A beautiful season to be in London, made all the more precious by remembrance of how awful the winter is. As I bike around I keep thinking of how a former parishioner used to take walks in the rose garden at Lake Harriet this time of year, aware of the autumnal passing of time.
Just a few months ago it didn't get dark till after 10. A couple of weeks ago as I washed coffee cups at the end of my work day a little after 7 (a sign of the awesome responsibility I bear in my day job), I was looking out the window at a gorgeous sunset of deepening salmon, orange, blue, and purple behind the London Eye, which is kind of the luxury skybox of Ferris wheels. This past Monday around 6:30, I stood on the Millennium Bridge over the Thames (aka the Wobbly Bridge from the way it shook as people walked across it when it first opened) watching the last colors deepen.
I continue to spend a lot of time by myself, maybe storing up the solitude while I can before things finally launch in a few weeks: the solo bike ride in the New Forest last weekend, a mostly solitary birthday (haircut, reading the paper in Trafalgar Square, a stroll through the National Gallery, Evensong at St Pauls, dinner and the Millennium Bridge before meeting friends for a pub quiz in the evening). It's not that I'm antisocial (I enjoyed buying coffee for a stranger that morning), nor is it that I necessarily want to be alone, but there's something in me that's gravitating in that direction. It may be bad timing--more and more people are getting back into town now and it seems that there are more occasions for potlucks and parties--but the upside is that my solitary ways are giving me more room for reflection.
When I had coffee with Thomas a few weeks ago, the conversation turned at one point to what I might do after I finish here. I don't have anything specific in my sights yet, but I've been thinking I want to be involved in storytelling in some way. I've always been drawn to stories, certainly more than to doctrine, and he asked a great followup question: What kind of effect do you want to have on people? (And then yet another: And who are those people you want to have that effect on?) Those are questions I'll keep coming back to during the year. It's helpful to have longer-range questions like those in mind during the close and intense focus of Creation times in the Lispa school calendar. I think I'll be fighting an uphill battle by trying to keep inserting those questions into group work, but I think it'd be helpful if we remembered to keep those kinds of things in mind. Why just aim for cleverness if you're going to be trying to create something that goes deeper? I want to help create something that will evoke wonder, discovery, and an awareness of possibility. It may be it's not so much through story as through fertile and evocative images. (To do both, of course, would be of great reward! Personal, if not financial.)
The year ahead seems like a laboratory in which to try out ideas and approaches for whatever will follow. My questions aren't necessarily others', I know, and trying to get agreement or a shared direction among strong-minded creatives is indeed a bit like herding cats (while being one of the cats yourself). Still, I don't want to get completely subsumed in immediate goals and concerns this year.
The year is going to rush by--if it ever gets started! Here's to finding moments of reflection and insight in the midst of the coming long days of activity (and short days of sunlight).
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Refreshed
Ah, yesterday I got the kind of restorative trip out of town that I've been wanting. Took my bike on a train about an hour and a half southwest of the city and spent the day in the New Forest. Though much of it is forested, it's anything but new: a tract of land set aside a thousand years ago by William the Conqueror. Now a national park, there are small towns scattered throughout it, as well as crushed gravel bike trails and footpaths. Covered with forests of pine, oak, and fern as well as open moors, it's the kind of place that welcomes a switch from the fluorescent green biking jacket to a brown wool sweater, when you're off the paved roads anyway. Wild ponies are a regular sight, as well as free-ranging pigs and horses of the domesticated kind. I spied a couple of deer, too.
I biked from Brockenhurst to Lyndhurst in a meandering loop of 20 miles or so before whiling away the last hour at a pub as I waited for the train back to London. A lovely day that did my soul good.
Lyndhurst seems to be the main hub of the area. It's a lovely if highly commercialized little town with a charming hilltop church. It has its quirks, too. Here you can arrange for a remarkable variety of coveyances to transport your loved one to their final resting place. There are the traditional horse-drawn carriages in black, of course. Or perhaps you'd prefer the all-Volkswagen cortege, consisting of the VW van hearse and stretch Beetles for the family. There are Land Rover hearses for the dearly departed who loved that rugged off-road experience. And, my favorite, how about a stylish motorcycle sendoff? Your choice of a Triumph, Suzuki, or Harley with a sleek hearse sidecar. I was finishing reading that book on eccentric Britain yesterday between legs of the trip, so somehow this just seemed a normal part of things.
