This blog post stems from a comment I made almost absent-mindedly in a email to Rob recently. I had been listening to a one-off program from BBC radio on the Miners' strike (it's here, though only available for another four days; also related is this good Pulp song), a topic which up to now had been of very little interest to me. Indeed, I wouldn't have known about the program at all if the G2 hadn't given it a glowing review (and it was indeed very good). But, as I said to Rob, I felt compelled to go and find it to learn more about this event, because there is so much I don't know about the recent history of what is now fairly certain to be my adoptive country, and I feel I need to somehow fill all these gaps.
But do I really have to? Is it necessary, upon acquiring a new home country, to get up to speed about all the events of the last 30 years that are impressed on the psyche of those who have been there all along, or is it pretentious (in a look-at-me-how-well-I'm-assimilating way) and futile (since obviously snatches of history here and there are not going to replace having lived through a particular period or event, even with videos and interviews and soundbites and all that)? I'm still trying to figure it out, and maybe writing about it will help me along the way.
To be clear, I am not talking about keeping up-to-date about current events in one's home country (however transient) - that seems to me to be a given, for any number of unsurprising reasons, such as feeling like you're somehow part of the wider community, being able to follow a conversation with your local friends and colleagues, knowing what's going to happen to the places or institutions around you, and maybe understanding your hosts better. It's why I made myself sit through the web-streamed State of the Union the other month, check this guy's blog more or less daily, and sometimes even get round to looking at the CNN homepage.
But what about what went before? On a very basic level, filling the gaps is good because it enables you to get cultural and historical references, in people's conversations, in films and tv shows, in songs. It's not a good enough reason, though. Sometimes I feel like I'm not really allowed to call the UK my home (ignoring for now all the other issues we were talking about a couple of months ago) because I have not lived through the same things that my peers have, big events like the fall of the Tories, the IRA bombs - I know so little about it all. Then again, I don't know that much about my own country, either - obviously there are events you live through and experience, but it's not like I could give anyone a reasoned and detailed account of Mani Pulite or the Red Brigades. Perhaps, if all this socio-historical background is really so important to me, there is an argument to be made in favour of learning more about where I come from before worrying about where I'm going.
Or perhaps I just have a very warped understanding of what makes one feel settled within a community, and a shared past is in fact not a key part of it? After all, one can very happily go about their day-to-day business without needing to know what O-levels are or why one hesitates for a moment when a Jeffrey Archer novel is donated in the Oxfam shop. But shared past, I think, is one of those things that make themselves known only by their absence, not their presence. Ultimately, if you are going to be living in a place for a long time, you want to feel you belong there - not to the point of losing your own identity, just to the point of feeling, understandably, at home and comfortable, without drawing attention to your 'otherness' all the time (just at crucial times, like the World Cup or the Six Nations or when being dragged to Pizza Express :-) ). And, of course, nothing singles you out as 'the other' as quickly as not being able to understand or share in the public reaction to an event (or the memory of one). Like when Gordon Brown had tea with Maggie Thatcher a couple of years ago and most people I know were livid: I could rationally understand their reaction, but I was just missing too much to have the same reaction emotionally.
I guess that, with time, these things smooth over and you end up acquiring enough of a back catalogue, in some way or other, that the issue ceases to be one. And then you can start worrying about losing your homeland identity...
Friday, 5 March 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
A confused tangle of thoughts
Where the confusion that characterises my mode of expression at the best of times, is here compounded by the fact that I am trying to get over a coldy-fluy thing (my just retribution for feeling smug about having avoided illness all winter so far) and am typing this on my little eee laptop (which, I hasten to add, I love dearly, but just wasn't made for spending 14 hours in front of as I seem to have done today), since the hard drive on my 'proper' one has finally given up after more than four years of honourable service, loads of travel, a DPhil thesis, and general abuse [1]. Anyway. Having just (well, a few days ago now) returned from a quick visit to England, I find that I have lots to say and think over, so brace yourselves for a long post...
First, for once BA got a few things very right, so I think it's fair to mention them. Having seen the blizzard alerts (which eventually resulted in over a foot of snow and my office being closed for 2 days while I was away [2]) I decided to move my flight to an earlier one to minimise chances of being stranded at the airport (well, actually it was Sarah's wise suggestion, but still). They let me do this without batting an eyelid, and crucially without charging me a penny - quite unheard of. I was impressed. Also, among the on-board entertainment (which I was determined to ignore, in the vague hope of getting some sleep) was one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen: Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. Buy it, rent it, look it up on YouTube (it was all there last time I checked) - it was so good and clever and hilarious - and not just because I love Bill Bailey anyway (Black Books FTW!). He goes into all sorts of insightful discussions of the effects of individual instruments on symphonies, soundtracks, incidental music, and really makes you think about what you're listening to. Like an updated version of this (just being pretentious and highbrow here). Just look at this and laugh and marvel along with me!
So, Oxford. Not having been back since April, it was sort of a test to see if what I had said a while ago did in fact still hold, or if I would be overcome by nostalgia and wistfulness and have to be put on the coach to the airport kicking and screaming and clutching the sides of the St Clements bus stop shelter (hm, not a very glamorous image, all things considered). As it happens, the wistfulness did happen, but I think I managed it more or less ok and boarded the coach to the airport with equanitmity (and much tiredness, which probably helped). I had a great time, and loved seeing everyone again, and was very sociable, and was reminded what a very sociable and tight-knit lot we all are - with both 'historic' and more recent additions to the fold. I know not all departments are like that (Comlab, anyone?) and we are particularly lucky, and that makes it all the harder to have to leave it behind again - though I realise that as we all get older and move on post-DPhil things will change anyway, as they already slowly are.
