangerous-totally-bloody-psychotic-menace-to-life-and-limb verve. Truly, even if the rest of the actors had been terrible, Puck’s performance alone would have made their play able to put the Globe’s attempt to shame.
However, tomorrow I can look forward to another Globe production, another three and half hours standing in a crowd on a concrete floor, while watching King Lear. Then, come the following Monday, I’ll see Much Ado About Nothing, in Oxford, produced by the same company that did the second Midsummer. Although I hold out high hopes for the actors, I’ve been warned by Douglas Adams that, once again, Shakespeare’s text is something of a cruel imposition. But, we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Cornmarket
On the way to a high Latin mass at The Oratory of Oxford, I saw a great deal more of the route than I did the previous week, when it was pouring down rain and the city was obscured by a combination of grey rain and people’s umbrellas. As we walked down Cornmarket Street, I saw a stand set up there, from which hung silk scarves, pashminas, and hair bands. The table portion of the stand held silver jewellery. I couldn’t see a price for the pashminas, but they were pretty, very colourful and delicate.
On the way back, I saw the stand again, and noted the price, which wasn’t terribly high. I was tempted to purchase one, but instead got lunch at a fast food sandwich place called Pret a Manger and returned to the college.
I did laundry that afternoon. While my clothes spun in the dryer, I wandered into the quad near the “laundrette,” where I found a bouquet of flowers in a garbage can. Fool that I am, I pawed through the bouquet for still-living flowers, but eventually had to admit that they really had all seen much better days. A short while later, I noticed yellow stains on the only clothes I’d saved out from my batches of wash, the ones I was wearing. I’d covered them in pollen. This meant that my only sweatshirt was dirty, and this left me with only one other option for a warm top, and it is not particularly warm. I decided I’d best find something else to keep me warm, and I thought Primark, a British equivalent of Wal-Mart, would be a good place to start.
On the way, I decided I’d check Cornmarket again for the pashminas. It was already five thirty in the afternoon, so I wasn’t certain that the stand would still be set up. It was, though, and I examined the row of pashminas, debating colours.
A little girl darted out from behind the booth, which was evidently run by her family. She had one of the hairbands, made of beads and silk, bound round her forehead, hanging in her eyes. “Is there anything you need help with?” she asked, her accent charmingly British and her voice light, merry, and friendly.
She made up my mind. “I think I’d like this one and this one,” I told her, touching a sky blue and a gold.
“Okay,” she said, her voice still full of childish exuberance. She dropped to her hands and knees and pried open a plastic box beneath the stand, through which she pawed vigorously. She bounced up with a blue square in a plastic pack, which she handed to me. She told me that the gold pashmina on display was the last one, and it could be taken down for me to buy. She sprang up on her tiptoes, reaching high above her head to undo said pashmina. I reached out to help her, but she insisted that she could do it herself, and she did.
I pulled my money from my wallet, and offered it to some of the adults behind the stand. One of them instructed the girl to get a bag for my gold pashmina. She darted beneath the stand again, searching through more boxes until she found a pashmina-appropriate bag. When she re-emerged, she had more hairbands tied around her arms and legs. “Very festive,” I told her. “Thank you,” she replied.
I left the stand very happy, both in the pashminas and the memory of the sprightly little girl-child. In the end, I turned the wrong way, and never made it to Primark, but I was utterly contented with my expedition (and did make it back to the college by dinner).
On the way back, I saw the stand again, and noted the price, which wasn’t terribly high. I was tempted to purchase one, but instead got lunch at a fast food sandwich place called Pret a Manger and returned to the college.
I did laundry that afternoon. While my clothes spun in the dryer, I wandered into the quad near the “laundrette,” where I found a bouquet of flowers in a garbage can. Fool that I am, I pawed through the bouquet for still-living flowers, but eventually had to admit that they really had all seen much better days. A short while later, I noticed yellow stains on the only clothes I’d saved out from my batches of wash, the ones I was wearing. I’d covered them in pollen. This meant that my only sweatshirt was dirty, and this left me with only one other option for a warm top, and it is not particularly warm. I decided I’d best find something else to keep me warm, and I thought Primark, a British equivalent of Wal-Mart, would be a good place to start.
On the way, I decided I’d check Cornmarket again for the pashminas. It was already five thirty in the afternoon, so I wasn’t certain that the stand would still be set up. It was, though, and I examined the row of pashminas, debating colours.
A little girl darted out from behind the booth, which was evidently run by her family. She had one of the hairbands, made of beads and silk, bound round her forehead, hanging in her eyes. “Is there anything you need help with?” she asked, her accent charmingly British and her voice light, merry, and friendly.
She made up my mind. “I think I’d like this one and this one,” I told her, touching a sky blue and a gold.
“Okay,” she said, her voice still full of childish exuberance. She dropped to her hands and knees and pried open a plastic box beneath the stand, through which she pawed vigorously. She bounced up with a blue square in a plastic pack, which she handed to me. She told me that the gold pashmina on display was the last one, and it could be taken down for me to buy. She sprang up on her tiptoes, reaching high above her head to undo said pashmina. I reached out to help her, but she insisted that she could do it herself, and she did.
I pulled my money from my wallet, and offered it to some of the adults behind the stand. One of them instructed the girl to get a bag for my gold pashmina. She darted beneath the stand again, searching through more boxes until she found a pashmina-appropriate bag. When she re-emerged, she had more hairbands tied around her arms and legs. “Very festive,” I told her. “Thank you,” she replied.
I left the stand very happy, both in the pashminas and the memory of the sprightly little girl-child. In the end, I turned the wrong way, and never made it to Primark, but I was utterly contented with my expedition (and did make it back to the college by dinner).
Monday, July 14, 2008
Stealth Showering!