I biked from Brockenhurst to Lyndhurst in a meandering loop of 20 miles or so before whiling away the last hour at a pub as I waited for the train back to London. A lovely day that did my soul good.
Lyndhurst seems to be the main hub of the area. It's a lovely if highly commercialized little town with a charming hilltop church. It has its quirks, too. Here you can arrange for a remarkable variety of coveyances to transport your loved one to their final resting place. There are the traditional horse-drawn carriages in black, of course. Or perhaps you'd prefer the all-Volkswagen cortege, consisting of the VW van hearse and stretch Beetles for the family. There are Land Rover hearses for the dearly departed who loved that rugged off-road experience. And, my favorite, how about a stylish motorcycle sendoff? Your choice of a Triumph, Suzuki, or Harley with a sleek hearse sidecar. I was finishing reading that book on eccentric Britain yesterday between legs of the trip, so somehow this just seemed a normal part of things.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Homeland security, UK style
A bit of excitement on Cleveleys Road this week. Late one night my housemates with rooms at the front of the house heard some shouting and commotion in the street. Apparently a couple of guys got arrested in relation to a murder at or outside a "social club" a couple of blocks away. The next day our street was blocked off and police were taking the names of everybody who came and went. The day after, half the street was still blocked off and a cop told me they were still looking for "a few things"--the murder weapon, maybe? (Or have I watched too many police shows on TV.)
Apparently there's a Turkish gang war going on in this part of town (again, according to what the cops are saying). It's probably stupid of me, but I find myself taking some comfort in that. It seems less random, more targeted. Yes, I know, people get caught in the crossfire, and every thug is some mother's son, but I feel less threatened than if there were some solitary madman out there. It also seems that police must be hovering out there all the time, ready to come out of the woodwork and swarm a neighborhood when something like this happens. It's kind of impressive, really, but seeing how at least a rowdy few of the Metropolitan police force got out of hand at last spring's G20 meeting here (one man was dealt a fatal blow by a policeman, unprovoked), "impressive" also can have an ominous aspect to it. London's a curious city. It seems pretty safe overall, even when there's been a murder around the corner, but you're also repeatedly aware of how many CCTV cameras there are. Word is that you're almost always on a TV screen somewhere when you're out and about.
I mentioned the other day that the beginning of school has been delayed into November. The reason is that the Home Office--kind of like the State Department, if I understand correctly--determined that all schools that admit international students had to be reaccredited this year. Some apparently were schools in name only and thus served as an easy way for us foreigners to get into the country. In the US, you'd expect such an action would be out of fear of some perceived terrorist threat. Here I think it was more because of the bad economy. "British jobs for British workers" has been an occasional rallying cry on the right, and among unions. Anyway, several thousand schools had to be reaccredited, including Lispa (the i and s stand for International School; most of the students come from outside the UK). Accreditation involved lots of paperwork and a site visit, then the Home Office decided it too had to do a site visit for each of the 4000-some-odd international schools, and then the slow-grinding mills of bureaucratic paperwork have to churn out a certificate. Cud moves faster through a cow.
The upshot of all this is that people like me can't even start the process of applying for a student visa or the extension of one till the Home Office issues a certificate to the school. We're still waiting. I'm here legally until my current visa expires, three weeks from tomorrow. So long as I can file the forms to apply for a renewal before 31 October I'm OK to stay. But pity the incoming students from outside the EU. They can't even start the process to get their visas till we all get the letter that opens the door to the process. And if they don't already have a visa, they can't enter the UK till they get the whole thing processed and returned to them. How one buys an airline ticket in advance in that kind of situation I don't know.
The other part of this is that, according to new and related legislation, by applying for a visa or visa renewal, all of us are applying for a national ID card that will have certain biometric measurements encoded in it. Whether I'll need to carry that with me at all times is unclear. Then again, I was surprised that the cops who were blocking off my street the other day didn't ask for any ID at all, just my name and address. After a year here I had just that morning stopped carrying my passport around with me. But I suppose once I get this ID card I'd better have it with me.