I must confess to two major nostalgia attacks, the first so stereotypical that I almost hesitate to say - so, I got my alumna yellow card at the Bod (which sadly no longer has a picture of my 18-yr-old self on it), which in itself was highly amusing as it required me to leaf through the Big Red Books (like the Big Grey Book, but red, of course) which contain records of every person who completed any degree in a given academic year to find myself and prove that I had indeed been registered for them as I claimed (computerised records? What are they?). Anyway. I digress. I got my card, and stood in the mercifully-and-miraculously-free-from-tourists courtyard, and remembered what a beautiful, beautiful building the Bodleian is. And felt incredibly lucky that I could keep going there for free, without too much hassle. I did feel a little imposterous walking around the Upper Reading Room (though I did actually have work to do - just not work that necessarily required the library to be done), but also, shamefully, relieved that I could keep doing it.
The second bout of nostalgia was a lot more complex, and brought on by the fact that Nick has been staying in a house off Cowley Road, just round the corner from where I used to live in The Year of Living Out (2nd year undergrad; plus of course various other years between Cowley and St Clements). Who'd have thought that a skanky road filled with shops which are either boarded up or highly dubious (well, ok, there are a few notable exceptions such as G&D's), and characters ditto, could provoke such strong emotions? Granted, there are far too many episodes from that year which it would be best to consign to eternal oblivion, as I was reminded as it all came flooding back, but it was also a fun year, and Cowley's quirks and screwball places make it a great place to live for a little while. Hi-Los appears to be still alive (though one can never be quite sure), as are Bead Games and Honest! Stationery, and the more recent addition of the Neapolitan deli. All together now: aaaw, Cowley Road...
As if all this weren't enough, as you might have seen from Fb, I decided to max out on the nostalgia thing by going to the Zodiac on Saturday night (ok, so technically it was a false nostalgia since we never went on a Saturday but on a Friday, but bear with me), though it's not called Zodiac anymore, I'm not sure what the current name is, some permutation of Sponsor + Academy, I think. This is irrelevant: it is the Zodiac, really. This was a very interesting experience. We had fun, though the definition of 'indie' is clearly interpreted very loosely, taking in Dizzee Rascall (sp?), Iggy Pop, Blondie, and Prodigy (not that this is a bad thing, well, minus the Dizzee Rascall), and, pleasingly, it still costs more or less the same to get in. But so much has changed! For example, I'm pretty sure that when we headed over our main criteria in deciding what to wear were comfort and resistance to drinks spillage. Perhaps attraction to the opposite (or rather desired) sex may have played a part, but I seriously doubt it. But oh, the youth of today! They - well, the girls, really - were so done up. Little skirts and cute dresses and elaborate get-ups and such high heels - I'm not trying to be an old fogey here - there is nothing wrong with getting dressed up (though it would be nice to see some tights once in a while) - but for the Zodiac? Really? It's just...no. Also, there was so much security wandering about the place, constantly checking the toilets, bringing in police - surely we didn't have this before? Are they meant to make us feel safer? Because I have to say, they achieved exactly the opposite effect - I kept thinking that if they had to be there, monitoring us all, it was because something was about to happen, and that therefore this was the kind of place where Things Tend To Happen. Which was not a nice feeling. Nick suggested that it might have something to do with changes in the licensing laws, such that there could be more severe penalties if things do go wrong? I don't know, but I didn't like it.
(hang on in there, almost done...)
I was really glad that I managed to catch the last few days of the Steampunk exhibition at the (always pretty cool, if slightly occasionally impenetrable) History of Science Museum. I wouldn't do Steampunk myself, but it is fun to look at (and is clearly all over Firefly) and occasionally very clever; and the Museum had done a very cool thing in creating a display of real Victorian objects and tools of the sort which inspire Steampunk, some of which aren't really very different...
Finally (she says, as she hears a collective sigh of relief coming from the loyal(?) readership), a few brief considerations on Nottingham, a place I had never been to and which I had the pleasure of visiting briefly for a few hours. Typically for England, for fewer hours than it took me to actually get there and back from Oxford on the train. It has a jolly nice campus, with lots of sprawling greenness and fairly functional and newish looking buildings. A very diverse student population, reminding us that Oxbridge is not, in fact, in any way representative of the real world. The centre of town has the usual collection of brands you find anywhere in the UK, but also some lovely bits of industrial archeology and buildings in the process of being reclaimed, which I know isn't everyone's thing, but I quite fancy. More importantly, it has a nice canal, and you can't go wrong with a town with a canal (though upon reflection it seems to me that almost all English towns have canals - something to do with the Industrial Revolution? - so maybe possession of a canal is not a sufficient condition on its own to endear a place to me), and a very cool modern/contemporary art museum (Thanks N for telling me about it!) which had just opened a fantastic exhibtion on the Soviet space race and art (oh those posters!), and had a great cafe downstairs to boot. That seemed to me an even more positive and encouraging trait that even the canal. Sometimes I ashamed by how little of non-touristy England I have seen in all these years...
So, congratulations and thank you for making it all the way through, and here's hoping that the next blog post will be brought to you by a less feverish (though by no means less manic, no, never!) and better computeristically-equipped Ra!
[1] This is sad, but not unexpected, so I am fully backed up and kinda glad to be moving on from Windows XP since it's a bit ridiculous to be still using an operating system that is, like, 8 years old, and at least I have the other laptop to tide me over, or I would go completely crazy!
