spoooooky spoooooooky

there's a full moon out tonight! i can see it from my window, all hazy and looming yellow over the otherwise gray sky. as the day deepens into twilight, my thoughts too take a shadowy and sinister turn...
HALLOWEEN is near, my friends. time to prepare for the gouls, the goblins, the plastic frankenstein masks, the overindulgence in candy, the ---

wait a minute. i'm in the U.K. Halloween doesn't really...well...happen here.
of course, you do see some more candy in the stores, and the Simpsons on the American channels turn to their spooky episodes, but....there's something very different about Halloween in London. like, it's a muted sort of version of what i'm used to in the States.
less spooky, more kid-oriented, fewer dress-up parties...like their heart's not into it or something.
i heard someone say that Guy Fawkes Night is like the equivalent of the U.K.'s fall celebration, rather than Halloween.
sure, fireworks are cool, and bonfires, and i liked the movie V for Vendetta (this covers my total knowlede of this subject) but....

give me full moons and black cats and cauldrons of dry ice! and chain saws and haunted houses and rubber monster masks and jack o lanterns!!!

woooooooooo!

graveyard in West Hampstead - full of curious occupants

right.

So I'm walking to the bus stop, and hear a sort of clomping noise above the traffic. I turn to look, and sure enough, there is a horse in the street. Ok, so sometime cops ride around on horses here, like in the tourist areas. But this is in my new neighborhood, and the rider isn't a cop.
And the horse is pulling something. It looks like...a carriage? A glass carriage, kind of square and---something inside the carriage...like a...box.. or...
Holy crap.
It's a coffin.
And that's a line of taxis trailing it.

Do you mean to tell me, Britain, that if I die here, I can have a HORSE-DRAWN freaking FUNERAL PROCESSION???? Dude, I'll bet you have some kind of weird service that I can...

...find on the Internet. Really, Britain? REALLY??

creepy cool

Dunno how it is for the rest of you that live in London, but whenever someone comes to visit I get to see something new. Latest adventure was with my sister and her boyfriend, and we went a zillion places. My memory is pretty hazy, since I'm writing this blog to procrastinate writing my dissertation, but Westminster Abbey - that was creepy cool. Creepy because of all the dead people in there, and cool because they are uber-famous. According to its website, the Abbey's been around for a thousand years, so it's collected a LOT of dead people. Poets, artists - Tennyson, Chaucer, Browning...scientists - Darwin, Newton....kings, queens - most of them, knights...I won't list them all because it will BLOW YOUR MIND.

Oh, and it's incredibly Gothic, really one of the best examples of the Gothic period of architecture I've seen here.

So, to sum up - if you are into:
a. churches
b. famous dead people
c. gothic
d. all of the above

you will love the Abbey. Go, pay the £10 or so fee, and pay your respects.

Goth Week 2010

Every year, around Pentecost, darkness gathers from the far-reaches of the netherworld to settle in Leipzig.  This otherworldly phenomenon the locals call Goth Week (only probably in German).  Sal and I traveled to this lovely city to visit our fellow ex-pat friends, get out of London for a bit, and...well....

...stare at the Goth People.

I can't believe this, but the above photo is the ONLY ONE I TOOK of the Goth People.  With all the leather, black, metal, spikes, goggles, devices, lace, masks - - I think I was just too shocked to click.  I mean, if you haven't seen Goth Week, you just don't know how it's going to get to you.  YOU JUST DON'T KNOW, man.

I don't even know where to start.  There was this guy (??) who came out of a Beer Garden pavilion who looked like he stepped out of the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction.  There were zombie goths.  Vampire goths.  Pretty goths.  Sado-masochistic goths.  Punky goths. '80s hair goths.  Science goths.  Even anime-looking goths, with cute black hearts and pandas and...And the leather.  SO....much....black...leather....and some of the coolest knee-high boots I have ever seen.  Black lace umbrellas, carried by ladies who could've walked out of Tim Burton's head.

Even if you don't make it to Leipzig for next year's Goth Week, come sometime when it's grey and cold, break out that pair of tight leather pants your partner is ashamed you still own, and slink around the cobblestone streets a while.  You'll pass architecture frozen in Gothic and Baroque, and sausage stands, and accordion-playing street musicians.  And as you crane your neck to the sky to find the top of the spiraling tower of St. Thomas Church, you'll understand why Bach stuck around so long in this moody, soulful city.  (And I hope you pop in the church to pay your respects, as he's supposedly buried inside.)