In museums, and in public buildings, and all sorts of places, there are doors beyond which the lowly public is not permitted to pass. There are signs on them saying, “Private,” and “No Entry,” and “Staff Only,” and “Warning, Biohazard.” Oftentimes there are employees, or armed guards, to make sure the instructions or implications on these signs are followed. But then there are the places in which no one thinks anybody would try to get—buildings not specifically open to the public, but not locked or forbidden, either, containing rooms that no one thinks to guard because it’s not thought that unwelcome visitors would come that way. These rooms do not usually contain sensitive information, or anything private—no harm comes of looking around in them. I always enjoy looking in those rooms no one thinks to guard, stepping beyond shut but unlocked doors for a peep around. The Board of Trustees Room in the administration building of my university is one of my favourite haunts.
Here at the college in Oxford, there are also a great many doors, most of them locked but some of them not. I’ve poked around in some of them, looked at the furnishings or the twisting passageways, and left them as I found them.
I shall now digress to a seemingly unrelated subject.
The plumbing in a seven-hundred-year-old building is not exactly on par with American standards. And when a bathroom is shoved into a little left-over corner of a hallway, plumbing jammed in whatever space is available, with the appropriate fixtures sometimes shrunk to fit, standards of cleanliness are apparently also relaxed. The bathroom in my stairwell is a tiny shaft of a room, shivering cold even in summer, full of shampoo bottles left behind by past students, and has a couple pairs of shoes sitting in the entryway. It apparently is used by the rowing team during term. All this could be forgiven, however, if the shower were capable of producing hot water, which has always been, in my mind, one of the great benefits of plumbing. However, it cannot, so I do not use this bathroom. I attempted once to sponge bathe in the less primitive sink in my bedroom, but this was an unsuccessful, messy attempt.
The second shower I tried is in a private bathroom attached to my friend’s bedroom. For many mornings, I’ve gotten her out of bed around seven o’clock to let me into her room so I can invade her bathroom for a half an hour. And they haven’t even got the plumbing perfect in there, though it has achieved the all-important hot water. But the room is tiled, and the shower consists of a spigot stuck in the wall. Whenever one turns it on, the entire room is sprayed with liquid, leaving fine mists in some places, and puddles in others. The floor isn’t exactly angled towards the small drain installed in it.
I tried a third shower, in hopes of at least being able to spread out my invasive personal hygiene. The third shower was in the stairwell beside mine. It is reached by means of an oddly-angled passage, and is also a small, shaft-like, chilly room, this one short a sink. There was hot water, which covers a multitude of sins, such as the muddy prints on the floor of the shower. But it seems that one of the myriad construction projects required in a seven-hundred year old building for maintenance and modernization had been begun at one point in this bathroom, and then abandoned. Shards of plaster littered the floor, a strip of tiling along the threshold of the shower had been removed, revealing filthy, icy floor beneath, and a chunk of the wall lay there, revealing a deep, dark hole through which the outline of pipes and shadows of God knows what could be seen. I was not keen to return, so I fled back to the safety of my friend’s bathroom.
Then, quite by accident, I discovered a triumph of modern plumbing over ancient architecture.
While showing some fellow students one of the odd sights that’s to be seen all over the college—in this case a gold-painted toilet perched inexplicably at the top of a staircase—I passed a door which is normally closed, and which I have not tried to enter. Today, a sign was stuck to the door saying, “Luggage Room” (groups staying at the college periodically reserve ground-floor rooms for their members to store suitcases in, instead of forcing them to drag their heavy baggage up multiple flights of stairs) and it was standing open. I could see straight back to the entrance to a bathroom, so I poked my head in. The luggage room appeared to be a clean, nicely-furnished bedroom, laid out as if for a guest. The attached bathroom, much larger than any bathroom I’ve seen in the college thus far, was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
It had a fully-tiled floor, a regular-sized sink, and a toilet painted a tasteful white. And it had a shower stall. Clean. Empty of shoes and shampoo bottles. Simply sitting there, waiting to be used.
The next day, in the early hours before breakfast, I packed up my shower supplies and walked briskly across the college. I worried that the door would be locked. That there would be people in the room. That staff members would be hovering threateningly around it. But none of this was the case. The door still stood open, the room beyond was still empty, tidy, and waiting. The bathroom was not a dream, but a joyful reality. I hurried inside and shut the bathroom door, slightly dismayed to discover it didn’t have a lock. Nevertheless, I resolutely carried out my showering ritual, keeping a nervous eye on the bathroom door through the glass panel of the shower stall. But I was victorious, and left the bathroom in the same state I had found it, except that I left the shower stall door open so that it could dry out.
I left feeling exhilarated. This was a step beyond simply looking around in a room nobody thought would interest passers-by. Still, I had done no harm—the bathroom was still clean, the room was still tidy. This was better than turning cartwheels in the Board of Trustees Room, or exploring a half-constructed, unguarded house. I’ve managed to combine a sense of daring and excitement with personal hygiene, though I really don’t think anyone particularly cares. Still, I enjoy it, and plan to continue to use the shower as long as the door remains unlocked.
Here at the college in Oxford, there are also a great many doors, most of them locked but some of them not. I’ve poked around in some of them, looked at the furnishings or the twisting passageways, and left them as I found them.
I shall now digress to a seemingly unrelated subject.
The plumbing in a seven-hundred-year-old building is not exactly on par with American standards. And when a bathroom is shoved into a little left-over corner of a hallway, plumbing jammed in whatever space is available, with the appropriate fixtures sometimes shrunk to fit, standards of cleanliness are apparently also relaxed. The bathroom in my stairwell is a tiny shaft of a room, shivering cold even in summer, full of shampoo bottles left behind by past students, and has a couple pairs of shoes sitting in the entryway. It apparently is used by the rowing team during term. All this could be forgiven, however, if the shower were capable of producing hot water, which has always been, in my mind, one of the great benefits of plumbing. However, it cannot, so I do not use this bathroom. I attempted once to sponge bathe in the less primitive sink in my bedroom, but this was an unsuccessful, messy attempt.