[2] So, yes, I actually missed out on experiencing my first ever Real Blizzard. I was a little disappointed, but in the main, preferred being away from the mayhem and the having-to-shovel-things (not that I didn't have to shovel my car out anyway in the end).
First, for once BA got a few things very right, so I think it's fair to mention them. Having seen the blizzard alerts (which eventually resulted in over a foot of snow and my office being closed for 2 days while I was away [2]) I decided to move my flight to an earlier one to minimise chances of being stranded at the airport (well, actually it was Sarah's wise suggestion, but still). They let me do this without batting an eyelid, and crucially without charging me a penny - quite unheard of. I was impressed. Also, among the on-board entertainment (which I was determined to ignore, in the vague hope of getting some sleep) was one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen: Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. Buy it, rent it, look it up on YouTube (it was all there last time I checked) - it was so good and clever and hilarious - and not just because I love Bill Bailey anyway (Black Books FTW!). He goes into all sorts of insightful discussions of the effects of individual instruments on symphonies, soundtracks, incidental music, and really makes you think about what you're listening to. Like an updated version of this (just being pretentious and highbrow here). Just look at this and laugh and marvel along with me!
So, Oxford. Not having been back since April, it was sort of a test to see if what I had said a while ago did in fact still hold, or if I would be overcome by nostalgia and wistfulness and have to be put on the coach to the airport kicking and screaming and clutching the sides of the St Clements bus stop shelter (hm, not a very glamorous image, all things considered). As it happens, the wistfulness did happen, but I think I managed it more or less ok and boarded the coach to the airport with equanitmity (and much tiredness, which probably helped). I had a great time, and loved seeing everyone again, and was very sociable, and was reminded what a very sociable and tight-knit lot we all are - with both 'historic' and more recent additions to the fold. I know not all departments are like that (Comlab, anyone?) and we are particularly lucky, and that makes it all the harder to have to leave it behind again - though I realise that as we all get older and move on post-DPhil things will change anyway, as they already slowly are.
I must confess to two major nostalgia attacks, the first so stereotypical that I almost hesitate to say - so, I got my alumna yellow card at the Bod (which sadly no longer has a picture of my 18-yr-old self on it), which in itself was highly amusing as it required me to leaf through the Big Red Books (like the Big Grey Book, but red, of course) which contain records of every person who completed any degree in a given academic year to find myself and prove that I had indeed been registered for them as I claimed (computerised records? What are they?). Anyway. I digress. I got my card, and stood in the mercifully-and-miraculously-free-from-tourists courtyard, and remembered what a beautiful, beautiful building the Bodleian is. And felt incredibly lucky that I could keep going there for free, without too much hassle. I did feel a little imposterous walking around the Upper Reading Room (though I did actually have work to do - just not work that necessarily required the library to be done), but also, shamefully, relieved that I could keep doing it.
The second bout of nostalgia was a lot more complex, and brought on by the fact that Nick has been staying in a house off Cowley Road, just round the corner from where I used to live in The Year of Living Out (2nd year undergrad; plus of course various other years between Cowley and St Clements). Who'd have thought that a skanky road filled with shops which are either boarded up or highly dubious (well, ok, there are a few notable exceptions such as G&D's), and characters ditto, could provoke such strong emotions? Granted, there are far too many episodes from that year which it would be best to consign to eternal oblivion, as I was reminded as it all came flooding back, but it was also a fun year, and Cowley's quirks and screwball places make it a great place to live for a little while. Hi-Los appears to be still alive (though one can never be quite sure), as are Bead Games and Honest! Stationery, and the more recent addition of the Neapolitan deli. All together now: aaaw, Cowley Road...
As if all this weren't enough, as you might have seen from Fb, I decided to max out on the nostalgia thing by going to the Zodiac on Saturday night (ok, so technically it was a false nostalgia since we never went on a Saturday but on a Friday, but bear with me), though it's not called Zodiac anymore, I'm not sure what the current name is, some permutation of Sponsor + Academy, I think. This is irrelevant: it is the Zodiac, really. This was a very interesting experience. We had fun, though the definition of 'indie' is clearly interpreted very loosely, taking in Dizzee Rascall (sp?), Iggy Pop, Blondie, and Prodigy (not that this is a bad thing, well, minus the Dizzee Rascall), and, pleasingly, it still costs more or less the same to get in. But so much has changed! For example, I'm pretty sure that when we headed over our main criteria in deciding what to wear were comfort and resistance to drinks spillage. Perhaps attraction to the opposite (or rather desired) sex may have played a part, but I seriously doubt it. But oh, the youth of today! They - well, the girls, really - were so done up. Little skirts and cute dresses and elaborate get-ups and such high heels - I'm not trying to be an old fogey here - there is nothing wrong with getting dressed up (though it would be nice to see some tights once in a while) - but for the Zodiac? Really? It's just...no. Also, there was so much security wandering about the place, constantly checking the toilets, bringing in police - surely we didn't have this before? Are they meant to make us feel safer? Because I have to say, they achieved exactly the opposite effect - I kept thinking that if they had to be there, monitoring us all, it was because something was about to happen, and that therefore this was the kind of place where Things Tend To Happen. Which was not a nice feeling. Nick suggested that it might have something to do with changes in the licensing laws, such that there could be more severe penalties if things do go wrong? I don't know, but I didn't like it.
(hang on in there, almost done...)
