Never Fake It

Location: London, United Kingdom

Thursday July 8, 2010

“There was a little old lady, who was walking down the road. She was struggling with bags from Tesco…” Alright, there was no old lady, but we were talking and walking through the Tesco parking lot in Canada Water. Alison and I had using our sad versions of proper English whilst we spoke to one another, because somehow it was easier to practice when everyone around us were also doing it. Plus, it didn’t seem so out of place when we were there. It was quite wonderful, really! Quite wonderful, until some tall, blond, Australian boy hollered a question at us (what he actually asked slips my mind at the moment) from across the parking lot, to which, Alison replied in her Professor Higgin’s-help-needed English accent, “not really…” The boy, who introduced himself as Scott Pattrick (“Yes, with two t’s. There’s only one Scott Pattrick with two t’s in the world, according to Facebook. So you should have no problem finding me!”), suspiciously asked us where we were from. Alison faltered and told, “the States” in her homegrown American accent. Cover embarrassingly blown. -.-“

Dressed in a light blue polo shirt for work (he was selling charity for children with cerebral palsy to Tesco shoppers) and khakis, Scott was excited to find out that Alison was from Florida, where he had studied as an international student with a surfing scholarship (or was it a football scholarship? God, it’s been too long). He entertained us with his crazy party and vacation stories with his super rich friends who had summer homes in Key West with paparazzi-chased celebrity neighbors. He was appalled that we had yet to have a proper young London evening (as in, being shit-faced at a club), so he said he would try to get some of his boys together to go out with us that Friday night. He must have found it surprising that Americans weren’t eager to be drunk 24/7 while on vacation after his experience at University of Florida.

Before lunch, Alison and I visited the National Gallery together, where we picked out a handful of masterpieces to hit up, such as Ruben’s Samson and Delilah (1610), Johannes Vermeer’s A Young Lady Standing at a Virginal (1670), Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait (1434) (Aaaah!!! Probably the most over-studied Flemish masterpiece EVER as it exemplifies iconography to the max, but whatevs, I still love it. <3 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nemerov_(art_historian)">Nemerov’s lectures and my art history reading (yes, I actually did the Gardner reading… -.-“) from more than a year ago. It’s surprising how much flooded back to me when I was standing in front of the paintings and how I saw things differently. Alison also admitted that looking at art was a lot more interesting when there was active discussion and background knowledge about the piece or artist. But even if that were so, she still didn’t have the patience to spend all day with me walking around the Gallery.

We had a Red Robins-style lunch around the neighborhood after we found out that Andrew couldn’t meet up with us due to a lunch meeting. We parted ways as I returned to the Gallery and Alison decided to visit Harrods and spend some of her pounds on British-style clothing (“Everyone is a lot more edgy and grungy here, so unlike Paris!” – A).

I bought the audio guide for the remainder of my Gallery visit, which turned out to be wayyy overwhelming because the museum had almost a long and thorough audio explanation for practically every other thing that was hanging on the walls. Whatever happened to the audio guide helping me refine my visit? I found out just how Nemerov’s lectures were affected by his experience seeing the paintings themselves, because as I was walking through one of the many long galleries, I stumbled upon Caravaggio’s (who, I swear, influenced every freakin’ artist after him...) The Supper at Emmaus (1601), imagining how as Nemerov said that the angle of the table made me feel how I was sitting at the table myself and how I should jump back lest the shocked disciple on the right were to hit me with his extended hand or the disciple in green on the left were to accidently scoot back into me with his chair in his surprise. Then, just as I was beginning to admire Caravaggio’s signature use of light and shadows, I realized that Supper was flanked by two other Caravaggio pieces: Boy Bitten by a Lizard (1596), and Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist (1609). All three of which, we studied during our Caravaggio lecture. Nemerov must love Caravaggio a lot to find all three paintings on display worthy of discussion.

