Bailey Alexander: The Europhile

LONDON CALLING

Actually, I dialed London. Almost everyone was home.  Happy to report transmission clear, clever, literate and just about as good as it gets. 

Like my first foray into the city some 24 years ago, my knees go weak at first full glance, but with trip #206, I'm grateful by the time I board Madame Eurostar back towards la ville lumiere. 

 

I live for contrast.

 

The English, like the Irish have the gift for gab, their oratory skills verily intact, even if the cockney threatens to go extinct, as dialects do.....my Italian mother-in-law's limonese may soon only accommodate a dinner for 8. 

 

It's the diversity of London, more than my itinerary, maybe, and their modern reaction towards globalization that's worth a blessay.  It's called the Lisbon Treaty. 

 

The Irish, though naturally friendly with the French, have made this all past tense.  All the tax breaks have been doled out and no one understands the dole like they. 

 

The EU experiment or the need for it is receding as quickly as the sucking sounds increase from China and India, not to mention the quiet and canny ways of Putins Place, thus replacing the need to leverage trading blocks against the US. 

 

And, no one wants another government to tell them what to do, even if Brussels does very little by way of dictating, contrary to how much Peter Hitchens screams about it.   Those Hitchens boys are so angry all the time, inciting the crowds, couple of killjoys.

 

The EU as political force is pretty untenable and I quite like Nigel's explique over lunch, "we can all feel the sneaky hand of Europe wrapping its arm around the UK via Ireland. 

The visual inspires me to combine highbrow with low as Jo informed me the following day that VIZ magazine no longer features the fat slags so maybe the English are getting all coy, OY! 

 

And the treaty itself, Unreadable. So what's the debate to be about, exactly.  

 

With all that said, EU still means no war, for this and my fellow pacifists, it's all good.

 

Per previous post, when dialing Dublin, I find news is grim cuz their boom, like Seattle and Silicon Valley, like Londonistan, must all go bust. Cycle of life financial.  

 

Also, London is not ringing a very englishy accent these days.   All the Eastern Europeans have followed on the footsteps of the Indians, Arabs and Chinese.  Now almost all the citizens want to leave and have been for some time, for Spain, Malta, France, Dubai, as have we, in a way.  They resent the change, it's no melting pot like the ole US.  I could feel the tension, softly coded racial remarks surround me on the train, the inflation mounts as the economy fails to rebound from con men desirous of making a dishonest pound of sterling. 

 

Still luv it lots though, all my friends, all luvvy like.  I was an Anglophile long before I promoted myself to Europhile.  And those friends make the stay worth the next.

First stop Trafalgar Square.  Tube deposits me amongst the pigeons so i can scale Lord Nelson's shaft and lock lips with the Admiral.  I do this not to entice with sexual metaphor but rather to amplify the deep gratitude I feel for having dodged all those sprinters that don't mind the gap.  I was almost run over twice in the underground, so delicate am I.  

 

Later in the week, whilst depositing luggage temporarily at Euston station men were racing like MAD I tell you, their pink faces all aflush.  Give me the gentile randomness of an Italian or French train station anyday, si vous plait. Grateful, that's me, almost all the time. 

 

So safely, on this day, I take in the National Gallery and waltz across the street towards the IoD, thee destination for all those entrepreneurial.  All bizness types playing virtual office, laptops and gadgets strewn about, caffeine in multiple flavors, gratefully inhaled so they can keep playing office, meeting and greeting in their pinstripes and pantsuits. 

The Lithuanian receptionist graciously allows me to pass through and I readily locate my date, my dapper Nigel avec pocket watch and he whisks me away to Quaglino's, the classic restaurant on Bury st. 

 

Upon entry, I find I've been here before and like last time I want to belt it out like Babs in Hello Dolly.  I keep it all in and stay as dignified as my host as we make our way down the grand series of gold steps onto the lower floor.  We discuss market trends and then accurately assess the results that will embarrass the Irish politicians wishing to play in the euro sandbox.  

 

Then a few hours later we part ways at Paddington and I fast train it to Henley on Thames, towards friends of friends, a most interesting power couple.  They're all business, most of the time, but not here amongst the genteel environs of their retreat, so far removed from the zoo that is London. I'm picked up and transported to a relaxed and quite blessed country home with at least 16 horses roaming about to accommodate their Polo habit.  