I was really glad that I managed to catch the last few days of the Steampunk exhibition at the (always pretty cool, if slightly occasionally impenetrable) History of Science Museum. I wouldn't do Steampunk myself, but it is fun to look at (and is clearly all over Firefly) and occasionally very clever; and the Museum had done a very cool thing in creating a display of real Victorian objects and tools of the sort which inspire Steampunk, some of which aren't really very different...
Finally (she says, as she hears a collective sigh of relief coming from the loyal(?) readership), a few brief considerations on Nottingham, a place I had never been to and which I had the pleasure of visiting briefly for a few hours. Typically for England, for fewer hours than it took me to actually get there and back from Oxford on the train. It has a jolly nice campus, with lots of sprawling greenness and fairly functional and newish looking buildings. A very diverse student population, reminding us that Oxbridge is not, in fact, in any way representative of the real world. The centre of town has the usual collection of brands you find anywhere in the UK, but also some lovely bits of industrial archeology and buildings in the process of being reclaimed, which I know isn't everyone's thing, but I quite fancy. More importantly, it has a nice canal, and you can't go wrong with a town with a canal (though upon reflection it seems to me that almost all English towns have canals - something to do with the Industrial Revolution? - so maybe possession of a canal is not a sufficient condition on its own to endear a place to me), and a very cool modern/contemporary art museum (Thanks N for telling me about it!) which had just opened a fantastic exhibtion on the Soviet space race and art (oh those posters!), and had a great cafe downstairs to boot. That seemed to me an even more positive and encouraging trait that even the canal. Sometimes I ashamed by how little of non-touristy England I have seen in all these years...
So, congratulations and thank you for making it all the way through, and here's hoping that the next blog post will be brought to you by a less feverish (though by no means less manic, no, never!) and better computeristically-equipped Ra!
[1] This is sad, but not unexpected, so I am fully backed up and kinda glad to be moving on from Windows XP since it's a bit ridiculous to be still using an operating system that is, like, 8 years old, and at least I have the other laptop to tide me over, or I would go completely crazy!
[2] So, yes, I actually missed out on experiencing my first ever Real Blizzard. I was a little disappointed, but in the main, preferred being away from the mayhem and the having-to-shovel-things (not that I didn't have to shovel my car out anyway in the end).
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Urban living
I notice I haven't posted in two weeks and I wonder where the time has gone...mainly spread between working manically, trying to finish a paper or two, being a bit sociable, and monitoring little girl scouts as they sell cookies.
The latter has been both a pain and an interesting experience, like so many things to do with my troop. It was not particularly fun to spend two chunks of my weekend standing about in the cold in central Princeton watching the girls peddle the cookies to the masses - though I have to say that the masses were hardly reluctant to receive them, we shifted almost 200 boxes over last weekend, and people are mostly really nice and nostalgic and kind when they come up to us. But it is anthropologically interesting to observe the girls dealing with this task, coming up with songs and rhymes to chant out to draw people's attention, little dances too, quirky things to say about the cookies (which may or may not be entirely true), and also what they notice about the other people - like they excuses they give for not buying any cookies, or a particular comment someone might make. I am constantly surprised by them, by the way they will suddenly say something really insightful, or deal with a difficult issue with a smile. But do these 'awww' moments outnumber the 'omg you are such a brat' moments? Have I suddenly become enamoured of all child-kind? If you're reading this, you probably know me well enough to know the answer :-)
But the blog title refers to my recent forays into the urban havens that so conveniently surround Princeton - I seriously think I would implode if I wasn't able to run off to a city every few weeks and listen to cars honking and watch steam escape from manholes and gaze upon lit skyscrapers (note to self: easy access to London probably essential trait of future dwelling-place).
On Thursday night, I met up with Wilco in NYC, his current stop on this amazing tour that he and H have undertaken on behalf of the university - it's always fun to see an old friend in a random setting, so that was nice. I was a little early to the meeting place (because NJ Transit did not let me down with the amazing 4.40 train that gets into the city in 59 minutes and may well be my favouritest train in the world - or maybe second favourite, the favourite being any train that takes me to or from an airport thus hastening my reuniting with Nick [apologies for the soppy moment there!])and had a wander round the High Line, which you may remember had me enthused this summer. Except this time it was 6pm in January, freezing with a wind chill factor of freezing^2, and of course I decide that wandering round an elevated and exposed structure is the best plan. I was basically the only person there and it was...fantastic. I caught the tail-end of the sunset (conveniently, it faces west), the bit where the sky is almost all dark but there is a glowing reddish hue towards the bottom and it was so beautiful, I looked down at the end-of-the-day traffic, looked around at the skyscrapers and the water towers (which I adore for some bizarre reason) and just felt incredibly happy. So that is my zen moment of the week.
On Friday night I headed over to Philadelphia to meet up with Lara, whom I hadn't managed to see since the summer. I hadn't been to Philadelphia for anything other than gigs since I was there with Naomi last spring so I had sort of forgotten what a nice place it is, especially the neighbourhood where Lara lives, with lots of funky cafes and chilled places to have brunch, lunch, coffee, and whatever else you might need. We had dinner and drinks on Friday, including an attempt to learn something about US whiskies (we ended up with a rather nice one whose name now of course escapes me), chatted lots (much appreciated, much needed), and looked at cool stuff on Saturday, in between the polar temperatures - the Philadelphia Museum of Art was very amazing, with lots of reconstructed environments such as Indian and Japanese temples (best not wonder too much about how this all came about) and Chinese governmental offices and also a large amount of American art and objects - very enlightening in trying to get a sense of what life was like in the first decades of this country, and what was considered art-worthy. We also went to the Magic Gardens, a truly incredible place which I can't really describe - follow the link to see photos - imagine a mural/mosaic consisting of bottles and ceramic tiles and glass and mirror shards and terracotta figures, spread over 3000 square feet...you could probably spend days there trying to take everything in and appreciating all the different images. I have never seen anything like it.
