June 2010
40 posts
The End.
Well, friends, we’ve reached the end. Lucky for me, my last day here happens to have been the longest day of the year. There were plenty of daylight hours for final moments of happy London living: a trip to the Science Museum, cupcakes at the Hummingbird Bakery, a TopShop indulgence, dinner in China Town, and one last frolic in my beloved Trafalgar Square. Initially, I had thought that I...
Lions
Yes, I predicted the loud music, the oceans of black velvet, and the lovable grunge and grime of East London clubs. But what I couldn’t have predicted was the retro 60s music that the DJs spun into the late hours, to which Emily, Kat, and I danced like wannabe bee-hived maniacs. And I couldn’t possibly have predicted meeting three boys on the night bus who: 1. Could not pronounce my...
This is to be my last Big Night Out in London. I have prepared accordingly and dressed the part, wearing a black mini-dress, plenty of eyeliner, and a faux fur coat (that nappy-yet-magical Traveling Coat we procured on our very first night out in the city). Soon, we’ll pop over to the shop to buy some wine, which we will then consume in our kitchen—amidst dirty dishes and discarded...
Watchheadunderwater:
Y La Bamba - My Love is a Forest Fire
Filmed Live in Elysian Park by Dugan O’Neal
“Creatures like the sheep, that are used to traveling, know about moving on.”
– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
How to Survive: A Guide For Cyclists
Ever since I stored my bike, Magnolia, away for the season, I’ve been itching to go cycling. I gaze at girls on their retro roadsters, weaving through traffic with skirts billowing, and I curse my chronic bipedalism. Oh legs, you have been good and strong and taken me on a fearsome tour of London over the last six months, but you lack the smooth traction of rubber tire on asphalt. You cannot...
“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of...”
– Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
A Farewell In My Arms
I’ve just said good-bye to Granny, not knowing when I will see her again. Small woman in my arms, her silver-gray spray of hair grazing my chin. In that brief embrace, I felt the soft folds of her skin beneath her sweater, malleable as marshmallow and impossibly forgiving. Skin creased with lines that mark a life lived in love. She has given everything away—a home in India, a home in...
Buckingham Palace
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace - Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guard. “A soldier’s life is terrible hard,” Says Alice. They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace - Christopher Robin went down with Alice. We saw a guard in a sentry-box. “One of the sergeants looks after their socks,” Says Alice....
Watch“Lately” by Memoryhouse
Win win win!
Once every four years, I become a sports fan. I consider painting my face with the colors of my country, and my hands form fists that long to be shoved into giant foam fingers. Impassioned grunts and cries erupt from my throat. I swear at the on-screen referees. I am invested in the mobile bodies of men, in a green lawn, a ball that spins like a planet in quick orbit.
The World Cup is unlike any...
Inside Out
My room is starting to empty itself, a warm mouth turned inside out. Losing teeth as in an anxious dream.
First to go: two bodies of two boys. Cole and his friend Iain came to visit from Berlin for a few days, and suddenly, this little room was full of life (and sweaty clothes). We alternated sleeping positions, various combinations of two-in-the-bed and one-on-the-floor. The area between my bed...
“I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye against your collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a tree and climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? You kept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, you have...
The Bubble Bursts
Maybe it’s because I’m going home in thirteen days, transferring temporary citizenship from one time zone to another. (In international airspace, I belong to nowhere but the vast landscape of our world.) Or maybe it’s because as I grow up, the space inside my protective bubble—created by years of living in an affluent New England town and more years at a homogeneous liberal...
Watch“Eastern Green” by Twin Sister
To be watched late at night, with the sunrise, or in the aftermath of a rainstorm.
Imagine this: an evening in June. There is a light breeze and still enough light to see clearly the faces of strangers. Sunlight the color of Egyptian ocher shines like friendly fire from the cracks between buildings. Your hands are wrapped around the slim neck of a wine bottle; your body leans against the stone banister outside the National Gallery. All around you, Trafalgar Square is packed with...
Watch“Feel in My Back” by Grubby Little Hands
While the pelicans of London’s Royal Parks thrive, thousands are being driven from their homes in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast. This oil spill is devastating, and its effects are only just beginning to be felt. Could there be a more violent manifestation of mankind’s folly than this? We’re strangling an entire ecosystem with millions of tons of our thick, crude...
Life in the Hive
I just had the most wonderful day with my friend Alisa, but as I’m too exhausted to rewrite the events in fastidious detail, you’ll have to make do with the bare necessities.
1. Today, I gave Camden a second chance. Many months ago, at the beginning of my stay in London, I wrote about my visit to the Camden Markets one frigid afternoon. I found the whole place creepy then, but now I...
“I have no patience with the untorn, anyone who hasn’t weathered rough...”
– Andrea Dworkin
Moment of June
“In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.”
—Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
I woke up with a...