 

Ya wanna know the best part.  They have a Teepee.  After dinner, after much information and advice is bestowed upon moi we take a leisure stroll at sunset and damned if there isn't a huge Teepee suddenly right in front of me.  It was gorgeous.  They said they could fit 25, I believe 'em, the dark wood, the space, so surreal. 

 

Then, sadly enough, it was time to train it back to the zoo for more of the same in the land of strange accents everywhere.  By early evening I've rented a car for another sojourn into the 'country' and brave the M1 North to see old friends.  The husband has suffered a collar bone incident while playing polo so his arms in a sling and I'm tickled that Polo plays such a part in my little post, but sorry for the accident, certo.

 

I crash at their little castle and they let me play yummy mummy with the two kids the next morn.  We threw the wee ones into their little car seats and take them to the next hamlet adjoining their quaint Adstock, to a very posh school in the middle of fairy tale land, all woods and thatched roofs like their place, only for kids.  

I'm grateful to play understudy for a second, but hey, pandemonium everywhere, miniature creatures running amock, in such random fashion (except for Thomas Henry who kissed me so sweetly good-bye, and Caitlin, that's why I give her gifts, ) but there were just so many of them, girls in identical frocks and boys with scarier hair-dos than my own in the morning, a million little rooms for 6 little people each.  

 

So nice to invite myself to play in their lives but time to get back to my own drama and tales, like my novel, where I get to channel Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  But unlike Dorothy I find a better place than home, a spiritual home, one that shifts shape and creates contrast.  Mio marito, my not so little italian drama king creates balance and drama from within, while our two little totos help us uncover and demystify the wizard.

 

 

I love this gig called life.  After seeing my beloved Muv leave it, minute by minute, after assimilating her strength and accepting the fact my mother is long gone, a natural process, the sadness passes into acceptance.  She did make sure to set me apart from the fools and for this I am eternally grateful for the truth and say, praise the gods and pass the idiots to the past, finally, gratefully, release….

.

Drinking with Oxford Dons, a contemplative Blair and those that contemplate suicide...

Finally, a dignified story, or rather photo about Blair. 

Has he been disconnected from God?  He had that direct line and all.  Must be all those faux high fallutin' consulting jobs at 2 mil a year, taking up far too much time, no wonder God cut him off.   

And that little matter of Iraq....

Either way, things carry on, as awfully as they do, or don't, per me, cuz I'm back in Paris, irritated about nothing, but oh so tired from the trip to the Zoo. 

London is truly a zoo.

The rhythm of a major city actually doing business, closing deals, interacting with the rest of the world, unlike la ville lumiere with its own little dauphine desperately trying to change his image from 'bling bling les american' to 'Sarko The Serious'.

not gunna happen....

Not only was the tech fair @ hammersmith exhausting, productive, insightful, but running from train to train to train to train, feeling like an caged animal amongst so many others, took its toll.  By the time I board my late evening eurostar I pass all voitures and make my way to the bar.  I start chatting up an Oxford don.  Or was he a professeur? Whichever, not necessary to get sidetracked by the antics of semantics.   He was an engaging man named Andrew, open to the idea of opening up yet another little plastic bottle of Bordeaux, after we'd each finished our own little plastic bottles of Bordeaux...and why not, that's what they're there for...

He was trying to assist my efforts in studying europeans countries as a europhile from America, as I am wont to do.  As an anthropologist. Made me think of my cuddly and cosmopolitan writer friend, A DEAN, mind you, Andrew Hussey. Like M. Hussey, maybe I should focus more on the minutia, capturing a country's peculiarities by identifying their tensions.  Andrew does it by writing about the Magreb in Paris, that piece of the puzzle that is Paris; the north African equation, the motherless rage of Colonialism.  Focusing on the pieces of angst.

Its' an idea.  Like 9/11....all the pathological strains were in place, and voila, a trifecta as Bushie gleefully giggled, and suddenly all that is base and wrong with a society is hijacked from the looney bin in the balcony and shown to the front row, given full attention, away from the real show.