So there you have it - my life seems to be lurching between the innocence of girl scout cookies and the debauchedness of copious imbibing, propped up by looming deadlines at every corner. I guess the next logical step is to make some sort of girl scout cookie-based cocktail, no?
The latter has been both a pain and an interesting experience, like so many things to do with my troop. It was not particularly fun to spend two chunks of my weekend standing about in the cold in central Princeton watching the girls peddle the cookies to the masses - though I have to say that the masses were hardly reluctant to receive them, we shifted almost 200 boxes over last weekend, and people are mostly really nice and nostalgic and kind when they come up to us. But it is anthropologically interesting to observe the girls dealing with this task, coming up with songs and rhymes to chant out to draw people's attention, little dances too, quirky things to say about the cookies (which may or may not be entirely true), and also what they notice about the other people - like they excuses they give for not buying any cookies, or a particular comment someone might make. I am constantly surprised by them, by the way they will suddenly say something really insightful, or deal with a difficult issue with a smile. But do these 'awww' moments outnumber the 'omg you are such a brat' moments? Have I suddenly become enamoured of all child-kind? If you're reading this, you probably know me well enough to know the answer :-)
But the blog title refers to my recent forays into the urban havens that so conveniently surround Princeton - I seriously think I would implode if I wasn't able to run off to a city every few weeks and listen to cars honking and watch steam escape from manholes and gaze upon lit skyscrapers (note to self: easy access to London probably essential trait of future dwelling-place).
On Thursday night, I met up with Wilco in NYC, his current stop on this amazing tour that he and H have undertaken on behalf of the university - it's always fun to see an old friend in a random setting, so that was nice. I was a little early to the meeting place (because NJ Transit did not let me down with the amazing 4.40 train that gets into the city in 59 minutes and may well be my favouritest train in the world - or maybe second favourite, the favourite being any train that takes me to or from an airport thus hastening my reuniting with Nick [apologies for the soppy moment there!])and had a wander round the High Line, which you may remember had me enthused this summer. Except this time it was 6pm in January, freezing with a wind chill factor of freezing^2, and of course I decide that wandering round an elevated and exposed structure is the best plan. I was basically the only person there and it was...fantastic. I caught the tail-end of the sunset (conveniently, it faces west), the bit where the sky is almost all dark but there is a glowing reddish hue towards the bottom and it was so beautiful, I looked down at the end-of-the-day traffic, looked around at the skyscrapers and the water towers (which I adore for some bizarre reason) and just felt incredibly happy. So that is my zen moment of the week.
On Friday night I headed over to Philadelphia to meet up with Lara, whom I hadn't managed to see since the summer. I hadn't been to Philadelphia for anything other than gigs since I was there with Naomi last spring so I had sort of forgotten what a nice place it is, especially the neighbourhood where Lara lives, with lots of funky cafes and chilled places to have brunch, lunch, coffee, and whatever else you might need. We had dinner and drinks on Friday, including an attempt to learn something about US whiskies (we ended up with a rather nice one whose name now of course escapes me), chatted lots (much appreciated, much needed), and looked at cool stuff on Saturday, in between the polar temperatures - the Philadelphia Museum of Art was very amazing, with lots of reconstructed environments such as Indian and Japanese temples (best not wonder too much about how this all came about) and Chinese governmental offices and also a large amount of American art and objects - very enlightening in trying to get a sense of what life was like in the first decades of this country, and what was considered art-worthy. We also went to the Magic Gardens, a truly incredible place which I can't really describe - follow the link to see photos - imagine a mural/mosaic consisting of bottles and ceramic tiles and glass and mirror shards and terracotta figures, spread over 3000 square feet...you could probably spend days there trying to take everything in and appreciating all the different images. I have never seen anything like it.
So there you have it - my life seems to be lurching between the innocence of girl scout cookies and the debauchedness of copious imbibing, propped up by looming deadlines at every corner. I guess the next logical step is to make some sort of girl scout cookie-based cocktail, no?
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Good times
Bits and pieces have been keeping me busy since I got back (and last wrote). The first weekend I was back, we had an overnight trip with the girls to the same campsite we'd gone to in September. This time though we did not, thankfully, stay in tents but in the nice heated 'main house' which gave me my own room (albeit with a not-very-comfortable bunk bed) and had a lovely kitchen for the kids to try their hand at all sorts of recipes. We had gorgeous weather though it was freezing - around -10 (C), to be precise. But see how pretty it was!
The frozen white stuff is a bit of the canal - it was all quite frozen over. I was a bit wary of going at first, what with being busy and tired and having been back for less than a week, but then the martyr in me decided to go, and I'm so glad I did - I ended up having loads of fun, felt very refreshed watching the girls play outside and take pleasure in simple things like jumping on the ice until it broke (I hasten to add this took place in a shallow stream, where the most they could get wet was their feet and ankles - I had no desire to reenact Amy March on the ice), and discovered new aspects of some of my girls, whom I had previously had somewhat different opinions about. And there is something about watching kids - whether they are outside or handling cooking implements - which sort of takes up your whole mind at the time, so you really don't have a chance to dwell on anything else, and paradoxically I found that very, very relaxing.