Apparently there's a Turkish gang war going on in this part of town (again, according to what the cops are saying). It's probably stupid of me, but I find myself taking some comfort in that. It seems less random, more targeted. Yes, I know, people get caught in the crossfire, and every thug is some mother's son, but I feel less threatened than if there were some solitary madman out there. It also seems that police must be hovering out there all the time, ready to come out of the woodwork and swarm a neighborhood when something like this happens. It's kind of impressive, really, but seeing how at least a rowdy few of the Metropolitan police force got out of hand at last spring's G20 meeting here (one man was dealt a fatal blow by a policeman, unprovoked), "impressive" also can have an ominous aspect to it. London's a curious city. It seems pretty safe overall, even when there's been a murder around the corner, but you're also repeatedly aware of how many CCTV cameras there are. Word is that you're almost always on a TV screen somewhere when you're out and about.
I mentioned the other day that the beginning of school has been delayed into November. The reason is that the Home Office--kind of like the State Department, if I understand correctly--determined that all schools that admit international students had to be reaccredited this year. Some apparently were schools in name only and thus served as an easy way for us foreigners to get into the country. In the US, you'd expect such an action would be out of fear of some perceived terrorist threat. Here I think it was more because of the bad economy. "British jobs for British workers" has been an occasional rallying cry on the right, and among unions. Anyway, several thousand schools had to be reaccredited, including Lispa (the i and s stand for International School; most of the students come from outside the UK). Accreditation involved lots of paperwork and a site visit, then the Home Office decided it too had to do a site visit for each of the 4000-some-odd international schools, and then the slow-grinding mills of bureaucratic paperwork have to churn out a certificate. Cud moves faster through a cow.
The upshot of all this is that people like me can't even start the process of applying for a student visa or the extension of one till the Home Office issues a certificate to the school. We're still waiting. I'm here legally until my current visa expires, three weeks from tomorrow. So long as I can file the forms to apply for a renewal before 31 October I'm OK to stay. But pity the incoming students from outside the EU. They can't even start the process to get their visas till we all get the letter that opens the door to the process. And if they don't already have a visa, they can't enter the UK till they get the whole thing processed and returned to them. How one buys an airline ticket in advance in that kind of situation I don't know.
The other part of this is that, according to new and related legislation, by applying for a visa or visa renewal, all of us are applying for a national ID card that will have certain biometric measurements encoded in it. Whether I'll need to carry that with me at all times is unclear. Then again, I was surprised that the cops who were blocking off my street the other day didn't ask for any ID at all, just my name and address. After a year here I had just that morning stopped carrying my passport around with me. But I suppose once I get this ID card I'd better have it with me.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
All England, all the time
Off to Brighton today, just £11 for a round-trip ticket. With school beginning soon--it's been delayed till 2 November, but still...--and the days getting shorter alarmingly quickly, I'm determined to use this month to get out of London at least once a week and also to do some special things in town. Come November, I'll be in class every weeknight and -afternoon, and apparently some Saturdays as well. So now's the time.
I checked out a book from the library yesterday about those only-in-Britain eccentric events, like contests in chasing a wheel of cheese down an incredibly steep slope, shin kicking, bog-snorkeling, and this thing called "mob football," in which about a hundred drunken men form a scrum around a leather tube on a muddy field and push each other back and forth in a knot of bodies for hours until the tube (with mob attending) is finally pushed through the doors of any nearby pub, where they all apparently keep sharing pints till they fall down drunk. OK, I added that last part, but the preceding weirdness is all true. I don't expect to find any of that in the coming month, but what a country to explore, eh wot?
Mostly I just want to get out of the city from time to time.
Off to the train station. Maybe this little post will break my recent writer's block.
I checked out a book from the library yesterday about those only-in-Britain eccentric events, like contests in chasing a wheel of cheese down an incredibly steep slope, shin kicking, bog-snorkeling, and this thing called "mob football," in which about a hundred drunken men form a scrum around a leather tube on a muddy field and push each other back and forth in a knot of bodies for hours until the tube (with mob attending) is finally pushed through the doors of any nearby pub, where they all apparently keep sharing pints till they fall down drunk. OK, I added that last part, but the preceding weirdness is all true. I don't expect to find any of that in the coming month, but what a country to explore, eh wot?
