I got this shirt a while ago from the Gap and just wanted to share how much I appreciate its ... shirtness. I also really love my new fan, which is the size of a small person but only cost 20 pounds. I've even named it; it's called THE SILENCER, which sounds like the name of a movie in which Bruce Willis kills people, but actually references the fact that this fan is quite effective at drowning out noise so that I can study.
Other things ... I like strawberries. I like getting a package of strawberries, cutting them up, and eating them all at once. All sixty million of them. The strawberries here have been especially good for the last couple of weeks.
I also wanted to share this picture from the book I'm reading, which is Britain B.C. by Francis "I Planted 900 Chestnut Trees, Bitch" Pryor. It supposedly shows a picture of a Neanderthal man "in modern dress," which I thought was funny because apparently whoever drew this considers "modern dress" to mean "a fedora."
A fedora. Really? I know that we're trying to move away from the image of Neanderthals as idiotic Stone Age thugs, but is it really going to help to replace that with the stereotype that they were all a bunch of 1950s-era private detectives?
I learned about Bench Monday from Mackville Road. Apparently, it is a thing. Now I'm joining in with this picture I took my mother took all the way back on May 8 in Reading, but have never been able to remember to post on a Monday ... until now.
I've been thinking about bathing suits. A year ago, I became obsessed with old-fashioned bathing suits - specifically one that my grandmother had in the 1950s.
Ever since I saw that bathing suit, I have been unable to find any other one that I like. There are a lot of vintage-inspired suits out there, but dammit I want that suit. Eventually I may just have to give in and make it myself, with those sewing skills that I will magically acquire.
I've also looked to Etsy and eBay, which have a few authentic vintage bathing suits:
I'm not really a fan of Shakespeare. I mean, I think he was an amazing writer, but I can't call myself a fan of him the way that I'm a fan of, say, Flannery O'Connor, Peter Case, or ... wood pigeons. Still, I have to say I really enjoyed our program's trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon. You don't have to be a Shakespeare aficionado to appreciate the super-old buildings, museums, beautiful streets, and the kick-ass play we saw.
The weather was amazing too.
We saw Shakespeare's birthplace, which I liked a hell of a lot more than Winston Churchill's birthplace (Blenheim Palace). The building had so many features that I adore: warped floorboards that creak when you step on them, exposed wooden beams, wattle and daub, windows with rippled panes in diamond-shaped lattices ... I would love to live there.
Outside was a small garden filled with roses:
We then went to Nash house and New Place. The former was home to Shakespeare's granddaughter and her husband; the latter, which no longer exists, was the house next door where Shakespeare lived the last years of his life.
I was surprised to find that there was an excavation going on, exposing the foundations of New Place. While the excavation and research on it seem pretty awesome, I was a little disappointed with the information available about it. It was very "Archaeology Lite" - designed for small children. Come on, Stratford, big kids like archaeology too!
We got to see the excavation site, though, which was nice:
Afterward we wandered through the town. It was pretty incredible to see so many old (or old-style?) buildings preserved. Less incredible: every restaurant/coffee shop/gift shop/pub/brothel etc. had to have a cutesy Shakespeare-related nickname. I guess that's just how it goes, although I doubt there are many Flannery O'Connor-inspired establishments in Georgia. The Violent Bear It Away Restaurant just doesn't have the same ring to it.
We walked by the River Avon:
There was a ton of water fowl hanging out, like these geese. I think they're called Beatrix Potter geese.
There were Canada geese, too, including this one that was really interested in the camera:
And ducks:
And there was a swan! Aww, look at the swan. How beautiful.
Hey, look, now there are two swans!
Wow. Um, where did all those swans come from?
TOO MANY SWANS. I REPEAT, TOO MANY SWANS. WE ARE IN AN EMINENT-DEATH-BY-SWAN SITUATION. HOLY CRAP!
Anyway, we moved on from there to the Dirty Duck a.k.a. The Black Swan a.k.a. Who Named This Place?
There was clotted cream ice cream.
Last of all, we saw "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was so good. Consider the fact that I am neither a fan of Shakespeare nor plays in general, and you will get an idea of how good it was. It was just so fantastic, engaging, and fun. I was really into it. The audience - which consisted of a strange mixture of blue-haired old ladies and school children - seemed into it, too.