We haven't really had any proper winter weather so far, apart from it being rather cold - mostly very sunny and bright - which is ok by me, much as I'd like a snow day, I'm still dreading having to drive in the snow/ice, so the longer it stays away, the better, really.
What else...had loads of fun today going to this amazing Japanese supermarket with my Japanese friend. I had no idea what most of the stuff on sale was, and you couldn't even tell from the drawings on the packages half the time, but it was very intriguing and fun all the same. Sometimes I wish I could take a year off and just eat my way round the world...so many dishes, so little time...
So as you can see I don't actually have that much of interest and excitement to report - but life is good, I'm trying to take time for myself (as at least one good friend never fails to remind me to do), trying to chat more with friends, and above all feeling so grateful that this winter is epically different from the previous one. It took some work, but we got there in the end!
The frozen white stuff is a bit of the canal - it was all quite frozen over. I was a bit wary of going at first, what with being busy and tired and having been back for less than a week, but then the martyr in me decided to go, and I'm so glad I did - I ended up having loads of fun, felt very refreshed watching the girls play outside and take pleasure in simple things like jumping on the ice until it broke (I hasten to add this took place in a shallow stream, where the most they could get wet was their feet and ankles - I had no desire to reenact Amy March on the ice), and discovered new aspects of some of my girls, whom I had previously had somewhat different opinions about. And there is something about watching kids - whether they are outside or handling cooking implements - which sort of takes up your whole mind at the time, so you really don't have a chance to dwell on anything else, and paradoxically I found that very, very relaxing.
We haven't really had any proper winter weather so far, apart from it being rather cold - mostly very sunny and bright - which is ok by me, much as I'd like a snow day, I'm still dreading having to drive in the snow/ice, so the longer it stays away, the better, really.
What else...had loads of fun today going to this amazing Japanese supermarket with my Japanese friend. I had no idea what most of the stuff on sale was, and you couldn't even tell from the drawings on the packages half the time, but it was very intriguing and fun all the same. Sometimes I wish I could take a year off and just eat my way round the world...so many dishes, so little time...
So as you can see I don't actually have that much of interest and excitement to report - but life is good, I'm trying to take time for myself (as at least one good friend never fails to remind me to do), trying to chat more with friends, and above all feeling so grateful that this winter is epically different from the previous one. It took some work, but we got there in the end!
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Home is where I put down my macchinetta
(the one that makes espresso, of course)
I had all sorts of deep and meaningful thoughts about emigration and displacement on the flight back. I should have written them down, though this was made difficult by the absence of lights (caused by the sleeping child next to me, which was such a terror that I decided I'd rather be bored in the dark than have to endure his company any longer). Now, of course, all the beautifully crafted prose that was in my head has slipped away.
The main spur for these thoughts of mine was the fact that most of the people I spent time with over the holidays are part of the Neapolitan diaspora in one way or another - be it Rome or Milan, Barcelona or Liege, Edinburgh or Norwich (yes, seriously), we seem to get everywhere. Mostly in pursuit of some academic job or other, it appears.
And when we do, what do we take with us? I took, and take, undue comfort in finding my own experiences and feelings mirrored in those of the others. A rampant sense of guilt for not being there for the rest of your family (ignoring the fact that this might come from an over-inflated sense of worth). The constant nagging feeling you have to 'be family' when you're there and spend mealtimes and evenings together instead of seeing your friends (especially the dreaded 'last supper/last night'), which inevitably results in going out very late at night but then waking up with the rest of the family to assuage the guilt and never getting enough sleep. Perhaps a warped relationship with your own room, which has been crystallised in whatever state it was in when you last lived there, and somehow forces you back into that time whether you like it or not. Trying to strike a balance between hanging on to our identities as Neapolitans, and ending up being more and more integrated into whatever foreign culture has taken us on and wondering how long you can keep the balance going. The delicate process of introducing a foreign significant other to the mayhem of our city and our families. Packs of coffee which we couldn't possibly buy anywhere else, though the water is different here. A funny mixed language which can span from Neapolitan to English in the same sentence, and makes perfect sense that way.
So we go off with all the above baggage, as if the bags we cart back and forth are not enough, and we think we are settled in whatever place we have chosen for ourselves, but really we remain hybrid creatures, infinitely more interested in following the minute-by-minute match report of a Naples game than in even picking an English team to support, developing an intimate relationship with airports, watching our mammas shed far more tears than is fair, never knowing what the word 'home' maps onto and not wanting to upset our parents by using it inappropriately. It does my head in.
I realise that as time goes on, indeed sooner rather than later, the years I will have lived away from home will outnumber those spent living there, but surely that should not be reason enough to stop thinking of myself as Italian, as Neapolitan, even if I am far from a typical one, right? And yet I worry I will end up like the US-based woman I sat next to on the flight over to Naples, who had last spent Christmas there 40 years ago, and started weeping copiously when we touched the ground.
I'm not really sure where this is going anymore, so perhaps I better stop. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was good to talk so much with other people in the same situation, but the displaced feeling is a long way from disappearing...for now, I will stare wistfully at my coffee-sponsored calendar of Neapolitan views, while I have a London backdrop on my computer at work and an Oxford one on my mobile. Will that do?
I had all sorts of deep and meaningful thoughts about emigration and displacement on the flight back. I should have written them down, though this was made difficult by the absence of lights (caused by the sleeping child next to me, which was such a terror that I decided I'd rather be bored in the dark than have to endure his company any longer). Now, of course, all the beautifully crafted prose that was in my head has slipped away.