The second shower I tried is in a private bathroom attached to my friend’s bedroom. For many mornings, I’ve gotten her out of bed around seven o’clock to let me into her room so I can invade her bathroom for a half an hour. And they haven’t even got the plumbing perfect in there, though it has achieved the all-important hot water. But the room is tiled, and the shower consists of a spigot stuck in the wall. Whenever one turns it on, the entire room is sprayed with liquid, leaving fine mists in some places, and puddles in others. The floor isn’t exactly angled towards the small drain installed in it.
I tried a third shower, in hopes of at least being able to spread out my invasive personal hygiene. The third shower was in the stairwell beside mine. It is reached by means of an oddly-angled passage, and is also a small, shaft-like, chilly room, this one short a sink. There was hot water, which covers a multitude of sins, such as the muddy prints on the floor of the shower. But it seems that one of the myriad construction projects required in a seven-hundred year old building for maintenance and modernization had been begun at one point in this bathroom, and then abandoned. Shards of plaster littered the floor, a strip of tiling along the threshold of the shower had been removed, revealing filthy, icy floor beneath, and a chunk of the wall lay there, revealing a deep, dark hole through which the outline of pipes and shadows of God knows what could be seen. I was not keen to return, so I fled back to the safety of my friend’s bathroom.
Then, quite by accident, I discovered a triumph of modern plumbing over ancient architecture.
While showing some fellow students one of the odd sights that’s to be seen all over the college—in this case a gold-painted toilet perched inexplicably at the top of a staircase—I passed a door which is normally closed, and which I have not tried to enter. Today, a sign was stuck to the door saying, “Luggage Room” (groups staying at the college periodically reserve ground-floor rooms for their members to store suitcases in, instead of forcing them to drag their heavy baggage up multiple flights of stairs) and it was standing open. I could see straight back to the entrance to a bathroom, so I poked my head in. The luggage room appeared to be a clean, nicely-furnished bedroom, laid out as if for a guest. The attached bathroom, much larger than any bathroom I’ve seen in the college thus far, was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
It had a fully-tiled floor, a regular-sized sink, and a toilet painted a tasteful white. And it had a shower stall. Clean. Empty of shoes and shampoo bottles. Simply sitting there, waiting to be used.
The next day, in the early hours before breakfast, I packed up my shower supplies and walked briskly across the college. I worried that the door would be locked. That there would be people in the room. That staff members would be hovering threateningly around it. But none of this was the case. The door still stood open, the room beyond was still empty, tidy, and waiting. The bathroom was not a dream, but a joyful reality. I hurried inside and shut the bathroom door, slightly dismayed to discover it didn’t have a lock. Nevertheless, I resolutely carried out my showering ritual, keeping a nervous eye on the bathroom door through the glass panel of the shower stall. But I was victorious, and left the bathroom in the same state I had found it, except that I left the shower stall door open so that it could dry out.
I left feeling exhilarated. This was a step beyond simply looking around in a room nobody thought would interest passers-by. Still, I had done no harm—the bathroom was still clean, the room was still tidy. This was better than turning cartwheels in the Board of Trustees Room, or exploring a half-constructed, unguarded house. I’ve managed to combine a sense of daring and excitement with personal hygiene, though I really don’t think anyone particularly cares. Still, I enjoy it, and plan to continue to use the shower as long as the door remains unlocked.
Friday, July 11, 2008
London!
I took a day trip to London yesterday, to sightsee and to watch Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe Theatre. On my trip to London last year, though I saw a great many tourist sights, I still managed to miss some of the most major ones, and was glad for the opportunity to amend this error.
The first place visited was Buckingham Palace. The whole area—road, sidewalk, and driveways—around the palace (though outside the gates) is more given to pedestrians than motorists, as it is adjacent to the wide, green, tree-filled space of Hyde Park. Yet, crowded though this attraction was, it did not seem to be crowded mainly with tourists, or at least not the backpacked, camera-wielding tourists I am accustomed to seeing at other sights. Everywhere I looked people were dressed elegantly—besides the men and women I saw in their military dress, there were men in suits or some other form of dress clothes. Women wore dresses or skirts, and hats. Oh, the hats. I’d never seen such hats (at least, outside of books on the history of costume). They had broad or narrow brims, and were decorated with flowers or feathers or fruit or ribbons or all of the above. Every hat I saw looked light and shady and summery. I felt very dowdy in my jeans and sneakers, sunglasses perched atop my head, amongst all these gracefully elegant folk.
Another fashion I saw quite regularly was the scarf. Women and even some men wore light scarves about their necks, this piece of attire that I normally associate with winter somehow appearing airy and summery. They add elegance to any outfit, or so it seems over here. When I did see people wearing clothes more closely matched to mine, they wore scarves, and it brought them up to the level of the dress coats and fancy hats, leaving me down with the tourists and pigeons.
The palace itself, though huge and imposing inside its gold-painted (I hope it’s just paint) fence, was fairly boring. It seemed modern and square, for a palace, holding nothing in common with either the heavy stone strongholds of history or the light, sparkling fairy castles of fantasy. I took a few pictures and was ready to move on.
The fountain in front of the palace, a memorial to Queen Victoria, was different. Having no particular preconceived notions of how a fountain ought to be, I was able to like this one on its own merits. It was a monolith of white marble, fading and staining and rusting nearer the water level to a rainbow of colours. Statues of religious, political, and mythic figures surmounted every available surface. The water was clear and cool, and no one yelled at me for leaning over the lip to splash my hand in it. If it had been any smaller, all the carving and adornment would have made it gaudy, but as it was it could only be called impressive.