Mostly I just want to get out of the city from time to time.
Off to the train station. Maybe this little post will break my recent writer's block.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Last night I had the strangest dream...
I'd taken friends to church with me to hear a friend of mine preach--Newell Bishop, who was as close to a mentor as I've ever had. Newell died earlier this month, though in the dream I had no awareness of this. The thing I did notice, though, was that Newell's hair and beard were pure white. The church looked more like a high school auditorium, rectangular, with a screen and stage at one end, padded metal seats bolted to the floor. Newell was giving some kind of a farewell sermon, and he talked about the search committee that was doing the work of finding his successor. As he spoke, people were setting up projection equipment for some kind of presentation. One man brought in canisters of what looked like movie film. I assumed the committee would be watching videos of their finalists preaching while the rest of us went to coffee hour following the service. Newell finished by directing everyone's attention to the screen, and all of a sudden we were watching a film that introduced the finalists. This is really odd, I thought. The whole congregation doesn't get to see this.
Then everything shifted and rather than being on film, the people were there in person. I must have changed seats, because I was right next to the communion table as the first finalist led worship. She was giving a sermon, sort of, but was overwhelmed by having to marshal her three young children into something like a cooperative state. All the while she was talking with the congregation (they seemed more like an audience), and I remember thinking this isn't a sermon at all. It was more of a monologue on how hard it is to be a single parent. She had my sympathy, but I was thinking this isn't a very good way to present yourself to a search committee. There was something about the interplay between her and her kids, though, especially her adolescent daughter, that was intriguing and beautiful. When she finished, I realized I was wowed by how musical their interactions had been. They hadn't been singing, but the pitch and rhythm, the counterpoint of their voices, even their subtle movements and shifts in position, could only be described as inspired. How did she get them to do that? I wondered. It looked completely unrehearsed, but was so amazingly well coordinated that it had to have been. That was what I wanted to tell her, rather than how it was lacking as a candidating sermon, when afterward she asked me what I thought. But things were changing quickly on what had become a stage that I didn't get a chance to say anything meaningful.
Then the next candidate came out, and the whole scene bore no resemblance to a church. It was clearly a theater, and four people came onstage in costume, onto a set that was a living room. They were ready to begin, but I was in their way, lying down on the front of the stage and blocking others' view. For some reason, that seemed to be my assigned "seat." I shifted to the side of the stage, near the curtain. All was very friendly, though, and the actors, the people behind me, and I all joked about how I was kind of like their footlights.
And then my alarm went off and I woke up.
Several years ago I was talking with Mary Ann Mattoon about dreams and what they might mean. Mary Ann (some of you will remember her) was a Jungian and a distinctively practical one. A dream probably means whatever you think it means, she said. I'm not sure about all of the details in this one, though I do think some of the particulars are simply trace elements of things I've been thinking about in my waking hours--Newell's death, the search committee looking for whoever will be the next principal minister at the church I left when I moved to London--but on balance the dream seems to reflect the transitional process going on in me, away from the pastorate and toward something that at least uses the tools of theatre, or is in that aesthetic world. I see my dreams not so much as predicting things to come as reflecting what's going on inside, the mind continuing to deal symbolically with things I think about, usually more analytically, in the daylight.
I still don't know where this exploration at Lispa is leading me. I don't even know what language to use to describe it. Is it leading me at all, for example, or is it completely up to me to chart the course? Where between the two does the balance lie? I have this image of balancing a long stick on its end in the palm of my hand. There's a back and forth between being able to stand still and being able to control which way I can walk while balancing the stick, and corrections in course that I have to take because the stick isn't completely in my control.
And so on it goes. Hoping (and praying) for a fertile year as I move from what I did before to what possibilities I may yet step into--and help to create.