But what was suicide doing in my title anyway.

Here we three sit, at my local haunt, l'Auture Bistro, certo, with Colette and Godot to either side, eating bits of baguette every now and then, serenaded by this kitchy french couple.  The man occasionally gives the mike back to the wifey and goes back to the table, bored with the whole exercise, then for no reason at all, he gets back up from the table in front of me and takes back the mike in mid song, right smack in the middle of another version of 'la vie en rose', cues the electronic piano player behind the less than dynamic duo to shift back a gear and goes all 'Girl from Ipanema' on us.  They're so deliciously bad that me and C n G applaud enthusiastically after each song.

We're drinking a petite glass of 1664, reading yesterday's Guardian because I was too busy drinking with the Oxford Don to read it on the train, typing on my Macbook Air every now and then (snap!)  It gets attention everywhere I go...

i'm reading a story about why the UK train union is protesting against a movie released in London last week, starring that scrappy comedian who played in the original OFFICE.  The movie's about people that dive under trains to commit suicide.  The protesters suggest there is nothing funny about suicide.  Fair enuf.

When I was on my grief journey touring central europe and auschwitz post Muv's passing, I made my way back via Germany.  Suddenly, the train stopped quite abruptly.  Me, C n G were waiting by the doors with two other German guys.  I mistakenly pushed the door button and we three almost fell onto the tracks as the train was leaning to one side as trains often do...the German guys pulled me back, informing me that because it was 5pm on a Friday this was exactly the time that suicidal types chose to dive under the trains....boh!.....so that's why the train stopped just before the platform.

Or maybe that's why Berlin is staging Operas at the train stations...to divert the downers..such a practical idea....

Odd, isn't it, that suicidal types have their own cultures, a bunch of lemmings, like so many in the gene pool, a shallow bowl of water called this human experiment....they dive off bridges, in San Fran, Muv's city, and then there's the 'jumper's' bridge in Seattle. Once I drove by the scene of a suicide right after the dead body had been removed.  You could feel the bad karma.  Those that want to finish the task, DO, VS. those that just want attention or aren't quite convinced now's necessarily the time to toll.  It's their business I say either way.

Such awful topics....better topic being that spring has finally sprung here at Chez Bay, sort of, here in Paris. 

Assimilating my beloved Muv, some days I miss her madly, I simply pine for her, so very much.  So does Colette, per this pic.  This life goes by so suddenly, so sad some want to rush it....

Paris is calm, for a sec, right before a million more tourists hit the joint, including my dearest friend Jules...but until then, time for me to take off for Munich....

Old haunts, ex beaux and a beautifully written book called "Obelisk"

Neil's Nite. 

Girls giggling at the Ritz.

Hanging in my old haunts near South Kensington, and celebrating an old friends major literary achievement.

What a delicious slice of life, a recipe consisting of large portions of emotional intensity, high and lowbrow entertainment liberally sprinkled throughout and enough intellectual stimulation to create one infinitely memorable and very swell vernissage at Hatchard's, the Queen's book shop, in Picadilly.

Mi complimenti Sig. Pearson, Hatchards, to have London's oldest bookshop host your success, with more than a mere whiff of snobbery and two Royal Warrants, and mounds of character.

Not to mention one very, very large, scholarly book called "Obelisk".

My 24 hour gastronomic endeavor in London.

I may post periodically about London overtaking NY as the financial capitol, but quite frankly, who cares.

London's the most international city in the world.  Every every time I visit, this reality is amped up, exponentially, each and every time.

I collided in conversation with English, Parisian, Lithuanian, Armenian and then a dozen other kinds of cultural representatives, either in small sound bites or longish exchanges.

Exhausted, practically ready to pass out in the Heathrow lounge, while waiting for my BA flight to Paris, I am still meant to have one last gasp of gab.   A NATO guy, a youngish American currently living in Belgium via Seattle who happens to diffuse IED's for a living.  He may not have much time for the Blackwater war profiteering machine but he too, will retire early and work for a, shall we say, 'less ethically' challenged private firm than aforementioned.  'Course, we covered the war issues, the media manipulation, etc, agreed to disagree about war and rebuilding places bombed to bits, but by the end, funnily enuf, I was engaged as his yenta to find him the right kind of wife for such a wayward soul.