Let the Sun Shine
An unforgettable evening: I went to see Hair in the West End with my London Theater class. I had never seen the show before and was surprised by two things (SPOILERS AHEAD): 1. The entire cast gets naked at the end of act two and 2. The entire audience is invited onstage at the end of the show for communal dancing, singing, and metaphorical love-making.
It was the latter that made my night....
“Mais qui piqua ce triangle dans ma tête?
Ce triangle né du clair de lune
me traversa sans me toucher
avec des bruits de libellule
en pleine nuit dans le rocher.
Who put this triangle in my head?
This triangle born of moonlight
went through me without touching me
making the noise of a dragonfly
deep in the rock at night.”
—From John Berger’s The Shape of a Pocket
The Island End
We have reached the end of our seaside reverie. Time to wake up, with the twisted kiss of reality. I got out of bed early this morning to make the most of our final hours. One last breakfast on the terrace, one last recline by the side of the pool. Out at sea, a single white sailboat flecks the blue and drifts slowly across the horizon. A woodpigeon’s mournful hoots mingle with the sound of...
Into Peyia, Days 4 and 5
Tess and I decided one afternoon to walk into the village of Peyia. Aagot and Sheetal warned us that the roads are all very narrow and that Cypriot drivers are notoriously careless, but we were eager to stretch our legs after days of sun-soaked immobility. So, in the extreme heat of midday, we jammed hats onto our heads, rubbed lotion into the knobs of our shoulders, and took to the dusty...
Of Moons and Music, Days 3 and 4
Listening to arias, with a bowlful of local ruby strawberries—like plump marbles—and half a glass of cold pomegranate juice. “Ave Maria,” the woman on the recording sings with impassioned vibrato. There is a peacefulness about this place that approaches the religious. Sacred sea. Holy heat. Some kind of Heaven, maybe.
Full moon. The coastline disappears, lights wink out,...
Tidbits from Day 2: Thursday, May 27
Cyprus was the first country to be ruled by a Christian. Who would’ve known?
We took the bus to the harbor. As we waited at the bus stop, I was expecting a rickety little rickshaw to pull up, or a honking Greek version of a VW bus. Instead, it was an old coach bus that came to a stop before us, a decaying specimen that nevertheless aspired to greatness with its plush, elevated seats and...
Day 1 in Paphos: Wednesday, May 26
This can’t be real life. I woke up to a tea tray beside my bed and lazily brewed a cup of PG Tips, with two squares of sugar unfolded from their paper wrapper. Now, I am myself folded, sweaty knees held tightly together, on a cushioned chair in the sun. Inside, two cleaning ladies jabber away, their voices not unlike the clicking birds in nearby trees. A beetle overturns itself on the pale...
En Route and Arrival: Tuesday, May 25
Already, the laughter has begun. At the security gate, one of the guards lifts up a plastic bag from a nearby bin and instructs the passengers to present all their liquids like so. The bag he holds contains two slim tubes of lip gloss and belongs to a mousy middle-aged man in front of us. The guard looks back and forth from the make-up to the man. The corners of his mouth twitch: a stifled smile....
May 2010
45 posts
Today’s the day: in a matter of hours, I will be boarding a plane bound for the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where I’ll stay with my Aunt and Uncle for a week. One last big hurrah of global adventuring. My traveling companion is my dear friend Tess—one of my best pals since the age of five—who crossed the Atlantic yesterday to meet me in London.
She sleeps now,...
One of the funny things a woman can offer a man is a curved roof. Don’t laugh. Pagodas are feminine.
As soon as a woman is living in a room, its ceiling curves. You haven’t noticed? If she’s wretched in the room, it droops like a torn sleeve. If she’s OK it rolls on and on like the hills of Galilee. To have the effect, it’s not enough for a woman to visit a room, she...
Cruel To Be Kind
The city can be mean. I’ve seen its ugly head crane around, eyes leering from a waxen skull, fearsome and beyond all control.
Last night, we went to a club called Plastic People in Shoreditch to celebrate Rachel’s 21st birthday. The plump DJ spun disco tunes for a dance floor full of bodies: old bodies, young bodies, foreign bodies, lonely bodies, lusting bodies. Bodies full of...
Musicomania
Stag and Dagger was, to be blunt, pretty staggering. Too many venues stretched over too great a distance. Too few hours for too many good bands. Before we left, I had made a color-coordinated list of which groups I wanted to see, at what time and at which club. I even wrote out a brief description for each one so that I would remember what they sounded like. For instance: Class Actress—80s...
Also, a word to the wise:
Don’t drink Prosecco and then take a shower.
You will wind up with an awful pink bump on your forehead that will perplex you every time your fingers find it by accident. You will become one of those cartoon characters with the phallic lump and the many glittering stars in orbit.
Family and Friends
My mom is here. We have a good time together. I met her at the Charing Cross station after a forty-five minute wait (I am perpetually too early; alas, it is my curse). It took her a moment to recognize me in my new alpine hat and polka-dot playsuit. So different I must have looked from the timid twenty-year-old she left back in January on the frigid edges of Southeast London, when I had hair down...