The next sight on the list was Westminster Abbey, an easy dart across odd traffic from the palace. Upon approaching, the lawn in front of the abbey appeared to be thronged with a city’s worth of people, creating the worry that the queue to get in the church would last as long as the airplane flight to its country. However, it came out that the lawn is just a popular place to mill, and the line really consisted only of one or two people purchasing tickets.
The building, more cemetery than church, is enormous. Tombs of the forgotten wealthy litter the floor—nearly every time smoothed paving stone held worn lettering to the effect that Here Lyeth Some Dead Person with Money or Status. More impressive people, of course, have sculptures and sepulchres, or even entire chapels, for their resting places. Especially important graves can be recognized by the high fence around them.
Surrounded by hundreds of tourists, I shuffled past Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Bloody Mary (who apparently share their tomb), Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Edward the Confessor was so important that his burial area cannot be entered by the public at present.
In the nave, I found Charles Darwin’s grave, his stone somehow having escaped being lettered extensively with Latin or poetry or proclamations of family lineage. It bore his name, and the years of his life, and was smooth all over. Not so Lyell’s, up and to the left of Darwin’s, which was cluttered with paragraphs in Latin.
The whole place was bewilderingly impressive, with artistic and architectural masterpieces, and skeletons of the important dead, every which way one looked. Hoards of tourists, absentmindedly listening to their audio tours and directing their gazes upwards to various points of interest, blundered into one another, adding to the ambience. Though it was beautiful, and contained much that at least ought o be sacred, I couldn’t work up much of a sense of awe. The simply-done (relatively speaking) University Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford, also containing Art, Architecture, and Wealthy Dead People, seems much holier. Perhaps I might feel differently about the Abbey if I went at a less busy time, but given the price of admission, I’m unlikely to find out one way or another any time soon.
The first place visited was Buckingham Palace. The whole area—road, sidewalk, and driveways—around the palace (though outside the gates) is more given to pedestrians than motorists, as it is adjacent to the wide, green, tree-filled space of Hyde Park. Yet, crowded though this attraction was, it did not seem to be crowded mainly with tourists, or at least not the backpacked, camera-wielding tourists I am accustomed to seeing at other sights. Everywhere I looked people were dressed elegantly—besides the men and women I saw in their military dress, there were men in suits or some other form of dress clothes. Women wore dresses or skirts, and hats. Oh, the hats. I’d never seen such hats (at least, outside of books on the history of costume). They had broad or narrow brims, and were decorated with flowers or feathers or fruit or ribbons or all of the above. Every hat I saw looked light and shady and summery. I felt very dowdy in my jeans and sneakers, sunglasses perched atop my head, amongst all these gracefully elegant folk.
Another fashion I saw quite regularly was the scarf. Women and even some men wore light scarves about their necks, this piece of attire that I normally associate with winter somehow appearing airy and summery. They add elegance to any outfit, or so it seems over here. When I did see people wearing clothes more closely matched to mine, they wore scarves, and it brought them up to the level of the dress coats and fancy hats, leaving me down with the tourists and pigeons.
The palace itself, though huge and imposing inside its gold-painted (I hope it’s just paint) fence, was fairly boring. It seemed modern and square, for a palace, holding nothing in common with either the heavy stone strongholds of history or the light, sparkling fairy castles of fantasy. I took a few pictures and was ready to move on.
The fountain in front of the palace, a memorial to Queen Victoria, was different. Having no particular preconceived notions of how a fountain ought to be, I was able to like this one on its own merits. It was a monolith of white marble, fading and staining and rusting nearer the water level to a rainbow of colours. Statues of religious, political, and mythic figures surmounted every available surface. The water was clear and cool, and no one yelled at me for leaning over the lip to splash my hand in it. If it had been any smaller, all the carving and adornment would have made it gaudy, but as it was it could only be called impressive.
The next sight on the list was Westminster Abbey, an easy dart across odd traffic from the palace. Upon approaching, the lawn in front of the abbey appeared to be thronged with a city’s worth of people, creating the worry that the queue to get in the church would last as long as the airplane flight to its country. However, it came out that the lawn is just a popular place to mill, and the line really consisted only of one or two people purchasing tickets.
The building, more cemetery than church, is enormous. Tombs of the forgotten wealthy litter the floor—nearly every time smoothed paving stone held worn lettering to the effect that Here Lyeth Some Dead Person with Money or Status. More impressive people, of course, have sculptures and sepulchres, or even entire chapels, for their resting places. Especially important graves can be recognized by the high fence around them.
Surrounded by hundreds of tourists, I shuffled past Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Bloody Mary (who apparently share their tomb), Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Edward the Confessor was so important that his burial area cannot be entered by the public at present.
In the nave, I found Charles Darwin’s grave, his stone somehow having escaped being lettered extensively with Latin or poetry or proclamations of family lineage. It bore his name, and the years of his life, and was smooth all over. Not so Lyell’s, up and to the left of Darwin’s, which was cluttered with paragraphs in Latin.
The whole place was bewilderingly impressive, with artistic and architectural masterpieces, and skeletons of the important dead, every which way one looked. Hoards of tourists, absentmindedly listening to their audio tours and directing their gazes upwards to various points of interest, blundered into one another, adding to the ambience. Though it was beautiful, and contained much that at least ought o be sacred, I couldn’t work up much of a sense of awe. The simply-done (relatively speaking) University Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford, also containing Art, Architecture, and Wealthy Dead People, seems much holier. Perhaps I might feel differently about the Abbey if I went at a less busy time, but given the price of admission, I’m unlikely to find out one way or another any time soon.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Philip Pullman's Oxford
One of my favorite series of books is Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, titled The Northern Lights over here in the UK; The Subtle Knife; and The Amber Spyglass). Although it is a work of science fiction whihc involves traveling to other worlds, some of it takes place in the very Oxford in which I am residing, and in which Pullman himself has lived for many years. There are some very identifiable landmarks mentioned in the trilogy, and naturally, my rabid fangirl instincts were clamouring to hunt them out.