It was also awesome to see Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533) in person. I admittedly didn’t find the painting so impressive in class; I’m not that big portrait fan (Okay, I get it. The subject is wearing fur/lace/jewelry/whatever. It means he’s rich/has power/important. It’s not much of a surprise after the 320^th portrait…). But being able to stare at the painting with a 180° view made all the difference. I could finally see what Nemerov and art history books meant about the perspective-skewed skull at the bottom of the painting. It all made sense as I peered at the painting with my face almost smushed on the wall on its right (okay, exaggeration). The skull looked like a perfect skull!

When the Gallery closed, Alison and I took up Andrew’s suggestion of checking out Notting Hill and the Kensington area. But we had to do it without a charming British guide, since Andrew was already “off [to] home” (by text message) when we had sent him that evening. As we explored the little consignment shops and international restaurants of the Kensington area, Alison fell head-over-heels in love with a quaint little grocery store that sold products straight from the owners’ organic farm. She couldn’t believe just how cute all the (pricey…) things were set up and how everything just felt more homegrown. I told her that she should definitely visit me in Portland, if she liked quirky organic things. Haha. We bought sandwiches to go from Pret A Manger (not pronounced how it’s written, btdubs, haha…) and a huge piece of spice pear cake from the little organic grocery store and headed over to Kensington Gardens for a scenic picnic dinner.

Of course, the organic grocery store clerk had to act like he knew what he was saying when he pointed out the way to Kensington Gardens. But as I walked my feet off in my kitten heels for my art gallery outfit (><”!), we realized that he had pointed us in completely the wrong direction when we stopped a jogger to check our progress. *Shakes fist at clerk* Feeling defeated, we hopped on and off a bus to get to the Gardens, which turned out to be impossibly far away. But we did manage to get there! Yay for picnicking by the algae-ridden and swanful lake! The spice pear cake was delicious to the max. It was, like, a big chunk of Christmas, and we all know just how much I love Christmas, especially Christmas in July (“Sealing! Simmons! And Springair!”)! Who knew the cake would be sooo rich and moist despite having been left out in the open on the cake shelf?

We finished the night by checking out Picadilly Circus at night. After taking some photos on our very own “red carpet” and window-shopping at a delectable-looking pastry shop/chocolatier/café. London’s version of Time Square and Broadway, i.e.: Picadilly Square and West End, was super busy and wayyy tourist traps. And what the hell is up with the Jonas brothers in Europeee? I couldn’t believe it when I saw that Nick Jonas was playing Marius on West End. Who the hell did the casting? And how the hell was a Jonas brother worthy of being a principle on Les Mis?! I learned later from my friend David that Nick Jonas definitely isn’t worth the part of Marius. David’s girl friends saw the production during their London visit (from Brussels) and said that they could sooo tell that Nick J wasn’t classically-trained or West End-worthy. Ouch.

Charming English Gents

Location: London, United Kingdom

Wednesday July 7, 2010

The Brits sure like their excavating, huh? Just look at the British Museum. Just look at all those curious artifacts and art pieces from different peoples of different times and places. How cultural. The expansive museum was crowded with tourists and schoolchildren alike with cameras a-flashing. People were going bat-shit crazy for the Rosetta Stone and the Egyptian mummies and tomb architecture, but I preferred the often-overlooked Assyrian temple ruins instead with the more detailed carved statues and more complicate interior façade and curved lines.

I also loved the few rooms devoted to the history of the timepiece. In the middle of the room, like an attention-whore, the rolling ball clock, from 1820, worked by having its steel ball roll in a zigzag path from one end of a tilted table to the other in thirty seconds for each journey. When the ball reached the end of the table, a catch released that tipped the table the other way for the ball to roll back. Although a bit unreliable, the clock was a delight to watch and to imagine that the continuous motion of the ball resulted in it traveling about 2,500 miles a year.