Mais non.  No more war talk.

Time for Art.

Met fabulous Parisian multi media artists like this gorgeous gal. 

And dear expat Englishman like Martin, an adorable and generous soul who responded with some adroit impressions regarding one of my 'stories', some delicious tidbits still lingering in my mind. 

Here is my galpal Marjorie, flirting with Neil.  Marjorie has fought breast cancer and a million other challenges and now lives w/Lupis while she takes great care of her son, so she can flirt and do just about anything she wishes and what she really wishes, for me, at least, is to read The Origin Of Virtue.  We did get a giggle that the author is the ex chairman of Northern Bank.  But again, no time for war, politics, credit meltdown.

It's all about Neil.

And she can harmlessly flirt with Neil, but Neil's dedication in the book was for his beloved and divine companion Natalie, so the dye has been cast regarding that part of his life.

We dated and shared a mad crush a coupla decades ago, but for the past 20 yrs I've assumed the role of over the top and periodically irritating (like when I broke his washing machine) but super fun younger sister. (Like when I travel to see him on stage or show up at a vernissage)

J'adore mon ami.

So, I'll say it again, I'm so happy for him and this most Herculean literary effort. As Natalie suggested, one wonders if he comprehends what a feat this was....Neil is adorable and erudite but the most important idea about this man is his passion for books.

I was happy to surprise him as my travels of late have proved exhausting, but my last gasp was going to London, even if I had swim across the Channel I woulda made it.

Then long after all the fun and fabulous new people had been met, old friends revisited and heralded, Marjorie and I hit the Ritz

They wouldn't allow pics inside, post Diana this is not allowed, but it didn't stop us from getting silly outside.

Now, I'm home.  Time to write and work until the imminent arrival of my husband. 

Well, maybe I'll hit Jim Haines 'salon' on Sunday, after all, he knew the sons of the man Neil is writing about...might bring the book and advertise a bit for Neil, after all, his publisher should ensure that a reading happens in la ville lumiere, where so much of the history had lived, long ago, when the power of the word was so much more powerful than it is today...

I come to London only to go back to Rome...

Saw "The Last Confession" at the Haymarket Theatre last nite. 

I saw Dame Maggie Smith doing Albee's "Three Tall Women" so I had a few expectations, but the theatre alone is worth the ticket price, intimate, ancient and guilded with gold and oh so elegant

Fantastic play and funnily enuf the guy that played Poirot, David Suchet, played the lead...but this time of year the theatre selection is  a bit less than, but, hey, what say, end of month I'll have a selection of hundreds of top of the notch drama to catch at the Edinburgh Fest so no need to complain...

...but spontaneity and serendipity did collide at the half price ticket office once we'd stepped off the escalator at Charing Cross...snagged great seats for a powerful piece of drama dripping in nothing but red and purple robes and one very white hat .....

http://www.trh.co.uk/index.php

So here I've traveled all the way to London via Paris only to be transported back to Rome, specifically to when I waited in line for 12 hours to see the JP II lying in State in Rome.

But instead of the end, it was illuminating to go back to the beginning and realize and remember JP when he first started out...way back when...

This play, The Last Confession, recounts the petite 33 day reign of John Paul I, the Pope that was murdered at the Vatican.

Let's put it in historical context.  If you recall reading about Mel Gibson circa "The Passion of Christ" you'll remember his wacky father, a holocaust denier and Mel, both terribly angry at the Vatican for creating the Second Vatican Council. 

Basically, the theory of the Council was a desire to open the windows of the Church to the world.

It was about reconciliation and collaboration towards the other faiths of the world.

Pope John XXIII got the ball rolling in '62, but died in '63 before the council's work was completed.  His successor, Paul VI was secretly being undermined by a reactionary group, the Vatican's administrative body, known as the "Curia" and they sought to undo all that had been accomplished by the Second Vatican Council, preferring to restore the autocratic and aloof church that existed previously.