The main spur for these thoughts of mine was the fact that most of the people I spent time with over the holidays are part of the Neapolitan diaspora in one way or another - be it Rome or Milan, Barcelona or Liege, Edinburgh or Norwich (yes, seriously), we seem to get everywhere. Mostly in pursuit of some academic job or other, it appears.
And when we do, what do we take with us? I took, and take, undue comfort in finding my own experiences and feelings mirrored in those of the others. A rampant sense of guilt for not being there for the rest of your family (ignoring the fact that this might come from an over-inflated sense of worth). The constant nagging feeling you have to 'be family' when you're there and spend mealtimes and evenings together instead of seeing your friends (especially the dreaded 'last supper/last night'), which inevitably results in going out very late at night but then waking up with the rest of the family to assuage the guilt and never getting enough sleep. Perhaps a warped relationship with your own room, which has been crystallised in whatever state it was in when you last lived there, and somehow forces you back into that time whether you like it or not. Trying to strike a balance between hanging on to our identities as Neapolitans, and ending up being more and more integrated into whatever foreign culture has taken us on and wondering how long you can keep the balance going. The delicate process of introducing a foreign significant other to the mayhem of our city and our families. Packs of coffee which we couldn't possibly buy anywhere else, though the water is different here. A funny mixed language which can span from Neapolitan to English in the same sentence, and makes perfect sense that way.
So we go off with all the above baggage, as if the bags we cart back and forth are not enough, and we think we are settled in whatever place we have chosen for ourselves, but really we remain hybrid creatures, infinitely more interested in following the minute-by-minute match report of a Naples game than in even picking an English team to support, developing an intimate relationship with airports, watching our mammas shed far more tears than is fair, never knowing what the word 'home' maps onto and not wanting to upset our parents by using it inappropriately. It does my head in.
I realise that as time goes on, indeed sooner rather than later, the years I will have lived away from home will outnumber those spent living there, but surely that should not be reason enough to stop thinking of myself as Italian, as Neapolitan, even if I am far from a typical one, right? And yet I worry I will end up like the US-based woman I sat next to on the flight over to Naples, who had last spent Christmas there 40 years ago, and started weeping copiously when we touched the ground.
I'm not really sure where this is going anymore, so perhaps I better stop. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was good to talk so much with other people in the same situation, but the displaced feeling is a long way from disappearing...for now, I will stare wistfully at my coffee-sponsored calendar of Neapolitan views, while I have a London backdrop on my computer at work and an Oxford one on my mobile. Will that do?
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Yo
It's not that the past couple of weeks haven't had things happen in them - dealing with ideas for jobs, and doing my first journal paper review which was a very interesting and slightly scary experience, and slyly indoctrinating my girl scouts into the ways of Oxfam Unwrapped (most satisfactory, as was seeing the probing questions they asked about things), and buying Christmas presents, and having various holiday season festivities, and learning about the madness that are cookie swaps, and being taught to make jap chae (omg so good), and of course proofreading Nick's thesis which led to the discovery that I can be a really picky proofreader if I put my mind to it - but I've also been spending rather too much time inside my head, and what's there isn't really fit for public consumption. I'm not sad or upset or anything like that - just been mulling over lots of things, not quite sure to what end.
Anyway - off home soon, which will be interesting in itself - so happy holidays and all that.
Anyway - off home soon, which will be interesting in itself - so happy holidays and all that.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Winter has come
So, Nick has gone and winter has come. The two, I admit, are somewhat unrelated - but I thought it made for a nice literary/pathetic flourish :-) And actually, winter hasn't really come properly either, to be honest - we've been alternating days of proper cold and frost on the grass with days like today, which were around 15C and sunny and lovely, so...
Lack of posting has been mainly through lack of time and energy than lack of things to talk about. There's been lots of little things going on, keeping us busy both during the week and at weekends, and somehow blogging got pushed back.
Still on a weather-related note for a moment, I seem to have missed the wonderful autumnal foliage colours that I got to see last year. Not sure if it's because the rain got in the way, or the being in LA, or just being generally distracted and driving rather than walking/cycling around - but it's a little sad. Hopefully there will be some to make up for it next autumn!
But we have been getting outside, honest! For example, one morning we went for a nice walk in the woods behind the Princeton Battlefield. It was very pretty - cf. photo:
.JPG)
and involved an optional crossing of a very shaky rope bridge (look familiar, Chris?) which I REALLY did NOT enjoy doing but sort of felt I had to, to prove a point or overcome my fears or some such motivational crap. Might opt to remain unmotivated and unproven next time though.
And, just to show you how in touch with nature we are, we also spent a few minutes observing and photographing a rather hair caterpillar-type creature, appropriately decked out in Princeton colours:
.JPG)
Our being-in-touch-with-nature-ness actually goes even further - have I ever waxed lyrical about my farm scheme thingy? No? Shame on me!! So, here, instead of (or as well as) having deliveries of veggie boxes, you can also buy a 'share' in the farm (sadly to be paid upfront, covering 6 months) and each week you go to the farm and pick up whatever has been collected that week, of which you get, unsurprisingly, a share; and there are also other crops that you can and pick yourself in the fields, also within measure; and it's all very nice and wholesome and local and ethical (probably) and organic and means that clutching obscure root vegetables while pondering their fate has remained a viable activity for me rather than being simply an Oxonian memory. ANYway. The point of this was, that in mid-November the scheme ends and before they close down the farm for the season, they have the 'annual pig-out', whereby we members could go and roam the fields and collect any leftover produce for our own benefit.