Not having brought my copies of the trilogy with me, I made many stops at Waterstone’s and Blackwell’s bookstores to look through their copies. Unfortunately for me, few names of places are given—however, there are some fairly clear directions.
My first task was to locate the spot from which Lyra, the trilogy’s heroine, first begins her sojourn in this Oxford. Here, names of streets—Broad and Cornmarket—are given, and the Bodleian Library, or, as it is named in Lyra’s Oxford, Bodley’s Library is a reference point, so I was able to place her roughly on my free tourist map. Her next step is to enter a museum, in which she sees a case edged in black-painted wood containing trepanned skulls, labelled with a card printed in spidery black writing. My first guess was that this might be the History of Science Museum, located in the old building of the Ashmolean Museum, on Broad Street, beside the Sheldonian Theatre. So, into that museum—a large, creamy, stone building surrounded by a fence on which the carved heads of past scientists are displayed (rather reminiscent of Traitor’s Gate, but surely unintentionally so)—I went.
It consisted of several levels of small (for a museum) rooms floored with ancient, time-polished wooden boards. Glass cases filled with astrolabes, globes of both Earth and her Moon, armillary spheres, compasses, sun dials, chemical jars, telescopes, microscopes, crumbling texts, mummified animal parts, darkening bones, and hundreds of other odd instruments stood throughout. In the building’s basement there was one case edged in brass containing a skull labelled with a printed card proclaiming it to exhibit evidence of trepanning. Alas, it did not match the book’s description.
I left dejected, bored by the number of armillary spheres and telescopes and the complete lack of Darwin memorabilia, not to mention the absent skulls, but armed with a stack of brochures worthy of my mother. It was from these that I unwittingly gleaned my next clue.
One of those papers was an advertisement for a museum, stating that they would be closing on the 8th of July until Spring 2009 for construction to Serve You Better. Not sure what the museum contained but interested to find out before it closed until well beyond my stay ended, I searched my map for its location. To my surprise and pleasure, I found it located beside the huge University Park, which I had already concluded to be the park towards which Lyra walks after purchasing chocolate (chocolatl, as she calls it) and an apple from the Covered Market. Happy to be able to go see the museum while still keeping an eye out for Pullman Landmarks, I headed off.
The walk was lovely. It took me out of the central part of Oxford, away from the crowding tourists and citizens, past Wadham College. I walked along a wider stone-paved sidewalk that followed a low stone wall covered in flowering plants. I felt more as though I were in a small town than a bustling city.
The museum eventually pulled up. Outside of it was an immensely tall tree, labelled a Sequoiadendron giganteum aged a little less than 200 years. After gazing at that, I trotted across the large green lawn to the museum entrance. Admission, as it seems to be for many museums in this country, was free, so I walked in. The first huge room, containing the Oxford Museum of Natural History, was broken up only by huge supporting but decorative pillars and an uncarpeted walkway circumnavigating the room and was lit by skylights. . It was full of new-looking glass cases edged in light-coloured wood. There were dinosaur skeletons, stuffed animals, and casts of fossils all over. Tables contained specimens which could be touched, if one had the desire to touch a preserved carcass. Printed information about the specimens and the museum’s and Oxford’s history were interesting, and on the whole it was a lovely museum. I wandered around for a while, then went into the next room, which contained the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The room was tall and dark, lined with regiments of glass cases edged in black-painted wood, all standing close to one another. Every case was stuffed with relics, most from cultures conquered by Great Britain at one point or another. Each artefact was labelled with a card full of spidery black handwriting. Eagerly, I wandered from case to case, searching for skulls.
I found cases containing furs, perhaps the ones Lyra sees near her case of skulls, and which are identical to the ones which the Skraalings who hold her captive in her world wear. I found an empty space in another case that might have held the sled on which she was tied. But I found no skulls.
Finally, after much searching, I did locate a skull, but it was not trepanned. Despairing, and beginning to be annoyed by the great crowds of people pushing through the narrow pathways between cases, I asked a docent. He sent me upstairs, which is not where Lyra was. Nevertheless, I looked around up there. Only one skull could I find, and it, too, was un-trepanned. I left, disheartened.
The next thing I wanted to find was the college of the scholar Lyra seeks out, who turns out to be the physicist Mary Malone. It was supposedly a building near the place Lyra saw the trepanned skulls—which, despite my inability to locate them, I was still sure were intended to be set in the Pitt Rivers Museum. I looked about, but saw nothing that fit the description from the book, so I began to head back. As I walked, I noticed a driveway leading to a relatively square brick building. The Clarendon Laboratory of Physics. I snapped pictures happily.
My final search for a landmark from The Subtle Knife was sadly unsuccessful. Supposedly Lyra spots the initials “SP” carved in a stone at the corner of Catte Street, which were made in her Oxford by her friend Simon Parslow. I searched both ends of Catte Street—which is a dead end—peering at cement roadblocks, sidewalk paving stones, corners of buildings, and the street itself. No initials came to light, although my interest in one of the road blocks caused a few American children to peer at it curiously themselves, and give up in puzzlement.