At the same time, the Vatican, unbelievably enough, was in economic crisis.  A coupla corrupt mafia banker types were murdered, hung, but the play wasn't too fussed about that, the focus was put upon the humble, the much adored Albino Luciani, a cardinal from Venice who was elected Pope and chose the name Pope John Paul I. 

He turned out far more liberal than the reactionaries dared ever expected and probably killed him.  The night before his death he had decided to remove the most senior of the reactionaries from power as well as Bishop Marcinkus who headed the scandal ridden Vatican Bank. 

Because of his death, the reforms were never implemented. 

The Vatican press release about the cause of his death was proved to be false.

No official investigation was ever conducted. No autopsy was performed. 

The play mirrors the confession of Cardinal Benelli, the man who engineered the election of Pope John Paul I in '78.  The Last Confession is basically a recount of the events that occurred before, during and immediately after the Pope's 33 day reign and Benelli's ambition to become Pope himself, which, subsequently he could have done, had our present day Pope not held the voting block of 9 votes, dictating that the Polish man would wear the white hat, rather than yet another Italian, a pattern that had lasted for over 500 years.

Ironic to me that the desire to break the pattern of electing an Italian Pope ran concurrently with lack of desire to break the corrupt "Curia", full of Italian and non Italian characters.

Post play discussion found io and mio marito talking about the Vatican and how powerful the play was...Roberto reminded me how dearly beloved this humble Pope had been to the people, twice as many showed up for this man who had lasted 33 days, twice as many that paid respects to the previous man that had ruled for 15 years.  The play reminded him why he and other Italians disliked JP II so much at the beginning, before he took up his tireless missionary work.

JP II was hardcore in the beginning and his chosen successor, Benedict, the guy that held the 9 votes that got him elected, most probably, had always been his tactician, a conservative one at that...

The play presented the alleged fact that JPII was instrumental in the cover up...he could have done something but was archly conservative, as we all know. Interestingly enough, he is the one Benelli is confessing to but you don't know it because he is dressed simply as a Priest rather than the future Pope as he hears the confession and demands he not hold to it, not make it public to the world.

We wondered if a little karma blowback hadn't occurred for JP II, for he was futile at dissuading Bush and Blair from their war he was vehemently against from the outset. 

As I suggested in my post about my own pilgrimage to the Vatican in 2005, JPII was a man of profound contradictions and serious convictions. 

This play so beautifully executed my favorite kind of play, the language play, the ability to explore all the arguments, perceptions and paradoxes of life, in this case, the church; power vs true faith, religious conviction vs humility and modernity. 

People always suggest the Vatican is about absolute power, much corruption and whole lotta dosh.

Morality was discussed and argued, even as power and corruption have inevitably won the hearts of minds of those desirous to protect the 'church' and all that means.....

But maybe it's important to recall the small moments and bits of positive influences that have passed through those corridors, wearing the white hat...

London VS New York; The Financial Smackdown

So nice to be back in Richistan.....Already the cockiness of the Golden Age proves infectious....so many conversations, boasts and bragging rights, but the proof is on the paper, within the institutions, through the investments, the wealth is strewn across the streets of London...I'm so inspired I must write a little prose about how New York is so last decade...

Just bought two front row seats for the IPO/Investment fight btwn London and New York

Not just the Arabs, everyone, even the French invest their money and come here to work

Over 40% of the world's foreign equities are traded in London, more than NY, so there

30% of world's currencies are exchanged here, this is the Golden Age, forget Vanity Fair

9/11 set up barriers combined with American's litigious disease, crap regulation and rules

london's thrown open the financial doors, it's called basic principles of credit and debit you fools

Post Enron, Sarbanes Oxley, so regulated with subsection a, b, c and d,

The Wall Street sequel moves to London, Mayfair's the new address for Gordon Greco's greed

So before Mumbai, Warsaw, Shanghai and Dubai may fight for the victorious crown

London has officially won the prize as champion of the financial smackdown....

Tis the day before Silly Season, waders packed, piggy bank emptied...

I’m writing this missive while submerged somewhere between La Ville Lumiere and Richistan, in the middle of the cultural war that is Paris and London, aboard the ill fated and eternally broke, late, and ridiculously expensive Eurostar.   