This sounds very nice, and very fun, and the weather happened to be absolutely lovely that Sunday morning, so we naively set out to get a few veggie things for the winter ahead. Oh reader, we were naive indeed! We had no trowel, nor garden shears, nor towers of bags and containers as all the other infinitely more prepared people had. Nor did we have any knowlege of many vegetables, and roamed the fields wondering what was chard and what was weeds. We did manage a few successes, such as snapping broccoli heads off, and unearthing small celeriacs, and our personal favourite, digging out carrots with our bare hands. While watching our neighbour doing it with a trowel and being about 10 times faster than us. We concluded that farming is helluva hard work, and it's no surprise that people get the urge to give it up. Yes, it feels very satisfying to stand up clutching a punnet of carrots that you yourself have extracted, but it also feels very painful on your back - and that was just after a few minutes, done for fun, not for a living....
What else...mainly we just lived like a normal couple, which was the whole point of it really. Occasionally went out with friends, or went to see them for dinner/coffee (yes! I have that kind of friends now! Amazing what a difference a year makes). Cooked lots - we tackled my collection of random snipped-out recipes and gave them a go, which was fun, if not always successful. You should have by now seen (on FB) the glorious picture of the glorious roast chicken, among other things...And of course, we had our first American Thanksgiving (I'd gone to see Nick in Europe last year) with my family in NYC, which was nice in both a culinary and a sociable sense.
And in the last few days, we've just been dealing with a seemingly endless stream of conference deadlines, forms to fill in and send off, applications for jobs, conversations about The Future, and the like. Obviously I am incredibly sad to be here on my own again, but there is so much to do - more deadlines coming up, more work stuff, more applications to be made, more thinking to be thought - to say nothing of the Christmas shopping - that I hope to get through the next few weeks relatively unemotionally. As for the new year...can't make any promises I'm afraid!
Lack of posting has been mainly through lack of time and energy than lack of things to talk about. There's been lots of little things going on, keeping us busy both during the week and at weekends, and somehow blogging got pushed back.
Still on a weather-related note for a moment, I seem to have missed the wonderful autumnal foliage colours that I got to see last year. Not sure if it's because the rain got in the way, or the being in LA, or just being generally distracted and driving rather than walking/cycling around - but it's a little sad. Hopefully there will be some to make up for it next autumn!
But we have been getting outside, honest! For example, one morning we went for a nice walk in the woods behind the Princeton Battlefield. It was very pretty - cf. photo:
.JPG)
and involved an optional crossing of a very shaky rope bridge (look familiar, Chris?) which I REALLY did NOT enjoy doing but sort of felt I had to, to prove a point or overcome my fears or some such motivational crap. Might opt to remain unmotivated and unproven next time though.
And, just to show you how in touch with nature we are, we also spent a few minutes observing and photographing a rather hair caterpillar-type creature, appropriately decked out in Princeton colours:
.JPG)
Our being-in-touch-with-nature-ness actually goes even further - have I ever waxed lyrical about my farm scheme thingy? No? Shame on me!! So, here, instead of (or as well as) having deliveries of veggie boxes, you can also buy a 'share' in the farm (sadly to be paid upfront, covering 6 months) and each week you go to the farm and pick up whatever has been collected that week, of which you get, unsurprisingly, a share; and there are also other crops that you can and pick yourself in the fields, also within measure; and it's all very nice and wholesome and local and ethical (probably) and organic and means that clutching obscure root vegetables while pondering their fate has remained a viable activity for me rather than being simply an Oxonian memory. ANYway. The point of this was, that in mid-November the scheme ends and before they close down the farm for the season, they have the 'annual pig-out', whereby we members could go and roam the fields and collect any leftover produce for our own benefit.
This sounds very nice, and very fun, and the weather happened to be absolutely lovely that Sunday morning, so we naively set out to get a few veggie things for the winter ahead. Oh reader, we were naive indeed! We had no trowel, nor garden shears, nor towers of bags and containers as all the other infinitely more prepared people had. Nor did we have any knowlege of many vegetables, and roamed the fields wondering what was chard and what was weeds. We did manage a few successes, such as snapping broccoli heads off, and unearthing small celeriacs, and our personal favourite, digging out carrots with our bare hands. While watching our neighbour doing it with a trowel and being about 10 times faster than us. We concluded that farming is helluva hard work, and it's no surprise that people get the urge to give it up. Yes, it feels very satisfying to stand up clutching a punnet of carrots that you yourself have extracted, but it also feels very painful on your back - and that was just after a few minutes, done for fun, not for a living....
What else...mainly we just lived like a normal couple, which was the whole point of it really. Occasionally went out with friends, or went to see them for dinner/coffee (yes! I have that kind of friends now! Amazing what a difference a year makes). Cooked lots - we tackled my collection of random snipped-out recipes and gave them a go, which was fun, if not always successful. You should have by now seen (on FB) the glorious picture of the glorious roast chicken, among other things...And of course, we had our first American Thanksgiving (I'd gone to see Nick in Europe last year) with my family in NYC, which was nice in both a culinary and a sociable sense.
And in the last few days, we've just been dealing with a seemingly endless stream of conference deadlines, forms to fill in and send off, applications for jobs, conversations about The Future, and the like. Obviously I am incredibly sad to be here on my own again, but there is so much to do - more deadlines coming up, more work stuff, more applications to be made, more thinking to be thought - to say nothing of the Christmas shopping - that I hope to get through the next few weeks relatively unemotionally. As for the new year...can't make any promises I'm afraid!
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