Some of the visitors were quite obnoxious about disobeying the “Don’t Touch” signs that were printed in, like, seven languages so people could precisely not have the excuse to ignore the usually-implied (if not always) rule that they should not run their greasy sausage fingers all over the 2,000 year-old original statues that once guarded the doors of ancient tombs. Alison was this close (very) to yelling at a kid who kept running around an Egyptian sarcophagus with her hand on it as her older sister or babysitter or whatever was watching her without a word. These people ought to give Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit a good listen.

My delusion of space exploration, fueled by reading sci-fi books and watching sci-fi movies and television shows (BSG ftw!), was broken at the awesome Science Museum. The museum’s exhibit about the history and the possibilities of space exploration brought me back to Earth (harhar) about how far we are from jumping into warp drive, fighting Cylons in deep space, or settling in distant desert planets that are the hub of Black Market criminal activity. I mean, we’ve only put people on the moon six times during the turn of the 70s, and that was disputed as being a hoax by some nonbelievers! And astronauts have really only risked their lives by venturing into space to repair something outside of the space shuttle only a handful of times. The room even had a display explaining that astronauts have special potty-training as part their regular training since going to the toilet in space takes so much more effort with special nappies and liquid/solid-sucking loos that keep undesirables in place instead of floating around in the spacecraft’s zero-gravity environments. Wouldn’t that just be a shitty situation if there were not these special accommodations?

My favorite feature at the Science Museum was Listening Post, an art installation in the Telecommunications department, by artist Ben Rubin and statistician Mark Hansen. Walking into the pitch-black room and sitting down, I saw a single tiny screen flicker on with green words as a voice synthesizer reads the random phrase. This process sped up. More and more messages lit up the wall of two hundred black screens; the voice synthesizers overlapped, reading out text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards, and public forums, accelerating until the noise and lights blended together in sensory overload allowing me to feel what the internet would be like if I were to be able to feel it—then it all abruptly stopped. Screens black. Silence.

We balanced our history and scientific learning experiences with some religion by attending a service at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey authorities were pretty rude at the gate, assuming that we were bumbling tourists trying to get in even though visiting hours were over, until we informed them that we were there for the service. They ushered us (sans tariff) into the awe-inspiring church/final resting place for most of the royal family + worthy poets/coronation ceremony site. I behaved (i.e.: not fidgeting and not falling asleep) very well throughout the awfully formal Episcopalian service, in which the reverend said a few lines and the congregation would say a few lines with him. The one thing I tried was singing some of the hymns, but only the sound of the great pipe organ resounded in the abbey without any voices accompanying it. After the ceremony, I asked Alison if all church services were that uptight. What happened to God being fun? Or was I just deluded by my Clackamas friends’ Wednesday night youth group culture? She said, no, the Methodist church she goes to in Florida is much more chill that that.

We struggled to find a pub with a good pie menu to watch the Spain vs. Germany game (can you imagine? Struggling to find a pub to watch the game, for god’s sake) in the Leicester Square area, because some bars there were too uppity to be converted into rowdy sports bars, i.e.: have any fun. One young bartender even secretly told us that he also wished the owner would come off his high horse, but alas, he was out of luck. This one guy, who had overheard our conversation, ran out of the bar to give us directions to a pub, which he knew was showing the game. When our following of his directions turned foul, I stopped a gingha walking with earbuds in (“Oh yes, he def looks like a local” – A.) to ask where we could find the eavesdropper’s bar. The gingha gave us clear directions for that bar along with additional suggestions for other bars in the area. Armed with this new information, we settled upon The Golden Lion, the first bar we came upon, not wanting to wander any longer, scared that we would not be able to get good seats.

Upstairs in the dining area, we found a couple of middle-aged English men arguing with the waitress, trying to get the prime tables in front of the big screen television even though they weren’t ordering food. Alison and I caught her eye and told her that we were ordering dinner. And so the waitress sat us at the guys’ desired table right in front of their eyes. We faked surprise at their exclamations, shrugging and saying that there was nothing we could do. As I received my steaming meat pie (going hardcore Brit!) and mashed taters and Alison got her roast and steamed vegetables, the same British men came to sit down at the table next to us, dragging more chairs to add to the table, having told the waitress that they were giving up and ordering food, too. They joked that we better watch out, because we were going to get it for taking the table right under their noses.