I'm off to London where my greenback is getting it's ass kicked by the pound, but before I can go broke, I must suffer this awkward 20 minute stretch of time and lack of land that places us officially, under water.

I don’t like this bit. 

At all.

Who was dumb enuf to think a tunnel would bring these two cultures together successfully.    The venture was doomed from the get go,....the English are just a wee bit resentful of the French and the French, as far as I can gather, could care less about the English.  Many Brits do take residence in the countryside of France in order to pretend they adore this quality of culture, whereas many Parisians have decided they too desire money and would quite like living lush in London, earning their wage in sterling.  But they'll never get along.  It's like oil and water these two...

So here I zoom along, frogs and ouanqueres (For you monolingual types, it’s French for wanker) zipping by, the Francophiles delicately drinking petite glasses of 1664, and the yobs binge drinking their pints by the minute, graduating to vodka, drunk by the time they come up for air.

So just one day before the silly season officially begins.

One last gasp to pretend the propaganda is profoundly serious, on a deeply personal level, and will impact the daily lives verily the very next day.

Murdoch the Mogul, the pathological septuagenarian will soon propagandize for half the human race so I buy The Sun for purely sentimental reasons, certo, prior to boarding.  I think, why, I need un 'ombra’ with The Sun, the alcoholic shadow the Italians call a sip of beer before noon.  Best to imbibe while absorbing populist drivel....

The Sun, Murdoch’s shining star, is probably the most base rag on the planet.  After I’d lived and studied in London many moons ago, upon arrival for a visit I'd buy a couple tabloids.  They could always reliably provide the zeitgeist, the current buzz and pulse of the city they now refer as Richistan.

I no longer need to cuz since moving to Europe I absorb the right and left wing propaganda via the FT and The Independent so no need to scrape the barrel as it were….but I need to remind myself what the new Mr. Wall Street Journal is really about.

So I buy the Sun.

BOH!!!

Not just one topless page 3 girl today, no, certainly not, why have one when you can have an entire beach of topless girls from Essex....I see them looking rather bored and listless, even as their body parts stand at attention, twins of camera ready poses, ice cubes melting away, a distant memory, their job finished as soon as the shutters close.

So, as I sit sipping my 1664, to my immediate right I find a labour party bloke dignifying his own space by reading the Guardian, the party’s paper.

I state loudly, “Isn’t this just particularly vile, crap stuff, isn’t it just awful.” 

He opens his mouth to have a nice laugh, heavily mustached with wing tips et al, proudly displaying a set of teeth that have never nor will ever bother with a visit to the dentist.  He puts down his civilized glass of vin blanc and ends the laugh by sputtering “right, the most popular newspaper in our country, amazing ininit’

Of course, he doesn’t have to tell me, everyone knows that, but he must say it as often as I must hear it because truth is, we don’t really want to believe that this is the most oft bought rag in the planet that is Cool Britannia.

“I’m a faithful Guardian reader myself, “ he quips.

“Well yes, great op-ed but doesn’t it make you go a bit nuts in the head while reading it..so neurotic, we love Blair, no, we hate Blair, love Blair, no, no, hate the smarmy, shallow closet evangelical assclown…”

He laughs because the comment is unexpected and on target.  Well, the love/hate bit, the rest I leave in my head where it belongs...no need to get into a fight before i board and I'm mesmerized by the classic Kaiser moustache, it's so bushy, yet perfectly coiffed

And I can boast at least one friend, one that used to actually help raise monies for the labour cause, but turned in his party card once they started bombing the hell outta Iraq, so we both know this is true....

“well, I suppose you’re right”  he softly laughs…...

He suggests its time for another cuppa, et vous? No, I say thanks, but the boarding line has finally thinned out to the last coupla fools, so time to join the fray and become just another.

“I’m an Independent reader myself”….he appreciates that fact, for Blair managed to single out the Independent while ranting, in typical hypocritical fashion about the feral media. Funny that, as everyone knew he had it in for the Mail as they did him, but wouldn’t give ‘em the satisfaction of mentioning the broadsheet by name. 

The Independent was vehemently against the war from the start, so they were as good a second choice as any.