Oh! Leipzig.  I hope it isn't Goth Week 2011 before we get to see you again.  (But just in case, I'm going boot shopping...)

'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!'

Today, as I trust you well know, is Shakespeare's birthday.  In honor of the esteemed birthday guy (and because admittance was free today), Sal and I wandered over to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and partook of some gay frivolity.  Shakespeare's Globe is a stone's throw from my residence hall, on the South Bank of the Thames.  It is a meticulous reconstruction of the original theater, a true work of art and historical anal retentiveness.
On this 18th day of April, a perfect spring day, there were hoards of Shakespeare fans (and free admittance fans) streaming through the Theatre.  There is much to see and touch in the museum (old fabric, swords, helmets) and tiny booths in which you can record your part in some scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream and other plays.  (Sal plays an excellent Lysander. Who knew?)  The theater itself is more impressive than it looks in pictures, with pure oak beams forming a polygonal hug around a large stage.
I am looking forward to taking in a bloody show, perhaps Macbeth or Henry VIII.  Like the modern-day peasants we are, Sal and I plan to stand in the crowd and throw tomatoes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHAKESPEARE! You old dog, you.

what do u2, kate moss and delicious have in common?

So my friend Sarah was visiting from Roanoke, Virginia and I thought I'd take her to Covent Garden Market to do a bit of shopping.  I was scouting around the net for some interesting sites and came upon this fancy little cupcake store nearby called Primrose Bakery.  One review said it is the cupcake joint of choice of U2 and Kate Moss. Hmm.

So we took a gander.

Bathed in soft, pastel colors and warm with sugary good smells, the bakery is a delight to all senses.  From vases of fresh flowers on the tables to the immaculate, pink restroom (I'm thorough, yes), it is girled-out to the highest caliber.


And then, of course, there are the cupcakes.

We had a little trouble deciding, but after much deliberation:

 

I chose the Earl Gray Tea cupcake, with the lovely lavendar icing.

Sarah selected a lemon beauty, with perfect sugared treats on top.

With my strangely-pronged fork hovering over the bergamot-scented cupcake, I wondered briefly what the fuss was all about.  Why, it was a pretty cupcake, sure, but really? Bono and supermodels?
I took a bite.

OMG OMG OMG CUPCAKES FROM HEAVEN!!!! they are INCREDIBLE and LIGHT AND FLUFFY and mine was baked with EARL. GRAY. TEA IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem.  

It was quite the extraordinary cupcake experience, and I would highly recommend it to the Covent Garden visitor.  

(Sal chose the plum cake. It was gone before we could take a picture. *Above photos courtesy of Sarah.)

demons and snow angels

I know it's cheating, but I'm going to post a journal entry instead of a recent post. Don't judge me.

(5 Jan.)
It was a serendipitous day.
I was running errands, popping in and out of stores on Fleet Street, when I saw a plaque just inside the doorway of this pub, grandiose and imposing, complete with torches lining the doorway. The plaque began with a description of the history of the pub, once housing an older pub which served such customers as Lord Tennyson. Toward the end of the history was a mention of two buildings which used to flank the pub:
- the shop of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- and the meat pie shop of his mistress.
And under those very buildings was the fabled furnace in which these terrible pies were cooked.
I laughed out loud with joy at my bizarre discovery.

Much later, I happened to look up from my computer to see steady, perfect snowflakes streaming outside. I hurried out into the night and walked to the Thames. Finding a bench I sat and watched the snow fall over the skyline of the Millennium Bridge and buildings lining the north bank.
For a while I watched the snow gather quietly on to the bank, onto things that man and nature made. Until I became a thing for snow to gather on.
Then, across the river -
donggg
donggg
donggg
- a bell sounded from some tower across the river. Clear as if I was kneeling in the sanctuary, the water carrying its full and lonely sound to my snowy bench.
I sat in the falling snow as St. Paul's Cathedral rang midnight.
This is what it means to live in a storybook instead of visit. You chance upon these great moments, rather than seek them out. They are there, every day. You have but to look, and listen.