Then everything shifted and rather than being on film, the people were there in person. I must have changed seats, because I was right next to the communion table as the first finalist led worship. She was giving a sermon, sort of, but was overwhelmed by having to marshal her three young children into something like a cooperative state. All the while she was talking with the congregation (they seemed more like an audience), and I remember thinking this isn't a sermon at all. It was more of a monologue on how hard it is to be a single parent. She had my sympathy, but I was thinking this isn't a very good way to present yourself to a search committee. There was something about the interplay between her and her kids, though, especially her adolescent daughter, that was intriguing and beautiful. When she finished, I realized I was wowed by how musical their interactions had been. They hadn't been singing, but the pitch and rhythm, the counterpoint of their voices, even their subtle movements and shifts in position, could only be described as inspired. How did she get them to do that? I wondered. It looked completely unrehearsed, but was so amazingly well coordinated that it had to have been. That was what I wanted to tell her, rather than how it was lacking as a candidating sermon, when afterward she asked me what I thought. But things were changing quickly on what had become a stage that I didn't get a chance to say anything meaningful.
Then the next candidate came out, and the whole scene bore no resemblance to a church. It was clearly a theater, and four people came onstage in costume, onto a set that was a living room. They were ready to begin, but I was in their way, lying down on the front of the stage and blocking others' view. For some reason, that seemed to be my assigned "seat." I shifted to the side of the stage, near the curtain. All was very friendly, though, and the actors, the people behind me, and I all joked about how I was kind of like their footlights.
And then my alarm went off and I woke up.
Several years ago I was talking with Mary Ann Mattoon about dreams and what they might mean. Mary Ann (some of you will remember her) was a Jungian and a distinctively practical one. A dream probably means whatever you think it means, she said. I'm not sure about all of the details in this one, though I do think some of the particulars are simply trace elements of things I've been thinking about in my waking hours--Newell's death, the search committee looking for whoever will be the next principal minister at the church I left when I moved to London--but on balance the dream seems to reflect the transitional process going on in me, away from the pastorate and toward something that at least uses the tools of theatre, or is in that aesthetic world. I see my dreams not so much as predicting things to come as reflecting what's going on inside, the mind continuing to deal symbolically with things I think about, usually more analytically, in the daylight.
I still don't know where this exploration at Lispa is leading me. I don't even know what language to use to describe it. Is it leading me at all, for example, or is it completely up to me to chart the course? Where between the two does the balance lie? I have this image of balancing a long stick on its end in the palm of my hand. There's a back and forth between being able to stand still and being able to control which way I can walk while balancing the stick, and corrections in course that I have to take because the stick isn't completely in my control.
And so on it goes. Hoping (and praying) for a fertile year as I move from what I did before to what possibilities I may yet step into--and help to create.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Back in London
I'd signed up for a weekend course in street photography for yesterday and today, but with my foot all banged up, I thought it best to cancel. (Sigh.) With the help of a friend I was able to see an osteopath within hours of arriving back here on Friday, though, and found that I hadn't broken a bone after all--I love that they test for fractures, not with an X-ray machine, but with a tuning fork. I did, however, do a number on some muscles and tendons in my right foot. Reassuringly, I also found that I'd been doing the right things by icing and elevating the foot as much as possible the past week, and using crutches to keep off it when it got sore. At least I'm learning something from all the injuries of the past year! Now I'm doing painful massages to help with the healing, and the improvement has sped up. At this rate, my hobbling days will soon be in the dust receding behind me.
Another insight into the health care absurdity back home: I went in search of one of those padded plastic boots people wear instead of a cast these days, as well as those shorter crutches that have a cuff that goes around your forearm instead of the pad that's designed for your armpit. I thought it might be easier to travel with those than the pair of vintage wooden crutches we had in the basement. At Fairview Medical Supply, the crutches cost $58. Each. And the boot was over 150. Surely it can't cost anything like that to manufacture them. I assume they get away with this because insurance companies will pay the bulk of the cost. Sounds an awful lot like the $300 toilet seats the military used to buy from defense contractors.
I did get a couple of unanticipated benefits from using those ancient crutches on my flight--I was invited to jump to the head of the line at immigration at Heathrow. And I found that a Boeing 777 has an amazing amount of legroom for the bulkhead seats. If you ever start to feel invisible, just get around on crutches for a day or two. People offer you their seats, call you sir or ma'am. It's still a kind world after all. (Yes, I know, with notable exceptions.)