So here I sit, practically drowning in my own neurosis, ears popping away as I work the jaw over and over again, just one hour away from Waterloo and my last yellow centenime....not much news to report.  None at all in the Sun, duh, but Independent talks about the 5 countries fighting over one piece of the Arctic, more specifically for the reserved oil and gas below the seabed; Russian, Denmark, Canada, a coupla others that border the area..course they haven't a clue what lives with the oil, nor does it matter.....

LET THE RESOURCE WARS BEGIN!!!

Oh, right, they already have...

Some Pakistani is waxing angrily whle simulataneously celebrating the 60 yr anniversary of the independent of India and Pakistan from the original evil empire.  Just another glaring piece of history and invasion that should inform the world how wrong the neocons revisionist white papers are in theory AND IN practice…

What else in the news..oh, the twin lecterns on the lawn, behind which stand the gruff Mr. Brown to the left and to the right, Jr., looking smaller and meaner than ever, well, at least it 'appears' serious rather than the backslapping Yo Blair of the past....where are they, anyway...Camp David or someplace on the other side of the pond.....

Who cares, damage has already been done and the English are getting ready to pack their bags..sure they did a fine job, but the Iraqi police will never be ready to successfully replace...

I’m surprised that every other leader doesn’t take advantage and trip over themselves on route to the lecturn to the left...after all, he’s so inarticulate and irritable and such an asshole, they couldn't help but look diplomatic, competent and downright kind….even the Polish twins….

The trouble with Harry, Part One and Deux

Heading off to see Harry Potter  'nu'  in London this weekend.   So different from our favorite series a la JK.... http://www.gielgud-theatre.com

Disturbingly enough, Peter Shaffer's "Equus" is one of my favorite plays, in fact, it took me little time to find a well worn copy in my library last nite, tucked into the strangely small selection of plays, just a couple dozen..tsk,tsk...must apply insect like determination and engage in enlarging this all too important area....drama. 

Drama. always enjoyed best, as Brecht suggested, in the dark, dank democratic round, where one can initially, as i might recommend, read the text,  as envisioned by the writer, then enjoy the show with all additional ingredients, then go back and re create as oft as one can stand, in the mind.  Must buy ticket, enjoy a weekend avec mio marito and slide back to Pareee in time for fresh flashback....

THE REVIEW....

Well, apparently there’s no trouble with Harry tackling Alan Strang after all.

Harry Potter, known to his mother as Daniel Radcliff, was quite good. 

Although, in this disturbing play, "Equus" , might I suggest we saw a bit too much of Harry in the buff?

I'd managed to land the very last two tickets for last Sat nite, two seats located on stage, facing the audience, which proved great viewing as Harry's anger simmered with his back to the audience, facing us, for most of the play....but, because of this angle, we saw more of him in the buff because of aforementioned fact. 

TMI.

Too much imagery vs information in this case....actually, a couple of British reviewers apparently got into a handbag hitting match about the size of Harry’s jewels, but that’s another matter and irrelevant to this post. 

BTW, size does, doesn't, does, doesn't matter....

Silly digression.

I knew the play would work, for it’s not only one of the best post WW11 plays but it rings true and modern 40 yrs on as one of the play's central themes focus on whether or not the talk/drug cure is effective.  After all, who are we to project our sense of what is normal onto another, especially within our cultures, specifically the American and English, respectively.  One might conclude that these two social experiments have gone horribly wrong.

Of course, I've just spent 4 hrs working with France Telecom, finally figuring out that they've randomly changed our phone/internet/satellite contract, but we'll let that issue go for now.  We still have our internet working so I can continue posting and preparing for next business trip....

Of course, this idea regarding therapy is simply one perspective.

But, I must digress, again, as our choice of sleeping accommodation whilst staying in London proved quite fitting for my nomadic renaissance of a husband had some business in London and I was dying for some more theatre so he suggested we meet there for a weekend at an old friend’s place, actually, one of the directors of AtlasTG.

 

Mind you, Paris is perfect for music, but not for the type of theatre I need. I wanted the English variety, full of repression, depression, lending beautifully to the classic quote that their bonnie prince charles is wont to hijack...."it shall all end in tears.."