That being said, I still find the small excerpt from "Hamlet" in this clip to be the best performance of Shakespeare I have ever seen. Sorry, Kenneth Branagh. (Warning: the audio is NSFW.)
These pictures are from a trip to London I took several weeks ago, but I never posted them here. I went back to the scary angel statue to take dramatic pictures.
I also saw Buckingham Palace. It's big, you guys. It would be pretty cool to live there.
I'd much prefer to live in one of these flats, though:
I also went to the British Museum. I saw some of the pottery that Arthur Evans unearthed at Knossos, including this huge pithoi jar:
And this octopus vase:
I saw some Egyptian things too:
And this awesome fish mosaic:
And lastly, the requisite Sutton Hoo treasures. Those things never get old. Except that they're a thousand years old. But you know what I mean.
I have a beautiful story to tell you. Don't read on unless you're comfortable reading about crap. A lot of crap.
Today was one of the six gorgeous days per year that England is allowed to have, as per their contract with Satan, or something. I had some time in between appointments in town so I went to Wadham to lie on the lawn for a little while and read a book. There I was, innocently minding my own business with Seahenge by Francis "I Pwn Your Archaeology" Pryor, when a bird suddenly landed in the tree above me, squawked loudly, and crapped all over me.
And when I say "all over me," I mean all. over. me. Good God, I have never seen so much crap in my life. It got all over my shirt and my scarf. All over my shorts. On the book I was reading. On my hands and all down my arms. Down the entire length of both my legs. Over the tops of both my feet. In my shoes.
For a while I just laid there like that, unsure of what to do. It just seemed too ridiculous to be real. It was the amount of crap you'd expect to see in a Judd Apatow movie, maybe, if Judd Apatow made movies about crap. It was ... Trainspotting levels of crap. Yes, I went there. But it was.
I called my mother, because I didn't know anyone else who would appreciate the whole thing quite as much. As predicted, she found it hilarious. The first thing she asked was, "Did you take a picture?"
No, I didn't, but I did take pictures of the scene beforehand, so you can all go ahead and imagine it yourself. Or you could rent Trainspotting.
By that time I had gotten myself to the nearest bathroom and scrubbed all of the crap off of me, except for the crap on my clothes. I had to throw my scarf away; it was just too crapped. Really. I also did my best to scrub the crap off of Seahenge. Mr. Pryor, a bird has given its review of your book, and it's not good.
Then, because I had an appointment in less than an hour, I had the pleasure of going clothes-shopping covered in crap. And buying clothes to replace the ones covered with crap. I was a sight. Seriously, I was afraid that the government was going to rush in to spray me with one of those firefighter hoses, quarantine me, and vivisect me for military research, a la District 9.*
The next part of my journey took place in the handicapped bathroom at Blackwell's: changing my clothes, sorting my belongings into "contaminated" and "uncontaminated" bags, yelling "WAIT A MINUTE!" like a crazy person to the people I thought were trying to break down the door but actually was just the sound of the door to the other bathroom closing really loud, and giving myself a Flannery O'Connor-style river baptism with hand sanitizer - you know, the typical stuff. On the way downstairs I passed a guy who had stared at me on my way upstairs, and now he was staring at me again as walked by with totally different clothes on. "Yes," I wanted to tell him, "you have just seen my alter ego, Covered in Bird Crap Girl. We shall not speak of it again."
I then bought a muffin and another book by Francis "I Eat Your Archaeology for Breakfast" Pryor, because I couldn't touch the other one, but I'd be damned if I was going to let copious amounts of feces keep me from reading about old British crap, or whatever.
The silver lining in this story is, of course, that the bird managed not to crap above my neck, which I guess is the way I would have chosen it, if I were the kind of person who sat around thinking about hypothetical bird crap situations. It didn't get on my face (ugh) or my hair, which is great, because look what I managed to do with it today:
So that is my beautiful bird crap story. I hope your life is richer having read it. Mine is sure richer having lived it. I'm sure.
* For the love of God, do not see this movie until they've released the sequel. Maybe you're fine with totally unresolved, stupid, "What the hell?" endings, but I am not. Damn you, Peter Jackson, I know that you know how to end a movie. Lord of the Rings had approximately 20 endings. You couldn't have saved one of those for later and tacked it on to District 9? Sure, it wouldn't have made much sense, but what about a man turning into a giant prawn does?
