In the past week or two I've had an increasing number of close calls while biking in London. For a while I've thought that an antipathy toward cyclists must be part of the cabbies' union code of conduct--they seem to love squeezing the curb so you can't get by--and you also find car and bus drivers who do the same thing. Twice within 10 minutes a week or so ago I almost got run off the road by van drivers, and once again earlier this week by an ambulance that wasn't in any apparent hurry to get anywhere. It can't be that I'm invisible. I wear one of those day-glo green cycling jackets or, in cold weather, an even brighter green vest with big reflective stripes on it, plus head and tail lights on the bike.
Then on Wednesday I got caught between another bike that wouldn't move over as I passed him and a tourbus that veered in my direction as it passed me. The bus and I bumped twice before I went ass over teakettle onto the asphalt. My bike fared better than I did, but we both got banged up. My elbow was the size of a baseball, but x-rays showed no broken bones. Now I'm just sore in the ribs and have a puffy, colorful forearm as the fluid from the elbow disperses. I was very lucky.
Still hoping for that luck to manifest itself in a passport in the post so I can come home for Christmas. Has to happen today or tomorrow.
Last night was our final presentations for the term. The Back to the Future platform piece went well. People tell me I was born to play Doc Brown. That part was a lot of fun. Lord of the Rings has come a long way and became quite complex, dark as well as comic. Dracula and Moses also were presented well--no, not in the same piece--as well as four commedia pieces, including "Mamasita Chocolate," a randy Latina piece featuring two hot-to-trot parents and their bratty little boy who keeps interrupting them, with a mixup of medicine bottles (dad's Viagra and the sleeping pills intended for the baby) as a complicating factor. Words cannot describe...
A friend commented that people from Latin cultures seem to have a special feel for commedia. Thinking back on it, of the pieces last night, the women in Mamasita (from Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Brazil) and a Portuguese lothario in another piece were among the stars of the genre in our class. Many English-speaking actors seemed to carry their characters in the head and shoulders and with a high voice, while those who found it better like the four above brought an earthier, more pelvic grounding. Surely it had something to do with who played more with themes of sexuality and libido and who played more with hatred and greed. Which may also be cultural markers.
Today we see the Initiation Course final projects and have our Christmas party, before adjourning to a pub, I'm sure.
Fingers crossed for good news in the post.
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