The English are still the best at at drama, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyhow, the place we stayed for the weekend was one of England's most interesting insane asylums, located in the village of Virginia Water.   Renovated, certo, but still had the history.  This looney bin was for the very rich, so the setting is luxuriously country, and the main dining hall, so ornate with marble and wood inlay, colorful, almost Tuscan now housed a swimming pool, certainly one of the most gorgeous in the land.

 

Our friend had bought a section of the renovated asylum and we enjoyed a most interesting collection of all things Chinese, Asian, and otherwise.  The otherwise being lots of rifles, artillery, spears and such, quite English and Zulu, all colliding as they have, but specifically for the modern viewer, in his home.  The arms, simultaneously, spanning centuries and continents, in painting, on display, on walls, stairways, just about every room that didn't pay homage to the Chinese, Buddha and meditation. 

And, I think he's donated a tank or two to his children's school...his home is sorta like Buddha meats War, quite the collection.

As I mentioned, the loony bin setting, no matter how transformed and elegant was most appropriate as I was in the UK to see a play about a supposedly very crazy kid that blinded 6 horses.  Or rather, this was the  gossip exchanged at dinner parties, in London some 4 decades ago.

"Equus" is a passion play, one that suggests we sane types have managed away our passions until we are lifeless, robotic creatures, droning through our individual lives daily, drearily, albeit oh so safely and sanely, indeed.  What's your rationale for prosaic consumption in the States and London?

  Actually, the Parisians take it like aspirin as well, but they're naturally somewhat bitchy and anal, two facts that make me luv them more, so they need it. 

But again, I ask.  What's our excuse?

I dunno.  Talk therapy, by today’s standards simply appears to enable the patient to blame another. Do you really know of anyone that appears to be functioning that much better? To me, at least, they simply seem able to explain away their demons and addictions better than non patients, and it enables them to suggest confidently "I've done a lot of work on that.."

Scary side effect of Prosaic?  It makes the pill poppers even more assured of their insecurities..

Sigh.

In fact, let’s take a little travail back to David Letterman, circa the time our beloved Woody Allen deemed it necessarily to make the only choice he could make in the love category.  He had to sleep with his adopted daughter Soon Yi, for she was the one, the only one for Woody. Well, it’s a choice, I suppose.  But I love how David presented the bizarre news of the day in his monologue.

“So, we hear today that Woody’s going to settle down with his daughter. OK, he’s been going to see the same psychiatrist for the past 25 yrs, twice a week, right? Well, I got two words for his therapist.

Nice Job”

Of course, I paraphrase.  And more importantly, I should be more careful or this blog is going to stray onto territory like incest and quasi incest and quite frankly, neither hold much appeal, for interest or discussion.

So back to the play.  It worked, on every level.

Peter Shaffer's play hit a nerve with me.   The set design was fantastic, illusory as it must be, the horses heads and hooves, v.v. dramatic and sensual, all strappy leather and steel, the acting fine enough although it must be said I experienced a first at that production.  Plays have been a passion for most of my life.  My family subscribed to 2 major theatre houses in Seattle and even 3 at one point.  We saw a lot of theatre, and I sat on the board for a small fringe group that provided consistently fantastic theatre, something Seattle is renowned for, thanks to Daniel Sullivan, yet another uber idol of mine.

I've seen Edward Albee's Three sisters on both sides of the Atlantic as well as Glengarry Glenross, I've seen Nicole Kidman nude in NewYork, ex-cetera, ex-cetera, ex-cetera as Yule Brenner and my french teacher are wont to say...

But what i have never witnessed on stage is an understudy having to read the lines from the book, especially in the West End.  Well, I had a little bitchfest w/a galpal from London last nite and she suggested that maybe both the main actor and the understudy were sick as most nasty flu is afoot.

Well, it was delightfully didactic, Brechtian in minimal setting as well, but reading the lines....no matter, it worked, proved its timelessness, proved how religion can completely mess you up, especially in fanatical form and then maybe, just maybe , passion, when beneficial, albeit slightly too too, is not too too bad.

In fact, my passion for theatre has just been rekindled.  This, not so much a review, but rather a loving nod to the finest of arts...

I'm heading back to see Jessica Lang in Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie and my favorite ex beau in Harold Pinter's Old Times in the near future....