But my landmark from The Amber Spyglass was a complete success. At the end of the book, Lyra selects a bench in the Oxford Botanic Garden to have special significance for herself and the book’s other protagonist, Will Parry (I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers—those of you that have already read the book know exactly what I’m talking about). This final book I had with me in audio form, on my IPod. I listened over and over to the route Lyra takes to get to the bench. Confusingly, she and Will enter the garden by climbing the fence, not paying the admission fee and entering through the tiny gift shop. She then takes a convoluted path past the round, water-lily-covered fountain, to a pine tree planted in 1800 under which I’ve been told J.R.R. Tolkien enjoyed sitting, through one of two possible doors in a high, ivy-climbed wall, over a little wooden bridge that she seems to go out of her way to cross, to the bench, which is basically a straight shot from the main path. Because the directions seemed so irregular, I was not sure of the bench’s identity the first time I saw it. But the next time, as I sat on the bench eating my egg and cress sandwich from Sainsbury’s, a tiny bird, not much larger than a wren, coloured light grey-brown with an orange breast and creamy underbelly, which I had seen before, landed on the bench’s arm. It stayed there only a moment, then took off. I glanced at the arm, and saw scratched there, “Lyra + Will.”
I was filled with glowing pleasure. Others before me had done the same as I, and had been certain enough of the bench’s identity to graffiti it. Needless to say, I took lots of pictures—and fed the tiny, bold bird crumbs from the crust of my sandwich.
Not having brought my copies of the trilogy with me, I made many stops at Waterstone’s and Blackwell’s bookstores to look through their copies. Unfortunately for me, few names of places are given—however, there are some fairly clear directions.
My first task was to locate the spot from which Lyra, the trilogy’s heroine, first begins her sojourn in this Oxford. Here, names of streets—Broad and Cornmarket—are given, and the Bodleian Library, or, as it is named in Lyra’s Oxford, Bodley’s Library is a reference point, so I was able to place her roughly on my free tourist map. Her next step is to enter a museum, in which she sees a case edged in black-painted wood containing trepanned skulls, labelled with a card printed in spidery black writing. My first guess was that this might be the History of Science Museum, located in the old building of the Ashmolean Museum, on Broad Street, beside the Sheldonian Theatre. So, into that museum—a large, creamy, stone building surrounded by a fence on which the carved heads of past scientists are displayed (rather reminiscent of Traitor’s Gate, but surely unintentionally so)—I went.
It consisted of several levels of small (for a museum) rooms floored with ancient, time-polished wooden boards. Glass cases filled with astrolabes, globes of both Earth and her Moon, armillary spheres, compasses, sun dials, chemical jars, telescopes, microscopes, crumbling texts, mummified animal parts, darkening bones, and hundreds of other odd instruments stood throughout. In the building’s basement there was one case edged in brass containing a skull labelled with a printed card proclaiming it to exhibit evidence of trepanning. Alas, it did not match the book’s description.
I left dejected, bored by the number of armillary spheres and telescopes and the complete lack of Darwin memorabilia, not to mention the absent skulls, but armed with a stack of brochures worthy of my mother. It was from these that I unwittingly gleaned my next clue.
One of those papers was an advertisement for a museum, stating that they would be closing on the 8th of July until Spring 2009 for construction to Serve You Better. Not sure what the museum contained but interested to find out before it closed until well beyond my stay ended, I searched my map for its location. To my surprise and pleasure, I found it located beside the huge University Park, which I had already concluded to be the park towards which Lyra walks after purchasing chocolate (chocolatl, as she calls it) and an apple from the Covered Market. Happy to be able to go see the museum while still keeping an eye out for Pullman Landmarks, I headed off.
The walk was lovely. It took me out of the central part of Oxford, away from the crowding tourists and citizens, past Wadham College. I walked along a wider stone-paved sidewalk that followed a low stone wall covered in flowering plants. I felt more as though I were in a small town than a bustling city.
The museum eventually pulled up. Outside of it was an immensely tall tree, labelled a Sequoiadendron giganteum aged a little less than 200 years. After gazing at that, I trotted across the large green lawn to the museum entrance. Admission, as it seems to be for many museums in this country, was free, so I walked in. The first huge room, containing the Oxford Museum of Natural History, was broken up only by huge supporting but decorative pillars and an uncarpeted walkway circumnavigating the room and was lit by skylights. . It was full of new-looking glass cases edged in light-coloured wood. There were dinosaur skeletons, stuffed animals, and casts of fossils all over. Tables contained specimens which could be touched, if one had the desire to touch a preserved carcass. Printed information about the specimens and the museum’s and Oxford’s history were interesting, and on the whole it was a lovely museum. I wandered around for a while, then went into the next room, which contained the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The room was tall and dark, lined with regiments of glass cases edged in black-painted wood, all standing close to one another. Every case was stuffed with relics, most from cultures conquered by Great Britain at one point or another. Each artefact was labelled with a card full of spidery black handwriting. Eagerly, I wandered from case to case, searching for skulls.
I found cases containing furs, perhaps the ones Lyra sees near her case of skulls, and which are identical to the ones which the Skraalings who hold her captive in her world wear. I found an empty space in another case that might have held the sled on which she was tied. But I found no skulls.
Finally, after much searching, I did locate a skull, but it was not trepanned. Despairing, and beginning to be annoyed by the great crowds of people pushing through the narrow pathways between cases, I asked a docent. He sent me upstairs, which is not where Lyra was. Nevertheless, I looked around up there. Only one skull could I find, and it, too, was un-trepanned. I left, disheartened.
The next thing I wanted to find was the college of the scholar Lyra seeks out, who turns out to be the physicist Mary Malone. It was supposedly a building near the place Lyra saw the trepanned skulls—which, despite my inability to locate them, I was still sure were intended to be set in the Pitt Rivers Museum. I looked about, but saw nothing that fit the description from the book, so I began to head back. As I walked, I noticed a driveway leading to a relatively square brick building. The Clarendon Laboratory of Physics. I snapped pictures happily.
My final search for a landmark from The Subtle Knife was sadly unsuccessful. Supposedly Lyra spots the initials “SP” carved in a stone at the corner of Catte Street, which were made in her Oxford by her friend Simon Parslow. I searched both ends of Catte Street—which is a dead end—peering at cement roadblocks, sidewalk paving stones, corners of buildings, and the street itself. No initials came to light, although my interest in one of the road blocks caused a few American children to peer at it curiously themselves, and give up in puzzlement.