"Large live rats"
You know how, when you sit on a plane waiting for takeoff and they run through the safety instructions (this is how you buckle a seat belt, etc.--I mean, really, come on), those times when you tune out and you're not really listening? I had a bit of a startle the other day as we were waiting to take off from Minneapolis. I heard the flight attendant say--or thought I heard--"Large live rats are located in the overhead storage compartments." Large live rats, you say? So I perked up my ears (wouldn't you?) and was relieved to hear the next part was about how to inflate your life vest. Never has the reminder of the possibility of a crash into Lake Michigan been so reassuring.
The Great Thanksgiving
Must be the Rick Steves in me, but whenever I go to a country where I don't know the language, the first things I try to learn to say are Hello, Goodbye, Please, and Thank you. And sometimes the word for Cheers or whatever it is people say when they toast one another. This, my children will tell you, is a big improvement over when they were young and I insisted that they learn the phrase for "Where is the bathroom?" (When in Rome, I may know little else, but I can say "Dov'e la tolletta?" with the best of them.) In Crete a couple of weeks ago for a friend's wedding, I was delighted to learn that the Greek word for "Thank you" is Eucharisto.
Had I taken even the most rudimentary Greek class in div school, this would surely have been no surprise to me. One of the humbling results of blogging is that you reveal your own ignorance. Perhaps a happier ripple effect is evoking an affirming "Well, even I knew that" response in many a reader. (If many readers there be.)
Another liturgical echo: From an essay in yesterday's Guardian looking back on the anniversary of the stock market collapse:
Many's the time I would have loved to insert a "Guess so" or a "You betcha" into a Sunday morning prayer.
Another insight into the health care absurdity back home: I went in search of one of those padded plastic boots people wear instead of a cast these days, as well as those shorter crutches that have a cuff that goes around your forearm instead of the pad that's designed for your armpit. I thought it might be easier to travel with those than the pair of vintage wooden crutches we had in the basement. At Fairview Medical Supply, the crutches cost $58. Each. And the boot was over 150. Surely it can't cost anything like that to manufacture them. I assume they get away with this because insurance companies will pay the bulk of the cost. Sounds an awful lot like the $300 toilet seats the military used to buy from defense contractors.
I did get a couple of unanticipated benefits from using those ancient crutches on my flight--I was invited to jump to the head of the line at immigration at Heathrow. And I found that a Boeing 777 has an amazing amount of legroom for the bulkhead seats. If you ever start to feel invisible, just get around on crutches for a day or two. People offer you their seats, call you sir or ma'am. It's still a kind world after all. (Yes, I know, with notable exceptions.)
"Large live rats"
You know how, when you sit on a plane waiting for takeoff and they run through the safety instructions (this is how you buckle a seat belt, etc.--I mean, really, come on), those times when you tune out and you're not really listening? I had a bit of a startle the other day as we were waiting to take off from Minneapolis. I heard the flight attendant say--or thought I heard--"Large live rats are located in the overhead storage compartments." Large live rats, you say? So I perked up my ears (wouldn't you?) and was relieved to hear the next part was about how to inflate your life vest. Never has the reminder of the possibility of a crash into Lake Michigan been so reassuring.
The Great Thanksgiving
Must be the Rick Steves in me, but whenever I go to a country where I don't know the language, the first things I try to learn to say are Hello, Goodbye, Please, and Thank you. And sometimes the word for Cheers or whatever it is people say when they toast one another. This, my children will tell you, is a big improvement over when they were young and I insisted that they learn the phrase for "Where is the bathroom?" (When in Rome, I may know little else, but I can say "Dov'e la tolletta?" with the best of them.) In Crete a couple of weeks ago for a friend's wedding, I was delighted to learn that the Greek word for "Thank you" is Eucharisto.
Had I taken even the most rudimentary Greek class in div school, this would surely have been no surprise to me. One of the humbling results of blogging is that you reveal your own ignorance. Perhaps a happier ripple effect is evoking an affirming "Well, even I knew that" response in many a reader. (If many readers there be.)