Alison conversed throughout most of the game with Andrew, the freelance writer who works in Notting Hill (“quite a charming area, you should definitely visit it during your stay here in London.”) sitting to her left. As all his friends taunted me about Spain’s sure defeat from the skilled German players (I repeat now, “HA!”), Andrew explained to us that they were all college buds having a reunion before Richard headed back to Australia. Dave and Andrew play football on a city league team together since they were “young and fit.” The chaps brought up a round of beers, giving me a dark blend and Alison a light blend, telling us that this was our full English experience, seeing that we had already ventured into the risky territory of food. When the fourth guy was arriving, Richard warned us to not let Julian’s quirky personality scare us (“He’s the artist in the group. Paints.”). Julian in a mismatched blazer came with his Thai wife in hand. Later, we were told that this put a slight damper in the evening, since it was supposed to be Boys Night (us, being an interesting exception, of course) and everyone else had left their wives at home. I sipped on my second pint, this time: a spicy and sweet lager, when my boy, Puyol, pulled a great one for España by netting the winning header, making up for his previous disastrous fumble-header. The standing crowd that had formed behind us and I went totally ape-shit. Too bad Alison chose to be in the toilet at that exact moment.

With the sports announcer summarizing the game (in English for once!), Alison and I headed over to the French House, a bar a block down the street, with the group. Andrew informed us that the French House was still open as a meeting place of the French Resistance during the Blitz with the owner claiming that if they were all going to die, they might as well do it drinking. After the war, the bar attracted post-war creative minds, such as Dylan Thomas and Francis Bacon. The eclectic bar certainly held a younger, more artsy crowd that night. Alison confessed to me in a giggly whisper that she had never felt like this before and that she didn’t like feeling out of control, pressing the back of my hand to her flushed cheeks. I informed her that she was just feeling tipsy for the first time and not to worry, because two pints of beer wasn’t going to fuck her up or anything. When Andrew asked us what we would like to drink, I ordered some cider for the two of us. He brought over an entire bottle of the much-admired Breton cider + two glasses. Dave poked fun at how hardcore we were being with our 5% alcohol content liquor. Haha. The entire bottle freaked Alison out, but I assured her that she didn’t have to drink half the bottle.

The guys were hilarious to talk to, as they kept joking about how much older they were than us (but not in a creepy way), laughing at how we weren’t even born yet when they first started having after-college reunions. When we told them about our experience in Europe so far and our plans for after London, they freaked out when they heard that I was spending the second half of August in Figeac, France, the apparent site for a rambunctious getaway they took right after their time together in University. They explained that the term “pulling,” i.e.: charming the ladies, and how they each used to have a different method back in the day. Andrew was the nice guy. Dave was the tough cockney from “Sourrrth London!” (your typical English bad boy). Julian was the artist. And Richard (the biggest puller of them all) had the memory of a bullet, asking how your mum was doing when you had told him in passing that your mum was in the hospital a year before. Richard just naturally remembered and didn’t have any ulterior motives, of course. But he always managed to get the most ladies. “When we were young and good-looking... I know it’s hard to imagine!” – Dave.

After hugs and emotional words to Richard (they didn’t know when he would be visiting from Australia again), the guys left to head back home to the wives and children. Alison and I were still laughing about our unexpected meeting with the English chaps over the remnants of our bottle of cider, when the bartender started hollering for the Alison in the house. We looked at each other, confused. She went to the bar and received the phone that the bartender handed her. It was Andrew. He asked for her number and gave her his, saying that we could perhaps meet up for lunch tomorrow so he could show us Notting Hill and its charm.