But my landmark from The Amber Spyglass was a complete success. At the end of the book, Lyra selects a bench in the Oxford Botanic Garden to have special significance for herself and the book’s other protagonist, Will Parry (I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers—those of you that have already read the book know exactly what I’m talking about). This final book I had with me in audio form, on my IPod. I listened over and over to the route Lyra takes to get to the bench. Confusingly, she and Will enter the garden by climbing the fence, not paying the admission fee and entering through the tiny gift shop. She then takes a convoluted path past the round, water-lily-covered fountain, to a pine tree planted in 1800 under which I’ve been told J.R.R. Tolkien enjoyed sitting, through one of two possible doors in a high, ivy-climbed wall, over a little wooden bridge that she seems to go out of her way to cross, to the bench, which is basically a straight shot from the main path. Because the directions seemed so irregular, I was not sure of the bench’s identity the first time I saw it. But the next time, as I sat on the bench eating my egg and cress sandwich from Sainsbury’s, a tiny bird, not much larger than a wren, coloured light grey-brown with an orange breast and creamy underbelly, which I had seen before, landed on the bench’s arm. It stayed there only a moment, then took off. I glanced at the arm, and saw scratched there, “Lyra + Will.”
I was filled with glowing pleasure. Others before me had done the same as I, and had been certain enough of the bench’s identity to graffiti it. Needless to say, I took lots of pictures—and fed the tiny, bold bird crumbs from the crust of my sandwich.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Wisdom of the Ages
I wrote this while sitting in the college library. Though it is written in the present tense, I sadly could not actually post this from the library.
I am sitting at the top of the library at present, on a small balcony area extending over the main room. I can see the tops of the shelves, into the shelf-walled nook at the end devoted to Ancient Greece. The ceilin gis vaulted and painted aqua, with gold-painted strips of wood barring and crisscrossing its surface. At the joins of the wood there are matching floral devices.
Windows alternate with shelves, arched and of either stained glass or small, clear, diamond-shaped panes. The stairs, at least up to my alcove, are lovely wood, but some rogue decorator has covered what I assume used to be lovely floors with hideous patterned carpet.
The whole library doesn't appear very large, but I suspect it is. From the poking around I've done, it seems it is full of little rooms and passages tucked in nooks and crannies at odd, difficult-to-photograph angles, though that shan't stop me trying.
It's very quiet and peaceful within the library, as it ought to be, though I can hear people and vehicles outside. The smell of books is everywhere, soothing and delightful, at least to me. I could spend my whole trip in here, safe and comfortable, reading.
But it's very differnt from libraries at home, or at least it appears so to a connoisseur such as myself. Instead of neat ranks of books upon the shelves, and bins and carts plastered with demanding notices to place books there when finished and under no circumstances to attempt to reshelve them yourself, there are simply stacks of books. People place their books on the floor by the shelf where they found them, or across the tidily-shelved books (all right. I suppose they do that at home, or at least at Barnes & Noble. When customers do that, it makes me want to slap them, but here I find it "charming." Probably because I don't have to clean it up). They've even got books laid out on top of the shorter shelving units, as though for the inspection of the patrons.
The whole place feels very special--not just because it's a library full of books full of the knowledge, wit, and wisdom of the ages, or because it's a beautiful suite of rooms in an ancient building, but because I have a key to it. That's right--you've got to have a magnetic passkey to get in the door. Fond as I am of the philosopy of public libraries, sharing knowledge welcome to all, there's something exciting about going into a room other people can't.
Of course, every teacher, student, and probably member of the cleaning crew (called "scouts") has a passkey, but let me revel, anyway.
I am sitting at the top of the library at present, on a small balcony area extending over the main room. I can see the tops of the shelves, into the shelf-walled nook at the end devoted to Ancient Greece. The ceilin gis vaulted and painted aqua, with gold-painted strips of wood barring and crisscrossing its surface. At the joins of the wood there are matching floral devices.
Windows alternate with shelves, arched and of either stained glass or small, clear, diamond-shaped panes. The stairs, at least up to my alcove, are lovely wood, but some rogue decorator has covered what I assume used to be lovely floors with hideous patterned carpet.
The whole library doesn't appear very large, but I suspect it is. From the poking around I've done, it seems it is full of little rooms and passages tucked in nooks and crannies at odd, difficult-to-photograph angles, though that shan't stop me trying.
It's very quiet and peaceful within the library, as it ought to be, though I can hear people and vehicles outside. The smell of books is everywhere, soothing and delightful, at least to me. I could spend my whole trip in here, safe and comfortable, reading.
But it's very differnt from libraries at home, or at least it appears so to a connoisseur such as myself. Instead of neat ranks of books upon the shelves, and bins and carts plastered with demanding notices to place books there when finished and under no circumstances to attempt to reshelve them yourself, there are simply stacks of books. People place their books on the floor by the shelf where they found them, or across the tidily-shelved books (all right. I suppose they do that at home, or at least at Barnes & Noble. When customers do that, it makes me want to slap them, but here I find it "charming." Probably because I don't have to clean it up). They've even got books laid out on top of the shorter shelving units, as though for the inspection of the patrons.
The whole place feels very special--not just because it's a library full of books full of the knowledge, wit, and wisdom of the ages, or because it's a beautiful suite of rooms in an ancient building, but because I have a key to it. That's right--you've got to have a magnetic passkey to get in the door. Fond as I am of the philosopy of public libraries, sharing knowledge welcome to all, there's something exciting about going into a room other people can't.
