Breezy like spring

OK, it's been a long time, but here's a quick breeze through the past few weeks.

Robin arrived on March 18 and is here for just a few days more. It's really great to have her here. She's been able to come and see our presentations each Monday. The first Monday we presented "a journey through a landscape with materials." My group used tupperware lids of various sizes and created a seascape, with crabs, a seagull, waves (of course), a surfer, fish, and a sting ray. Other groups' choices included umbrellas (theirs included a moon landing as well as a seascape), feather dusters (eventually forming a peacock), three-ring binders (a land- and seascape), bananas (dolphins, fish, and a shark in yet another seascape), and paper (sorry, I couldn't quite make out the landscape or story). The second Monday was animals behaving as animals do, without imposing stereotypes or much of a story (monkeys, moose, meerkats, lions, vultures, wolves). Those were great fun to watch for me as well, because I didn't perform, since I'd missed classes the previous Tuesday-Friday when Robin and I went to Cornwall. I must say I was impressed with the quality of the work that my classmates did. It's really easy to overhumanize animals--especially monkeys and apes--and they did a great job of including a lot of details without overdoing it. At the end of last term when we saw the second-years do their presentations I was so aware of the gap between what they were accomplishing and what we were, but since then there have been moments when I've glimpsed how this group of first-years can be very good indeed.

Tomorrow is the third set of presentations since Robin came, so she'll get to see one more round. This time the task is to take the animals and put them in a human situation. This is where it gets even harder to let animals still be animals without Disneyfying them. I'll write later to tell you how it went.

Cornwall was wonderful. We spend four nights in St. Ives, which is on the Atlantic coast, a lovely little cobblestone town with a long history of attracting artists. The Tate museum even has a branch there. (There are two Tates in London.) We got a really good deal on a self-catering apartment right in the center of town, and it was great to get out of London and have time just for the two of us, walking on the sand, taking photos, visiting art galleries. One evening we went to a bar that had a mixed bill of entertainers, original songwriters doing their own songs and a few old standards, as well as two local poets reciting their work. Another night we took in a movie, The Young Victoria. If you're in England when a movie about the monarchy is playing, you have to see it, right?

This coming week we begin working with what are called larval masks. Not quite sure what this will entail, but apparently a larval mask is a big white mask with no eye holes, so "your whole body becomes your eyes." Tune in for an update later. Today Robin and I got together with a few classmates to begin making our own (non-larval) masks. As with everything here, the teachers didn't give us any specific instructions on what to do or how to do it. The masks are due in a week, when we'll find out which ones work and which ones don't, and why.

As for London, it's actually an attractive city at this time of year. We've only had a day or two of rain since Robin has been here, and lots is in bloom. From this visit she has no idea of how dreary it really is in winter here, but even in this weather Robin can see what I meant when I described living in this damp and dark house. After leaving the mask-making session at a classmates flat today (and having had dinner at other Lispians' flat a week ago) she said, "Why do all your friends live in such nice places and you live in such a pit?"

Sigh.