Another liturgical echo: From an essay in yesterday's Guardian looking back on the anniversary of the stock market collapse:
In the dock together, both in hock together, what answers have the English-speaking peoples come up with? They have duly shown remorse. They have drawn on the resources of a common cultural heritage in acknowledging the sinfulness of their ways. Like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the mode has often been that of general confession: to acknowledge and confess manifold sins and wickedness, without specifying personal lapses. Have we followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts? Guess so. Have we left undone those things which we ought to have done? You betcha--we should have shackled Wall Street and the City. And have we done those things which we ought not to have done? Yes, we too got a bit greedy, we too were had, we too have been burned and we won't forget it (unlike some folks who still expect their bonuses).
Many's the time I would have loved to insert a "Guess so" or a "You betcha" into a Sunday morning prayer.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day, without the labor
Enjoying some time at home in the beautiful late Minnesota summer. A cookout with friends this afternoon. Lots of time reading these days. Mostly with my right foot propped up because last Thursday, just before heading off for a long day at the State Fair, I was working on my handstands at home and cracked a toe hard against a piece of furniture. I assumed I'd just bruised it and then spent all day walking around on pavement at the fairgrounds, only to have my foot swell and turn all sorts of lovely colors. I think I may have broken a bone. But since I have no health insurance in the good ol' U S of A, I can't afford to go to a doctor who will probably just tell me not to walk on it (too late). So I'll get it looked at, some 2 weeks later, by my GP in London, with whom I've set up an appointment by email. And meanwhile I read all these articles in the paper about people demonizing "socialized health care" in Britain, where it costs me nothing to see my doctor and next to nothing to get prescriptions filled. The tone of the public... debate? discussion? those words seem too elevated a description ... here is so disheartening. I'm afraid the best we can hope for is so complicated a package that almost no one will understand it. An interesting article the other day in the paper quoted Bob Dole, first as saying that health care reform is the most important thing most senators and reps will ever vote on and that just saying no to everything is simply not an option (hooray there) and that having a complicated bill is actually an advantage because people can fiddle with the minor points and still feel like they have something to show to their just-say-no constituents. (I guess I'd give that a qualified hooray.)
This is why I shouldn't wait weeks between posts. There's always something present to write about and I never get caught up.
Back to Greece: While in Rethymno (on Crete) we saw two classic Greek plays, one by Aristophanes (Thesmophoriazusae) and one by Aeschylus (The Persians), both in Greek of course. I couldn't follow the dialog at all, but it was fun seeing Greek plays in a (modern) amphitheater in the old fortress at Rethymno, under starry skies. The comedy was broad enough that, with some previous description of the plot, we could basically follow it. With Persians, again we were given a preliminary description of the plot by a friend who's well read in such things, but I gotta say, I find tragic chorus things pretty impenetrable (in my limited experience). That'll be one of the challenges of the upcoming year at Lispa, when we run through a rotation of dramatic styles. Tragic chorus is one of them. I have a lot to learn there. (So what's new?) Other dramatic styles ahead of us include platform, melodrama, commedia, grotesque (and/or bouffant? not sure if there's a difference), and clown. Again, stay tuned. This is a collection of areas I can promise I'll write about.
More later, little by little.
This is why I shouldn't wait weeks between posts. There's always something present to write about and I never get caught up.
Back to Greece: While in Rethymno (on Crete) we saw two classic Greek plays, one by Aristophanes (Thesmophoriazusae) and one by Aeschylus (The Persians), both in Greek of course. I couldn't follow the dialog at all, but it was fun seeing Greek plays in a (modern) amphitheater in the old fortress at Rethymno, under starry skies. The comedy was broad enough that, with some previous description of the plot, we could basically follow it. With Persians, again we were given a preliminary description of the plot by a friend who's well read in such things, but I gotta say, I find tragic chorus things pretty impenetrable (in my limited experience). That'll be one of the challenges of the upcoming year at Lispa, when we run through a rotation of dramatic styles. Tragic chorus is one of them. I have a lot to learn there. (So what's new?) Other dramatic styles ahead of us include platform, melodrama, commedia, grotesque (and/or bouffant? not sure if there's a difference), and clown. Again, stay tuned. This is a collection of areas I can promise I'll write about.
More later, little by little.
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