Of course, every teacher, student, and probably member of the cleaning crew (called "scouts") has a passkey, but let me revel, anyway.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Old and New
The college at which I am staying is, so I've been told, one of the oldest in Oxford (and I can well believe it when dealing with their plumbing system). It is made up of three quadrangles surrounded by the college's light-colored stone walls, and a building separate from the main portion. Though relatively small, it is a place very easy to become hopelessly lost in, especially for a person like myself who possesses no sense of direction.
The building is full of oddly-shaped rooms, awkward stairwells, snarled passageways, and accidental closets of widely varying style, muhc of it clearly following no unifying plan. It seems to have been added bit by bit, haphazardly, following the modes of the numerous times the work was done throughout the years, leading right up to the present. Ancient wood floors are abruptly interupted by inlaid weather-resistent carpeting. Parts of one room will look like a history museum while different parts of the same room look like a Menard's.
Whenever I tour a historic building preserved as a museum, I lament the ropes and calm but insistent guards that don't allow me to touch, sit, walk across the rooms. Here, there are no ropes and no guards, but a price has been paid: though beautiful, and soaked with antiquity, the buildings and hallways and staircases are also practical for the current era, and it is impossible to feel as though I've traveled back in time. It gives me a little more respect for the security guards and their ropes.
Still, there is one aspect of the college that is likely much as it ever was--the flowers. Re-planted every year or at least brought out of dormancy, the plants are not altered by the development of modern conveniences. Huge trees grow beside worn stone walls, bright rose blossoms burst from vines climbing up to windowsills (finally finding a place grand enough to bear the large beauty of their flowers), flowering bushes are resplendent at the edges of quads. Even the grass is lovely--soft and green and closely-clipped, it appears a delightfully matted carpet. However, the privilege of flinging oneself or even walking upon the grass in two of the three quads is reserved for Fellows of the College only, who no doubt have no idea how to take advantage of it.
The building is full of oddly-shaped rooms, awkward stairwells, snarled passageways, and accidental closets of widely varying style, muhc of it clearly following no unifying plan. It seems to have been added bit by bit, haphazardly, following the modes of the numerous times the work was done throughout the years, leading right up to the present. Ancient wood floors are abruptly interupted by inlaid weather-resistent carpeting. Parts of one room will look like a history museum while different parts of the same room look like a Menard's.
Whenever I tour a historic building preserved as a museum, I lament the ropes and calm but insistent guards that don't allow me to touch, sit, walk across the rooms. Here, there are no ropes and no guards, but a price has been paid: though beautiful, and soaked with antiquity, the buildings and hallways and staircases are also practical for the current era, and it is impossible to feel as though I've traveled back in time. It gives me a little more respect for the security guards and their ropes.
Still, there is one aspect of the college that is likely much as it ever was--the flowers. Re-planted every year or at least brought out of dormancy, the plants are not altered by the development of modern conveniences. Huge trees grow beside worn stone walls, bright rose blossoms burst from vines climbing up to windowsills (finally finding a place grand enough to bear the large beauty of their flowers), flowering bushes are resplendent at the edges of quads. Even the grass is lovely--soft and green and closely-clipped, it appears a delightfully matted carpet. However, the privilege of flinging oneself or even walking upon the grass in two of the three quads is reserved for Fellows of the College only, who no doubt have no idea how to take advantage of it.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Oxford Outside
The whole of Oxford is made of stone--the buildings, the sidewalks, the gargoyles and devices that ornament the town. The streets are narrower than in the U.S.--instead of rivers, they have streams. High Street, the large main road in Oxford, can scarcely hold a candle to the main road in my tiny hometown, though High Street's traffic is much more varied. Busses, cars, and bicycles vie for space along the thoroughfare.
Their sidewalks, too, are narrower, and paved with old, rough flagstones, offering many an opportunity for pedestrians to trip on their unevenness. Contrary to what the guidebooks tell you, the pedestrians don't keep to the left. Instead they dart around from side to side wherever other pedestrians, scaffolding, road blocks, and litter bins will permit. And there are more pedestrians than in the U.S. Perhaps it is because they do things differently here, or perhaps it is just because this is a big city, but people walk everywhere. And not just for traveling at a breakneck pace from point A to point B--they do it for pleasure. Almost immediately after my arrival, the Shakespeare professor (from our American university, not Oxford's) showed a group of us a gravel path following along a tributary of the Thames, overlooking a meadow beyond which can be seen Christ Church College (now sadly seeming to be best known as the on location site for the Harry Potter movies). The walk affords not only a beautiful view, but punters and rowers to watch on the river, bold and demanding waterfowl, and enormous, ancient trees shading benches. People--not just tourists--take walks there, sit and chat with friends on the banks, or stuff more bread into the spoiled birds. It's a beautiful place, and people take good advantage of it.
Their sidewalks, too, are narrower, and paved with old, rough flagstones, offering many an opportunity for pedestrians to trip on their unevenness. Contrary to what the guidebooks tell you, the pedestrians don't keep to the left. Instead they dart around from side to side wherever other pedestrians, scaffolding, road blocks, and litter bins will permit. And there are more pedestrians than in the U.S. Perhaps it is because they do things differently here, or perhaps it is just because this is a big city, but people walk everywhere. And not just for traveling at a breakneck pace from point A to point B--they do it for pleasure. Almost immediately after my arrival, the Shakespeare professor (from our American university, not Oxford's) showed a group of us a gravel path following along a tributary of the Thames, overlooking a meadow beyond which can be seen Christ Church College (now sadly seeming to be best known as the on location site for the Harry Potter movies). The walk affords not only a beautiful view, but punters and rowers to watch on the river, bold and demanding waterfowl, and enormous, ancient trees shading benches. People--not just tourists--take walks there, sit and chat with friends on the banks, or stuff more bread into the spoiled birds. It's a beautiful place, and people take good advantage of it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)